Category Archives: Libertarianism

Ask her about the statistics! Ask her about the damn stats! In the latest episode of my increasingly frequent tendency to shout angrily at the telly, I was directing my ire at BBC Breakfasts usual Covid experts slot.

The excellent Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at Edinburgh University, was as ever answering every question with her rare mix of actual knowledge and excellent communication skills. However, she could not answer the question she was not asked, the one that is staring us all in the face: why are our Covid infection and death rates so bad? Instead, they moved on to discussing the tank top that her fellow expert, the virologist Dr Chris Smith, was wearing.

If Bauld had been asked, she might have answered as she did to a newspaper this week. Were in a phase where we still have large numbers of people dying from this disease, said Bauld (inset). But it has gone into the background. Weve become used to something that has not gone away. I think theres been a desensitisation to the mortality.

Amid calls to do away with the daily Covid statistics roll-call, its an interesting question: have we become desensitised? Tired of hearing about it, are we in danger of just wishing Covid away in the face of stark, real evidence that infection rates are shooting up again?Why are our infection numbers (43,423 at time of writing) 10 times those of France, Italy and Spain, five times that of Germany? Why is the latest death tally of 148 so much higher than in those same countries?

The general scientific consensus appears to be that our pursuing a vaccine only containment strategy is simply not enough particularly as our once stellar rate of vaccinations has stalled. We are more hesitant to inoculate our young than some other countries.

Our hospitality industry, major sports and the music industry all seem back to what passes for normal, with no restrictions in place. Shops and other workplaces have reopened, with little to no restrictions in the former and in the case of schools, none at all. And, unlike the reports from friends and family in Italy, Germany, France and Spain, the evidence of our own eyes suggests that despite the constant exhortation to do so, we simply will not wear masks unless we are legally forced to.

This is what living under libertarianism means. One persons insistence on not vaccinating themselves or their children, declining to maintain any social distancing, or refusal to wear a mask in confined public spaces results in another persons increased chances of catching the virus. We are paying for our own bloody-mindedness; our belief that we wont catch it despite the mountain of scientific evidence on one side, or its not such a big deal if we do, will prevail.

Meanwhile, the rate of hospital admissions and the strain on the NHS increases fast. We trundle inexorably towards some reintroduction of restrictions: a return to homeworking, perhaps social distancing and maybe mask-wearing legislation. It will all cue inevitable outrage when the PM reveals he cant just joke Covid away. Much more puzzling to me is why we are not more outraged now?

Go here to see the original:
Covid infection and death rates are worsening by the day but were still eerily calm - iNews

LONG LIVE liberty, goddammit! proclaimed Javier Milei, a 50-year-old economist, at a meeting of comic-book aficionados in Buenos Aires in 2019. He went dressed as General Ancap, a character he invented who is the fictional leader of Liberland, a plot of land covering seven square kilometres that is disputed between Croatia and Serbia and which a Czech libertarian politician declared sovereign in 2015. Ancap is a portmanteau for anarcho-capitalist, a strand of libertarianism that seeks to abolish the state in favour of unfettered free markets. Mr Mileis superhero mission is to kick Keynesians and collectivists in the ass.

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Today Mr Milei is poised to become a national deputy for the real country of Argentina. In the first round of voting on September 12th (technically a form of primary) the alliance he leads got the third-highest number of votes in the city of Buenos Aires, the only place where it was on the ballot. It had been registered less than two months before the election. If the results are repeated in November, which is likely, it could win two seats in Congress. This would make Mr Milei the first self-described libertarian in Argentinas legislature, says Martin DAlessandro, a political scientist at the University of Buenos Aires.

Mr Milei won recognition as an eccentric guest on talk-shows, eventually becoming the countrys most interviewed economist on television and radio. A self-styled professor of tantric sex and one-time frontman of an obscure rock band, he claims not to have brushed his hair since he was 13, preferring to let the invisible hand do the work. His five mastiffs are named after economists, including Murray Rothbard, an anarcho-capitalist, and Milton Friedman, a more conventional one. To make Argentina a great power again, he wants to reduce regulations, lower taxes and eliminate the central bank. He dislikes abortion, believing liberty to be unattainable if one cannot first be born. But same-sex marriage should be legal, as should most narcotics.

Libertarianism is finding fertile ground among youngsters. One candidate on Mr Mileis list for city legislators is 18 years old and still in secondary school. My generation has grown up in recessionobviously that makes me think that what we have tried so far isnt working, says Iaki Gutirrez, a 20-year-old who voted for Mr Milei. Lilia Lemoine, a cosplayer who has over 100,000 followers on Instagram and is Mr Mileis make-up artist, promotes his ideas by occasionally posting raunchy selfies wearing T-shirts with such slogans as Free Market & Private Property.

Some analysts see Mr Milei as part of a resurgence of liberal ideas of all sorts. Ricardo Lpez Murphy, a liberal economist and former presidential candidate, competed after a ten-year hiatus from politics and got 11% of the votes in the capital (he ran within the main opposition coalition). Jos Luis Espert, a liberal candidate in the wider province of Buenos Aires, where a third of the countrys voters live, got 5% of votes there. In Argentinas crowded primaries those are big numbers. This is a response against the Peronist logic of solving all problems through the state, says Lucas Romero, a political analyst, referring to the movement that has governed Argentina for most of the past 70 years.

The interest in libertarianism also reflects a backlash against conventional politics. The particular brand of Peronism promoted by the current vice-president, Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner, who was president from 2007 to 2015, left Argentina with a currency nobody trusts, sky-high inflation and economic stagnation. The opposition, in power between 2015 and 2019, piled up debt but failed to improve things. If Kirchnerism has become the establishment, libertarianism has become the reaction to the status quo, says Juan Germano, head of Isonoma Consultants, a pollster. Almost half of voters do not identify with any of the big parties, up from 39% in 2019. Turnout was the lowest it has been since such elections were introduced in 2011. Mr Milei, who attacks government and opposition members together as a political caste, is a big winner, but other parties, such as Marxists, got record results too.

Indeed, many of the people Mr Milei draws in are more conventionally right-wing, opposed to government policies such as legalising abortion and creating a quota for trans people in government jobs. I will ally with all those who believe that the left is the enemy, Mr Milei told The Economist. He recently signed a letter sponsored by Vox, an ultranationalist party in Spain, that rails against the advance of communism in the Spanish-speaking world. Even climate change, he claims, is a socialist lie. Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazils president, and Jos Antonio Kast, a far-right presidential candidate in Chile currently polling in second place, have endorsed Mr Milei.

Will this growing popularity last? If the next government manages to stabilise the economy, Mileis discourse will lose its appeal, says Sergio Berensztein, a political consultant. Third parties have done well before in the capital, especially in times of crisis, only to implode soon after.

Nonetheless, Mr Milei is having an impact. The head of the main opposition party has adopted his term political caste. Even President Alberto Fernndez seems nervous. He told a young audience shortly before the primaries that being rebellious should mean embracing hippy and rock culture and May 1968, not liberal ideas that, he said, caused catastrophe and penury for millions. Liberland may be no match for Argentinas 2.7m square kilometres, but General Ancap is conquering ground in the battle of ideas.

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "No me pises"

Read the original post:
Javier Milei, a libertarian, may be elected to Argentina's congress - The Economist

Many of your clients are successful business owners, accomplished professionals and other well-educated people who are used to being in control. They can go anywhere and do anything they want. As a trusted advisor, you need to strike the balance between letting them be in control and, at the same time, guiding them to a set of options thats going to come up with the best possible result.

As a good CPA, youre essentially a Libertarian Paternalist. A what?

