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No surprise: Republican Florida House Speaker Jos Oliva, who has pushed a conservative to libertarian agenda through the state House, got one of the lowest grades of all in an analysis by the Progress Florida organization.

Oliva got a 37 percent an F.

The more moderate Republican Senate President Bill Galvano got a grade of 64 percent, which is D.

The only grade lower than Olivas grade went to Pasco Republican Amber Mariano, who earned a 33 percent. Thats the lowest F among lawmakers graded in the annual People First Report Card by Progress Florida. The Florida Phoenix contacted Mariano and is waiting for a response.

The organization describes itself as promoting progressive values and its grading system for lawmakers sways toward Democrats getting higher grades in the A-F analysis.

In fact, 55 Democrats got As, with 27 of those lawmakers getting 100 percent. The other A grades were listed as 90 to 95 percent.

The analysis factors in major floor votes in the 2020 legislative session, around issues including a parental consent for abortion bill, vouchers for kids to go to private schools and other measures.

Since the 2017 legislative session, the organization has released the report card, which aims to identify which Florida lawmakers are voting for people first instead of powerful special interests, according to the groups website.

With Florida battling a health and financial crisis its more important than ever to know how our legislators are voting on major issues that impact our lives, said Progress Florida Executive Director Mark Ferrulo in a written statement.

Three Democrats got a B (86 percent); two got a C; two got a D and one got a F. State Rep. James Bush, a Miami Democrat, got 57 percent, getting the only F grade for Democrats.

Bush voted yes on bills related to parent consent for a minor getting an abortion, school vouchers and terms limits for school board members, among other measures.

Rep. Kimberly Daniels, a Democrat representing part of Duval County, received a 61 percent the second lowest to Democrat Rep. Bush.

According to the People First Report Card, she didnt vote on four bills, but she did vote for bills on abortion, vouchers and school board term limits.

In all, 73 Republican lawmakers got Fs; 20 Republicans got Ds. One got a C Sen. Anitere Flores, who represents Monroe and part of Miami-Dade County.

With a score of 71 percent, Flores was the highest-scoring Republican in the People First Report Card analysis. She voted favorably for several environmental protection bills.

On the Republican side, besides Oliva and Mariano, the lowest percentage figure in the analysis was 43 percent.

Overall, 53 Republican lawmakers got that 43 percent figure. That included Erin Grall, who sponsored the parental consent bill. She represents part of St. Lucie and Indian River counties.

Original post:
Lawmakers get A through F grades -- from a progressive point of view -- and many GOP members flunked - Florida Phoenix

Wise King Ralph keeps a face mask at the ready.

by James A. Bacon

Im still digesting Governor Ralph Northams face-mask mandate, but my initial reaction is that it could be worse. I dislike the coercive aspect of his executive order. But requiring Virginians to wear face masks in public buildings and places of commerce is less intrusive than compelling businesses and workplaces to shut down. If ordering people to wear face masks allows Northam to feel better about loosening other restrictions, then its a net gain.

Theres an element to the face mask debate that I find curiously neglected in the conservative/libertarian commentary Ive seen. Conservatives and libertarians tout the virtue of personal responsibility. Regardless of whether or not face coverings protect you from getting the COVID-19 virus, they do reduce the chances that you will spread the virus. If we believe in personal responsibility as an alternative to government coercion, conservatives and libertarians need to live their values by acting responsibly.

I would go one step further: If conservatives and libertarians want to see Northam release his Vulcan Death Grip on Virginias economy, they should do everything within their power to ensure that the coronavirus does not spread. If Virginia sees a significant uptick in the spread of the virus, thats all the Governor needs to back peddle on his timid reversal of emergency shutdown measures.

There are good reasons to oppose the mandate. The Richmond Times-Dispatch actually gives a decent summary here:

Clark Mercer, Northams chief of staff, said health inspectors at the agency had the power to pull a license to operate if a business is found out of compliance with health regulations.

The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police earlier Tuesday strongly opposed a face mask requirement, arguing that it could force businesses to enforce it, potentially exposing them to dangerous encounters.

The police chiefs association said the order turns good advice into a mandate that will be enforced with trespassing citations and by physically removing violators from businesses.

The group argued it destroys police/community relations and puts business owners in a no-win situation: either be prepared to confront people you value as customers, or avoid the risk of a potentially violent confrontation by keeping your business closed.

I fully share those concerns, and they are worth highlighting in the hope of reversing the mandate. But at the end of the day, Northam has virtually limitless power to rule by emergency decree. While we should work to limit that power legislatively and constitutionally, that is a long-term project. In the short term, we need to reopen the economy, and given Northams mindset and the fact that he has the power and we dont, that means doing what we can to drive the COVID-19 infection rate down.

Exercise personal responsibility: Wear masks and protect others from the virus.

