Director Shaka King’s JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH Starring Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield Coming To Theaters – We Are Movie Geeks

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Warner Bros. Pictures has revealed new details on the upcoming movie JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH.

Chairman Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was assassinated by the FBI, who coerced a petty criminal named William ONeal to help them silence him and the Black Panther Party. But they could not kill Fred Hamptons legacy and, 50 years later, his words still echolouder than ever.

I am a revolutionary!

In 1968, a young, charismatic activist named Fred Hampton became Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, who were fighting for freedom, the power to determine the destiny of the Black community, and an end to police brutality and the slaughter of Black people.

Chairman Fred was inspiring a generation to rise up and not back down to oppression, which put him directly in the line of fire of the government, the FBI and the Chicago Police. But to destroy the revolution, they had to do it from both the outsideand the inside. Facing prison, William ONeal is offered a deal by the FBI: if he will infiltrate the Black Panthers and provide intel on Hampton, he will walk free. ONeal takes the deal.

Now a comrade in arms in the Black Panther Party, ONeal lives in fear that his treachery will be discovered even as he rises in the ranks. But as Hamptons fiery message draws him in, ONeal cannot escape the deadly trajectory of his ultimate betrayal.

Though his life was cut short, Fred Hamptons impact has continued to reverberate. The government saw the Black Panthers as a militant threat to the status quo and sold that lie to a frightened public in a time of growing civil unrest. But the perception of the Panthers was not reality. In inner cities across America, they were providing free breakfasts for children, legal services, medical clinics and research into sickle cell anemia, and political education. And it was Chairman Fred in Chicago, who, recognizing the power of multicultural unity for a common cause, created the Rainbow Coalitionjoining forces with other oppressed peoples in the city to fight for equality and political empowerment.

Judas and the Black Messiah stars Oscar nominee Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Widows, Black Panther) as Fred Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, The Girl in the Spiders Web) as William ONeal. The film also stars Jesse Plemons (Vice, Game Night, The Post), Dominique Fishback (The Hate U Give, The Deuce), Ashton Sanders (The Equalizer 2, Moonlight) and Martin Sheen (The Departed, TVs The West Wing, TVs Grace & Frankie).

Judas and the Black Messiah is directed by Shaka King, marking his studio feature film directorial debut. The project originated with King and his writing partner, Will Berson, who co-wrote the screenplay, story by Berson & King and Kenny Lucas & Keith Lucas. King, who has a long relationship with filmmaker Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed, Fruitvale Station), pitched the film to Coogler and Charles D. King (Just Mercy, Fences), who are producing the film. The executive producers are Sev Ohanian, Zinzi Coogler, Kim Roth, Poppy Hanks, Ravi Mehta, Jeff Skoll, Anikah McLaren, Aaron L. Gilbert, Jason Cloth, Ted Gidlow, and Niija Kuykendall.

The ensemble cast also includes Algee Smith (The Hate U Give, Detroit), Darrell Britt-Gibson (Just Mercy, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Dominique Thorne (If Beale Street Could Talk), Amari Cheatom (Roman J. Israel, Esq., Django Unchained), Caleb Eberhardt (The Post), and Lil Rel Howery (Get Out).

The behind-the-scenes creative team includes director of photography Sean Bobbitt (12 Years a Slave, Widows), production designer Sam Lisenco (Shades of Blue), editor Kristan Sprague (Random Acts of Flyness) and costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones (Raising Dion)

The film is a Warner Bros. Pictures presentation, in association with MACRO Films, Participant and BRON Creative, and will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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Director Shaka King's JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH Starring Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield Coming To Theaters - We Are Movie Geeks

Imam Khamenei: ‘US Dream to Achieve Its Sanction Goals Never to Come True’ – Al-Manar TV

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Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei described the US sanctions against Iran not as sabotage against the government but a crime against the nation.

Imam Khamenei is addressing the Iranian Muslim nation on the auspicious occasion on Friday.

He said though the US tries to make the belief that the sanctions are against the Islamic republic system in the country, the truth is that they target the nation.

The Supreme Leader went on to outline the objectives these sanctions pursue and said the engineers of these plots have many targets.

First and foremost,Imam Khamenei said, they seek to try the patience of the nation by overestimating difficulties and problems to make the public stand in the face of the government.

They have tried but failed several times, he said.

The Leader also said that the sanctions also aim at sabotaging Irans scientific progress and also cause the failure of the government in economic areas.

He said the sanctions want to push the Iranian government to a state of bankruptcy.

The enemies also seek the sub-target of undermining Irans ties with resistance groups across the region which they are surely fail in achieving this goal, Ayatollah Khamenei said.

He said the brave people of Iran have now to be fully alert that there is much animosity against the nation so they have to stand fully united and focused as before.

ImamKhamenei said enemies are working to hurt the nation and make it suffer so Iranians have to concentrate all efforts and energies to counter such plots.

He said planning and performing scientific research like in areas pertaining to controlling and containing the current coronavirus pandemic can serve this purpose of defeating enemies.

He congratulated believers to the Almighty and followers of the Abrahamic religions worldwide on the auspicious occasion of Aid al-Adha which glorifies mans sacrifices for his Lord.

Outlining the meaning of the sacrifices made by holy prophets especially Abraham who embarked on offering his son to the Almighty but was given an option of killing a sheep, he said the month of Zilahajjah is a holy period which contains many religiously significant occasions.

He said his public meetings with the public from all walks of life in the past years were among his pleasures which have been canceled recently due to the COVID19 pandemic.

Referring to the Coronavirus outbreak as a plight that had contaminated the whole world, he hailed the efforts of medical staff in fighting the pandemic and said the nation has performed brilliantly in containing the outbreak.

The Leader also praised the outstanding work of Iranian healthcare personnel including doctors and said the public assistance to those who have suffered financial damage due to the COVID19 outbreak has been very brilliant and outstanding.

He urged all believers to continue with their efforts to provide assistance to the needy families while observing all necessary health protocols.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Leader issued a statement on Aid al-Adha which is one the most significant occasions in the Islamic calendar.

In the statement, he said that this year the season of Hajj, which has always been coupled with a feeling of dignity, greatness and blossoming in the world of Islam, has been afflicted with sorrow this year as believers are subjected to a harsh separation from it.

He further described Hajj as a maneuver to show off ones power in the face of the arrogant people who are the center of corruption, oppression, the destruction of the weak, and plunder. Today, the body and soul of the Islamic Ummah is covered with blood due to their oppression and their malevolence. Hajj is a manifestation of the hard and soft powers of the Islamic Ummah.

Elsewhere in the statement, the Supreme Leader noted that Today, liberalism and communism, which were considered 50, 100 years ago as the most prominent achievements of western civilization have completely lost their glamour and their fatal flaws have become visible. The system built on the basis of the latter has collapsed and the system founded on the basis of the former is struggling with deep crises and is on the verge of downfall.

He went on to point to the behavior of the US towards weak nations is an extension of the behavior of the police officer who puts his knees on the neck of a defenseless person of color, pressing so long until he dies. The other western governments are also the manifestation of this disastrous situation, each within the scope of their power and resources, and said These are people who condone the survival of the usurping and oppressive Zionist regime and who extend their hand of friendship to them privately and openly. It is they to whom I am offering these words of advice and I warn them about the bitter consequences of this behavior.

ImamKhamenei stressed that We regard the presence of the US in West Asia as detrimental to regional nations and as a cause of insecurity, destruction, and backwardness for countries. As for the current events in the US the anti-discriminatory and anti-racial movement our definite position is to support the people and to condemn the despicable behavior of the racist government in that country.

Source: Iranian Agencies

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Imam Khamenei: 'US Dream to Achieve Its Sanction Goals Never to Come True' - Al-Manar TV

Not the end of the world: democrats urge Hongkongers to fight on following mass disqualification – Hong Kong Free Press

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Hong Kong democrats barred from standing in Septembers Legislative Council election have urged citizens to fight on, as they vowed to resist blatant, relentless political oppression.

On Thursday, officers at the Electoral Affairs Commission informed the 12 election hopefuls that their nominations had been ruled invalid. The returning officers told the candidates their intention to uphold the Basic Law and swear allegiance to the HKSAR was not deemed genuine and truthful.

Many democratic candidates received letters from electoral officers over the weekend, demanding answers within 24 hours to questions about their politics and positions on issues such as the Beijing-enforced national security law and US sanctions on city officials.

At a press conference on Thursday, the Civic Party criticised electoral authorities for ousting its leader Alvin Yeung, lawmakers Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and candidate Tat Cheng. Party Chairman Alan Leong slammed the reasons provided by the returning officers as excuses to eliminate candidates whom Beijing did not favour.

After this very naked attempt to rip out any dissenting voice from the Legislative Council, we have no illusion that the Central Peoples Government and the HKSAR government would honour their promises under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, Leong said.

The Civic Partys barred candidates said the disqualification showed that authorities were worried and scared about witnessing another landslide defeat of the pro-establishment camp.

They referenced the pro-democracy camps overwhelming victory at last Novembers District Council elections; democrats won close to 400 out of 452 seats across 18 districts.

Incumbent lawmaker Dennis Kwok, who came under fire in April during a row over the election of the House Committee chair, described the disqualifications as relentless oppression. He told reporters the electoral officers questions were a form of political screening.

[T]hey also tried to drive fear and oppression into our hearts. This, we must not let them succeed. This is the message of the Civic Party to the Hong Kong people do not give up, Kwok said.

Current legislator, Kwok Ka-ki, thanked everyone who voted in the democratic primaries earlier this month. He said the upcoming race could not be fair without candidates who were authorised by voters. He added the removal of democrats from the election would only unite Hongkongers, and make them treasure democracy and freedom.

Today is not the end of the world. Today is the day for Hong Kong to rethink and move forward, Kwok said.

Civic Partys Jeremy Tam and Gordon Lam have yet to have their nominations confirmed. The party said the pair would likely to be barred as well. It did not reveal whether there would be replacement candidates.

The nomination period of the Legislative Council election opened on July 18 and will close on Friday.

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong described the mass disqualifications as Beijings largest-ever crackdown on an election, and trampling upon the citys last pillar of vanishing autonomy.

He urged citizens not to give up: [I]n order to safeguard the citys future, Hongkongers will not surrender. Our resistance will continue and we hope the world can stand with us in the upcoming uphill battle.

Another ousted candidate, Ventus Lau, described his disqualification as a joke, while meeting with reporters on Thursday evening alongside his plan B candidate, Raymond Li.

Lau, who is also the spokesman of the Civil Assembly Team, asked on what ground could the New Territories East returning office Amy Yeung deem he had the power to tolerate US interference in Hong Kong. He criticised her as failing to properly consider his reply to her questions before arriving at her conclusion.

The government has smashed Hongkongers fantasy about the election with their own hands, Lau said. He added the writing was on the wall for citizens who had lost their freedom and rights.

Laus backup, Li, said he and seven Sha Tin district councillors had already applied to run in the election, but they had not received their confirmations from the returning officer.

Former reporter Gwyneth Ho, who was running in the New Territories East constituency, said she was not surprised at her disqualification. She appealed to Hongkongers to play the long game and continue to push the pro-democracy movement forward.

Hong Kongs destiny relies on the willpower of Hongkongers during this time, we must not shirk the responsibility to the next generation. As long as we know some Hongkongers have not given up, we must walk side by side together, she wrote.

Other disqualified candidates included district councillors Tiffany Yuen, Lester Shum and Fergus Leung, Civic Passions Alvin Cheng and current lawmaker Kenneth Leung.

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Not the end of the world: democrats urge Hongkongers to fight on following mass disqualification - Hong Kong Free Press

US and China Trade Threats Over Huawei 5G and Brazil – Courthouse News Service

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A water utility worker from CEDAE disinfects the Turano favela in an effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus in Rio de Janeiro on June 9. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

BEIJING (AFP) Beijing on Thursday slammed U.S. warnings of consequences if Brazil chooses Chinese telecom company Huawei to develop its 5G network, accusing Washington of unscrupulous oppression of the Chinese tech companies.

Huawei the worlds top producer of telecom networking equipment has become a pivotal issue in the geopolitical standoff between Beijing and Washington, which claims the firm poses a significant cybersecurity threat.

Brazil is due to launch a tender next year for a project to develop the next generation of telecom technology in Latin Americas most populous country, home to 212 million people.

But the U.S. ambassador in Brasilia, Todd Chapman, warned in an interview of consequences if Brazil goes against U.S. advice and picks the Chinese firm.

Beijing on Thursday called the ambassadors remarks an example of the U.S. openly coercing other countries to obey the will of the United States.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the United States opposed the use of Huawei products not on national security grounds, but because they object to the rise of Chinese firms.