A libertarian is someone who believes at their core that people should be free to do whatever they want to do. A paternalist is someone who is dedicated to helping people and guiding them.

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Richard Thaler explains in his book "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness," people should have total free choice, but at the same time, they can be nudged in the right direction to guide them to better decision-making.

The way this relates to our profession is that good accountants are what Thaler would call choice architects. While we live and breathe taxes, balance sheets and accounting all day long, most clients dont understand these things. But when you give them choices about what they want to do (within your field), most of the time they have no idea what to do. Our job is not to overwhelm clients with choices; its to provide them with options in the form of advice.

Many of your colleagues have trouble wrapping their heads around this notion. Theyve spent so many years asking clients: Mr. and Mrs. Jones, what do you want to do here? Clients dont know. Theyre not paying you for options. Google delivers millions of options for free. Theyre paying you to be their choice architect. Instead of asking clients what they want to do about a difficult financial decision, you should be taking the lead, as in: Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, I think A or B will be your two best options, I would do A if I were you. What do you think?

Youre being a libertarian in the sense of: I guide, you decide. Youre telling clients: We should do whatever you want to do. My job is to cipher through the data and put the best options in front of you that I possibly can. Youre being a paternalist in the sense of telling clients: I want to try to move you in the right direction based on the best information we have at hand.

For more about guiding clients through tough decisions, see my article "Dont Succumb to Decision Fatigue."

I guide, you decide

When youre selling professional services, at the end of the day, your client is the boss. They can do whatever they want to do (i.e., libertarian). At the same time, its your responsibility to put good decisions in front of them that will nudge them responsibly toward making the right decisions.

When youre meeting with a client and an important decision is on the table, dont put yes/no choices in front of them. Always make it A or B. I like to take it a step further by saying, In my opinion, based on knowing what youre trying to accomplish, this is what I would do and here is why. Lets go with A. But, if I misunderstood your situation and we need to reestablish your goals, lets go ahead and do that.

Real-world example

Suppose you have a client who is planning to sell their business in a few years. But, in todays business climate, when there are huge piles of acquisition money floating around, good businesses are going for very high multiples. Your client may have received an offer to sell right away for double what an independent valuation told him his business is worth. Now the decision gets more difficult. On one hand, your client wants to delay selling because he believes he can sell for even more in a few years if he keeps growing the business. On the other hand, you know the offer he received may not be there in a few years when your client is ready to sell. Further, you know that if he accepts the offer now, hell have more than enough to achieve all of his familys financial goals without ever working again.

You know your client very well. The "nudge" here is to remind him of his goals and financial plan. Selling today ensures he will meet all of his financial goals, but he might not be ready psychologically to live life without the business his baby. And no amount of money in the bank can replace that feeling of purpose and accomplishment. Thats where you come in.

Again, nobody knows your clients better than you do. As their trusted advisor, you owe it to your clients to create a choice architecture that lets them maintain control, but ensures they understand the pros and cons carefully, of any decision they ultimately make.

Dont be afraid to say, This is what I would do if I were you. Thats why they pay you.

See the rest here:
Are you a Libertarian Paternalist with your clients? - Accounting Today

Y: The Last Man

My Mother Saw a Monkey

Season 1 Episode 7

Editors Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: Rafy/FX

Theres a weird thing that happens when you think you can live in this world without anybodys help. When you insist that you can exist in a vacuum with only your own abilities for company; that you dont, in fact, live in a society built and maintained by other people. Call it Off-the-Grid Syndrome (or maybe just libertarianism): The more you insist on independence, the more you will be forced to depend on others to survive in the end.

355 isnt wrong to be angry with Yorick and Allison after their harebrained escape plan undermines her own and results in Yoricks discovery by military operatives. Yorick, for one, certainly couldve taken five minutes to consider the root of 355s explosive cruelty before giving up on her in a fuck-you huff. But ultimately, its 355s fear of emotional intimacy and of yielding an ounce of control, of trusting another person to carry a fraction of the load, that drags her to such exhaustion that she dozes at the wheel of their stolen camper and sends the truck careening into a tree. Where simply asking for help might have wounded her pride, now an actual head wound has completely compromised her ability to do pretty much anything for herself. Her stubbornness gets her a concussion (or worse) and lands her and Dr. Mann in a prison cell, all while Yorick and her mission is commandeered by a heavily armed group of strangers.

In a twist of pure irony, it just so happens that these strangers are intimately acquainted with the very thing 355 cant bring herself to consider: the value of collective effort. While there are plenty more questions than answers about these formerly incarcerated (mostly) women who have (somehow) escaped that prison to settle the (mysteriously) abandoned town nearby, its undeniable that their community is an object lesson in trust and power delegation. Not only do they make political decisions as a group, but they have tapped into their individual strengths to create a peaceful, functioning anarchist commune that enjoys electricity, good food (toast!!!!!!), music, even beer while the rest of the world is collapsing. Theyve only locked up Allison and 355 because they assumed the rope binding Yoricks wrists when they found him was evidence of kidnapping, rather than a magic demonstration cut short. Marrisville is, at least for now, a post-abolition Mayberry, a microcosm of what could be possible if the world was built on good faith and the benefit of the doubt. (Even in the comics, these women are a profoundly compelling rebuttal to the seriess broader apocalyptic tone: Many people would get on just fine without cis men.) For someone like 355, whose entire existence is circumscribed, if not actively defined, by the idea that hell is other people, the concept of cooperation without personal gain is a hard pill to swallow. Literally, in fact, when she pushes herself to the point of projectile-vomiting rather than admitting to being unwell, let alone unable to do her job (and thus maintain her whole identity).

The worst part of this forced reckoning? Shes ceded the moral high ground to people who should have been working to earn back her trust. Even Yorick is making valid points now. You start a fight you cant win, youre going to make things a hell of a lot worse for us, he chides her. Rather than simply accepting the help on offer, she lashes out like a vicious teen, reminding Dr. Mann and Yorick that neither of them would be there if not for her. Where before they took her nastiness at face value, this third round establishes a pattern, one that allows them Yorick especially to see it for the defense mechanism it is.

But theres a silver lining here, for us at least. The goofy, intellectualized chemistry that the trio established in Boston is now maturing into something different. Oh, fuck it, lets just call it what it is its horny. Suddenly, their physical confrontations are laced with intimate subtext: When Allison examines 355s head wound, the spy puts an unexpectedly gentle hand on the geneticists arm before her brain catches up, and she brusquely shoves her aside. Yoricks eyes light up with a maybe-not-entirely-family-friendly intensity when he realizes 355 might accept his challenge and kick his ass. And then, when 355 finally accepts the drugs and bed on offer, she promises Yorick, You wont have to take care of me like this again. Hey, its okay. I know, he responds, and its clear something has shifted. (The way she keeps telling women to stay away from Yorick and Yorick to stay away from women also isnt nothing, but in the case of Sonia, shes probably right. Only a woman with a distinct agenda asks earnest questions about a guys magic tricks.)

Things have shifted even more dramatically over at the Pentagon, where Jennifers Yorick-shaped house of cards has begun to collapse. Captain Nguyens report of a six-foot cis man with a monkey sounds conveniently unlikely, given she was drugged, until Kimberly and Regina repeat the report in Marla Campbells presence.