Related

Go here to see the original:
You Dont Have to Like the Decree, But Wear Face Masks Anyway - Bacon's Rebellion

When Ross Perot, the most successful third-party presidential candidate in modern political history, argued against the North American Free Trade Agreement, he memorably described its potential negative effects as a "giant sucking sound."

As Rep. Justin Amash considered seeking the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination, he heard something else. More like a giant hissing sound. Aimed in his direction.

Democrats called the Michigan congressman a spoiler. Republicans he once worked with called him a giant egoist. On Twitter and cable news panels, politicos debated whether the Republican-turned-independent would drain less-government conservatives from President Trump, or anti-Trump conservatives from former Vice President Joe Biden.

When Amash officially announced that he would not run, there was a giant exhalation sound: A massive sigh of relief from Democrats and Republicans alike.

It's easy to understand the passion. The stakes are always high in presidential politics, perhaps never more so than amida pandemic and a global economic turndown.

Libertarians will still nominate a candidate who will appear on most state ballots, as will the Greens. But now that a third-party challenger as well-known as Amash appears unlikely in 2020, the Democrats and Republicans who fretted that a prominent Libertarian candidate would spoil everything for their side this fall should pick up an insurance policy for next time. We could avoid all this exhausting hand-wringing in 2024 if we simply adopted ranked choice voting.

This isn't just about making life fairer for third parties. Democrats and Republicans would be acting in their own self-interest. We've always had third parties. Many of them have made advanced important principles and improved our politics. And sometimes as in the case ofPerot in 1992 and 1996, Ralph Nader in 2000, and Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in 2016 they've also contributed to outcomes where a president has been elected with less than50 percent of the vote.

Let's fix that. The problem is with a system that allows candidates to win with a mere plurality. That's what ranked choice voting cures. It's why Maine has changed its rules, and for the first time this fall will allow voters to cast a ranked choice ballot for president. It's time for every state to follow.

RCV functions like an instant runoff. Voters don't have to pick one candidate. They get to rank the entire field instead. If someone captures 50 percent in the first round, they win. If not, the candidate in last place is eliminated, and those votes are reshuffled to backup choices. It's a better way to vote, and assures the fairest result.

The fairest result. That's what all those Democrats and Republicans really wanted, ironically enough, as they pushed Amash to the sideline. They wanted to avoid, once again, an outcome where a handful of third-party voters created a plurality winner and tipped the result one way or the other. RCV delivers that outcome. It puts a permanent end to spoilers. It eliminates the possibility of a plurality winner nabbing all of a state's Electoral College votes. It neutralizes third parties as a threat and incentivizes Democrats and Republicans to court their supporters, rather than blaming anyone who doesn't view the contrasts between the two sides as clearly and identically as they do.

Amash is the second prominent independent to stand down from a third-party bid. Last year, Starbucks founder Howard Schultz pondered a run and found the reception icy. Prominent commentators, even some who likely joined him at Aspen or Davos cocktail parties, now derided him as "dangerous" or a "fool," accused him of blackmailing the nation to keep his taxes low, and urged Schultz to take his billions and do something that wouldn't "ruin the world."

Ultimately, neither Schultz nor Amashdecided to run. But Democrats and Republicans might not be so lucky next time. And there will always be millions of Americans who wish they had a different choice. They will have reasons, whether that's simply about sending a message, a specific policy divideor a character issue they can't overlook. Give them the power to send that message. Then let them rank their next choice.

When Amash announced his decision on Twitter, he bemoaned a polarized public, and too many people who are too quick to view every debate through red and blue lenses. "Social media and traditional media are dominated by voices strongly averse" to "a viable third candidate," Amash wrote. He raises a valid concern but one that's not likely to change in our current winner-takes-all, first-past-the-post system.

Third parties have an important role to play in this conversation as well. After all, they can't expect to be welcomed to the table given the reality of the system. Perhaps that creates a role for Amash during this campaign, as an evangelist for ranked choice voting and the importance of electoral reform. Here's potential common ground for Democrats, Republicans and third parties alike. The major parties fear spoilers. Independents don't like to feel bullied. All of us want fairer elections. Nobody likes a giant sucking sound. There's more common ground here than we think.

Continue reading here:
Justin Amash, Ross Perot and the third-party future: Ranked choice voting is the answer - Salon

Had Pelosi agreed to a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate amendment, it likely would have passed easily, and reauthorization of the broad surveillance authorities, along with some real reforms, would be on their way to becoming law.

The Housewas initially scheduled to vote late Wednesday evening, but postponed the vote. Leaders from both the Republican minority and theCongressional Progressive Caucus said they were whipping members to vote no. Even if it passes, Trump has promised to veto it. Trump, of course, has been known to break promises, so Pelosis gamble may still pay off.