When other countries enterprises achieve a leading advantage, U.S. politicians will fabricate excuses to use national power to conduct unscrupulous oppression, Wang said at a regular press briefing.

Washington has effectively barred Huawei from the U.S. market and waged a global campaign to isolate the company.

The British government bowed to growing U.S. pressure and pledged this month to remove Huawei from its 5G network by 2027, despite warnings of retaliation from Beijing.

Australia and Japan have also taken steps to block or restrict the Chinese companys participation in their 5G rollouts, while European telecom operators including Norways Telenor and Swedens Telia have passed over Huawei as a supplier.

Agence France-Presse

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Clovis Honore: An open letter to White and other privileged people who still dont understand the protests – The San Diego Union-Tribune

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I have been reading conservative articles and Libertarian articles and news reports from all over America in the past couple months since the slaying of George Floyd and the protests for justice that were awakened in its wake. Some of these journalists and writers seem to think that what Black people want is to overthrow America. No. We just want to overthrow the oppression that has plagued America since its inception.

If you are having difficulty understanding that what you are seeing in the streets today is the people you have oppressed striving to throw off your oppression, understand your own history. Own it. When I say you, I am referring to all the people who have benefited from the free labor and economic, political and social subordination of people of African descent. If you work for the government or a corporation or a mom and pop, if you live in the suburbs or downtown or a farm, if your 401(k) or stocks or bonds are thriving or suffering, if you have never been challenged by the police or an employer or an educational institution or barista or a Karen because of the color of your skin, Im talking to you.

For those of you still arguing for your privilege, questioning Black Lives Matter (still saying all lives matter), railing against the proposed repeal of Proposition 209, unquestioningly supportive of police brutality because it doesnt happen to you, believing that you can make America great again as if it ever was as great as you think it was, still believing there are good Nazis for all you good folks: you cant stay woke until you get woke, so please wake up.

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, Its difficult to get a [person] to understand something if [their privilege] depends upon [them] not understanding it. Upton Sinclair was born in 1878. He lived long enough to see Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated. Sinclair was an American novelist and social reformer best known for his books calling out the atrocities of American industry near the beginning of the 20th century. His words still ring true today. Some people are just not going to get it. They dont want their comfortable situation to be disrupted. Who does?

If you are a product of American society, a derivative of European western civilization, a remnant of the Roman Empire and a believer in its cultural prerogatives, it is difficult for you to see outside these perspectives. Your parents probably believed in these things and taught them to you. Their parents did the same. When you are comfortable vis--vis others in your society, you are far less likely to question the validity, morality and truth of what you have been taught.

And when your entire culture and society, all of its institutions media, schools, government, industry, economics, military, social/gender roles, religion, law and politics have been constructed to reinforce these beliefs from the day you were born, it is even more difficult to let them go, no matter how much evidence you may have that these narratives are false, untenable and unsustainable. After all, you may have your own set of alternatives facts to support your beliefs. Facts that have been propagating since long before you or your parents and grandparents were born. Like any good teacher, I am focused on the students success your success. In spite of my own fatigue, after more than 40 years of doing this work, I must continue to try to help you understand, for your own good and the good of humanity, what you have been programmed not to understand.

The disharmony you have seen in the streets of hundreds of cities in America is the product of western civilization. More than 500 years of European colonialism has brought this about. America was created out of 13 British colonies. You have to think a certain way to be a colonizer. I think no one has put it better than Albert Memmi in his classic work, The Colonizer and the Colonized, in the introduction to his book:

There are neither good nor bad colonists: there are colonialists. Among these, some reject their objective reality. Borne along by the colonialist apparatus, they do every day in reality what they condemn in fantasy, for all their actions contribute to the maintenance of oppression. They will change nothing and will serve no one, but will succeed only in finding moral comfort in malaise. (Emphasis mine)

Western civilization thinks this way. It is, after all, western civilization Europeans who are the modern colonizers. Three-quarters of the globe was colonized by Europeans. There was a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. All seven continents countless islands, lands, nations and territories are still under the influence of European colonialism. For centuries, European colonizers and their descendants have lied, propagandized, warred, killed, oppressed and enslaved to preserve their way of life your way of life colonialism. Today is no different.

These protesters include young people of all persuasions recognizing that the false narrative of colonialism has oppressed their minds and attempted to narrow their choices of who they can be. Many of these children are your children. All of these children are our children. Before you see them being gunned down in the streets by your relatives in uniform, you need to wake up and stay woke. Because we are all going to get it, one way or another, hopefully not like we did at Kent State when our flower children were gunned down by our children in uniform. Lets all wake up and turn our nation and the world into the world we all claim to believe should exist. It is not the overthrow of America we are seeking. It is the elevation of America to the realization of its highest ideals for everyone.

Peace.

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Clovis Honore: An open letter to White and other privileged people who still dont understand the protests - The San Diego Union-Tribune

100’s Demand Prof Hany Babu’s Release, See It As A Blatant Silencing of Dissent – The Citizen

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) arrested Delhi University Associate Professor Hany Babu MT on July 28, in connection with the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case. Since his arrest, hundreds of academicians and activists have condemned the move and professed their support for the accused.

Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) released a statement condemning the arbitrary arrest of Babu, stating: This is blatant harassment and intimidation of persons who question the State and struggle for the rights of the marginalised and oppressed castes, classes and communities.

Babu is the 12th individual to be arrested for his alleged involvement in the Elgar Parishad case. The case relates to an event held on December 31, 2017 in Pune, where alleged provocative speeches promoting enmity between caste groups were made, leading to violence and statewide agitation in Maharashtra. The case has already witnessed the arrests of prominent academicians, lawyers and activists who are currently in prison, awaiting trial.

A special court in Mumbai remanded Babu in NIA custody for seven days till August 4. The 54-year-old Associate Professor in the Department of English at DU had been summoned by the NIA to Mumbai and was arrested after five days of questioning.

Special Court Judge AT Wankhede stated that the allegations made against the accused were of a serious nature. According to the NIA, the accused was propagating Naxal activities and Maoist ideology and was a co-conspirator with other arrested accused. The agency further stated that Babu had links to the banned CPI (Maoist) Party and that various letters were recovered from seized electronic articles which indicated his involvement in the Elgar Parishad case.

The NIAs press statement about Hany Babus arrest reveals the utter lack of foundation of any case against him, and indeed against Elgar Parishad, the Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association said in a statement. The press statement makes reference to vague allegations (propagating Naxal activities [sic] and Maoist ideology) totally unconnected to anything concrete. The best allegations the NIA can come up against the Elgar Parishad is that it encouraged unlawful activity, it added.

Despite the rising number of COVID-19 cases in both Delhi and Mumbai, Babu was summoned as a witness and forced by the NIA to travel to Mumbai after his request for providing testimony via video-conference was denied, CASR stated.

Cooperating with the NIA since July 24th 2020, it quickly became clear that the questioning was merely a ruse to force Prof. Babu into providing false testimony against other persons and accepting allegations of being a functionary of the Maoists, read their statement.

Babu, along with being a professor in DUs English Department, is also known as a prominent anti-caste activist. According to CASR, Babu has been consistently fighting for social justice within and outside the university space He has spoken out against caste discrimination in institutions of higher education, the death penalty and for the rights of political prisoners.

He is also a member of the Committee for the Defence and Release of Dr. GN Saibaba. Saibaba is a DU professor living with over 90% physical disability who was convicted in 2017 for alleged Maoist links. He is currently serving a life term in Nagpur Central Jail. According to reports, the day Babu was arrested, the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court rejected Saibabas temporary bail application.

Babus work ranged over caste oppression, linguistics and the suppression of dissenttopics which he explored in various writings. The academic was also reportedly involved in the implementation of OBC reservation in universities.

Babus first run-in with the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case was in September 2019. His house was raided by the Maharashtra Police, during which several electronic devices and books were seized.

In a statement post the incident, Babu said that his house in Noida had been searched by 20 people claiming to be from the crime branch. While five were in uniform, the rest were in civilian clothes. When I asked for a search warrant, I was told there was none and that this case doesnt need one, Babu then wrote.

They made me change the passwords of my social media accounts and my email accounts. They have complete access to my accounts now... I dont understand how a government agency can seize my work without providing me the reasons for it, or the basis on which a search was conducted at my residence, he had written in his statement.

His wife, Rowena, told Frontline, No hash value of any of the devices confiscated were provided, no protocols were followed. Do you mean to say that you can just come to someones house, take away his things and then claim to have found incriminating evidence against him? Is this a joke? Can this happen in any other country? They are giving this whole technological spin to justify his arrest, but how can the courts allow this?

Meanwhile, several academicians, students and activists have voiced their concerns regarding the arrest. For the past two and a half years, the Pune police first, and now the NIA, have been conducting a blatant witch hunt in the name of investigations in the Bhima Koregaon Elgar Parishad case raiding and arresting activists, academics and even lawyers who have stood with the most marginalised, read the statement by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association (JTSA).

Appealing to all democratic minded individuals, organisations and political parties to raise their voices against the systematic hounding of academics and activists, the JTSA stated, The Bhima Koregaon case is an instrument of silencing us all into submission.

As news emerged of Babus arrest, the All India Students Association (AISA) tweeted, demanding his release.

The national and international community of anti-caste scholars and activists have also issued a statement, urging the Indian government to acquit Babu in the interest of preserving democratic values and human rights.

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100's Demand Prof Hany Babu's Release, See It As A Blatant Silencing of Dissent - The Citizen

Right-wing militias warned of excessive federal power. Where are they now? – Salon

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Militias and many other Second Amendment advocates have long argued that their primary desire to own firearms often, many of them is rooted in a need to protect themselves and their families from a tyrannical federal government, or to discourage the government from becoming tyrannical in the first place.

But with the mayor of a major U.S. city warning that "tyranny and dictatorship" have already arrived on the streets in the shape of unidentified federal troops using questionable tactics militia groups appear reluctant to throw their lot in with protesters. In fact, many have been supporting government action to suppress peaceful demonstrators.

Certainly the scenes in Portland have alarmed civil liberties groups: Heavily armed and camouflaged federal officers, wearing no name tags or other insignia, are on the streets of Portland, Oregon, and have teargassed and arrested seemingly peaceful protesters with little or no provocation. President Donald Trump has said similar forces are coming to other citiesmany run by Democrats.

To some, it may look exactly like what the militias have been warning of.

As a scholar of the U.S. domestic militia movement, I have seen in recent months a new divide emerging in these groups.

Some, often calling themselves the "boogaloo movement," see the current political unrest as an opportunity to wrest power from an overbearing federal government. Others support police and their enforcement of strict law and order, even if that means authorities using powerful weapons and overwhelming force.

Shifting online dynamics

Assessing what these groups are doing, and how they are discussing recent events, has become more difficult for observers like me in recent weeks. On June 30, Facebook announced it had removed hundreds of accounts and groups allegedly related to the "boogaloo movement."

The move came in the wake of several arrests of alleged boogaloo adherents across the country, including three in Nevada accused of plotting to "firebomb" federal land and one in Texas accused of killing one police officer and critically injuring another.

Boogaloo groups still have a social media presence and, until recently when the portion of the site they used was closed, a large presence on the Reddit discussion site, where comments are loosely regulated and people can post anonymously.

Now the movement's public face is smaller and harder to find without insider knowledge. For instance, until recently it was common to see groups with the words "big igloo" in their names, a play on the word "boogaloo." After Facebook's crackdown, some groups are using the word "icehouse" or other synonyms that may not be as obvious. They are therefore harder for algorithms to find, but also for people to find whether to observe or to join in.

Some 'back the boog' social media groups are sharing memes like this, warning of government exercising too much power. Big Doc's Icehouse Bonanza/Facebook

"Backing the boog"

The groups who "back the boogaloo" imply, or even outright declare, that the U.S. is no longer a free country, and generally call for supporters to oppose, violently if necessary, federal forces and the government they represent.

In the days after George Floyd's death, I saw some of these groups call for members to participate in protests opposing police violence. But I have not seen similar calls in response to federal officers' violence in Portland.

That may change if federal forces do appear in other places, especially areas geographically closer to active "back the boog" supporters. It is also possible that the groups are discussing protests or other actions in less public ways, in private messages or on platforms like Parler, that have marketed themselves as friendlier toward a variety of conservative views.

"Backing the blue"

There are still militia members who support police, often called "back the blue" groups. Commentators have observed that silence from them and other Second Amendment supporters certainly seems to be hypocritical, at best, and possibly supportive of tyranny in the current context.

That's not the way they see it. They argue that one of the few legitimate functions of the federal government is to protect citizens from others who might infringe on their rights or safety. They support police who say that Portland authorities have failed to protect regular people from violent protesters.