We dont have a whole lot of information on who the former First Lady was in the before times, but judging by the contextual clues of her family her husband and now, especially, her daughter she was a paragon of Wasp wifery. Consider her relatable conversation about motherhood with Jennifer a few episodes ago: She was likely a master of relatability, a savvy Southern belle who skated through life on the entitlements afforded her by genteel white patriarchy, playing up her salt-of-the-earth, not-like-other-Republican-girls brand to woo unlikely allies like Jennifer Brown on behalf of her husband. The Event dissolved her power as much as it did her daughters, but where her daughter sees the possibility for redemption, she is too tired to continue the grift. In her mind, she spent her life hustling on behalf of other people first her husband, then her children, then her grandchildren and after watching all but one of those people disintegrate in front of her, shes not about to seek out a new master, especially not once she realizes her sole frenemy, one of the only people she still sees as a decent human being, has been gaslighting her while enjoying the survival of her own son. You werent even a good mother, she protests in true mean-girl-mask-off fashion when she confronts Jennifer in front of the entire war room. (Its poetic, really, how conservatives white people, white women, basically anyone with ill-gotten power never fail to lose their shit the moment the tables turn and they discover someone else is benefitting from a system theyve been successfully gaming for years.) Unfortunately, this revelation combined with the news that their Lynchburg home was swept away by a broken dam weeks ago shatters the dissociative delusion shes been clinging to, leaving her without a shred of identity worth living for. She dresses for the first time since the Event and somehow gets to the roof while her daughter babbles about peach cobbler. Its a testament to Paris Jeffersons magnetic performance that, after everything, Im genuinely sorry to see Marla meet this end.

Her mothers suicide is likely the final straw that will send Kimberly into full-on Joker mode from here on out. She has already been showing distinct signs of fraying. After describing Hero Brown as kind of short, doesnt really brush her hair, looks like a drug addict at the top of the episode, she takes on this exact appearance herself by the end. (Written by Charlie Jane Anders, My Mother Saw a Monkey is chock-full of this kind of irony.) She insists that she will see [her kids] again and is curiously horrified when Marla responds, Yeah, when youre dead! She practically spits the phrase atheist Ivy League ass-kissers when conspiring with Regina about overthrowing Jennifer Browns presidency, then practically screams that God chose [Yorick], then fervently intones, We will become a nation of mothers again. And then her mother kills herself while Kimberly is busy bartering for canned fruit, and shes left alone with her Second Coming convictions, an extremist megalomaniac as her sole ally, and no one to reel her back in. We who have lived in the time of Kanye West know that this is a recipe for certain disaster.

Speaking of radicalization, Beth DeVille may be a full-blown insurgent herself now. In the comics, she is already in Australia when the Event strikes, and as a result, we dont reconvene with her until much later. In the TV series, Beth never left. She has got some serious survivors guilt, too, after the one-two punch of having rejected her now-assumed-dead boyfriends proposal and failed to reach her mother before an all-but-collapsed health-care system abandoned her to die alone of cancer. (This part comes off as a particularly COVID-informed point about the cascading impact of pandemics and pandemic-adjacent disasters.) And now we know that, wherever she has been, whoever she ha been with since, the experience has cultivated a resolve that may or may not be directed toward revolution. She exploits Jennifers compulsive politicians need to be seen as a good and maternal person to sidle into the Pentagon and be lavished with special treatment while secretly collecting intelligence for her comrades. Its clear her initial intent is to suss out what the government knows about the root cause of the Event. People treat it like a hurricane, a tsunami or something, but to me, it feels like a person, she casually observes, hoping for Jennifer to take the bait. But when that fails, she gets multiple consolation prizes. Christine, tasked with babysitting her in the war room, straight-up tells her the Secret Service is operating at quarter-capacity, then she witnesses Marlas confrontation with Jennifer a dot that a smart woman who studies human beings for a living will probably be able to connect, given time, to the survival of her erstwhile nonfianc.

Sadly, Jennifer herself seems poised to learn a harsh lesson, not unlike the one 355 is learning: That hoarding information and responsibility, assuming that you know best, is a strategy with an extremely short half-life. It doesnt matter that her ends justify her ignoble means any more than it does in 355s case. The simple fact is the more she manipulates people Kimberly, Marla, Regina, the military, her own atheist Ivy League ass-kissers, even Beth the narrower her margin for success. And at this point, that margin is razor-thin. Secrets dont make friends, and in this world, they sure as hell make enemies.

Allison making origami cranes out of prison toilet paper. Thats it. Thats the note.

Yoricks resolve immediately evaporates at the prospect of hot food, which is possibly the most Golden Retriever shit hes pulled to date.

At the same time, challenging 355 to a fight has strong area man who has played tennis twice thinks he could beat Serena Williams energy.

Then again, he also voluntarily says the words, Okay, I will stay out of the way, when Sonia tells him the vote to let them stay was contentious. Coming in fits and starts, but we gotta take the growth where we can get it, you know?

Is it wise to go to sleep after a concussion like that??

Kimberly exclaiming Moths! In the Pentagon! is insanely funny to me for reasons I cant quite articulate, but it might have something to do with this old Married to the Sea comic.

Never thought Id agree with Kimber about anything but beta boy who does magic tricks is actually a perfect Yorick burn.

How does one quantify being a pussy?

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!

Read more from the original source:
Y: The Last Man Recap: Moths in the Pentagon - Vulture

Yes.

David Colborne was active in the Libertarian Party for two decades. During that time, he blogged intermittently on his personal blog, ran for office twice as a Libertarian candidate, and served on the executive committee for his state and county Libertarian Party chapters. He is now an IT manager, a registered non-partisan voter, and the father of two sons. You can follow him on Twitter @DavidColborne or email him at [emailprotected].

***

David...

Yes...?

Were not publishing a one-word column.

Why not? I wrote a 4,500-word column in February. If you average them, it works out to more than 2,000 words per column.

The length of most of your columns and what each one does to my weekend is a separate discussion. Im talking about this one in particular.

Whats wrong with it?

Its a one-word column.

So it shouldnt take long to edit.

Opinion columns are supposed to take a firm stand...

Did I stutter?

and attempt to persuade the reader to agree.

Who am I going to persuade, exactly? The 74 percent of Republican voters who believe Biden only won because of fraud? The openly craven Republican candidates, like Adam Laxalt and Joey Gilbert, who are pandering to these people by openly claiming Donald Trump is a dispossessed antipope holding court in Mar-a-Lago?

Perhaps I can convince more cowardly Republican candidates, like Dean Heller and James Wheeler, who believe mouthing the words election integrity and forensic audit while swallowing any mention of Biden or Harris will let them straddle both sides of the line, all while they claim credit for the courage of their convictions to their base whenever someone like me calls them out for the disingenuousness.

Maybe I can convince invertebrate Republicans like Joe Lombardo, who cant opine because hes not aware of that. Who needs a spine when youre running as a cryogenically defrosted jellyfish who hibernated through the last 24 months?

Multiple audio recordings of Trump making clearly outlandish claims of voter fraud didnt persuade them, even though, if Trumps numbers were accurate, nearly 10 percent of the votes cast in Georgia would have been fraudulent. The dismissal of more than fifty election fraud lawsuits didnt persuade them, either. The conservative-funded Cyber Ninjas forensic audit reaching the conclusion that Biden won Arizona didnt persuade them on the contrary, now the CEO of Cyber Ninjas is getting harassed because his partisan-funded audit didnt prove a different election result. The utter failure of Mike Lindells cyber symposium to make a single provable claim of election fraud didnt persuade them, either.

Why should I expect anything I write to be any different?

Considerable time and energy was spent during the latter half of the 20th century keeping the limits of mainstream political discourse within eyesight of objective reality. William F. Buckley helped Republicans keep Birchers a group of conservatives following a candy salesman who believed the Americans and Soviets were conspiring together in an Illuminati-led plot at arms length from most meaningful levers of power. Democrats, meanwhile, fought desperately to keep Lyndon LaRouche a fraud who used baroque conspiracy theories to bilk supporters out of millions away from the party and politics more generally. Neither mainstream Republicans nor Democrats were wholly successful, but at least they tried to ground their ideologies and proposed policies on actual facts on the ground.

