Category Archives: Transhuman News

One of the biggest financial players in Republican politics is coming in to help Fort Bend Sheriff Troy Nehls in his primary run-off battle for Congress with just two weeks left before early voting starts.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is committing to help Nehls as he battles Houstons Kathaleen Wall, who has already spent more than $4 million of her own money this year on her campaign for Congress. That is far more than Nehls has been able to spend. According to the latest campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission, Nehls has spent less than $400,000 so far.

Nehls won the first round of the primary in March with just over 40 percent of the vote. But because he didnt hit 50 percent in the crowded primary field, he will now face Wall, who finished second with 19 percent, in a runoff on July 14. Early voting starts June 29.

They are battling for the 22nd Congressional District, which includes most of Fort Bend County plus parts of Brazoria and Harris counties. The winner will face Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni in November.

The race for the 22nd Congressional District is considered one of the most competitive in the nation. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, is retiring from Congress this year. In 2018, Kulkarni came within 5 percentage points of beating Olson, giving Democrats hope they can flip the seat in 2020. The Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., ranks it as one of 22 toss-up races in November.

WALL BLAMES CHINA FOR COVID-19: China poisoned our people, says campaign ad from Houston candidate for Congress Kathaleen Wall

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce support is more than just an endorsement. The group has long been one of the biggest financial supporters of Republicans in federal races in the nation. In 2018, the group spent more than $7 million helping mostly Republican candidates.

The U.S. Chamber is proud to endorse Troy and looks forward to partnering with him in the future, U.S. Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donohue said in a statement.

Nehls is running on his public service experience, pointing to 30 years in the military and in law enforcement. Wall, meanwhile, has tried to position herself as a better potential ally to President Donald Trump.

Like Donald Trump, Kathaleen Wall is a successful conservative businessperson who wants to make America great again, ads supporting Wall have said.

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

Wall, a prominent GOP campaign donor over the last decade, is about to ramp up her television advertising once again. Media tracking data shows Wall has reserved almost $250,000 in ad time on broadcast and cable TV in Houston over the next week.

But Nehls has also been aggressive in aligning himself with Trump.

In Congress, I will stand with President Trump to defeat the socialist Democrats, build the wall, drain the swamp, and deliver on pro-economy and pro- America policies, Nehls says on his campaign website.

Wall has touted endorsements from key elected officials including U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. Paul partly grew up in Brazoria County while his father Ron Paul was a congressman. Rand Paul graduated from Brazoswood High School and attended Baylor University.

More:
U.S. Chamber backs Troy Nehls over Kathaleen Wall in Fort Bend congressional race - Houston Chronicle

Many Americans are surprised to learn that in U.S. presidential elections, the members of the Electoral College do not necessarily have to pick the candidate the voters in their state favored.

Or do they?

This month the Supreme Court will rule on the independent powers of electors, which will determine the meaning of the Electoral College in contemporary American politics.

The constitutional system of presidential selection is a set of uneasy compromises worked out at the very end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

The framers could not decide whether the choice of a president should be made by Congress or the states.

They also could not agree whether all states should have equal power in the selection, or if more populous states should have more say.

And they didnt agree whether a states choice should be made by local elites (state legislators) or the masses (all of the voters).

In the end, the Committee on Unfinished Parts created a unique governmental structure that compromised on all of these debates. Unlike many contemporary Americans, the founders were comfortable with such compromises and immediately approved the new mechanism of presidential selection.

A small number of citizens called electors would meet in each state to decide the presidency collectively. Congress would enter the picture only if the electors did not reach a majority decision. The number of electors would equal the number of senators and representatives in Congress, which means that small states had greater power than their population would suggest, but still not as much as big states.

State legislatures could use their discretion about how to choose electors, which could result in elitist or popular forms of democracy in different states. Pennsylvania held a popular election in the very first presidential contest, allowing voters to choose electors aligned with the emerging parties. Some state legislatures appointed electors themselves until the mid-1800s.

As Americans embraced popular democracy in the decades following the founding, most people began to expect a majority vote in the state would determine its choice. In most states, the legislature gives the winning party the duty of choosing electors who typically are party members who have pledged to vote for their partys presidential candidate during a public meeting of the Electoral College in December.

When that happens, the states Electoral College votes go to the winner of the states popular vote. But it is possible for an elector to vote for someone else which is why there is a case before the Supreme Court.

When Donald Trump won enough states in November 2016 to be elected the 45th U.S. president, opponents turned to the Electoral College as a last attempt to alter the elections result. This became known as the Hamilton Electors movement.