That's also what these groups claimed happened in Seattle's autonomous zone though they rely on news sources that describe the protesters as inherently dangerous and hampering business and free association. They seemingly ignore or discount other reports that these characterizations are exaggerated. In my research, I found that militia members were likely to exclusively trust sources like Fox News or even more conservative sites for their information, and recent data confirms that such sources may strongly shape viewers' understanding of political and other events.

Federal officers beat and pepper-spray a Navy veteran standing in peaceful demonstration.

Mistaken perceptions?

This view of protesters as violent is amplified by some "back the blue" members' belief that the demonstrators are "Marxist" members of antifa, a mostly nonviolent leaderless collective movement generally opposing fascism.

For example, one Facebook group shared a video of Christopher David, the Navy veteran beaten by federal officers in Portland, talking about his experience. A commentator responded, "The end of the video tell[s] the tale, he's going to raise money for [Black Lives Matter]! He is a liar he went there to stand with his commie comrades."

Scholarship on conservative groups argues that they use anti-communist language to cast political opponents as not real Americans who have thus have forfeited any protections U.S. citizens should have.

Anti-liberal rhetoric

Some other "back the blue" members see hypocrisy in liberals, noting that few, if any, on the left objected when federal officers killed LaVoy Finicum during the 2016 standoff between federal officials and armed supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy during a land dispute elsewhere in Oregon.

There are sharing pages like one on a well-known conservative satire site that suggests the same Oregon authorities opposing federal officers tolerate violent behavior from protesters because of "identity politics" the idea that certain groups favored by liberals, in this case, Black people, are held to a different and more lax standard.

Image shared on Facebook of a modified Gadsden flag.

Several Facebook pages shared an image of a modified Gadsden flag, with a Black Lives Matter fist and promising "we will tread" as "proof" that Portland protesters would take away others' rights, including the right to bear arms, if given the chance and thus do not deserve protection themselves. One comment in support of such a post read, "I['m] glad to see I'm not the only person happy to see these commies being snatched up and dragged away. Yes, I know that this could just as easily be turned around and that we could also be dragged away in broad daylight. But if they aren't stopped now, and they do somehow manage to gain complete power, we'll get dragged away anyways. Better them than us, before it's too late."

Federal intervention has not stopped the Portland protests from growing, but some analysts expect Trump to increase the response in an attempt to appeal to his supporters as the country heads into the November election. Many people fear that move would spark violence.

The "back the blue" militia members generally respect law and order enough to not fulfill their threats of violence or criminal action but the "back the boog" groups may not be so restrained. The "back the blue" groups may also act if federal action escalates, and members believe they are needed or useful to help defend the interests of average citizens.

Amy Cooter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Picking a premier: Q&A with Andrew Furey – CBC.ca

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With the race for the leadership of the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Party winding down, both candidates sat down for interviews with The St. John's Morning Show.

Belowis John Andrew Furey'stake on what lies ahead if he is chosen to be the next leader and in turn inherits the role ofpremier of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Furey spoke withhost Krissy Holmes about N.L.'s $16-billion debt, the province's relationship with Ottawa, and why he thinks he's the leader needed right now.

John Abbott'sinterviewcan be found here.

Online voting for Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador members and supporters started Tuesday and runs until Monday at noonNT. The party will announce its new leader Monday.

Krissy Holmes: As this race winds down, we're contending with $16 billion in debt. We're more than $2 billion short this year alone. What do you think is the way through this financial mess?

Andrew Furey: Well, before I tackle that question, Krissy, I'd like to take this opportunity just to pass along my condolences to the Todd McLean family and to the entire community of the great Northern Peninsula for the recent loss. With respect to the deficit and debt, I mean they're overwhelming. I mean, to borrow Premier [Clyde] Wells's words, there is no sense in sugarcoating this. We are in a tough fiscal and financial situation right here, right now. But we can't lose sight of the fact that this is a global economic crisis and we are one of many facing similar levels of debt and deficit.

That means that we need to take this opportunity right now to put it together, strong strategies to deal with the debt and deficit in the short, medium and long term and in the short term, frankly, there is no path forward without a robust, healthy, strong relationship with Ottawa and that's not to say that we're not firm in our negotiations and our back and forth with Ottawa. But it means that we need to work with them to help stabilize the ship to help get Newfoundland and Labrador into a safe port so that we're able to look internally at our own structural deficit so that we can develop medium-term strategies in order to right the ship for the long term.

It's certainly challenging timing every other province is feeling the pinch right now, too. So, I mean, the argument could be made that this province has had plenty of time to get its act together. I mean, can we really just rely on Ottawa to fix this?

We can spend all kinds of time looking in the rear-view mirror, but like handling a patient that has a medical problem in front of you now, there is no sense looking at bad behaviours. You need to look forward and look at it in terms of solutions. And that's where I'm focused. Of course we could have changed things along the way but again that's water under the bridge. We need to look forward to create solutions and I think the solutions involve Ottawa. I don't believe there is a path forward without Ottawa right here, right now. I think we're very lucky to be part of a strong Canadian federation. And as I've said before, we've contributed financially, we've contributed culturally to this federation and I believe in the concept of a federation and now it's time for the centre to help us in tough times.

What would you be asking for from Ottawa specifically?

I think we need help with looking at stabilizing electricity rates. [Federal Finance] Minister [Bill] Morneau has already given his guarantee until the commission of the [Muskrat Falls] project and given a promise to help negotiate beyond that. I think we need to build on that and hold him to that promise. But I think we need to get creative in looking out so that our debt-servicing costs and when you look at the Atlantic average compared to the other provinces, we pay more than any other province in Atlantic Canada with respect to debt servicing, and of course that is our second [largest] budget item. So we need to look at ways to potentially unlock the Canadian potential in order to decrease some of those costs.

We've been hearing over and over again that revenue is not our problem, that spending is our problem. And people really want to know before they vote where would you make up for this shortfall in order to balance those books?

It's a combination of revenue and spending, in my estimation. We need to grow revenues but we need to get spending under control. And I think we have seen that the size of government has exploded over the last 10 to 15 years. And we need to right size that, but we need to do that in a balanced, measured way. Right now we're seeing governments around the world borrowing trillions of dollars to help stimulate the economy, to help stabilize jobs. So I don't think, you know, today in this global economic crisis, it's right to talk about massive cuts but we do need to look at the size of the civil service and balance and responsible way and right that size, over that, over the medium term.

What would that strategy look like?

I think we need to kind of look at program triage, because I believe that no waste can be tolerated. So we need to look at what programs we're delivering to the people of the province and if we're getting a good return on investment, whether that be an economic return or a social return. And we need to have a strong evaluation of those and if programs aren't delivering what they're supposed to be delivering, or doing so in an ineffective and inefficient way then they need to be looked at being eliminated. And I also look at using attrition and of course in early retirement and within the civil service as well.

When we talk about program delivery, the obvious challenge we have is that our population is spread out over a lot of geography and it's getting more costly to supply those services. What potential solutions do you see to potentially solving that issue?

Well, of course, it's a great discussion and it's one that I think we need to bring to Ottawa, as well, because frankly some of the formulas they use in terms of transfer payments just don't work for our population. And we have one-third the population of the Maritimes and three times the land mass and it's scattered around the province for historical and cultural reasons. And that's, you know, over 500 years of history that's caused that. But we need to look at stabilizing and diversifying the economy in rural areas as well. But we also need to look at the demographic crisis that's facing this province right now. This is a silent one that's been creeping up.

And right now you know 20 to 25 per cent of the population is approaching 65 years of age and leaving the labour market, and that's going to cause a strain on the economic potential with the labour market. So we need to unlock labour potential for it to develop economic opportunities and that involves unlocking potential labour force here right now, including what we've proposed is $25-a-day daycare but also developing a healthy immigration policy that helps correct this demographic crisis that we're currently in. I mean right now we have the oldest population in the country.

We have the highest dependency ratio in the country. To my knowledge, we're the only province with an outmigration issue. So that means that when you're looking at the social transfer payments and the equalization payments, the denominator changes such that these will never really work well for us. So this is a discussion that we need to have with Ottawa moving forward.

What is the solution in your mind to plugging that outmigration issue that we've been challenged with for so many years?

I think that we need to develop opportunities for the youth of our province and develop opportunities for immigrants in the province. And one of the things that I've talked about a lot in the last couple of months is the idea of technology and developing an ecosystem here for technology. Look, there's nothing particularly special about Waterloo or Silicon Valley. It's just that they created a good ecosystem for technology development and I think that we've seen as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians that we're good at this space. We're creative and we're entrepreneurial and you can see that either in CoLab or Verafin. And we need to build on that ecosystem to attract firms here to grow that sector. But we need to develop a pipeline to that and similar to what we did with oil and gas in the late '80s and early '90s for high school students and university students. We need to develop through K-12 coding opportunities in the schools and then develop targeted investments in our university and colleges towards technology, and provide a labour force for that developing ecosystem, whether it's in retraining displaced Newfoundlanders and Labradorians or developing healthy immigration strategies so that there is a labour force presence to grow and sustain a healthy technological environment.

And of course you can develop that strategy to other renewable economic opportunities like arts and entertainment. I truly believe that we've just scratched the surface of our potential with arts and entertainment in this country and around the world.

What role does oil and gas play in your vision of the short- and the long-term future in this province?

Oil and gas is incredibly important right now. It's 30 per cent of our GDP and it's the reason why we're able to provide a lot of the services we are able to provide. So it's an incredibly important economic driver, but we realize right now that the environment is the No. 1 priority around the world and I think that Newfoundland and Labrador is perfectly positioned in this environmental revolution, not dissimilar to the Industrial Revolution, as the world transitions from non-renewable to renewable energy sources.

We have some of the lowest carbon footprint oil around the world. It's not landlocked. We don't need pipelines. We have some of the sweetest crude products to deliver around the world and we need to invest in that and capitalize on that while it's still valuable. But then balance that on the other side of the equation by investing in what we're also very lucky to have an abundance of, which is clean, green energy. We can be the battery that drives the Eastern Seaboard, for sure.

If you do win this race, it will be your first time in public office. And you've said that you don't intend to be a career politician. So what makes you the leader for this moment in time?

I think that I have an outside vision and experience right now to lead the province in this pivotal time of our history. I think that I've proven in my life that I'm not afraid to surround myself with the best and the brightest. I think that's what defines my leadership style. You can't know everything about everything, but you need to attract the best and the brightest to be able to provide the best evidence to make the best decisions and create the best frameworks moving forward. And I think that's something that I bring to the table and hopefully be able to leverage for the future of Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Picking a premier: Q&A with Andrew Furey - CBC.ca

Canada not walking the talk on its miners’ abuses abroad, campaigners say – Mongabay.com

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Home to nearly half of the worlds major mining companies, Canada has failed to fully implement promised reforms to hold corporations accountable for abuses committed overseas, according human rights advocates.

Ahead of its 2015 election win, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus Liberal Party promised to create an independent ombudsperson to investigate companies that violate human rights or poison the environment when extracting resources in the developing world, along with better protections for land rights campaigners there.

Officials with Global Affairs Canada, the foreign ministry, began meeting with human rights activists, as described in internal government files. Going into one meeting, in March 2017, campaigners told Mongabay they felt a sense of optimism: after a decade of Conservative Party rule, when officials froze NGOs out of the decisionmaking process, a new administration promising sunny ways and increased corporate accountability wanted to hear from them.

Today, though, land rights campaigners opposed to Canadian mining operations face more threats than ever, according to the activists. And while the governments rhetoric has stressed human rights and accountability, it hasnt introduced binding rules to crack down on companies that commit abuses overseas.

But a decision by Canadas Supreme Court earlier this year could provide an avenue for redress in the courts when campaigners say the political system has failed.

Just over 600 pages of partially censored Canadian foreign ministry documents, accessed under freedom of information laws, detail the Trudeau governments approach to human rights defenders and the mining industry. They include internal policy briefings for officials, minutes from meetings with activists and others, background research, and other correspondence for 2017 and part of 2018. A litany of abuse allegations dogging Canadian mining companies features prominently.

The documents cite data in bold from the Toronto-based Justice and Corporate Accountability Project, a legal advocacy group, noting that 28 Canadian mining companies and their subsidiaries were linked to 44 deaths, 403 injuries, and 709 cases of criminalization, including arrests, detentions, and charges in Latin America between 2000 and 2015.

Considering that over 60% of mining concessions held by foreign companies in Ecuador are in Canadian companies hands, mining issues are of great interest to Canada, reads a 2017 internal foreign affairs department briefing on Ecuadors human rights situation that was marked secret and included in the documents.