The reason both parties kept the conspiratorial fringe away from power is because once someone is convinced British monarchs are drug peddling lizard people, once someone is convinced Americans and Soviets are two sides of the same Illuminati-controlled coin, once someones convinced children are being trafficked through online furniture companies, theres no end to where their delusions may take them. Sure, you might be able to convince them youre on their side, that youre no sheeple, at least for an election but what happens when your facts go up against their imagination, like what happened in Arizona? Or, worse yet, what happens when they decide you need their help to uncover the vast conspiracy youre both supposedly in on?

There was a time when conservative intellectuals understood that conspiratorial thinking was fundamentally the product of an authoritarian mindset the product of a mindset which assumes human history can be led down a path which solely advances the ends of those leading humanity, with or without the consent of those being led, with or without the overt terror normally needed to keep people in line. It is, in short, a fairytale for despots who would love nothing more than for this to be possible, who would love nothing more than to set a chessboard in their mind, make their opening move, and then win by default. In reality, even though chess is a two person game on a standard board with simple rules, chessmasters still have opponents, and those opponents get a say in how each game goes. Authoritarianism, and central planning more generally, is a one-against-many game, one in which each player, and Mother Nature itself, gets a say in how the board is set up and what the rules will be. By its very nature, its doomed to failure.

Now, however, theyre openly cheering Trump on. When youre in a Flight 93 election, when youre in a counter-revolutionary moment, you dont sweat little things like due process or the consent of the governed. You dont sweat little things like accurately counting every vote in a world in which millions of votes are potentially fraudulent, why shouldnt some of those millions be fraudulent in your favor? You dont even sweat an insurrection on live television, committed by supporters of Donald Trump, which tore through the nations capitol it was a hoax, actually, and even if it wasnt, Black Lives Matter protests did more damage in more cities, so its special pleading to hold conservative protesters accountable when they demand Congress throw out electoral votes and sack the Capitol when they dont get their way. Besides, 11 million more Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than in 2016 surely we cant suppress their expressed will?

Perhaps, but lets not pretend Joe Biden didnt also pick up 15 million more votes than Hillary Clinton who, by the way, received three million more votes than Trump in 2016 either. Those 15 million voters get a say in how this country is run, too.

So here we are, in a state and a nation where one political party is wholly and enthusiastically in thrall to a delusion, self-justified on the grounds that, well, its not like Hillary Clinton voters took their defeat well (Remember when members of the Womens March stormed Congress in 2017 and put several police officers in the hospital? Me neither.), so why shouldnt they fight back with delusions of their own?

Perhaps because My imagination can beat up your imagination is not a sustainable basis for peaceful coexistence. Perhaps because, when one person points at the Moon and screams, Its blue!, the answer isnt to scream, No, its red, and I have a God-given right to shoot you for disagreeing! Perhaps because two wrongs dont make a right, especially when the second wrong is exponentially worse than the first.

But, again, who am I going to persuade? Im not offering free candy or presents, so Im much less persuasive than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus and Im not offering the restoration of God-Emperor Trump to his throne in the White House, from which his benevolent light can hold back the forces of Chaos, so Im much less persuasive than Newsmax or OAN.

Perhaps I can persuade the 95 percent of Democratic voters who believe Biden won fair and square? Oh wait, they already agree with me.

Or do we actually think the 11 percent of Nevadans who told the Mellman Poll they dont know whether our president was elected or not were serious about that response and not just trying to hang up the phone as fast as humanly possible? Or perhaps I should pretend people too disinterested to have an opinion one way or the other about whos president of the United States and whether he was elected fairly or not read opinion columns?

You could always write about something else.

Its true, I could write another column about COVID-19, a pandemic which enjoys widespread transpartisan agreement and support on its nature, appropriate public policy countermeasures, and responsible individual choices.

Ahem.

Speaking of COVID-19, I could write about how Idahos lieutenant governor briefly seized power while their governor was in Texas and banned vaccination and testing requirements, as well as vaccine passports. While she was in power, she also tried to deploy the Idaho National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border. Her orders were overturned as soon as Gov. Brad Miller returned, of course. Oh, and theyre both Republicans, so things are clearly going well for that party, even in states like Idaho where they enjoy single-party rule.

Alas, this is The Nevada Independent, not The Idaho Independent. On the other hand, imagine an alternate world where former lieutenant governor Kate Marshall seized the Governors Mansion and started issuing executive orders while Steve Sisolak went to a conference somewhere?

You wrote 4,500 words on blockchains, then wrote another 2,500 word follow-up three weeks later. Write about technology! Youre an IT Manager! Surely you have something interesting to say about it?

Windows 11 was released.

There you go! How will that affect Nevadans?

If theyre using a Windows computer, their computer was manufactured in the past few years, and their workplace isnt blocking upgrades to Windows 11, their Start Menu may move to the bottom-middle of their screen.

There are other changes, but most of them arent really noticeable unless you plan on running Linux applications on your Windows computer. Most people arent.

Youre being difficult.

Fine. Android 12 is also coming out.

Okay. How will that affect Nevadans?

It means the few Android phones in the state whose operating system updates arent blocked by their cell phone providers or by their manufacturer will reboot in late October. After they finish rebooting, those phones will have a more colorful user interface.

Anything else?

Probably, but it doesnt matter. Every other Android phone user will either have to wait for their manufacturer or cell phone provider to analyze the update, reinsert the value add software manufacturers and cell phone providers love so much, and issue the update to their phones, or theyll have to go without until they buy a new phone with Android 12 preinstalled.

As manufacturers and cell phone carriers make money on reselling phones, take a guess on which path theyd prefer you to take.

iPhone users will, of course, continue to routinely receive iOS updates for five years because Apple does not openly loathe their customers, even if they dont particularly trust them.

So you have an iPhone, then?

Absolutely not. Give me freedom to install custom operating systems on my phone or give me death!

So you wiped Android off your phone and replaced it with something else?

Absolutely not. That sounds complicated. Im an IT manager, not an IT professional. I have people and PowerApps for that now.

So you ordered someone else to wipe Android off your phone and replace it with something else?

Absolutely not.

Then was there a point to any of this?

Absolutely not.

Will you promise to Write Back Better next week? Preferably in fewer than three trillion words?

Absolutely not.

See original here:
Is Joe Biden the duly elected President of the United States of America? - The Nevada Independent

Yes, well choose a new mayor in the general election on Nov. 2. But there are other big city jobs up for grabs on the ballot, too.

The city comptroller, public advocate, five borough presidents and Manhattan district attorney are all up for election.

While its likely that the winners of the Democratic primaries in June will prevail, nothing is for certain until Election Day. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 7-to-1 in New York City, according to the most recent state vote tallies. But nearly a million active voters arent registered to a party, about 20% of the total.

Heres our brief guide to all the citywide and borough offices you may have overlooked as Democrat Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa duke it out for Gracie Mansion.

(Reminder: To find out who exactly is on your ballot for all offices, use this tool from the citys Board of Elections to find a sample ballot. Type in your address, click Look Up, then click View Sample Ballot.)

Candidates who will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot are listed below in alphabetical order:

Related: What does a comptroller do?

Daby Benjamine Carreras (Republican and Save Our City parties): Carreras is a money manager and East Harlemite. He has previously run for City Council, State Assembly and once served as vice president of the Manhattan Republican Party.

Brad Lander (Democrat): Lander currently serves as the City Council member representing Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and Kensington. Prior to government work, he directed a community planning center at Pratt Institute.