Alexander Hamilton was an advocate of elitist democracy who did not trust ordinary people to vote. He also thought highly of the Electoral College. In Federalist 68, he asserted that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.

His reason was that the selection of the president would reflect only the sense of the people, but truly be made by a small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass.

In Hamiltons view, these electors would hold the necessary information and discernment, while the masses would likely vote for a president with the talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity.

The Hamilton Electors explicit goal in 2016 was to convince enough electors to cast faithless votes against the election results of their state to switch the outcome. Several celebrities, including Martin Sheen, who played the president of the U.S. in The West Wing, urged Republican electors to be an American hero by blocking Donald Trump from winning.

Trumps official tally in the Electoral College was 304 to Hillary Clintons 227. That doesnt add up to 538 the total number of electoral votes because seven electors were unfaithful to their states popular decisions. Two Republican electors went their own ways, casting their ballots for John Kasich and Ron Paul. Five Clinton electors also refused to vote with their states majorities: Three chose former Secretary of State Colin Powell and one each chose Sen. Bernie Sanders and Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle.

Those seven electors were not enough to change the outcome. But what if they had been?

The outcome in 2020 may be closer than in 2016. If Joe Biden wins a few states that Hillary Clinton did not say Pennsylvania and Arizona but Trump holds on to the rest of his 2016 states, the Electoral College outcome will be remarkably close. By my count, it could be 274 to 264 in the Electoral College. If it is that close, even a small number of faithless electors could change the outcome.

Election Day is always the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, but the day the Electoral College votes is the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

If Americans believe on Nov. 3, 2020, that one person has been elected the next president, but find out on Dec. 14 that it is going to be a different person, it is difficult to predict what the public will think or do.

Even before the 2016 election, some states had tried to limit the discretion of electors. Colorado passed a law that allowed faithless electors to be replaced immediately with an alternate, and Washington imposed a US$1,000 fine for electors who voted differently from the public at large. Two faithless electors Michael Baca and Peter Chiafalo challenged the ability of states to restrict their discretion under the Constitution.

The debate at the court is about whether the U.S. still has elements of an elite democracy that cannot be altered by individual states, or if state legislatures can create a popular democracy within their borders by making electors simply registrars of the popular will even though the constitutional text (and Alexander Hamiltons plans) may suggest that electors should make their decisions freely.

What the Hamilton Electors are saying is that the old idea of an occasional block to the popular will is still useful. In their view, the rise of populism has made the old elitism important again.

The supporters of faithless electors are taking a position grounded in the intent of the framers, the usually conservative theory known as originalism.

But that interpretation of originalism runs up against another one: The founders let states decide how to pick electors.

These two originalist positions divide between a higher regard for the original purpose of electors and the original means of selecting and regulating them.

On the other hand, the usual liberal position living constitutionalism is clear. It supports the idea that the U.S. has evolved into a popular democracy regardless of the original intent. Binding electors to the vote of the state is simply the mechanism to achieve the representative elections that most Americans believe the country already has.

If the states win, they will be allowed to set the future rules for how electors may vote. If enough states bind electors, then the election will proceed as the public expects. But if the faithless electors win, the 2020 election results may be unclear far beyond Election Day.

[Youre too busy to read everything. We get it. Thats why weve got a weekly newsletter. Sign up for good Sunday reading. ]

See the rest here:
Supreme Court to decide the future of the Electoral College - The Conversation US

In the past few months, the worlds central banks, above all the US Federal Reserve, have rescued the global economy from complete collapse for the second time in a generation. Wading unto the breach and armed with the knowledge of how close capitalism came to a system failure in 2008, they have fired the big bazookas of monetary policy, pumping trillions of dollars into the worlds giant pool of money, effectively creating wealth out of nothing.

Since 2 March, the Feds total assets have leapt by more than half. Since 2008, its balance sheet has grown to 30% of the size of the US economy. Central bankers seem confident their actions will find public approval. A firefighter has never been criticised for using too much water, the governor of the Bank of Canada said.

This confidence is misplaced. Both left and right have reason to welcome the Feds emergency intervention, but new money flooded into private capital markets will inevitably flow into the deepest pockets. And without strengthening the democratic legitimacy of this policy, and using it for socially transformative ends, the reaction will strengthen those who are antagonistic to the practice of government the populist right.

The stock markets worst fears seem to have been allayed by congressional action and the Feds promised bond-buying spree

In his recent book, the French economist Thomas Piketty observes that central banks have become the only effectively functioning organs of government. He doesnt mean this as a good thing. Monetary activism is financial triage against world economic collapse, but its also an avoidance tactic. It works by bracketing democracy and letting the technocrats take over. To make decisions about justice and distribution, discussions about taxation, policy and budgets are needed.