However, strong opposition by some indigenous and environmental groups continues to pose problems for mining development. Local human rights organizations have reported abuses from mining companies, (including, in the past, from Canadian companies), and from security forces hired by these companies, the briefing continues.

When it comes to environmental conflicts between companies and communities, Canadian firms are overrepresented compared to their international peers, McGill University natural resources researcher Leah Temper told Radio Canada International. She was part of an international team that published a study on global environmental conflicts this month in the journal Global Environmental Change. Canadian firms are involved in 8% of the more than 2,700 conflicts analyzed in the study, Temper said.

Examples include the recent death of Mexican labor campaigner scar Ontiveros Martnez. He was allegedly murdered on May 12 by forces linked to organized crime groups operating around a mine in Guerrero state owned by the Canadian company Torex Gold Resources, according to the Ottawa-based advocacy group MiningWatch Canada. His assassination is believed to stem from his involvement in a 2017 strike at the mine. There have been at least three other murders and one disappearance related to the labor action.In aletterresponding activists inquiries,Torex Gold Resourcessaid that the deathswere criminal matters that were quite outside of our control.

And Vancouver-based Pan American Silver, which operates eight mines in Central and South America, has been accused of polluting land and stoking violence in Peru and Mexico, including threats against local community members, according to research released in March by the Environmental Justice Atlas. Pan American Silver denies the charges.

Stock markets in Toronto are the worlds biggest listing venues for mining companies, accounting for almost 50 percent of global listings, according to official data. This means Canadian policies on dealing with environmental and human rights abuses abroad are particularly important for regulating the sector internationally.

Activists attended the meetings with foreign ministry officials to push for changes, armed with firsthand accounts of human rights violations surrounding Canadian-backed mines.

The delegation urged the Canadian government to take steps to provide access to remedy in Canada to victims of human rights abuses by Canadian companies, read minutes from the March 2017 meeting, which included a delegation from the Philippines describing its experiences with Canadian mining activities. More precisely, they encouraged the Liberal Party to fulfil its electoral promise of creating an ombudsman for the Canadian extractive sector.

The government created that position last year, but without the power to subpoena documents or penalize companies, making it effectively toothless, activists told Mongabay.

The government has also failed to follow through on binding rules for companies operating abroad, a move it took deliberately, the government documents reviewed by Mongabay indicate.

To-date, Canada has taken the position that it does not support a legally-binding instrument on Transnational corporations and other business enterprises, states an internal government briefing for an official speaking on a U.N. panel about business and human rights on Nov. 28, 2017, that was included in the documents.

Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University, said the governments current voluntary approach to human rights regulations doesnt send a strong message.

Canadian mining firms are among the largest in the world and are present from Latin America, to Asia, to sub-Saharan Africa, Matthews said in an interview. People in the private sector dont have an international responsibility to uphold human rights, he added, so government regulation is essential for holding companies to account when abuses happen.

However, a decision by Canadas Supreme Court earlier this year could change that, potentially instituting legal liability at home for Canadian companies operating overseas.

In a split decision in February, the Supreme Court ruled that a case filed by Eritrean refugees who say they were victims of modern slavery at a mine part-owned by Toronto-listed Nevsun Resources could proceed in Canadian courts.

The three plaintiffs say they were conscripted by Eritreas military and forced to build the Bisha gold, zinc and copper mine starting in 2008. They say they were forced to work long days in filthy and dangerous conditions with minimal food or pay, according to court filings.

Nevsun, now owned by Chinas Zijin Mining Group, denies the charges. The company argued that the legal case should not be allowed to proceed in Canadian courts because they couldnt rule on the laws of foreign states and indefinite military service is compulsory under Eritrean law. However, Canadas Supreme Court ruled that customary international law prohibits slavery, so the case could proceed.

Other cases against Canadian mining companies have reached Canadas court system. But in being issued by the Supreme Court, the Nevsun decision was a first in Canadian legal history, wrote lawyers from the Toronto-based firm McCarthy Ttrault, and it may result in more actions being brought against Canadian companies operating in countries notorious for human rights concerns. The firm handles mining litigation but was not involved in the Nevsun case.

Following the Supreme Courts decision, the Nevsun case will be heard by a lower court in British Columbia next year in what is expected to be a drawn-out legal battle.

The two main industry bodies representing Canadian mining firms, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada and the Mining Association of Canada, both declined to comment for this story.

Prior to the Nevsun decision, Canadian officials had responded to corporate abuses overseas as a communications problem, not as a real problem, Jamie Kneen, communications coordinator for MiningWatch Canada, told Mongabay. Kneen attended the March 2017 meeting and has seen the internal files.

They call it issues management, Kneen said. They are more concerned about the impacts that any publicity would have, or the impact that any sort of resistance would have, rather than the actual abuses people are reporting.

Connie Sorio, a campaigner with the Toronto-based rights group Kairos, also attended that meeting. She said the government hasnt kept its pre-election promises despite seeming to take the issues seriously during the meeting.

None of this has been translated into concrete actions to provide redress on the issues communities are facing, she told Mongabay of the governments stated commitments to improved accountability for mining firms.

Government officials at the meeting promised to follow up on threats from paramilitary groups faced by Nenita Condez, an environmentalist on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines who had been campaigning against a Canadian-backed mining project, Sorio said. But the officials never contacted her or provided other follow-up, she added.

Now, its unfortunate it could be seen as window dressing or good optics, Sorio said.

Responding to Mongabays questions about the internal documents, a spokesperson for Canadas foreign ministry said it takes corporate responsibility seriously.

Human rights are at the core of Canadas foreign policy, Guillaume Brub, the spokesperson, said via email. Responsible business conduct abroad represents a competitive advantage for Canadian business.

In 2019, the government created a program called Voices at Risk: Canadas Guidelines on Supporting Human Rights Defenders that offers practical advice for Canadian diplomats on how to assist environmental campaigners and human rights activists overseas who seek help, he said.

While a positive step, Sorio said many lower-ranking embassy staffers in the field arent familiar with the program and dont know what to do when an environmentalist under threat asks for help.

Canada has also provided $20 million in funding to the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development, which helps countries better manage their mineral wealth to ensure the benefits are shared equally, while championing a feminist foreign policy, Brub said.

Brub did not address what activists consider the governments failure to implement binding rules for companies operating abroad. He did note, however, that the Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise can launch reviews on her own initiative, can advise cabinet ministers, and will make reports on corporate conduct publicly available to improve transparency. Moreover, he said, the government can deny trade advocacy support or government-backed loans to companies that refuse to engage with the ombudsperson.

Daryl Copeland, a former senior foreign ministry official and currently a senior fellow at the Calgary-based Canadian Global Affairs Institute think tank, described the governments approach to corporate responsibility as the triumph of process over substance.

There is lots of busy work, lots of meetings, but little has been accomplished, he said in an interview.

When the Liberals were first elected in 2015 pledging a change in priorities from the previous Conservative government, Copeland said foreign ministry staff were excited. Today, he said, the messages hes hearing from ministry staff range from frustration to despair.

The impulse within the bureaucracy to move forward on human rights or any other major file is now lacking, he said. I dont think that Canada has done a particularly good job and the record of Canadian mining companies particularly is bad.

Banner image: Residents in Putaendo, Chile, protest against a proposed copper mine planned by the Canadian company Los Andes Copper on April 26, 2020. Putaendo had been declared free of mining following local protests. Activists say the Chilean government took advantage of COVID-19 lockdown measures to approve an environmental license for the mine to continue exploratory drilling. Image courtesy of Putaendo Resiste.

Chris Arsenault is a professor of journalism at Conestoga College in Canada. He has been a long-time foreign correspondent covering resource and environmental issues with the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Brazil and Italy, and with Al Jazeera in Qatar. Twitter: @chrisarsenaul

Citations:

Scheidel,A., Del Bene,D., Liu,J., Navas,G., Mingorra,S., Demaria,F., Martnez-Alier,J. (2020). Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview.Global Environmental Change,63, 102104. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102104

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A Planner’s outlook on the politics of housing affordability 2020 – Utah Policy

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Housing affordability and reform of local land-use practices have been a hot topic around the country over the last couple of years, including here in the state of Utah. And it appears that it continues to be on political agendas, even amid the pandemic, with its apparent but uncertain impacts on future urban growth.

Most notably, changes in local land use controls have taken place on a statewide level in California and Oregon, and in cities such as Minneapolis, Seattle and Toronto. In Utah, the housing gap issue more new family units being formed than the number of new dwellings produced has prompted the creation of a housing affordability task force, a business-led Housing Gap Coalition, a state Commission 0n Housing Affordability, and changes in state code to require cities and counties to consider and adopt housing strategies from a menu of options, as well as tying state transportation funding to local land use actions.

The rapid collapse of the nations economy with the COVID-19 pandemic should have, in keeping with other economic recessions, relieved upward pressures on cost in the housing markets and thus helped with the housing affordability crisis. But, as noted in an earlier post on the APA Utah website (Zoning, Affordability, and COVID-19), this seems not to be the case. And the continued political pressure to pursue state-level policy actions on local land use management has not abated (see comments reported in the APA website post).

All of this is being supplemented and enhanced by the recent emphasis on racial equality. Many writers have noted the underlying segregation in the wholesale adoption in many cities years ago of exclusive single-family zoning (see, for example, How Housing Policies Keep White Neighborhoods So White in Governing Magazine). We are thus now seeing even greater calls for reformation of local zoning laws.

In last weeks issue of The Economist, a story titled Segregation still blights the lives of African-Americans noted:

Zoning rules which keep the cost of housing high by restricting supply make it very hard for poor black families to move to better neighbourhoods. As income inequality has risen, well-to-do families have bid up the price of homes near good schools, further concentrating poverty. Public-housing programmes, which could break up these patterns, do little. Continuing discrimination makes matters worse. A recent investigation into rentals in Boston showed that in situations where a white applicant secured a viewing 80% of the time a black applicant with identical financial credentials would get a viewing just 48% of the time.

The story then goes on to suggest solutions to this issue, including:

The most obvious starting-point is stripping away the zoning rules that ban apartments in high-cost cities. They deny opportunity to poor families of all colours even as they drag down economic productivity.

The effort to limit exclusive single-family residential zoning, or at the very least require inclusion of more options, is very much alive and well across the country. California is still seeing activity (Sen. Wiener Want to Abolish Single-Family-Only Neighborhoods in California).

In Connecticut a newly organized group is pushing the state legislature to consider a variety of measures, hopefully in an upcoming special legislative session later this year:

The coalition, known as DesegregateCT, is pushing a series of ideas, including allowing accessory apartments as large as 1,200 square feet to be permitted on large, single-family lots. In addition, they are calling for more small-scale townhouses and duplexes or so-called middle housing that could be built within a half-mile of train stations and a quarter-mile of commercial developments. They want towns to designate 10% of their property as middle housing or multifamily in order to diversify the housing options. They also want to relax minimum parking requirements that they say are highest in wealthier towns. We have too many freestanding single-family homes, which are expensive and, for many, undesirable, the groups says on its website. We have to give people more opportunities to choose where and how they live.

One of the more notable aspects of the Connecticut effort is the role of the states Conference of Municipalities (similar to our League of Cities and Towns). Such organizations usually take the position that the crafting of land use reforms should be left to those who work with them every day - the local governments. But to some, this has seemed to be a bit like the fox being asked to watch the henhouse. Asking locally-elected officials to lead the way on changing land use regulations away from predominant single-family zoning, who are the very officials that originally enacted and subsequently have perpetuated it, may not result in the needed changes, they say.

In a change of tone, heres the statement from Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) Executive Director Joe DeLong at the coalition event:

Our organization, for years, has really focused on local control, DeLong said. I think the first thing that CCM needs to do is reflect on ourselves and understand whether or not were being a part of the solution or whether were being a quick path to no.' Thats why were here today. We have members all across the state that have mixed views on this issue. Some probably support every proposal in here, some support some and not others. But the message I want to deliver is dont use us as a reason not to act. We want to be a part of the solution. We want to be at the table.

As long as Im here at CCM, our focus is not going to be on no.' Our focus is going to be on making a difference in how we get to yes.

State legislatures in Virginia, Washington and Maryland have just this year considered similar measures. And even in that liberal urban hotspot, Nebraska, the legislature this year considered, among others, The Missing Middle Housing Act. A story in Bloomberg noted:

the battle over single-family homes (has come) to Nebraska. A state legislative committee heard arguments about a number of bills designed to lower housing costs by lifting local bans on duplex homes, triplexes, townhouses and other options in cities across the state.