Paul A. Rodriguez (Conservative): Rodriguez is a Queens native who now works in fundraising, but previously was on Wall Street as a stock analyst, broker and risk manager, according to his campaign website.

John A. Tabacco Jr. (Libertarian and Independent): Tabacco is the host of Liquid Lunch, a markets and news talk show on BizTV. The Staten Islander was arrested this summer for refusing to wear a mask at a Board of Elections office on the island.

Related: What does a public advocate do?

Devin Balkind (Libertarian): Balkind, a Manhattan native, is a civic technologist and open source advocate who runs a nonprofit that aims to improve the city through better use of tech. He ran for public advocate in 2017 and 2019, his campaign website says.

Anthony Herbert (Conservative and Independent): Herbert is a longtime anti-violence activist, media consultant and government staffer at the federal, state and local levels.

Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil (Republican and Save Our City parties): Nampiaparampil, who goes by Dr. Devi, is a physician and professor at the NYU School of Medicine and television health commentator.

Jumaane Williams (Democrat): Williams has served as public advocate since 2019 and previously represented Flatbush and surrounding neighborhoods in the City Council.

Related: Dont know what a borough president does? Weve got a guide on New Yorks mini-mayors here.

The Bronx

Brooklyn

Manhattan

Queens

Staten Island

Alvin Bragg (Democrat): Bragg, a Harlem native, served most recently as chief deputy attorney general for New York State. He also led a special state unit that investigated police-involved killings and served as a federal prosecutor.

Thomas Kenniff (Republican): Kenniff is a criminal defense attorney, former prosecutor and Iraq War veteran who served as a judge advocate general in the military. He is a current member of the Army National Guard and a founding partner at his law firm, Raiser & Kenniff.

Only Manhattan has a competitive race for district attorney this year. Eric Gonzalez, the incumbent Brooklyn DA, will be on the ballot for residents of Kings County, but he has no challengers.

If you have any questions about the election process, the candidates or any other information when it comes to voting in New York, let us know by replying to this email or sending a note to civicnewsroom@thecity.nyc.

You can also let us know what youre thinking and sign up for our Civic Newsroom newsletter here.

Sign up and get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning

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Not Just the Mayor: NYCs Other City- and Borough-Wide Seats in Novembers Election - THE CITY

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has often proved to be a gift that keeps giving for Democrats and a thorn in the side of fellow Republicans.

The stubbornly independent Pauls dogmatic advocacy of libertarian ideas about governance has often thrown a monkey wrench into the plans of the Senate leadership. That proved again the case this past week.

After all the drama about U.S. funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system had already played out in the House, and both Democrats and Republicans were eager to pass the measure and then move on to other issues on which they could resume tearing each other apart. But Paul decided the issue was far from settled.

Exercising his prerogative to overturn a call for unanimous consent which would streamline the legislative process, he objected and placed a hold on the legislation to the frustration of just about everyone else on Capitol Hill.

That earned Paul a condemnatory tweet from AIPAC.

Shots from the lobby at Paul are nothing new.

Of greater interest to the Kentucky politician, who, like most GOP office-holders depends on the backing of evangelicals to stay in office, was the way the Christians United for Israel group, and its leader Pastor John Hagee, went ballistic over the issue.

Hagee, who heads the group that claims to be the nations largest pro-Israel organization said, "Senator Paul needs to stop playing games with the safety of the Israeli people."

But that anger was matched by the barely-concealed mirth of Jewish Democrats whose interest in making a meal of Pauls grandstanding had as much to do with re-establishing a moral equivalence between the parties on Middle East issues as it did with any actual impatience with his stunt.

Democrats have been taking a beating from pro-Israel activists ever since the May conflict with Hamas, which prompted a series of exchanges on the floor of the House of Representatives in which progressives made their distaste for Israel and its policies known.

That was compounded by the embarrassment suffered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was outwitted by members of her own caucus last month when she tried to slip Iron Dome funding into a House budget bill that raised the national debt limit. But since a considerable number of left-wing Democrats refused to vote for it because they oppose Israel, she had to withdraw it.

Two days later and after a torrent of criticism for being outmaneuvered by members of the so-called "Squad," the House leadership submitted Iron Dome as a separate measure.

Determined to both answer the claims that their party had turned on Israel and to reassert control of their caucus on a budget issue on which freelancing is considered highly dangerous, Pelosi and her team struck back. Using all the considerable leverage and powers of intimidation at their disposal, the whip was cracked and even most progressives fell in line.

In the end, only nine House members voted against Iron Dome, a total that included eight left-wingers and one Republican, fellow Kentucky libertarian Rep. Thomas Massie.

Even the ringleader of the Squad, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) felt the pressure and, at the last minute, tearfully changed her vote from "no" to "present." Though AOC subsequently apologized for a decision for what she described as insufficiently supportive of the Palestinians and critical of Israel, the lesson was learned.

Further burnishing the honor of House Democrats was the speech of Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) who accused another Squad member Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) of antisemitism for spreading the "apartheid state" lie about Israel.

So when Sen. Paul stopped the Senates approval of Iron Dome in its tracks, Democrats felt vindicated. It's not surprising that Halie Soifer, the head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, swiftly claimed in a tweet that Pauls actions were actually more damaging to Iron Dome funding than what House progressives had done.

Some went further than that and argued that the fact that the Democrats who tried to stop Iron Dome were criticized with greater heat and with charges of antisemitism while Paul was, at least by comparison, let off with a slap on the wrist. They said that showed how distorted the debate about Israel has become.

Despite the attention given the Squad and its allies, some liberals contended that these events proved that not only was the bipartisan consensus on Israel holding but that any arguments that aimed at showing a real difference between the parties on the Jewish state was misinformation.

But while the Democrats had a point about the damage Paul was doing, the attempt to assert a moral equivalence on Israel inside the two parties is simply untrue. If pro-Israel activists are more upset at left-wing Democrats than they are at the GOPs libertarian outliers, they have good reason for thinking that way.

Though its easy to lose perspective in the heat of political debate, the truth remains that the two parties have largely swapped identities over the last 60 years.

Where once the GOP was split between those who were sympathetic to the Jewish state and a much larger faction that was indifferent or hostile to it, today it is a virtually lockstep pro-Israel party. Most have views on the conflict with the Palestinians that fit in somewhere between the Likud and even more right-wing Israelis like Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Even dissenters like Paul and Massie, who oppose aid to Israel, do so on the basis of their opposition to all foreign aid and, will, if asked, speak of their admiration for Israel.

By contrast, the Democrats, who could a generation or two ago, claim to be the home of pro-Israel opinion, are badly split on the issue. A significant portion of its left-wing base looks at Israel through the prism of intersectionality and critical race theory and believe it to be a manifestation of white privilege whose stance toward the Palestinians is no different from that of racists in the Jim Crow south in the pre-Civil Rights era.

Their dissent against the Iron Dome was merely the tip of an iceberg that betrays a growing hostility toward Israel that even some who claim to be Israels supporters like the left-wing J Street lobby are quick to note when they claim that right-wing Israeli policies are alienating Americans.

Among the grassroots activists on the left there is considerable sympathy for the BDS movement as well as for views such as that of Tlaib, who views Israels existence as illegitimate. Though many Democrats disagree and are enthusiastic backers of a two-state solution that now seems more utopian than practical, there is no disguising the fact that, thanks to the increased support for intersectionality on the left, there is a real divide in the party between its establishment members and the Squad as well as many of the members of the 100-strong Progressive Caucus in the House on Zionism.

Even more troublesome is the fact that this divide seems to be largely generational, both among the activists and in the House, where the contrast between AOC and her allies and the octogenarians who still run the House leadership is too obvious to miss.