As the Fed chairman Jerome Powell put it, the central bank has the power to lend but not to tax and spend. It is up to elected officials to make decisions about where we as a society should direct our collective resources. In the last two months, he has all but begged Congress to be more proactive in shaping the direction and volume of the policy.

Progressives have reason to praise central banks for offering evidence that the money printer can go brrr without any clear limit. Economists see no sign of inflation on the horizon. Some have become concerned about inflation in recent weeks, but others worry about the opposite deflation. All the extra liquidity has not managed to translate into meaningful growth.

This makes an active role for the state in hiring people in sustainable jobs in green energy, construction, arts, healthcare, education all the more important. Public spending of the New Deal helped cure the Great Depression in the 1930s, so why not a Green New Deal for this one? Central bankers have emerged as unlikely allies in the fight against climate change. Maybe this latest intervention could finally open them up to the idea of Green QE, (quantitative easing) actively supporting decarbonisation by buying up environmentally friendly bonds.

Republicans, for their part, are relieved that the Fed rescued the economy from meltdown, giving Donald Trump at least a chance of campaigning amid a recovery. Though unemployment is stratospheric and hundreds of Americans are still dying of Covid-19, the stock markets worst fears seem to have been allayed by congressional action and the Feds promised bond-buying spree. But neither side should feel secure under the sheltering hand of unelected power like the central bank.

The politics of money has a way of quickly becoming about other things. Last month, the German constitutional court concluded in a shock ruling that the European Central Bank may have exceeded its mandate in creating so much cheap credit, threatening the monetary response to the crisis. Within days, Viktor Orbn suggested that the Hungarian constitution might trump the decisions of the European Court of Justice in his countrys treatment of refugees.

What kind of political creatures could the money-printing of central banks spawn? We have seen hints in the past. A decade ago, the proactive Fed was a target for the Tea Party movement. Republicans directed the backlash to control of the House in 2010 and eventually over Congress. Opposing President Barack Obama, the Republican party acted as a drag on recovery efforts and robust healthcare reform. The US is paying the price for their efforts with a dysfunctional healthcare system in a pandemic in which the victims have been disproportionately African American.

There are reasons to think the response to the Feds actions from the right might be more extreme this time, not only because the scale of both spending and suffering is greater, but also because the fringe itself has become radicalised.

Central banks have no shortage of enemies in waiting. President Trumps description of the Fed as the enemy is designed to rob it of the very democratic legitimacy it cannot live without. Libertarians who reject all forms of fiat currency unbacked by precious metals, commonly known as gold bugs, have grown in influence over the past years. In the US, the most famous libertarian gold bug is probably Ron Paul, whose demand to End the Fed ran through his 2008 campaign. His son, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have also voiced support for a gold standard. Returning to currency that is matched by finite gold reserves could act as a lever to lock in austerity, blocking the expansion of credit and state spending that would be necessary to redress inequality.

In Germany, another gold bug, a former precious metals consultant, Peter Boehringer, sits in the Bundestag. His party, the Alternative for Germany, was founded by economics professors in 2013 over the politics of money they rejected the European Central Banks monetary policy and management of the eurozone crisis.

Another erstwhile gold bug now waits in the antechamber of the Fed itself. Until its recent postponement, Congress was scheduled to vote on the nomination of Judy Shelton to the Fed. Citing Ludwig von Mises and his student Friedrich Hayek as her guides, Shelton has called repeatedly in the past for the return to the sound money of a gold standard before converting to Trumps loose monetary policy.

For now, alongside the rumblings of a backlash, the actions of the Fed are receiving broad public approval. Elected officials should take this support as a sign that people do not instinctively reject a role for the government in the working of the market under emergency conditions.

Lawmakers have time to build on this insight to work with central banks to design economies where uncertainty and hardship are diminished, even after coronavirus has passed. Central banks can be accessories to more equal and just societies, but they can never be the architects. Money must be made to serve the people, not the other way around.

See original here:
Central banks have pumped money into the economy, but its no substitute for democracy - The Guardian

A ship built during WWII was intentionally sunk to be part of an artificial reef 26 miles off the coast of Cape May.

A granite monument in the farmlands of Kansas has revived a forgotten history for the descendants of one of Lyndhursts favorite sons.

Dedicated Saturday afternoonoutside of Hill City, Kansas just north of small town called Bogue, the oversize tombstone pays tribute to Lt. Paul Capaccio and five other U.S. Army airmen. The six died roughly one mile north on Feb. 2, 1943, when they hit amassive storm in their B-17and crashedinto a pasture.