So, what can we expect in our fair state this coming year? Well, the state Commission on Housing Affordability indicates that they will be continuing to work on this issue, and likely will generate more recommendations for the state legislature, administration, and cities and counties to consider. And the Commission has asked commission member Chris Gamvroulas, President of Ivory Development, to head a subcommittee charged specifically with looking at local land use regulations and their impact on housing affordability. That subcommittee will hold its first meeting on July 23 week.

We havent heard the last on this topic just yet.

Wilf Sommerkorn is a retired urban planner who served during his career as, among other things, Planning Director for Davis County, Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake County. He continues to serve as co-chair of the Legislative Committee for the Utah Chapter of the American Planning Association.

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Bill talks with Heather Cox Richardson about HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR – BillMoyers.com

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The Battle of Bull Run, Battle of Bull Run, Va. July 21st 1861, Currier and Ives. (Library of Congress)

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Moyers on Democracy. If you want to understand this moment in American politics, heres a suggestion for you: Its the must-read book of the year HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR, by the historian Heather Cox Richardson. Yes, the Civil War brought an end to the slave order of the South and the rule of the plantation oligarchs who embodied white supremacy. But the Northern victory was short-lived. Slave states soon stripped Black people of their hard-won rights, white supremacy not only rose again to rule the South but spread West across the Mississippi to create new hierarchies of inequality. Thats the story Heather Cox Richardson tells in HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR, with echoes resounding every day in the wild and fierce campaign for the presidency. Here to talk with her about Americas ongoing battle between oligarchy and democracy is Bill Moyers.

Photo courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson

BILL MOYERS: Heather Cox Richardson, thank you for joining me.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Oh, its a pleasure to be here.

BILL MOYERS: Will you take us on that long but vivid arc of how we got from Abraham Lincoln, describing the end of the Civil War as A new birth of freedom, to Donald Trump describing America as A land of carnage, a nightmare. From Lincoln to Donald Trump in 2016, what happened?

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: If you think about the Civil War as a war between two different ideologies, two different concepts of what America is supposed to be, is it supposed to be a place where a few wealthy men direct the labor and the lives of the people below them, the women and people of color below them, the way the Confederacy argued? Is that America? Or is America what Lincoln and his ilk in the Republican Party in the North defined the democracy as during the Civil War? Is it a place where all men are equal before the law and should have equal access to resources? And of course, I use the word man there, but thats because thats the language that Lincoln used. But the principle is expandable of course. It looked by 1865 as if that latter ideology, that of the Republicans and that of the idea of equality had triumphed. And certainly, the Republicans and Northerners who had fought for the United States government in that war believed that they had redefined America to mean equality before the law. They really believed that was the case. And that they had defeated what they called the slave power, the oligarchs who had gone ahead and taken over the system in the 1850s. After the Civil War, Easterners moved West across the Mississippi in really large numbers after 1865.

BILL MOYERS: White Southerners went too, of course, and you argue they saw the West as the final frontier ruled by elites, just as elites, with violence and intimidation, had ruled in the old South.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: And in that West, they discover a land that is already susceptible to the idea of racial and gendered hierarchies, because it has its own history of them. And its a place out there where the new American system happens to be a really fertile ground for the Confederate ideology to rise again. And thats exactly what happens with the extractive industries in the West that encouraged the heavily capitalized cattle markets, for example, or mining industries, or later oil, or even agribusiness. You have in the West a development of an economy and, later on, a society that looks very much like the pre-Civil War South. And over the course of the late 19th century, that becomes part of the American mythology, with the idea that you have the cowboy in the West who really stands against what Southerners and Northern Democrats believe is happening in Eastern society, that a newly active government is using its powers to protect African Americans and this is a redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to populations that are simply looking for a government handout. Thats language that rises in 1871, and that is still obviously important in our political discourse. But in contrast to that, in the West, you get the rise of the image of the American cowboy, which is really our image of Reconstruction. In a weird way, people think of Reconstruction, obviously, they think of formerly enslaved people. But the image that has obtained in our textbooks and in our popular culture is the American cowboy, who is beginning to dominate American popular culture by 1866. And that cowboy a single man, because women are in the cowboy image only as wives and mothers, or as women above the saloons in their striped stockings serving liquor and other things is a male image of single white men. Although, again, historically a third of cowboys were people of color. Its a single white man working hard on their own, who dont want anything from the government. Again, historically inaccurate. The government puts more energy into the American plains than it does any other region of the country. But

BILL MOYERS: And also on land that had been taken from Mexico after the Mexican-American War, and on land that had been stolen from the Native Americans after genocide. I mean, its this whole notion of, Im free to roam the land and become a self-made hero, which was the cowboys image to those of us growing up in the 30s and 40s, was really a bastard idea.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: And part of that bastard idea, though, was so interesting. Because it is, in part, the Indian Wars of the Civil War and immediate post-war years that helped to both create the image of the cowboy, but also reinforce the idea that a few white men belong above subordinate groups like the Indigenous people, like Mexicans or Mexican Americans. Like Chinese Americans, like Fiji islanders, about whom they care very much in the late 19th century. And that racial hierarchy and gendered hierarchy really gets tied into the image of the American cowboy. And popularized with this backlash against activism in the East, trying to help African Americans adjust to the new free labor economy. But that image becomes enormously important after 1880. Because in 1880, the South goes solidly Democratic. And, of course, in retrospect, we now know its going to stay Democratic for a very, very long time, indeed. But they dont know that at the time. But what Republicans do note is that they must pick up Western votes if theyre going to continue to dominate the White House and the Senate. After 1888, when we get the installment of Benjamin Harrison in the White House, he loses the popular vote by about 100,000 votes. But hes installed thanks to the Electoral College. The Republicans under Harrison between 1889 and 1890, they let in six new states in 12 months. That was the largest acquisition of new states in American history since the original 13 and its never been matched again. They let in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, and then Idaho and Wyoming to go ahead and make sure that they would continue to control the Senate, and the Electoral College. And theyre not hiding this. They actually go onto their media which is their equivalent of the Fox News channel at the time and say, by letting in these states, were going to hold onto the Senate for all time and were going to make sure we hold onto the White House for all time. But what that does is it begins to shift the idea of that human freedom. All of a sudden, the Republican Party, which has tried to continue to argue that it is standing in favor of equality, although thats negotiable. After 1888 and the admission of those new states, the Republican Partys got to start adopting that racially charged language in order to get the West on board. And that begins the change in American history that leads to a later union between the West and the South around this idea that really white men ought to be in charge. Its not just a Southern thing. Its a Western thing as well. And they make up a voting bloc in Congress that manages to change a lot of the legislation of the 20th century.

BILL MOYERS: You write about how the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890, in South Dakota, was an atrocity brought on by politics. And that it played into the use of politics to reimpose inequality, and the use of force for malicious purposes.

Wounded Knee (LOC)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: It did. What happens is that with the admission of these new states in 1889 and 1890, the Republicans believe that they are going to do very well in the midterm election of 1890. And the big thing on the table in America in 1890 is the tariff high walls around the American economy that protect businesses inside America, they protect them to the degree that because they face no foreign competition, different groups can collude with each other to raise prices. So in 1860, the Republicans insist that an economic downturn thats been happening is only because those tariffs arent high enough. What happens in the election of 1890 is the Republicans think theyre going to win and they lose dramatically. It turns out when these ballots are counted, a Republican Senate or a Democratic Senate hangs on the seat of South Dakota, on one Senate seat. And that Senate seat has pretty clearly been corrupted. Theres a huge fight, then, in the legislature of who actually won. So there the situation sits.

BILL MOYERS: Sits there, for sure, with President Benjamin Harris needing to shore up his support in the Dakotas. So, he sends corrupt cronies out to replace experienced Indian agents and dispatches one-third of the federal Army as well.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: And with that movement of the Army into South Dakota in the largest mobilization of the US Army since the Civil War, Lakota are trying to negotiate with the Army that increasingly wants to bring them into the reservation, to the agencies to make sure that theyre under control. And over the course of the next few months, that situation escalates until a Lakota leader, Sitting Bull, is killed in December of 1890. And then in terror after that, a group of Miniconjou Lakota move across the state. They actually find the Army, the Army doesnt find them. And in the process of corralling them and disarming them later on that month, the soldiers start to fire. And about 250 Lakota are massacred. So, it was a massacre that was really directly attributable to whether or not the Republican Party could control the US Senate in order to protect its tariffs that promoted big business, and protected a few oligarchs.

BILL MOYERS: When Americans moved to the wide-open spaces of the West after the Civil War, they kept alive the same vision of the world that had inspired Confederates. What was their argument?

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: They certainly were not arguing at the time for a renewal of hostilities. But they did believe that America was one in which a few good hard-working white men should dominate women and people of color. And I think thats written all over the West, although we dont like to see that because we love our cowboys. But inherent in Western society, Western politics, Western economy and the Western society after the Civil War was the idea that a few wealthy men should control the industries. Or at least, did control the extractive industries of mining and cattle, and agribusiness and oil. And they should also control politics. And that the legal system should defend their interests while the workers should work for the people in charge. You know, these wealthy cattlemen, for example, were somehow the salt of the earth, hardworking little guys. That image was really in contrast to what was going on, which was the creation of a society that looked, in many ways, like the society of the pre-Civil War South. And by the late 19th and early 20th century, the rise of industrialists in the North who took a lot of their power and their ideological power from the cowboy imagery and from the support that they received in the American West. And to some degree, from Southern leaders as well.

BILL MOYERS: So, the pre-Civil War South was an oligarchy.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Yes. I was very careful with that word. Because there are obviously a lot of words we could use for a system in which a few people take over. But the way that I was using it was with the idea that an oligarchy was a small group, usually of men in that case, who controlled the money in society and therefore came to control the political system, and also the social system.

BILL MOYERS: In order to use government policies to shore up white supremacy and prevent racial equality, right?

HEATHER RICHARDSON: And I think the echoes from that to the present are pretty clear, when you have again a small group of Americans now who define themselves that way, I think. One of the things that I found interesting is with the rise of this small elite group of large planters in the 1850s, the ways in which they came to monopolize popular culture and popular literature so that they simply didnt say, Well, were hard workers and weve been lucky. But they came to believe that they deserved what they had gotten. And that they were somehow better than everybody else. And you can see that through the pulpits, ministers starting to talk about how blessed they were to have these men in their congregations. You can see it through literature, the rise of novels that talk about people who own large numbers of other people as somehow paternalistic patriarchs. And you can see it through the construction of the other, the people who are enslaved, as being somehow almost sub-human. And thats a very deliberate construction in the 1850s. And I would argue, you can see something very similar in America in the 2000 aughts.

BILL MOYERS: In what sense?

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: The emphasis in popular culture on how the people who were at the top really belong there. That they somehow are the best people. That they know more than the rest of us. That if you have a billion dollars, you must somehow be really much more special than those of us who dont have a billion dollars. And I think that really shows in the way that President Trump talks about the people around him. He would appoint only the best people, who by definition, knew more than the experts did. And you look at the position that Jared Kushner has in this administration. I mean, hes a young man with really very little training in anything and hes supposed to be solving the Middle East crisis and handling coronavirus? And I dont even know what his portfolio looks like at this point. But I think thats a reflection that looks very much like that of elite Southerners in the 1850s when they simply thought by virtue of who they were, they could make things work better than anybody else could.

BILL MOYERS: And you write that as this Old South ideology moved West it influenced popular culture, especially in upholding white supremacy. There were Western movies like the classic STAGECOACH, remember? A Confederate soldier joins with the US Cavalry to defeat the savage Apache. And novels such as LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE and GONE WITH THE WIND celebrating the union of Western and Confederate ideology.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Yes. And isnt it fascinatingif you think about, again, Laura Ingalls Wilders a great example. People tend to dismiss her because they see it as a childrens book. And yet, its been enormously influential, enormously influential. And she writes about a world in which Pa takes care of the women folk and dominates the native populations around him. And certainly there are passages in that book that are extraordinarily racist, not only toward Indigenous people, but toward African Americans as well. Its gotten her in trouble lately. But the theme throughout that book is of individualism. Pa is doing it on his own. Pa is not doing it on his own. The reality of her life was that Pa was managing to keep the family together based on the fact his daughters and his wife worked because Pa could never manage to make ends meet. And theyre living in places that are habitable for white settlers like themselves only because of the protection of the US government. And, you know, even scenes like when when Mary goes to college. And remember, they scrimp and save for years for Mary to go to college. And the implication in that book is that they are sending Mary to college. No. Theyre raising money for her train fare and her clothing. Her room and board is being paid for by the state of South Dakota. South Dakota actually, weirdly enough, had the highest rate of literacy in the country in that era. But you dont see that in those books. Because again, you have this wedding, if you will, of individualism to racism and this concept of women being taken care of by their men. Its a very popular trope in American history. But it doesnt reflect reality.