For the first time in the history of the House, the lower chamber allowed for remote proxy voting, as dozens of members of Congress stayed away from the floor amid the coronavirus pandemic. The vote is expected to be close, the result of furious last-minute lobbying by civil libertarians on both the left and right, as well as opposition from Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

The politics of surveillance, even in normal times, scramble the typical partisan tendencies, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Pelosi, and Schiff often aligning on questions about the breadth and depth of state power to surveil and track Americans. Opposing those congressional leaders is the civil liberties community, which includes both progressives and conservatives with libertarian leanings, but which rarely can muster a majority in Congress for its defense of the Bill of Rights.

The civil liberties argument has gained new traction in recent months, with Trumps outrage over theU.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, or FISA, courts handling of surveillance of his campaign, particularly the deeply flawed application for a warrant to surveil former adviser Carter Page. Although it was initially designed to review intelligence surveillance applications for suspected agents of a foreign power, after 9/11 the secretive FISA court signed off on expansive interpretations of surveillance law. Now, as Trumpfeels victimized by it, he and his allies have found religion on the question.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, a famously eccentric conservative in the House, remarked at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning on the oddity of House Democrats fighting to give Trump surveillance powers he wasnt asking for, despite his clear determination to use law enforcement for his own political ends.

It sure seems strange to me. For Democrats to vote for this reauthorization, even with these amendments, would have to be sort of saying, we have so much trust in Donald Trump and the people hes appointed that they would never lie to a FISA court. They would never just go after their enemies. We feel like he can be trusted and so can all the people hes appointed, he said. We know hes cleaned out some folks at the Justice Department, FBI, I mean, think about it.

The unlikely coalition of Trump and the civil libertarians was enough to stall the legal reauthorization of the FBIs call detail records program, an amended version of the Patriot Act that allowed federal law enforcement to collect phone records. The authority lapsed in March after McConnell was unable to force through an unamended reauthorization.

Earlier this month, the Senate reauthorized those programs with additional restrictions, but an amendment that would limit the governments ability to collect internet browsing history without a warrantfellone vote short of the 60 votes it needed to pass.

Pelosi then instructed Schiff to come up with a compromise version with Lofgren, rather than allow an up-or-down vote on the Senate language. The result of those negotiations was an amendment, introduced by Lofgren and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, that reintroduced the restriction on collecting browsing history, but applies it only to U.S. persons.

However, Lofgrens and Davidsons amendment leaves up to interpretation what federal agents should do when they dont know ahead of time whether U.S. persons information would be swept up in information requests giving the secretive FISA court room to allow bulk collection and task the FBI with purging U.S. person information afterward. The agreement broke down when Schiff andLofgrenoffered different interpretations of their measure.

If the government wants to use a dragnet and order a service provider to produce a list of everyone who has visited a particular website, watched a particular YouTube video, or made a particular search query, it cannot seek that order unless it can guarantee that the business records returned will contain no U.S. person IP addresses, or other U.S. person identifiers, Lofgren said at a Rules Committee hearing Wednesday morning. That interpretation was enough to win the backing of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

In a statement, Schiff said that the amendment prohibited orders that to seek to obtain U.S. persons browsing information, leaving open the possibility that the FBI could seek to collect visitor logs from a website that contained Americans, as long as that was not their primary purpose.

Statements like that, noted Charlie Savage in the Times, can be used by judges to determine legislative intent and confounded what had appeared to be a settled issue.

That led to pushback from both the left and right, and the renewed attention not only risked reforms that had been won in the Senate and failed to win support for the amendment Schiff advocated for, but it also drew a veto threat from Trump. Wyden, who co-sponsored the failed amendment in the Senate, withdrew his support, saying in a statement that it flatly contradicted the intent of his amendment in the Senate, and urged the House to consider his version.

The Rules Committee adjourned Wednesday morning without advancing the amendment,meaning that the House will vote on the version that passed the Senate.

Lofgren said that she would have preferred an amendment not be limited to U.S. persons, but that it was necessary in order to secure a vote from House leadership on the motion. I know concerns have been raised about limiting this to U.S. persons, Lofgren said Wednesday. In my ideal amendment, I would not have included this limitation, but I was led to understand that a compromise might be necessary in order to get a vote.

David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, which lobbied against the legislation, said that Pelosi and Schiffs apparent own goal came from too close of an alliance with the national security establishment, which, he argued, has led them to line up against reforms that could have passed, and in support of a bill that harms Americans, might not pass, and would likely be vetoed.

Trump, too, trashed the compromise, which led House Republican leadership to urge its members Wednesday morning to oppose the bill en masse. If roughly1 in5 go along, Pelosi has no path to passage without Republican support.

The opposition of a vast majority of Republicans gifted theCPC a fresh opportunity to flex its muscles in the House, after a disappointing effort to influence coronavirus relief packages. Trumps turn against surveillance authorities has produced enough Republican opposition that a concerted effort by progressives could block passage.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., a CPC co-chair, told The Intercept that thecaucus was urging its 92 members to vote no.