Capaccio, 25, his fellow crewman and the one passenger were among thousands of airmen to die in training and transport during World War II. Often, they are the forgotten losses from the nations largest collective effort.

Ariana Pelosci, Capaccios 21-year-old great niece from Hamilton, said even in her own familyhisstory had been a bit of a mystery.

The monument created and the research completed by locals in Kansas, unearthed an entire family story that my mom or uncles hadn't heard about, Pelosci said.

RELATED: From opposite worlds, two soldiers forged a friendship and saved each other's lives

Paul Capaccio was a standout athlete at Lyndhurst High School, where a memorial athletic award was named in his honor.(Photo: Courtesy of Ariana Pelosci)

Mike Boss, a 69-year-old artist from Hill City, said the story has long captivated his community. One of the main driving forces behind the monument,Loren Johnson, wasamong those who first arrived at the crash scene nearly 80 years ago, he said.

Boss first heard Capaccio's story in high school. in November 2018 he renewed his interest in the local history andwas determined to honor the six soldiers with a monument.

I had been told that that crash was so bad that they had to pick those guys up in bushel baskets, Boss said. And I just said, OK by God thats it. They deserve more than this.

Details of the plane crash were few, said Shelia Blackford of the Graham County Historical Society. Wartime security tended to tamp reports of deaths during training flights or ferrying. Only a few papers published the wire report of a fiery B-17 crash that killed six soldiers in northwest Kansas. Even the local paper's report was thin.

Since it was a military plane, after the initial notification, our locals were not allowed access nor any more information on the event, she said.

LOCAL: Veteran from Wayne awarded Distinguished Service Medal, 76 years after WWII service

During the first32 months of World War II, the Army Air Forces reported 11,000 aircraft lost in the continental United States. Combat missions overseas accounted for 7,700. In the Navy, more aviation personnel were lost in training and transport than in combat, records show.

From December 1941 through August 1945, there were 52,651 Army Air Forces accidents in the states, half of which came during training flights. The domestic crashes killed 14,903 people, including the 1,757 that died during 284 fatal B-17 crashes, records show.

Capaccios B-17 was delivered from Boeing at the end of September 1942. Military officials registereditnumber 42-5105. B-17s 42-5102, 42-5103 and 42-5107 also wrecked.

Mike Boss (third from left) is seen setting the monument for personnel of the 100th Bomb Group from WWII with Ron Gallaway, Corey Johnson, Bob Saunders, Loren Johnson, Jez Rush near Hill City, Kansas in early 2020.(Photo: Courtesy of Mike Boss)

The news of Capaccios death made the front page of The Record on Feb. 5, 1943. The paper dubbed the 25-year-old Lyndhurst native a grid star for his athletic exploits on the football field and beyond.

While at Lyndhurst High School, Capaccio captained the track and wrestling teams and played football and basketball, The Recordreported. So renowned was Capaccio,the president of the senior class, the school started anathletic awardin his honor following his death.

After high school,Capaccio went on to Bergen Junior College, where he again played multiple sports andgraduated as the school's "most valuable man"in 1939. His next stop was Kutztown State Teachers College. He played football there too. Then, Uncle Sam came calling.

Paul Capaccio of Lyndhurst N.J. is seen in military uniform sometime i the early 1940s.(Photo: Courtesy of Ariana Pelosci)

He was only a couple of years older than me, and he willingly enlisted in this war, Pelosci said.

Capaccio joined the Air Corps in 1941. He made second lieutenant a year later. Just a week before his death, he was promoted to first lieutenant at the base in Capser, Wyoming.

The Feb. 2 flight was expected to take him and his crew on a new mission as members of the 100th Bomb Group, 350 Bomb Squadron based in Sioux City, Iowa, Boss said. From there, Capaccio was to go overseas in three months. He never made it past Bogue.

Military records show Capaccio and the other five men left the Army Air Base in Wyoming at about 1p.m. local time on Feb. 2, 1943. Capaccio piloted the aircraft towards Tinker Army Airfield in Oklahoma City.

The flight was expected to take five hours, but astorm likely pushed Capaccio north, Boss said.

More than four hours into the flight, Boss said the B-17 was roughly 125 to 130 miles north of where itshould have been. It was there where ithit what Boss suspects was the samestorm thatless than two hours earlierforced a fatal crash of a B-24in southern Trego County, Kansas.

"The guy who crashed that planecouldn't get above 20,000 feet of clouds,and that's what Paul flew into," Boss said. "I think he was trying to stay north of the storm and for whatever reason, he flew into it. I supposed he thought one way or another he had to deliver the plane."