Given the popularity of the former among both the Democrats cheering section in the mainstream press, and, more crucially, the late night comedy shows, where people like Ilhan Omar, Tlaib and AOC are treated like rock stars, its not irrational to worry that, the recent vote notwithstanding, the left represents the partys future.

And although few pro-Israel activists are willing to say so publicly, most will admit in private that Rand Paul had a point. Israel is strong and rich enough that it ought to begin to wean itself from the constraints of American military aid, even if most of the money is spent in the United States.

While his proposal that Iron Dome be funded out of the allocation of foreign aid to Afghanistan now that it has fallen to the Taliban is a non-starter in legislative terms, its easy to sympathize with it and hardly equivalent to the kind of vicious libels being put about by the left about Israels efforts to silence Hamas terrorist missile and rocket fire.

While the Kentucky senator gave Jewish Democrats a good talking point, that doesnt make up for the fact that a lot of liberals now buy into the arguments that falsely characterize Zionism as a form of racism.

Rather than seeking to pretend that the actions of two neo-isolationist libertarians who are allergic to spending taxpayer money on anything are just as bad as the anti-Zionism and antisemitism that has found a home on the left, Jewish Democrats need to follow Deutchs example and concentrate their efforts on winning back their party from an increasingly influential faction that makes no secret about its disdain for Israel.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of the Jewish News Syndicate and a columnist for the New York Post.Twitter:@jonathans_tobin

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Comparing Rand Paul to the Squad is unfair. He doesn't hate Israel - Haaretz

The fate and composition of the Build Back Better Act remain undetermined, and there exists a strong possibility that, despite President Bidens support for the $3.5 trillion package, the partys moderates will win out in their desire for a smaller bill. A recent statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lamenting that the bill will likely be shrunk, and a Dear Colleague letter saying that Democrats must make difficult decisions and do fewer things well, indicates as much. What that means in practice is still up for debate, but moderates want and might get a smaller, less ambitious bill, absenting any or all of child care, prescription drug price reform, Medicare expansion, or meaningful tax reform.

The ongoing battle over Build Back Better harks back to the Affordable Care Act deliberation of 20092010, the last time the partys two halves were at loggerheads over an ambitious piece of legislation that they had the ability to pass into law. In that showdown, moderates triumphed definitively. They crushed progressives who were holding out for price controls, a public option, Medicare buy-in, anything. It was the moderates bill that became law, with a few scant progressive add-ons like community health centers (of course, it was much maligned, and ended up failing on numerous counts, but the reality of that was still far off).

Their victory was not just legislative. Democratic moderates (called center-left, but more accurately center-right) were riding high as a political camp. The Blue Dog Coalition sported record membership numbers in 2009 and 2010; the thensimilarly sized New Democrat Coalition suffered only minor losses compared to the widespread wipeout House Democrats suffered in the coming years under Obama, and rebounded quickly enough to establish itself as one of the largest caucuses in the party. Leadership in those caucuses was seen as the partys rising stars.

Most importantly, center-whatever moderates were taken as intellectually serious and rigorous, with a dispassionate ability to craft legislation and achieve desired outcomes far beyond the trenchant ideologues of the weakly Progressive Caucus. These were intelligent nudgers, market wizards, efficiency aficionados. An armada of young pundits was dispatched in the D.C. press scene to ensure that message took hold.

More from Alexander Sammon

The fight over BBB has been the opposite. No faction has revealed itself to be less intellectually rigorous or serious than the moderates. They are unwilling and seemingly unable to articulate a single positive concern, legislative vision, or priority for the Democratic agenda. They are allegedly worried about spending, but oppose tax hikes and hugely effective cost-saving in the way of drug pricing reform. They are worried about inflation but cant even engage with the reality that the entire bill seeks to lower the most acutely inflationary costshousing, education, health care, and child carefor American households. They cant conjure a contrary vision, or even a counteroffer, other than making things smaller for smallers sake. They dont even speak to the press to explain themselves. They do, however, oppose.

Making matters worse is the transparent corruption and pay-for-play that motivates the partys moderates in this wandering journey. The individual provisions inside the BBB are extremely popular with the American public, but not the corporate world and its lobbying apparatus, and its opponents make no attempt to even put forward a plausible explanation for why theyre opposed to popular things beyond the fact that theyre paid to be.

New Yorks Kathleen Rice, who held a leadership role in the New Democrat coalition last year, voted for the identical drug pricing reform bill that she just voted against barely two years ago, and conjured a nonsense excuse for why. Scott Peters of California, currently vice chair for policy of the New Democrats, pulled the same maneuver, and his explanation was standard-issue, roundly debunked loss of innovation pabulum ripped from industry tear sheets. When pressed on the exorbitant pharma money hes taken in, he didnt even pretend to disavow its influence on his judgment, but instead said he wouldnt defund [his] campaign so that Republicans can winthis in a district that Joe Biden carried by a cool 30 points. As is now well known, Big Pharma is by far his top campaign contributor, and his wifes investment firm sports a portfolio company that does manufacturing for pharmaceutical companies. Super-centrist Kurt Schrader of Oregonmember of the Blue Dogs, the Problem Solvers Caucus, and the New Democrat Coalitionanother holdout against drug pricing reform, inherited his personal fortune from a Pfizer executive.

New Jerseys Josh Gottheimer, co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus and a member of the Blue Dogs, has similarly been unable to muster a coherent position. No Labels, a conservative dark-money group out of which the Problem Solvers was born, tried and failed to down the entire BBB by uncoupling it from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, using Gottheimer as its de facto spokesperson. They spent a boatload of money celebrating him as a fearless leader in ad buys, and he took to their bidding in negotiations.

The Beltway press has tried to do its job in covering for them, but even they cant make a fundamentally unserious group of politicians seem to have a consistent intellectual framework.

But even in softball interviews with Punchbowl News, Gottheimer could manage no satisfying explanation for why the bipartisan bill had to be passed so urgently and without the reconciliation bill, because he couldnt say aloud the obvious, which is that the corporate donor class wanted no reconciliation bill at all. An early and often critic of the cost of the reconciliation package, he pivoted to celebrating the necessity of tax cuts via SALT, another one of his priorities, a very expensive component of the same reconciliation bill he was working against. None of these contradictions was even attempted to be explained. All of this happened in broad daylight.

But before the pivot, Gottheimer issued a scathing letter, flaming Nancy Pelosi for refusing to pass the infrastructure bill, which did not have the votes to pass, by the September 27 nonbinding deadline. The letter was meant to be signed by Gottheimer and the rest of the unbreakable nine, as No Labels branded them in their ad buy. But the other eight wouldnt even put their names to it, and Gottheimer had to run it solo, as sure a sign as any of the legitimacy crisis in these center-right organs, who have been shown to be so transparently loyal to lobbyist money, and so inconsistent and untactical in their approach, that recruiting new members is basically impossible. Even keeping current ones in the fold has become tough.

Its the same story in the Senate with Kyrsten Sinema, who is on the receiving end of generous ad buys from pharma groups one day, suddenly opposing drug pricing reform that she once ran on the next; taking money from Exxon one day, and opposing climate measures the next (as a former Green Party member no less). Ditto Joe Manchin, who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars from coal investments, and just so happens to oppose the climate provisions himself.

The Beltway press has tried to do its job in covering for them, but even they cant make a fundamentally unserious group of politicians seem to have a consistent intellectual framework. Axios tried to make Sinema seem contemplative with a puff piece about her aptitude in using Excel spreadsheets, but her repeated return to high-dollar fundraisers in the midst of a media maelstrom was too brazen to make the story stick. And on rare occasions when Sinema has spoken for herself, shes come off as even less serious than activists caricature of her corruption. This exchange, reported by NBC News producer Frank Thorp, sums it up neatly.