BILL MOYERS: So, when a group of slave holders embraced the idea that they and they alone should control Americas economic and political system, the Americans fought back, won the Civil War, and rededicated the country to equality. But when it happened a second time, when very rich men of property mobilized to take over America again, they largely succeeded by convincing voters that equality for people of color and women and minorities destroyed the liberty of white men. Thats almost the drum beat in the background of American politics today.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: One of the things about that ideology that a few wealthy men should rule, its not new to America. Its been around for a very long time. And whats really radical is the idea that in fact, all of us should have the right to self-government. And the fact that were still fighting about it in America today suggests to me that those two fundamentally different concepts of the role of the American government at least are still absolutely the question of what America really is about. For all the frightening things that are happening in America right now, its also exciting to get to redefend the concept of human self-determination, which is really what weve been doing all along on this continent.

BILL MOYERS: But as you write, the ideology of the Old South and its new Western allies found a powerful reactionary force to reimagine it. Lets go to the very opening scene of your book. Its July, 1964. The Cow Palace outside San Francisco, packed with cheering Republicans whove just nominated Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona as their candidate for the presidency. They came roaring to their feet when he declares, quote

BARRY GOLDWATER: I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice in no virtue.

BILL MOYERS: 56 years later, that scene still plays out in my head. Explain why you chose that moment to begin a story that spans America from the Civil War to now.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Barry Goldwater at that point was known sort of as a cowboy character. And that moment when the state of South Carolina, the state that was responsible for taking the Confederacy out of the Union. When those delegates stand up, they were the ones to put Barry Goldwater over the top, as their delegate yelled when he announced the delegations votes, its that moment when you recognize that there is a new force in American politics. And its the force of reaction against the liberal consensus that was widely shared by Democrats and Republicans both, that in fact, the government should be of the people, by the people and for the people. And thats the moment when you had that reactionary voice saying, No, thats not what America should look like. And its that theory that in fact a few people should run the system and make decisions for the rest of us that has taken over America since 64. It came across as a racial argument. But of course, his skin was in the game for the end of business regulation.

BILL MOYERS: Regulation, right.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Thats what he really cared about. Its interesting the degree to which they harnessed the tradition of American racism and sexism as well, to their project of destroying business regulation.

BILL MOYERS: Goldwaters big bone was government, but that was all mixed up with opposing Civil Rights and keeping segregation, discrimination. This fear of government that Goldwater was stoking at that moment was the same fear that Southern demagogues had stoked to keep Blacks in their place, it was government that was at stake here. It was what you can do with government.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Well, and I think you just hit the nail on the head there with the idea that all of this is about the proper use of government. Is the idea of the United States government to protect property, so that people can accumulate more and more of it, and thereby get the power and the education and the connections to go ahead and direct society in a way thats good for all us, which is their theory. Or is the role of government, in fact, to protect equality before the law, and to make sure that all men, in fact, and all, you know, all people are created equal and have equal access to resources and to opportunity? And those two questions are really the central questions of America.

BILL MOYERS: Ronald Reagan gave the conservative movement its present-day mantra

RONALD REAGAN: The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, Im from the government and Im here to help.

BILL MOYERS: Now just imagine using that mantra today when the pandemic is rampant. And somebody knocks on your door and says, My name is Fauci, and Im here to help you. And they say, But youre from the government. We dont want you.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: I love the way you put it earlier when you said, This is all a question of what the government should do. Coming out of World War II, we had a real resurgence of the idea that the government really had a responsibility to promote equality before the law, and to guarantee equal access to resources. And that was a principle that was shared across America, I think, from Republicans and Democrats both. I mean, obviously you saw it with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the New Deal. But you also saw it with Truman, of course. And then you also saw it Eisenhower and Eisenhowers Middle Way. And the idea was that this American democracy stood against the fascism that had drawn us into World War II. And that FDR was so articulate about fighting back against. You know, when he talks about Italy again and again, FDR talks about how, you know, American democracys messy, for sure, but look, Mussolini was supposed to make the trains run on time and instead, his people are dying and theyre starving to death. And we, us messy members of a democracy, are the ones feeding them. And he says this again and again. And coming out of that war, I think Americans really stood for that. But even before that, theres certainly a group of reactionaries who look at the New Deal and at the Middle Way and they say, We dont believe that the government should interfere in our businesses. We should have the liberty, the freedom to run our businesses as we see fit. And they, in fact, really believe that the New Deal is going to be erased. They really thought it was a temporary measure, and that Americans would turn against that. But, of course, Americans loved the New Deal. It had gotten us out of out of the Depression and it had won World War II. So they didnt have any intention of walking away from that.

BILL MOYERS: But Goldwater and Reagan were riding away from it. And both, as you know, loved casting themselves as cowboys, white hats and all. They wrapped themselves in the mythology of the cowboy as hero; a lone white man carving a new world for white people from a hostile environment. So how did we get from Barry Goldwater in 1964, Richard Nixon, a Californian in 1968, invoking the Southern strategy of stirring up the resentments and fears and hatreds of white Southerners. And Ronald Reagan who opened his campaign in 1980 in Neshoba County, Mississippi, just a few miles from where three Civil Rights volunteers had been murdered. And then George W. Bush buying a Stetson and a Texas ranch to prove he was a Westerner. Finally, to Donald Trump, the rich guy from Queens, not a part of the Southern culture or complex, who used the same racial fears, the same threats and promises that had been used in 64, 68, and 80.

George W. Bush Library

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Well, finally by 1951, you have that famous book by William F. Buckley Jr. called GOD AND MAN AT YALE in which he says, Listen, we got a problem. If we keep on trying to argue against the New Deal on the merits, we keep losing. So, we should stop trying to argue it on the merits. Because when we talked about what was best for most people, people voted for the New Deal. So, he suggests that we needed to start from a baseline, saying that the government should only protect what he calls free enterprise. That is, there shouldnt be regulation. And it should protect Christianity. You could wiggle around the edges. But you needed to have those two things. Well, that doesnt really get much traction. And, of course, William F. Buckley Jr. is the son of an oil man. And he is bankrolled by some pretty serious money there. Its a vision of a very few wealthy men. And it really doesnt get traction until after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court, where this chief justice is a Republican and a former governor of California

BILL MOYERS: Youre talking about Earl Warren.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Yes. He says the government needs to stand behind the desegregation of public schools. And with that, a door is open to resurrect the idea of the Reconstruction years. That any kind of government action in trying to level the playing field for African Americans in American society is a redistribution of wealth. And in 1955, we get the formation of NATIONAL REVIEW, of course, with the hiring of James Kirkpatrick, whos a Southern editor. Who hammers again and again and again on the idea that in fact, if you let government be an active government, to go ahead and intervene in things like regulating the economy, or in this case, promoting desegregation, what you are going to get is an attack on liberty, by which they mean tax dollars, your, in coded words, White tax dollars are going to go to African Americans. Who, in their eyes, had not earned that sort of entree into public schools. Which is gonna cost tax dollars among other things there were needed to be troops to have that happen. Well, that idea, that somehow an activist government, a New Deal government, an Eisenhower government was a redistribution of wealth from hard working white people to first African Americans, and then that group of other is going to be expanded to eventually include, in the 1970s, feminist women. But that argument is really established in the 1950s. And the people who adhere to it initially are not traditional Republicans. And theyre certainly not Democrats. They self-identify as a group called movement conservatives. And they are not true conservatives. They are radical extremists. And they know it. They, a few group of capital C conservatives, are going to stand against capital L liberals. By which they mean virtually everybody else in America, Republicans and Democrats both. Because they make no distinction between the liberal consensus of FDR and Eisenhower and Chinese communism. To them, those are the same kind of redistributions of wealth. So that movement conservative argument that gets its roots in the 1950s and then is picked up by Nixon I think he gets backed into a full-hearted embrace of movement conservatism because of the problems hes facing in 1970, with the Vietnam War and Kent State. But by Reagan, you have Reagan fully defending that vision. And you remember, Reagans initial ideas of cutting taxes were not popular. And it was not clear that that was actually going to happen. He has to put George H. W. Bush into his administration as vice president. And he had called that system voodoo economics. But its really after hes shot that he manages to get the popular momentum in Congress to pass his first tax cut. And then he tries to cement the ability to hold those tax cuts through including Evangelicals into the political system on the Republican side, beginning really dramatically in 1986. But, also, by packing the court. So, you can see from there on, this vision snowballing. And then in the 1990s, of course, you get Newt Gingrich becoming the Speaker of the House, and really deliberately purging the Republican Party of traditional Republicans, those he calls, RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only. By the time you get to Trump, that language is there. That whole set up is there. But Trump himself is an interesting character. Because if you remember, he was the most moderate of the Republican candidates when he was running. So he had the racism and the sexism down. But a lot of people who might have liked or might even have not liked the racism and the sexism loved the idea he was gonna make taxes fairer. He was gonna create a better health care system. He was gonna make wealthier people pay more. He was gonna promote infrastructure. All those things that went by the board. Hes put movement conservatism on steroids. And his platform in 2016 was stunning. It was William F. Buckley Jr.s wish list, or Goldwaters wish list. And a narrative that, by the way, has taken off, and been extraordinarily strong since the rise of Reagan. He was elected in 1980. And you have that cowboy individualism gone wild with the STAR WARS series, which is the movie of 1977. That imagery, that one guy is going to do it on his own without the help of the government is a lovely image. Its a mythological image. Its one that Americans love, but its not reality. In fact, that image has enabled oligarchs like those really taking the reins of power under Ronald Reagan, to skew our laws in such a way that wealth has moved upward, opportunity has been taken away from the vast majority of us. The lives of most Americans, a majority of Americans, has gotten significantly worse, not better. And now under Donald Trump with the coronavirus, but also with the extraordinary dis-junction in the economy. Now, of course, were looking at the recession because of the coronavirus. But even before that, with the booming stock market, and the reality that most Americans didnt have $400 in the bank to meet an emergency. I think people are really coming to realize there is this extraordinary gap between that image and reality. And beginning more to want to root their politics in reality, both to fight the coronavirus and to fight the economic recession. But also to give credit to the essential workers of color, and to the women who are keeping this country running. I thought it was really interesting that one of the tropes from American individualism is, of course, that moms are home, right? Taking care of the kids. Over the weekend in Portland, moms went out and made a wall, a wall of moms to stand between the protesters and the federal troops.

BILL MOYERS: You say that the movement of women into politics rejects the construction of a society in which a few elite white men control the destinies of the rest of the country. And you find hope in that. But I wrote after your last sentence, Yes, but white oligarchs and their mercenaries still have the power.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Yes, they do. And I often dont sleep at night. But people ask me what gets me up every morning, and why do I continue to be optimistic. And I am because I believe in American democracy. I believe in the concept of human self-determination with almost a religious faith. And if I lose that faith, I feel like I will have broken that faith not only with the people around me today, but with all those people who came before us, and fought in wars, and who gave up their time and their money and their energy and did everything that they could to make sure that American democracy would survive. So, were in a very frightening time. But there are a lot of us, I think, who believe in this great American experiment, and will give it our all to make sure it doesnt end on our watch.

BILL MOYERS: Heather Cox Richardson, thank you so much for sharing your time and your thoughts, and for all the work that has inspired so many of us.

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON: Yes. Well, thank you very much.

ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to Moyers on Democracy. Read an excerpt from HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR, a must-read book for understanding how we got to this moment. And, be sure to check out Bills podcast with Heather Cox Richardson, exploring how her daily LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN found a large and loyal following on Facebook and our website.Youll find all this and more at Billmoyers.com.

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Bill talks with Heather Cox Richardson about HOW THE SOUTH WON THE CIVIL WAR - BillMoyers.com

Wealth Tech Demystified Part 5: Fee And Billing Software – Barron’s

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Lets face it: getting paid on time for your work as a financial advisor is important, especially during this pandemic as businesses are doing everything they can to keep the lights on.

This has made a financial advisors fee and billing software all the more important. But when searching for the right fee and billing software program, it can be hard to decipher what the company is selling, and whether it makes sense for your advisory firm.

Ive run my own wealth management marketing firm for the past 12 years, which means I recognize the necessity of pushing past the jargon and using the information available to make the right decision for your firm.

With this in mind, Ive written this article, which is the fifth in my series on demystifying wealth technology. Make sure to read parts one through four of the series: onboarding, portfolio management, trading solutions, and financial planning software.

Fee and billing software is used by advisors to charge clients directly for their services. As financial advisors move toward offering more financial planning services, some are also moving away from the traditional fee model, which is based on assets under management. Instead, they charge fees for service.