Paul Capaccio is seen here as a youth with his brother Benjamin Capaccio.(Photo: Courtesy of Ariana Pelosci)

The Hill City Times reported that an eyewitness, Carl McKisson,saw the plane burst through the fog and into the hillside of a nearby pasture.

The 65,000-pound plane plowed a ditch 5to 6feet deep, 10 feet wide and about 100 feet long, according to the report. A resulting explosion spread the wreckage across more than a dozen acres.

Military officialsinitially identified the likely cause of the crash asice formingon the wings. Amiscommunication between pilot and co-pilot was also suspected.

Still,Boss said in no way should the crash be deemed thefault of the crew. Engine trouble may have been a factor.Moreover,Capaccio had a total instrument flying time of less than 36 hours in 1942, Boss said.

"They weren't trained for this," he said.

An Army Air Forces safety report after the war vowed to make changes to avoid heavy tolls on little trained pilots. However, it noted the accident toll was "the pricewhich had to be paid to achieve the air power required for victory."

Paul Capaccio of Lyndhurst, N.J. died in a plane crash at the age of 25 three months before he was to be sent overseas to combat in WWII.(Photo: Courtesy of Ariana Pelosci)

World War II pushed the Army's pre-Air Force air division to expand from51,165 to 2,372,292 personnel from 1940 to1944. The hurried expansion of theArmy Air Forces "was accepted as part of the cost of the war," according to the report.

The price those six soldiers paidis remembered in Graham County, Boss said, andis deserving of tribute.Pelosci said her family is overjoyed with the honor for "Uncle Paul."

In today's world, where so much is uncertain and where it can be a dark place, having someone do something like this is just amazing and it really brings hope, Pelosci said.

The six pilots killed in the crash on Feb. 2, 1943:

David Zimmer is a local reporter forNorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community,please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email:zimmer@northjersey.comTwitter:@dzimmernews

Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/bergen/lyndhurst/2020/06/20/bogue-ks-honors-paul-capaccio-nj-airman-killed-during-wwii/3213194001/

See more here:
Monument in Kansas farmland honors NJ airman killed there during WWII - NorthJersey.com

Three years ago, a crypto-loving client, who called himself "Freedom Streaming," and, allegedly, lectured in the University of Berkeley, shared that he helped found the 2015 decentralized state of the Free Republic of Liberland.

This fierce crypto-anarchist said Liberland uses blockchain and cryptocurrency. (Read also: An Introduction to Blockchain Technology.) It has minimal laws, no taxes, no police, no borders. To enter the country, you illegally cross through neighboring Croatia and run the risk of being jailed in Croatia overnight.

As of early 2020, Liberland, whose motto is: "Live and Let Live", has half a million citizens. Its government runs on the EOS blockchain and the country uses its own Merit (LLM) cryptocurrency. (Read also: An Intro To Bitcoin: Can A Virtual Currency Work?)

Join nearly 200,000 subscribers who receive actionable tech insights from Techopedia.

The Free Republic of Liberland was established April 13, 2015, by three people plunging its black and yellow flag into a sliver of land between Croatia and Serbia: Czeck politician Vit Jedlika, his girlfriend Jana Markovicova, and a friend.

They grabbed the territory from a list of no-mans lands on Wikipedia and chose that specific date because it was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.

"He was a man," Jedlika said at Blockchain Life 2018, "who wrote the great Declaration of Independence. This contract set the development of that superpower free for at least 200 years. But now, even the United States has turned away from its original Founding Fathers' ideas. Their taxes are around 30 to 40%. America has plenty of non-useful rules."

Liberland, Jedlika resolved, would be founded on the tripartite of Republic, Democracy and Meritocracy:

It would have some elements of a republic, meaning the government should be limited to what it can do; some elements of a democracy, especially the idea that the citizens can veto laws that the government inserts, and we also wanted to fit in this strange system in which one person has a stake in the society, depending on how helpful they are to the society. That's called a Meritocracy.

The Free Republic of Liberland founded on Libertarian principles would recognize all currency but mainly use cryptocurrency. Citizenship would be capped at 140,000 people, and the new state would be run on a DAO, or open source government, operating through the blockchain.

As an e-government built on DAOstack, all Liberland's governing bodies would be voted in electronically over the blockchain and perform their functions over that same ledger.

"In Europe," Jedlika told Facebook Club, Bitcoin Malta, "you're 3.5% poorer every year because of your country's regulations. In fact, because these regulations have a compiled effect over the years, it's like someone dropped an atomic bomb on half the continent because there are all these businesses that are not created because of these rules and high taxes. People could be far richer if there were none of these crazy rules."