Q: What do you say to progressives who are frustrated they dont know where you are?

Sinema: Im in the Senate.

Q: There are progressives in the Senate that are also frustrated they dont know where you are either.

Sinema: Im clearly right in front of the elevator.

Behind the curtain of centrism, and its foremost exponents, sits a bunch of corporate cash, and nothing else. Even if those forces eke out a win, the insincere intellectual performance that has been used to justify letting big money have its way with an urgently needed and wildly popular piece of legislation has already done irreparable damage to the centrism brand. That trajectory is not without historical precedent; in the post-2008 era, libertarianism surged within the ranks of the Republican Party, before figurehead Paul Ryans big-brained whiz kid approach was revealed as nothing more than an unprincipled play to cut corporate taxes, and libertarianism lost its legitimacy, allure, and membership. Centrism seems to be on this path.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, now the largest caucus in the Democratic Party, with a surprising amount of power and discipline, continues to grow in its influence and scope, fighting for a number of clearly articulated policy priorities. These are coalitions headed in opposite directions.

Democratic centrism has been eulogized plenty of times in the past, all prematurely. After the 2016 election, for example, it was maligned for its inability to win elections, and pronounced dead with Hillary Clintons defeat against an extremely unpopular Republican opponent in Donald Trump. But those eulogies proved premature, and in the years since, centrists have managed to win plenty of elections (look no further than Joe Biden).

Centrism, now, is imperiled as a political orientation not for its competitive viability, but for the emptiness and corruption that has been exposed at its heart. Not a single young voter, or someone politically up for grabs, can look to the leadership of Kyrsten Sinema or Scott Peters and see a politician with a positive vision for governance and society, one they could believe in, knock on doors for, or turn out to vote for. Heck, Joe Biden cant even see that. All that exists is a list of donors and a willingness to imperil the agenda of one of their own and the entire success of the party, for the sake of a few bucks in their personal campaign coffers, and, if that doesnt work out, a plum private-sector job to fall back on.

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The Undignified Demise of Centrism - The American Prospect

When Sue Hoppin was in college, she met the man she was going to marry. "I was attending the University of Denver, and he was at the Air Force Academy," she says. "My dad had also attended the University of Denver and warned me not to date those flyboys from the Springs."

"He didn't say anything about marrying one of them," she says. And so began her life as a military spouse.

The life brings some real advantages, like opportunities to live abroad her family got to live all around the US, Japan, and Germany but it also comes with some downsides, like having to put your spouse's career over your own goals.

"Though we choose to marry someone in the military, we had career goals before we got married, and those didn't just disappear."

Career aspirations become more difficult to achieve, and progress comes with lots of starts and stops. After experiencing these unique challenges firsthand, Sue founded an organization to help other military spouses in similar situations.

Sue had gotten a degree in international relations because she wanted to pursue a career in diplomacy, but for fourteen years she wasn't able to make any headway not until they moved back to the DC area. "Eighteen months later, many rejections later, it became apparent that this was going to be more challenging than I could ever imagine," she says.

Eighteen months is halfway through a typical assignment, and by then, most spouses are looking for their next assignment. "If I couldn't find a job in my own 'hometown' with multiple degrees and a great network, this didn't bode well for other military spouses," she says.

She's not wrong. Military spouses spend most of their lives moving with their partners, which means they're often far from family and other support networks. When they do find a job, they often make less than their civilian counterparts and they're more likely to experience underemployment or unemployment. In fact, on some deployments, spouses are not even allowed to work.

Before the pandemic, military spouse unemployment was 22%. Since the pandemic, it's expected to rise to 35%.

Sue eventually found a job working at a military-focused nonprofit, and it helped her get the experience she needed to create her own dedicated military spouse program. She wrote a book and started saving up enough money to start the National Military Spouse Network (NMSN), which she founded in 2010 as the first organization of its kind.

"I founded the NMSN to help professional military spouses develop flexible careers they could perform from any location."

"Over the years, the program has expanded to include a free digital magazine, professional development events, drafting annual White Papers and organizing national and local advocacy to address the issues of most concern to the professional military spouse community," she says.

Not only was NMSN's mission important to Sue on a personal level she also saw it as part of something bigger than herself.

"Gone are the days when families can thrive on one salary. Like everyone else, most military families rely on two salaries to make ends meet. If a military spouse wants or needs to work, they should be able to," she says.

"When less than one percent of our population serves in the military," she continues, "we need to be able to not only recruit the best and the brightest but also retain them."

"We lose out as a nation when service members leave the force because their spouse is unable to find employment. We see it as a national security issue."

"The NMSN team has worked tirelessly to jumpstart the discussion and keep the challenges affecting military spouses top of mind. We have elevated the conversation to Congress and the White House," she continues. "I'm so proud of the fact that corporations, the government, and the general public are increasingly interested in the issues affecting military spouses and recognizing the employment roadblocks they unfairly have faced."

"We have collectively made other people care, and in doing so, we elevated the issues of military spouse unemployment to a national and global level," she adds. "In the process, we've also empowered military spouses to advocate for themselves and our community so that military spouse employment issues can continue to remain at the forefront."

Not only has NMSN become a sought-after leader in the military spouse employment space, but Sue has also seen the career she dreamed of materializing for herself. She was recently invited to participate in the public re-launch of Joining Forces, a White House initiative supporting military and veteran families, with First Lady Dr. Jill Biden.

She has also had two of her recommendations for practical solutions introduced into legislation just this year. She was the first in the Air Force community to show leadership the power of social media to reach both their airmen and their military families.

That is why Sue is one of Tory Burch's "Empowered Women" this year. The $5,000 donation will be going to The Madeira School, a school that Sue herself attended when she was in high school because, she says, "the lessons I learned there as a student pretty much set the tone for my personal and professional life. It's so meaningful to know that the donation will go towards making a Madeira education more accessible to those who may not otherwise be able to afford it and providing them with a life-changing opportunity."

Most military children will move one to three times during high school so having a continuous four-year experience at one high school can be an important gift. After traveling for much of her formative years, Sue attended Madeira and found herself "in an environment that fostered confidence and empowerment. As young women, we were expected to have a voice and advocate not just for ourselves, but for those around us."

To learn more about Tory Burch and Upworthy's Empowered Women program visit https://www.toryburch.com/empoweredwomen/. Nominate an inspiring woman in your community today!

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This black American flag has a disturbing message and has been popping up across the U.S. - Upworthy

Two independent candidates for Lt. Governor called on New Jerseyans to consider alternatives to the Democratic and Republican parties during a debate sponsored by the New Jersey Globe on Monday evening.

Eveline Brownstein is running on the Libertarian ticket with Gregg Mele and Heather Warburton is Madelyn Hoffmans running mate for the Green Party.

Like last weeks debate between Lt. Governor Sheila Oliver and the Republican nominee, former State Sen. Diane Allen, there were no fireworks between Brownstein and Warburton, although they disagreed on mask mandates, climate change and taxes.

Early on, Warburton addressed what she called the elephant in the room the exclusion of independent candidates from debates involving major party candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor.

Ms. Brownstein and I are essentially kind of being placed at the kids table tonight, and thats purely because of how many rich people were know or in our case, dont know, Warburton said. New Jersey sets the rules of who can be in the official debate, and its basically what candidates have raised about half-million dollars. Thats it. Its nothing to do with how valid your ideas are.

Candidates who did not qualify for public matching funds were not including in the Allen/Oliver debate, also sponsored by the New Jersey Globe.

Brownstein used the debate as an opportunity to introduce herself to New Jersey voters.