We have grave concerns that this legislation does not protect people in the United States from warrantless surveillance, especially their online activity including web browsing and internet searches, said Pocan and fellow co-chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., in a statement later on Wednesday afternoon. Despite some positive reforms, the legislation is far too narrow in scope and would still leave the public vulnerable to invasive online spying and data collection.

On Wednesday, Pelosi was insistent the vote should go forward. With an intelligence bill, with a FISA bill, no one is ever really that happy, Pelosi said. But in all humility, we have to have a bill. By late Wednesday evening, the vote was postponed.

Update: May 27, 2020, 9:40 p.m. ETThis piece has been updated to reflect that the Houses vote, scheduled for Wednesday evening, has been postponed.

Read more from the original source:
Left-Right Alliance Takes Aim at Surveillance Bill - The Intercept

We, as a society, are now experiencing a crisis of trust. The three pillars that weve had faith in all our lives institutions, government entities and the media have all failed us. From trusting financial institutions to guard our assets to expecting politicians to enact smart policies to hoping the media informs us on issues truthfully, weve entrusted these institutions to have the publics best interest in mind and to provide crucial guidance in times of crisis. Instead of witnessing any of that, we have seen politicians, government agencies and the media fail catastrophically in the critical, early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the few reasonable voices offering practical advice coming from Silicon Valley insiders sounding five-alarm fires from their personal social media accounts.

As they say, history has a way of repeating itself, and if weve learned anything from the financial crisis of 2008 which bailed out the wealthy banks and left a large swath of the population struggling and jobless its that the centralized institutions put their own interests in front of ours.

The 2008 crisis destroyed the publics trust in the banks and eventually led to the birth and proliferation of cryptocurrency. This genesis moment for cryptocurrency occurred, as it became evident that banks, and associated third parties, were unable to safeguard peoples assets. People wanted to permanently remove, on a structural level, any financial middlemen masquerading as goodwill actors and to control their own money and their own destiny.

There are similar patterns that we can identify between the fallout from the financial crisis of 2008 and the current crisis were living through and how trust in all three pillars has all but disappeared nowadays. During this pandemic, weve realized that:

Stemming back to its early days, the crypto industry has always had a hint of doomsday gloom around its narrative. After all, why would anyone need this marvel of a cryptographic peer-to-peer decentralized financial network if we can simply trust governments, media and institutions to just do their jobs well? As it turns out, our current reality is uncomfortably close to what cryptocurrency enthusiasts always feared they must prepare for in a dystopian future that is now our present day.

The need to replace legacy social systems based on blind trust with decentralized alternatives that are based on fundamental mathematics to empower the individual is now extremely clear. We can expect the natural reaction of the tech-savvy public to be similar to the last crisis: For every centralized institution that claims we know whats good for you so just trust us, well begin to see the emergence of a decentralized alternative that people will actually trust not because they blindly delegate that trust, but because the source code of that distributed network and its rules of operations (oftentimes as the literal source code) will be visible to everyone in the network to review and improve upon.

The intertwined roles of fundamental cryptography and decentralization will quickly grow in our society once we get out of the immediate needs of dealing with this current crisis. After the dust settles, the outcome will be a second genesis moment for fundamental cryptography to power up many verticals shifting to distributed and decentralized alternatives. What will be the most interesting industries to put on the watchlist?

Were now entering a new era of self-reliance that incorporates finding our own trusted sources of information, compensating them outside of for-profit media models and bringing about a grassroots style of citizen-journalists that fully own their own broadcasting power. Instead of a few dozen major media outlets, we will follow thousands of experts who can provide deep and extremely specific coverage for any domain. Substack, Twitter lists and YouTube podcast stars are already filling that void. Adding cryptographic artifacts for reputation and compensation will only accelerate that trend.

We have already started seeing the green shoots of progress that will define how society learns and evolves from this crisis. The biggest winner of all might be the philosophy of libertarianism that shuns large institutional solutions and prefers to bestow all the power on the technologically educated and empowered individual. This might be the catalyst we needed to shift public opinion toward libertarian solutions after seeing such an abject failure of legacy models.

This will usher in an age of reason based on science, research and, most of all, data and facts. Individuals joined in myriad reputational, professional and financial networks will be able to reach an online consensus and enact policies with speed and intellectual depth unseen by any previous generation. And that, perhaps, will be the most lasting positive change in the post-COVID-19 world.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Max Skibinsky is the co-founder and CEO of Vault12. Most recently, Max was an investment partner with Andreessen Horowitz where he focused on enterprise security and Bitcoin.

See the article here:
What the Birth of Crypto Can Predict for the Post-COVID-19 World - Cointelegraph