The concept of the Free Republic of Liberland appealed to people around the world.

It's the zeitgeist. People are fed up with their government and there's no way to fix it. Especially now with the European Union. People want to contribute to their society, but they don't feel like supporting wars and unnecessary rules, and therefore Liberland was created and our solution works even without the blockchain. The blockchain and our economy is just a cherry on top

The problem was that Jedlika expected to get 20,000 applications in the first year. By the first hour, he got 20,000 calls. At the end of the first week, he and First Lady Jana Markovicova flipped through 200,000 applications.

How could they handle all that themselves!

They needed a real-time solution that would help them process these applications in a cheap, fast, secure, reliable and transparent environment. They also needed a place for their team, scattered worldwide, to collaborate.

Liberland became the first country to use the blockchain for state governance.

By January 2020, Liberland had two Vice Presidents, five Ministers, and 20 ambassadors, with plans to expand to 20 members. (Recently, Jedlika appointed his Finance Minister, Ali Kassab).

Liberland's administration uses a decentralized ledger built on DAOStack to share and discuss regulations in real-time and to solve its problems. The platform also serves as its registry, hub for insurance agencies (among other business that include 1,200 architects), for licences for vehicles, property management, meeting groups (such as Liberland athletes), and so forth. It's also the spot for Liberland citizens to settle their disputes.

"In other countries," Jedlika said, "government over the ledger is theoretical. Here we really do it."

Their DAO, in short, he explained to the AIBC Summit in 2018, "helps us deliver fast, affordable and transparent justice on every single matter that happens to each one of our citizens - no matter what it is, to whom or when. It's fast, transparent and honest."

As an economist, Jedlika had been inspired by Claude-Frdric Bastiat, a French economist, writer and member of the French National Assembly.

"He's kind of the grandfather of Liberland," Jedlika noted at the 2018 Bitcoin Forum, "About 250 years ago, he advocated for less taxation and less regulation, saying all these things hamper the growth and prosperity of people."

"Really what's happening around is robbery." He elaborated on Essen TV that same year. The law has shifted. Instead of protecting people, the law takes money from one person or group and gives it to other people or groups. The rich steal from the poor and the poor steal from the rich through the welfare system, so it creates a system of redistribution which doesn't create social happiness or efficiency.

Liberland's crypto-economic system was set up to remedy the issue. No more money, just a shared currency on a shared blockchain that's transparent, fast, cheap and convenient for all.

"The community is growing," Jedlika told Bitcoin Club Malta in 2018.

"Right now about 60 million people globally use cryptocurrency, but it will be hundreds of millions in the near future. And we will see a shift from a state-controlled money management to a private-controlled money management. States will have a hard time catching up with the change. They said there's no alternative to state currency but now there is an alternative and it's doing fairly well."

Merit serves various purposes, foremost of which is the vote, your ticket out of jail and your collateral to a share in Liberland's future.

To discuss each separately:

In contrast to the one person, one vote principle, Liberlands right to vote depends on the number of Merits you own that, in turn, depends on what you did that actually make the country possible and contributed to its creation. As Jedlika put it,We are fixing this strange relation between state and taxpayer, where it doesnt matter how much you pay in taxes, you always have [only] one vote.

In a regular country, if you break the law you go to jail (or so we hope. In Liberland, where laws are few and you're allowed to have weapons, Merit could prevent jail. If you have enough collateral to pay for the damage that you have created, you might not even go to jail because the people that you have hurt could be compensated from your collateral, Jedlika told Breaker Magazine.

Want some property in the youngest state, albeit it's most times flooded with water? Pay $10,000 in Merits. Liberland may be only 7 km2 (2.7 sq mi), or roughly the same size as Gibraltar.

Still it has embassies in more than 100 cities including Portugal and Mexico; the United States politician and former candidate for U.S. Presidency Ron Paul was awarded citizenship, and Somaliland, a self-declared state that proclaimed its independence from Somalia in 1991, recognized it too.

Here's your rundown:

Merts are earned by building infrastructure, helping with administration, carrying out manual labor, promoting the country, or promising to reside there permanently and contribute to the community.

You'll find Merits on the crypto trading Altilly exchange, where they are paired with USDT, as well as with cryptocurrencies BTC, ETH, and XQR.

As of February, 14, 2020, Merit (LLM) has an overall market capitalization of roughly $1.1 million and each coin trades for $1.02 USD.

Liberland's trove of Merits is capped at 700 million Merits and is controlled and distributed by the DAO.