With this in mind, heres what to consider when choosing fee and billing software for your advisory firm:

-- If youre using a fee-for-service model, check to see whether the software provider has measures in place to handle RIA compliance. A 2013 Risk Alert from the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that if an advisor has access to a clients online accounts, they can be subject to the custody rule. Some software providers have provisions in place to get around this, which saves advisors from extra audit costs.

-- Conversely, if youre using an AUM model, consider whether there are options for excluding certain assets, contributions, or withdrawals from fee calculations. Consider whether you need this level of customization at your practice and whether its worth paying for.

-- Look at any other customization options available. Some providers offer the option to personalize invoices or to make fee adjustments to invoices the program generates.

-- Check to see what level of billing flexibility is available. Does the program have the ability to bill in both arrears and in advance?

-- Ask about whether eSignatures are available. This can reduce paperwork for both you and your clients.

-- Similarly, check to see if a client portal is available. This allows your clients to upload and change their payment information, confirm charges, and stay on top of invoices without you notifying them about every charge.

-- Look at whether the software program allows you to put a payment plan on hold. This is especially important now, because clients may consider pausing their financial planning services as they cut costs.

-- Consider the fee reporting and management analytics available through the software program. These not only are helpful for your clients, but can also help you to make business projections.

Selecting the right fee and billing software program doesnt have to be hard. Just make sure to keep these questions and considerations in mind to avoid getting caught up in marketing lingo.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this series, which will cover performance and reporting software.

April Rudin is founder and CEO of The Rudin Group, a marketing firm focused on the wealth management industry.

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Wealth Tech Demystified Part 5: Fee And Billing Software - Barron's

AI tool developed to predict, monitor and test health and safety of workforce – HR News

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Posted on Jul 31, 2020

An AI employee health data management tool has been developed to help employers predict, monitor and test the health and safety of their workforce.

Created by Delfin Health and DocHQ, Klarity combines AI-driven1 health and Covid-19 risk assessments based on the latest clinical data and guidance for all major chronic diseases along with daily symptom checking and a proprietary testing process. It also gives employees the power to take control of their own health information.

The comprehensive solution will help organisations continually address their employees anxieties associated with returning to a safe work environment. It offers a personal risk assessment using explainable AI to determine the severity of Covid-19 for each employee. It also offers accurate and ongoing testing to assess their Covid-19 status, and continuous surveillance and symptom checking to inform and reassure employees.

The priority for employers is to provide safety and peace of mind for their staff as they implement their return to work strategies, says Will Cooper, Founder and CEO at Delfin Health. As a fully managed Covid-19 solution, Klarity can help employers achieve just that, while helping them to mitigate any potential employer liability risks long-term. The various testing methodologies, which include group and randomised testing, allow employers to reduce the amount of testing required and minimise the risk of an outbreak in the currently active workforce, in particular by identifying asymptomatic cases which are thought to play a significant role in the transmission of the disease.

The testing process is guided by healthcare professionals who also interpret the results based on World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols and third party validation including Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and, where relevant, rapid antibody tests. Clinicians can carry out testing, verify and upload results, as well as organise further follow-up consultations as required.

Crucially, Klarity has been designed to protect the privacy of employees by putting them in control of the personal health information they are willing to share. It uses a highly secure infrastructure with multiple layers of encryption and distributed storage, and data can only be shared through the use of smart contractsusing blockchain technology. Employees can only access the platform by authenticating themselves through identity verification.

Will continues: Klarity has been built with both employers and employees in mind. While it gives employers a simple overview of each employees health status and actionable insights, it also allows employees to only share relevant data with the clinician or employer. All other information they choose to provide is for their own personal health benefit. Ultimately, the solution addresses the need for employers to balance public health with data privacy and to adhere to government guidance and ICO recommendations as well as the GDPR and broader data protection regulations.

For more information on Klarity, visit https://getklarity.io/

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AI tool developed to predict, monitor and test health and safety of workforce - HR News

The complete guide to advertising on YouTube – Media Update

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YouTube is far more than just a collection of videos online, says the team at social media tracking company amaSocial.

Did you know that YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world?

Plus, on top of that, take a look at these impressive stats:

These adverts are charged per view past the five-second mark, so you only pay for viewers who dont skip your ad. They have to be a minimum of 12-seconds long, but keeping it under three minutes is recommended.

Expect to be charged when a viewer has watched the first 30 seconds (if the video is longer than that), the whole video (if its between 12 and 30 seconds long), or they have interacted with your ad by clicking on something whichever comes first.

amaSocial top tip: YouTube uses the term TruView to describe adverts that are only paid for when they are viewed for 30 seconds, or the full length of the advert.

These adverts can either be displayed before a video (pre-roll) or in the middle of a video (mid-roll).

Wed suggest only using this option if youve got some really good creative work and youre sure that it will be able to keep users attention for the full 15 or 20 seconds that your ad plays. If youve got a really good ad, this can be a great option for increasing brand awareness.

Keep in mind that since users cant skip past these adverts, youll be charged per impression.

Generally, these adverts are best used to complement larger video campaigns, as its difficult to tell a good story in just six seconds. Use your time wisely, and only include brand elements that you want audiences to remember there is no room for extras in such a short advert.

Bumper ads are the best choice if your campaign aim is to increase reach and awareness.

These ads include up to three lines of text and a thumbnail. If someone clicks on your ad, they will be automatically redirected to your video page or to your YouTube channel.

If youre wondering why someone would choose a discovery ad as opposed to one of the other formats, keep in mind that YouTube is the biggest search engine after Google. Users are looking for answers, not just videos.

If your video looks more relevant to the organic search results that appear, a user can choose to watch your content instead.

amaSocial top tip: Discovery ads are classed as TruView, meaning that you only pay when they are viewed for 30 seconds, or the full length of the advert.

The platform offers two types:

To do this, youll need to log into your account and click the video camera icon on the top right of the screen and click the Upload video option.

From there, youll be taken to the upload window where you can choose the file you want to upload. You can simply drag your file across and it will upload.

Once its uploaded, be sure to fill in all the necessary details, like the title, description, and tags for the video.

Youll need to log into your Google Ads account to start. Once logged into your account, click on All campaigns in the left-hand sidebar and click the + icon to create your new campaign.

From there, a window will pop up asking you to select a campaign type from the five following options:

For example, if you want to use your YouTube ads to increase the number of visitors to your website, you would select the Website traffic goal.

Name your campaignThe campaign name is only for internal use, so it doesnt have to be the campaigns official title, just something that clearly describes it. If youre running multiple campaigns in Google Ads, this will help you to easily identify each one.

Set your ad budgetSelect the average amount you want to spend each day that your campaign is active.

Start small that way you can test options and refine your campaigns to ensure youre getting the best return on investment.

Youll have to choose between the following two advert delivery methods:

You also dont have to select an end date for your campaign you can keep it running indefinitely as long as you keep paying for it.

Choose your networksHere, you can select where youd like your adverts to appear. When creating a video ad, these are the three options that are available:

Pick a bidding strategyChoose how youd like to pay for your adverts. Remember that certain ad formats have their own cost structures, so your options may be limited based on the ad types youve selected.

Google Ads offers the following four payment options:

For example, if you are advertising products aimed at children, you dont want your ads to appear alongside violent or harmful content.

You can choose between three inventory types:

amaSocial top tip: Dont skip out on these selections, as doing so could lead to a branding nightmare!

Here, you can define who you want to reach by selecting options including age, gender, parental status, income etc. Google Ads offers a variety of options to ensure you find the perfect target market.

To start, input the keywords youre targeting. If youre unsure of the keywords to use, Google Ads has a nifty Get keyword ideas tool that can help you find related keywords to target.

Then, select topics that are relevant to your advert or your brand. This is where you can choose to show your ads on content about specific topics.

Now you can select specific places where you would like your ads to show. If you leave this section blank, your ad will appear on any YouTube or Display Network placements that match your other targeting selections.

If you havent uploaded your video to YouTube in step one fear not! You can upload it at this point. Once your video appears in the search bar, click on it to link it to your ad.

Google Ads will show you which options are available based on the campaign selections youve already made up to this point.

Be sure to add inthe necessary URLs, calls-to-action, and give your advert an SEO-friendly headline.

To finish up, simply click Save and continue, and then click Continue to campaign.

And thats it! Your very first YouTube advert is ready to publish!

For more information, visit amasocial.co.za or connect with the amaSocial team on Facebook, Twitteror LinkedIn.

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The complete guide to advertising on YouTube - Media Update

Tim Burton Had ‘The Rock’ In Mind For 2005 Willy Wonka Adaptation – 97.3FM

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The legend posted a nostalgic post on Instagram earlier this week reminiscing the earlier years in his acting career.

He revealed a very surprising titbit, apparently, back in the day Johnson was in Tim Burtons mind to play Willy Wonka himself!

In Burtons 2005 adaptation of the story, Wonka is played by Johnny Depp so the director obviously ended up going in a VERY different direction!

His caption reads Some cool history back in the early 2000s, iconic director, Tim Burton had considered me to play Willy Wonka in his remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I remember thinking HOLY SHIT, IM IN The fact that Tim even considered me (albeit Im sure he considered for all of 7 seconds:).

Oh you humble hunk of muscle.

What a strange film that would be, but dare I say I would watch the heck out of it!

Finishing off his post in classic The Rock fashion.

#BigBrownBaldTattooedWonka

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Tim Burton Had 'The Rock' In Mind For 2005 Willy Wonka Adaptation - 97.3FM

Thanks to COVID-19 cash, faster internet is coming for parts of rural Mississippi – Clarion Ledger

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As schools debate about returning to online learning, the lack of internet access for many Americans is a big sticking point. USA TODAY

Fastinternet is finally set to arrive in several of the most rural parts of Mississippi.

The Mississippi Public Utilities Staff this week awarded $66 million in grantsfor areas that have few or no high-speed internet options. The bulk of the federal grant moneywent to rural electric cooperatives, which now will also serve as the primaryinternet providers in their regions.

Rural Mississippians can thank the coronavirus pandemic for the sudden infusion of federal CARES Act funds that should by the end of this year create thousands more high-speed internet connections. Mississippi has long suffered from among the most limited coverage andslowest internet speeds of any state in the country.

Senators listen to community college leaders speak about internet access gaps earlier this year. Two new laws should help expand high-speed internet access in the state over the coming months.(Photo: Rogelio V. Solis, AP)

More: Mississippi internet speed: second slowest, beating only Alaska

State lawmakers last month passed Senate Bill 3046, which authorized $75 million to be spent on the internet grants. Thegoal: rapidly improve connectivity to help people study from home, work from home, and usetelemedicine services.

"People are locating around where there is connectivity," Gov. Tate Reeves said at a Tuesday news conference. "While COVID-19 and the CARES Act came about for all the wrong reasons, this is one example of a way in which we can take this horrible tragedy called the coronavirus, and we can actually invest for the future of our state."

Sally Doty, a former state senator who was recently appointed as director of the Public Utilities Staff, said the grant recipients have agreed to install a combined 2,765 new miles of fiber for internet by the end of the year.

Sally Doty(Photo: File, Clarion Ledger)

Next year using matching funds they were required to commit in order to obtain the federal cashthe cooperatives and several other groups plan to lay another 1,980 miles of fiber. The fiber lines will be hung on poles, and recipients of the grants expect they can lay about 20 miles a week through the end of the year.

Those new fiber lines, Doty said, will go past more than 40,000 homes and businesses, many of which will potentially be able to tap into high-speed internet for the first time. She pledged the cost of the new internet services will be "in line" with existing providers in Mississippi.

More: Mississippi's rural internet is awful. Lawmakers hope these two bills help.

"This is a focused infusion ofgrant dollars to areas where it's needed most," said Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley. "It is a complete revolution."

Presley said the grant recipients are required to offerinternet with download and upload speeds of at least 100 megabits per second. That's more than fast enough to use streaming services, and do online gamingand other web surfing.

Fifteen electric cooperatives received the grants, ranging from about $2.5 million to $5.5 million apiece. The majority that applied and received money were in the north and central parts of the state. In addition, two water associations and two private internet firms received smaller grants.

Legislation passed last year allowed the member-owned utilities to get into the internet game. Several havealready moved in that direction this year, with a handful recently signing upcustomers.

But Presley said thegrants will allow the cooperatives to move much faster thanotherwise would havebeen possible. He said some rural homes will be connected to fiber up to three years faster than they would have otherwise.

The electric organizations will now also be required to immediately build infrastructure in the most rural parts of their districts, Presleysaid. Before, the cooperatives planned to first add service in more populated areas for profitability reasons.