Like many of our constituents, I have owned a small business. Im an immigrant. I worked for companies. Ive volunteered for non-profit organizations. I care for an aging parent, and I parented future adults all seven of them, said Brownstein. Those experiences dont make me an expert. They only open my eyes to see and my ears to continue listening to the varied and unique experiences of others, and to advocate for individual solutions over the one size fits all approach of government.

The Rumson human resources executive said that she wants to find better solutions than government bureaucracy and ones that incorporate accountability for outcomes rather than praise for cookie cutter initiatives that serve very few.

Warburton, an artist and longtime activist from Hammonton shes a former Democrat noted that independent candidates enter the race knowing the deck is stacked against you at every opportunity and you run because youre so passionate about fixing things, you cant sit on the sidelines.

New Jersey is broken, Warburton said. Were on the front lines of catastrophic climate change here, but our state has no real plan to address it. Our tax system is unjust and unfair. People lack comprehensive health care. Poverty is ever rising. Racial inequality and income inequality never seem to get any better. The two-party system has failed us in every turn. Voter apathy is rampant, and it seems like neither of the two big guys are offering real solutions.

The moderator, New Jersey Globe reporter Joey Fox, said that if an independent candidate were to win, they would be dealing with a legislature dominated by lawmakers from the Democratic and Republican parties. He asked the candidates how they would bridge the partisan divide.

You have to find areas where you agree and you have to work on those areas where you dont, Brownstein said. Compromises where everybody feels that they gave up a little bit of something, but theyre satisfied with the outcome.

But if that doesnt work, Brownstein said there is a workaround.

Governor Murphy tells me there is such a thing as an executive order, she said, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. In this political climate we are in, you have to be sworn enemies and I dont think thats necessary.

Warburton said she loved the question.

If we win I know, the odds are kind of stacked against us it would be an overwhelming groundswell of people power that put us into the governor seat, she said. We would have a great mandate from the people to make the changes that were talking about. Theyre saying that this is what they want to say.

She said that if the legislature stood in the way of that mandate, she would be out there in the streets with the people with bullhorns marching in the streets and showing up at the executive sessions and showing up that peoples offices and saying why are you blocking what the people want?

The people are our greatest resource here and if the people speak that loudly that they say what were talking about they really value that and they really want it. Then it would just be disappointing if the legislative block that clearly because were from a different party than them, Warburton explained. But I always believe in giving people the opportunity to disappoint me, so I will show up and I will work with anyone. It doesnt matter if you have a D or an R, if youre Libertarian or Socialist Worker.

The two candidates each said they have been vaccinated but differed in governments role in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am a huge advocate for vaccines, said Brownstein. I grew up in Africa and I have seen the devastation that occurs when people are not vaccinated and there are preventable diseases.

But she said she does not support vaccination mandates.

That is a decision that each person has to make for themselves, Brownstein stated. I wouldnt mandate it.

That applies to teachers and health care workers too.

I dont think government needs to get involved, said Brownstein. I think the schools should decide what kind of school environment they want to provide, and parents should be able to choose.

Warburton said she believes everyone should get vaccinated but stopped short of agreeing with a mandate.

The science is clear. Vaccines are safe and vaccines are effective, she argued. Theyre one of our best tools at fighting this pandemic.

But Warburton acknowledged that government doesnt have a great track record among New Jerseyans who live in marginalized communities.

So we have to work to really build that trust and build that relationship, she said.

And she says some people who wont get the vaccine need to be subjected to bi-weekly testing to make sure youre safe and youre not spreading disease to others.

Warburton said she supports a mask mandate in the school, but Brownstein said that while she supports mask wearing, she doesnt think government should mandate them.

The two independents disagreed on climate change.

We need to be investing in alternatives Green alternatives, Green infrastructure, Warburton said. Part of what were running on is an eco-Socialist Green New Deal, which goes above and beyond the Green New Deal you may have heard about from people like (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) where we really work to transition people from polluting and dangerous jobs into Green, renewable, useful jobs where you can make a living wage and save the world at the same time.

Brownstein said she doesnt think government-mandated climate change programs funded by special interests looking to profit off the new ideas.

If this is a government-driven solution, government will look for the solution it wants, not the best, she said.

Brownstein signed on to the same no tax increase pledge that Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican Jack Ciattarelli agreed to in a debate last month, but the Green Party candidate disagreed.

Corporations and wealthy people are not paying their fair share, Warburton. We dont have a progressive tax system, we have a regressive tax system.

Brownstein said that taxes are too high but cited low-income New Jerseyans who are trapped in the state who cant get ahead but also cant leave.

We should lower taxes for everybody, she said.

The Libertarian candidate said he would seek greater accountability for existing government programs.

There are lots of government initiatives, lots of government programs that money gets thrown out for which there is no accountability for outcomes, said Brownstein. We need to start looking at the budget. We need to start looking at the outcomes and we need to demand better for the money that were paying for things.

Warburton called New Jerseys tax system unfair and unjust, where seems like the middle class or kind of the only people paying taxes.

Our tax structure should be based on your ability to pay taxes. Tax rates have fallen. What the share of the budget thats made up by corporate taxes is about a third of what it was just a few decades ago, she stated. It seems true for people making over $1,000,000 what their tax rate is a fraction of what it used to be, whereas the people in the middle class are getting squeezed.

Both candidates support the codification of Roe v. Wade into state law.

Warburton called for reproductive freedom across the board and Brownstein said she would 100% support a womans right to choose.

Brownstein said the issue of abortion was personal to her.

I had two miscarriages, she explained. Under the Texas law, if a neighbor knew about that, they could ostensibly suggest that I had an abortion. I would be vehemently opposed to any interference with a womans right to have those discussions with her doctor and to make personal decisions about her body.

The Libertarian and Green Party candidates agreed on ranked choice voting and expanding the use of technology to expand voter participation in elections.

Warburton said she supports defunding the police and transferring those funds to programs that actually benefit the communities and said concentrating policing in certain areas is really sort of a war on Black and Brown people.

She called for the legalization of some recreational drugs and citizen review boards with actual teeth.

Brownstein said the state needs to end the entire failed war on drugs.

Putting a substance into your body should not be a crime you could go to jail for, she said. It has negatively affected communities of color and there is no reason for it. It has to end. We have to stop criminalizing all the drugs. What people put in their body is their choice.

She also called for the legalization of prostitution.

Brownstein had a one-word answer to the best way to repair inequalities between white residents and its residents of color.

Liberty, she said. It is the greatest equalizer. You can only have the same level for everybody if everybody has the same level of liberty.

She said equity would come by everybody having the same freedoms.

Freedoms are not driven by whats in your bank account, Brownstein explained. Its your inalienable right to those freedoms.

Warburton said that people are still benefiting from white supremacy and that people who were descendants of slaves are still unable to build generational wealth.

Our campaign is actually talking about reparations, Warburton stated. How do we repair the damage thats been done, not just to Black communities but to indigenous communities?

Fox asked the two candidates which cabinet post they would take if they were elected lieutenant governor.

Both said theyd like to follow Oliver as the Commissioner of Community Affairs.

Brownstein and Warburton called for an end to a two-party system.

For real change in our great state, who must vote for change and the two parties have let you down with empty promises after empty promise and disguising their initiatives is knew even though they lack any innovation or modern thinking. Lets change that in New Jersey, Brownstein said. Lets be the first state in the nation to elect leaders, not from one of the parties of continual failure but from the party that really does have new and innovative idea.

Vivian Sahner, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Lt. Governor, had initially accepted an invitation to debate but later dropped out.

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Independent Lt. Governor candidates say both parties have failed to solve New Jersey's problems - New Jersey Globe | New Jersey Politics