Meanwhile, because of political problems with Croatia, Jedlika set up a ship moored on the Danube called "Bitcoin Freedom" that serves as an alternative space for Liberland's citizens and from which you can socialize, launch your ICO or barter in Merits. Liberland citizens also get married on that ship that houses around 30 people.

The boat is the venue for an annual festival called "Floating Liberland" and for setting up housing developments called "Diaspora Villages by Liberlanders around the world.

After all, why wouldn't you want to live in the Free Republic of Liberland!

In the words of Jedlika

"What we're doing is timeless. We're the structure of humanity for more freedom. We're the country with the most blockchain experts and crypto freaks from around the world. We're the best country for the best people."

Continue reading here:
Liberland: The Country on the Blockchain An Inside Look - Techopedia

Fueled by boredom and an itch for something new, 9-year-old Kamryn Johnson and five of her friends who live in neighboring Chanhassen decided to open a stand selling friendship bracelets.

After a lot thinking about where the money would end up going, the group agreed that the proceeds would be donated to businesses and food banks in Minneapolis.

"She has a huge heart and simply wanted to be of help in whatever way she could," Johnson told CNN. "She and her friends are finding ways to feed the families of Minneapolis and give back to their community in the way they know how."

While the funds will be going toward helping various businesses damaged during protests, Johnson said the focus is on helping black business owners get back on their feet.

They had already been harmed by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced Minnesota into a statewide shutdown for a month. Then the May 25 death of black resident George Floyd triggered nights of protests and violence in cities across the country.

'When you look at Minneapolis, there is a huge racial gap in basically every aspect of life," Johnson said. "It's not equal. We want to be there for black businesses, especially those that don't have insurance agents to help them out, to let them know they have people that will protect and fight for them."

A portion of the money is going toward feeding the community and providing families with resources such as diapers and laundry detergent. The kids are donating some of their funds to Minneapolis' Sanctuary Covenant Church's food drive and the Kyle Rudolph food and supply Drive.

When the children first came up with the idea, Johnson said he expected them to raise "maybe $50 or something small." After news of their efforts unexpectedly began to spread, people across the country were donating to the cause.

But that's not the only impact the children are having on the movement.

"Day after day, we're having impactful conversations with so many people. So many of our community members have come by to drop off supplies, or just talk about things like racism and injustice, stuff that we don't talk about very often," Ron Johnson said.

"We want to stay in the fight. We don't plan on giving a bit and then walking away and going about our day. We're fighting for our community and it's not going to end any time soon. This is a fight for racial equality and an end to police brutality. It's something we still need to talk about."

While America is a long way from reaching true equality, for now, Kamryn and her friends will continue spreading joy by selling bracelets for as long as people are willing to buy them.

Originally posted here:
A 9-year-old and her friends have raised nearly $100,000 selling bracelets to help black-owned businesses - CNN

The new Netflix offering Da 5 Bloods is set in Southeast Asia and operates in two timelines: the early 1970s and almost right now. Director Spike Lee shot it months before the covid-19 pandemic and George Floyd became inescapable words from our vocabulary, yet it seems to be in conversation with our current locked-down and polarized American moment.

According to Kevin Willmott, who wrote the script with Lee, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, blurring the past and the present has been standard operating procedure.

In the films Willmott and Lee have written together, Chi-Raq explores gang violence in Chicago by adapting the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata, and BlacKkKlansman incorporates footage of the Charlottesville riots while recounting a bizarre true story about how black cop Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in 1970s Colorado Springs.

In Da 5 Bloods, a quartet of Vietnam War veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) return to the country so they can send the remains of a fallen comrade (Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther) back to the States.

They're also eager to see if a cache of gold bricks intended for U.S. allies is still buried with him as well.

The movie features Lee's acerbic humor and nail-biting battle scenes while also addressing how some of the concerns that bedeviled the combatants haven't gone away.

"One of the things that Spike is always interested in is that if he wants to make a film about history, he wants to make it very present today," Willmott says by phone from Lawrence, Kan. "He doesn't want it to play looking back so much as what is now. So, we're always looking for ways to take the past and make it very present today. That's something we both have in common."

A clear sign that the Vietnam War has led to surprising outcomes is a scene where the film's heroes walk across a street revealing that in the aftermath of the war, Ho Chi Minh City now offers many places where diners can enjoy McDonald's and KFC. It's as if corporate eateries have conquered the land in a way that Agent Orange couldn't.

"That was something that's been a pet peeve of mine for some time. In the '90s when they started showing current Vietnam on news reports, and you saw all the fast food places. It had become apparent that that's what took over. That kind of corporate life, you could say that's the opiate of the people because that has a huge effect wherever it goes (laughs). It was just a great opportunity to expose that in Da 5 Bloods," Willmott says.