"This (money) not only kicksoffprojects, it targets money to areas that needs it the most, and it exponentially speeds up projects," he said. He added there will be a "massive move toward construction to meet the deadline," which calls for spending the CARES Act money on new fiber lines by the end of the year.

Brandon Presley, Public Service Commissioner(Photo: Special to The Clarion-Ledger)

Reeves did not sign SB3046 it automatically became law without his signature but he nevertheless touted the billat a Tuesday news conference. He said rapid deployment of high-speed internet will help during the pandemic with studentsforced to study at home, and patients increasingly relying on remote doctor consultations.

And more people working from home whilerequiring high-speed connectionswon't end when the pandemic ends, the governoradded.

"The reality is, the economy in America has changed forever," Reeves said. "There are a largenumber of people who were working in office buildings six months ago who, six years from now, are going to be working from home. There is no doubt in my mind that that is going to be the case.

"You're going to see everything from computer programmers, to call centers, to other types of individuals that are going to work from home," he added."And the reason for that is there are a lot of employers across America who have seen an increase in productivity from their workforce when they're working from home."

Another piece of legislation passed last month, House Bill 1788, also is meant to help improve Mississippi's internet problems in the short term.

Thatbill appropriated $50 million in CARES Act funds for school districts to offer temporary internet solutionssuch as WiFi hotspots and fixed-wireless transmittersthat will help students study from home during the pandemic.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the agency administering the internet grants. It is the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff.

Contact Luke Ramseth at 601-961-7050or lramseth@gannett.com. Follow @lramseth on Twitter.

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Thanks to COVID-19 cash, faster internet is coming for parts of rural Mississippi - Clarion Ledger

The Ultimate Ranking of The Muppets – E! Online

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It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time to rank the Muppets before the Muppet show tonight!

That's right, they're back! Those beloved little felt monsters are finally returning to the small screen after nearly five years away (RIP, ABC's The Muppets) with the July 31 premiere of Muppets Now on Disney+. In the new seriesbilled as Muppet Studios' first unscripted show everJim Henson's iconic creations promise to deliver the same sort of startling silliness and chaotic fun that made them famous to begin with.

Over the course of thesix-episode first season, poor Scooter tries to meet his delivery deadlines and upload the new Muppet series made for streaming, which is due now. Of course, his co-workers have no interest in making that easy for him. Would you expect anything less?

In honor of their big return, we're getting a little bit crazy and ranking all (or most) of the Muppets that span the franchise's many movies & TV series. Do Kermit and Miss Piggy take the top spots or does someone else reign supreme?

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The Ultimate Ranking of The Muppets - E! Online

Watauga County Schools To Open School Year With 9 Weeks Of Remote Learning – Go Blue Ridge

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Based on guidance from local health officials, the Watauga County Board of Education voted Tuesday to begin the 2020-21 school year with 9 weeks of remote instruction for students.

School officials announced what Superintendent Scott Elliott called a modified Plan B that helps us phase our students and staff back into school while also doing everything possible to protect the health and safety of our community. Previously, school officials announced that students will return under a 2x3 Flex plan where students attend school in person for two days and work remotely for three days.

Over the past several weeks, weve invested a great deal of time and energy into plans for reopening our schools on the Governors Plan B schedule. Of all the plans available to us, Plan B is the most challenging to implement but it gives us the best opportunity to meet the many different needs of our students. Elliott stated. Unfortunately, right now our local public health trends continue to move in the wrong direction. After extensive conversations with our local public health partners and after hearing the concerns of many of our staff members and parents, I think this modified plan gives us our best chance to get students back into school safely as soon as possible.

Elliott explained that all students in Kindergarten through 12th grade on the 2x3 Flex plan will start the school year in an all remote format on August 17. If local conditions allow, students will return to in person instruction under Plan B on the 2x3 Flex plan on October 19.

Families who applied for the all online Watauga Virtual Academy (WVA) will be contacted by school personnel by August 5th and given the option to decline WVA if they have changed their mind since applying. The WVA students will also begin on August 17 and will remain in the WVA through the end of first semester.

We realize the change to remote learning for the first nine weeks will cause some families to rethink their enrollment in the virtual academy, Elliott said. We need to know no later than August 5 if those families want to switch back to the 2x3 Flex plan now that we are starting remotely. Once those decisions are made, we ask families to stick with those plans for at least the first semester. We will not be able to reschedule students, teachers, and courses once we make those decisions based on start of year numbers.

Elliott went on to explain that, while the school system is starting the year remotely, it is not exactly adopting the states all remote Plan C protocols.

We will continue to operate under the Plan B safety protocols but with an emphasis on serving the students most in need of school based services while most other students are at home full time, Elliott said. Teachers and staff will work from the school building to ensure they have access to all their resources, time to plan together, and the opportunity to see small numbers of students as needed.

School officials will allow small numbers of students to come to the school site by appointment to receive specialized assistance and support. These likely will include support for students with disabilities, students who need counseling and therapeutic services and students who need access to high speed internet to download assignments and upload completed work.

The school system will also allow students in each of the districts eight Pre-K programs to attend school in person.

Board of Education Chairman Ron Henries praised the revised plan.

We think this plan strikes the right balance between protecting our staff and students while also providing some much needed services to students who really do suffer through remote instruction. I applaud Superintendent Elliott and his staff for listening to all the concerns and considering all the options. There are some students who need support that can only be provided at school, and hopefully conditions will allow those students to be served in a safe way.

Elliott commented on the monumental task ahead.

The guidance we have received from the Department of Health and Human Services is intended to help protect our students and staff, but it is going to be difficult to implement, Elliott said. Also, the guidance seems to be changing daily. This phased reopening will give our staff the opportunity to slowly implement those protocols while giving public health officials more time to monitor changing conditions in the community.

The decision comes after a recommendation from Watauga Countys local health department, AppHealthCare, that schools consider delaying the start to in-person instruction for students while the county monitors what has been an upward trend in COVID-19 cases.

We continue to see our numbers of positive COVID cases going up, stated AppHealthCare Director Jennnifer Greene. While we currently have a lower impact from cases than in other areas of the state, these are the kinds of decisions which will hopefully keep our community from becoming one of those hot spots.

Superintendent Elliott and I agree that the best thing for students is for them to be in school. We are seeing many different health concerns emerging among children in our community because of this interruption to their lives. School is a safe and healthy place where so many needs are met. We will continue to support the school system to move forward with their plan to get students back into the school buildings as soon as possible.

Greene also acknowledged the COVID cases among young adults aged 18 to 24 and concerns about the return of students to Appalachian State in the coming weeks. The nine week remote start for the school system will allow us to monitor changing community spread of the virus and determine the impact on our school families.

Watauga County Schools Superintendent Scott Elliott said the boards decision to begin schools with a period of remote learning was difficult, but necessary in light of the countys COVID-19 metrics and guidance from AppHealthCare.

Elliott said that while the system preferred to have students back in school buildings, he was confident that lessons learned over the remote learning period this Spring would ensure that students would have better experience in the coming nine weeks.

When we entered remote learning in March, our teachers had only a few days to prepare, Elliott said. Given that immense time constraint and workload, they did an outstanding job. As we go into remote learning this fall, Im confident that our teachers and students will be even better prepared to have a positive and productive remote learning experience.

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Watauga County Schools To Open School Year With 9 Weeks Of Remote Learning - Go Blue Ridge

FYJC admissions: CAP committee issues instructions to ensure students face no hiccups while filling forms online – The Indian Express

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Written by Alifiya Khan | Pune | Published: July 31, 2020 10:38:26 am The Centralised Admission Process (CAP) committee issued instructions to make sure no students face any hiccups in view of a lack of documents. (Representational Image)

Even as the filing of Part I of online forms for First Year Junior Colleges (FYJC) begins on August 1, the Centralised Admission Process (CAP) committee issued instructions to make sure no students face any hiccups in view of lack of documents.

Issuing a circular on Thursday, Meena Shendkar, head of the CAP committee in Pune, said that while filling online forms, only a copy of the online marksheet of Class X will be asked for from students.

In view of the lockdown due to Covid-19 and the subsequent restrictions, offices are operating with minimal strength, and many applications remain pending.

Maharashtra FYJC admissions 2020: Applications, eligibility, fees and other details

Keeping this in mind, the circular states that while filling online FYJC application forms, students can upload their school leaving certificate, domicile certificate, caste certificate and non-creamy layer certificate, but it should not be mandatory to do so.

However, if a student wants to avail certain common reservations, supporting documents are needed. For instance, in the case of a sports merit certificate, handicapped certificate, ex-servicemen certificate, orphan certificate, project displaced certificate, transfer orders and other such documents needed to take the common reservation benefit, they should be uploaded at the time of filling online admission forms, or a copy that says they have applied for the same certificates.

Explained | Reading the new education policy

For any reasons, if students are still unable to upload documents, an undertaking should be taken from them, and a time period of three months should be given to them for submitting the same. Necessary information and forms are available on http://www.dydepune.com and pune.11thadmission.org.in.

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FYJC admissions: CAP committee issues instructions to ensure students face no hiccups while filling forms online - The Indian Express

Singapore third in Asia-Pacific for mobile network experience ahead of 5G rollout: Study – The Straits Times

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SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Singapore has emerged third in a study by mobile analytics firm Opensignal, which compares the mobile network experience of users in six major Asia-Pacific (APAC) cities in the three-month run-up to the launch of 5G networks in these markets.

The other five cities are Hong Kong, Seoul, Sydney, Taipei and Tokyo, all of which have already rolled out 5G networks.

Opensignal senior analyst Sam Fenwick on Tuesday (July 28) said Singapore had "some catching up to do" in certain aspects of the mobile network experience, which were "exacerbated by its status as a relatively late-comer to 5G".

Opensignal assessed users' mobile network experience across four metrics: 4G availability, download speed experience, upload speed experience, and video experience.

In terms of upload speed experience, Singapore ranked second - behind Seoul - among the six cities.

In video experience, it tied for second place with Taipei, with Tokyo taking the top spot.

Singapore came in third for 4G availability (measured by the proportion of time users were connected to 4G services); Seoul and Tokyo tied for the highest score.

Mr Fenwick said that, in the absence of 5G coverage, a 5G smartphone will fall back to using a 4G network. This means that the mobile network experience prior to the launch of 5G has "an important and enduring influence" long after 5G networks are up and running.

He noted that Singapore is expecting nationwide 5G coverage only by 2025. There will thus be a period in which 5G users will spend the majority of their time connected to 4G.

Mr Fenwick said it will also "take time" for users to buy new 5G smartphones needed to connect to 5G networks.

"The extent to which Singapore's mid-table 4G availability will impact its competitiveness in terms of mobile connectivity will hinge on just how quickly its operators roll out 5G, and how quickly users buy new 5G smartphones," he added.

Singapore came in third in download speed experience, clocking in an average download speed of 44.5 megabits per second (Mbps). Seoul took the top spot with an average download speed of 56 Mbps, followed by Tokyo at 49.9 Mbps.

Mr Fenwick pointed out that Singapore's 5G operators had the use of large quantities of mmWave spectrum, which has extremely high capacity but limited reach.

"The compact geography of Singapore means it is ideally suited to a wide mmWave 5G deployment, which will boost Singaporeans' overall download speeds," he said.

However, he added that the nation's humid climate would likely "discourage long outdoor sessions of smart-device use - which matters, given mmWave's poor indoor penetration".

"If Singapore wishes to quickly move up the rankings in terms of average download speeds, then its operators will need to rapidly deploy 5G coverage while giving their customers compelling reasons to upgrade their smartphones," he said.

He pointed to Infocomm Media Development Authority data that 18 per cent of all mobile subscriptions in Singapore in Jan 2020 were for 3G, adding that initiatives to convert 3G users into 4G and/or 5G users could help the nation improve its download speed experience.

He also noted that average 5G speeds were "very significantly higher" than 4G speeds in South Korea and Australia, as operators there benefited from large amounts of new spectrum used for 5G services.

However, there is less new 5G spectrum available for initial 5G services in Singapore, due to the widespread existing use of the C-band for satellite TV services in the region.

This means Singapore's operators must consider how to achieve higher speeds and remain competitive with other 5G cities, Mr Fenwick said.

He noted, however, that the nation has the potential to leapfrog rival 5G cities by jumping straight to a newer version of the 5G standard, compared to the one used in most 5G services around the world.

Singapore's two 5G operators - Singtel and a StarHub-M1 joint venture - are planning to deploy 5G standalone access technology, which does not require a 4G signal for a 5G smartphone to connect to 5G.

In contrast, the other cities in Opensignal's study launched with 5G in non-standalone mode.

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Singapore third in Asia-Pacific for mobile network experience ahead of 5G rollout: Study - The Straits Times