Observations like this help Willmott and Lee juggle serious social commentary with amusing banter and realistic carnage. Both are devout classic movie buffs and make no apologies for loving The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Apocalypse Now, and both frequently cite Billy Wilder, who was a master at juggling sentiment and cynicism.

"Spike and I share, and we don't really talk about it much, that kind of changing of tone. All of that comes natural to us, and I think it becomes natural because to be funny, we have to be serious," Willmott says. "That's where your humor kind of comes from. It blends those two worlds. To be honest, African-American humor has always been that style. Jewish humor does that, too. You're always having to make fun of your situation."

The film also features Delroy Lindo's Paul, who like Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in John Ford's The Searchers, is a mean-spirited man who's frequently more contemptible than his Comanche antagonists (they don't shoot out the eyes of their dead enemies). When Paul lashes out at his son (Jonathan Majors) or disrespects others along the way, Willmott says it took a special balance to make viewers continue with Paul's journey.

"How we designed it is walking that really thin line of a guy who's -- as he says in the film -- broken. Because he's broken, he's got a lot of grievances, and that's ultimately why he's a Trump supporter because Trump supporters are about grievances, and they feel like they got the wrong end of the stick. That's kind of what Trump sells more than anything," Willmott says.

"Paul feels like he has the wrong end of the stick, and he has. "Unfortunately, his response has made it worse. He won't get counseling, and he won't talk to others, and he blames immigrants. He blames anybody who has tried to help in his life. Delroy does such a good job of bringing humanity in the middle of all that. You end up loving him one moment and hating him the next. He loves his kid, but he tortures his kid. Men like Paul are not bad people, but they often do bad things."

Hard Lessons

Lee and Willmott also teach film, Lee at New York University and Willmott at the University of Kansas. In some ways, it's not surprising they incorporated a dramatic shot from Gone With the Wind in BlacKkKlansman.

As the Stars and Bars flies about ruined Atlanta, the two acknowledge the power of director Victor Fleming's images and the danger they can pose to understanding what actually happened during the Civil War. Willmott teaches the film in his classes and brings up how Scarlett O'Hara's admirable courage accompanies a depiction of the rise of the KKK and a disturbingly sanguine attitude toward slavery.

Author Margaret Mitchell created a heroine for the ages but placed her in a misleading fantasy about 19th-century Georgia.

"When I saw that as a kid, I just had to tune out the black people in the film. It's the same way Native Americans had to do the same thing with John Wayne movies. You have to see yourself as John Wayne. You have to see yourself as Rhett Butler. You're not one of the slaves. You're not one of the Indians getting shot off the horse. As the Civil Rights movement taught us that being black was something you're not ashamed of but you're proud of, and the images started to follow that," he recalls.

"I don't think Gone With the Wind should be censored, but it should have a warning on it. People don't know the history and get caught up in the romance of it. It makes the images of slavery look palatable, and if you saw this as an example of the Civil War, you'd never know slavery even existed."

To counteract this misrepresentation, Lee and Willmott sprinkle Da Five Bloods with facts that are readily available but not in the general public's consciousness. For example, the heroes bring up Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipient PFC Milton L. Olive, Jr. who earned his medal by absorbing the impact of a live grenade in 1963. He died at the age of 18, saving four of his comrades.

"He should be a household name like Audie Murphy was back in World War II. This is a real young kid who had experienced racism among the men he saved. I'm glad that people are learning his name because of the film," Willmott says.

Another way to rebut misrepresentations of history in one film is to make another. Willmott's next movie, which he directed, is The 24th, which chronicles the 24th United States Infantry Regiment and the riots in Houston in 1917.

"The 24th ... was the all-black infantry division of the Buffalo Soldiers ... sent to Houston, Texas, to guard the construction of Camp Logan that was designed to train soldiers to go to World War I. These guys had served in the Philippine insurrection and the Spanish-American War. These guys were veterans and were used to a certain degree of respect and dignity. They go down to Houston, and the police are just brutal and racist," he recalls.

"You know that song 'Midnight Special?' They have a line in the song, 'If you go to Houston, you'd better do right. You'd better not gamble. You'd better not fight.' They were acknowledging the bad police force in that song. Eventually, 150 members of the 24th marched on Houston and went after the police and killed five of them. It winds up being the largest murder trial in American history, and nobody in the country knows about this because the incident was buried, but it's a great example of how the war the black community has had with the police has gone on for a long time."

Read more:
Keeping the past in the present - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette