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Supporters of Italys centre-left Democratic party (PD) breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday evening as their candidate in Emilia-Romagna saw-off competition from Matteo Salvinis far-right League to win the regional elections. That defeat here was even a prospect, though, shows just how much Italys political geography has changed.

Historically Emilia-Romagna, in the north of the country, is a bedrock of communism and has had an unbroken string of leftist governments since the second world war. But the left has been losing ground since the financial crisis of 2008 as in so much of the continent with austerity-stricken rural communities and provincial towns in particular drifting rightwards. Winning in the region would have been a real coup for Salvini, who took personal control of the local campaign.

His plans may have been thwarted, but there is little to suggest that Salvini is losing momentum. While the League may have failed to win over the region as a whole, it has consolidated support in some of Emilias major cities. Similarly, at a national level the polls still suggest Salvinis party is well-positioned to form a majority government in coalition with other rightwing parties, including the far-right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia when the opportunity arises. Such a scenario was reinforced by the results of another vote on Sunday in the poor southern region of Calabria: while the League won just 12%, it also oversaw collaboration among the other rightwing parties to snatch the territory from the incumbent PD governor.

If the left has been able to weather the storm at all, this is despite rather than because of the PDs own campaigning. Instead, it was up to an autonomous social movement called the Sardines to secure the result. Formed last November by a group of twentysomethings in Emilia-Romagnas capital Bologna, the independent initiative called on citizens to congregate in their local piazzas with homemade placards of the eponymous fish, to symbolise solidarity, pacifism and opposition to divisive and violent politics. It might sound gimmicky, but the Sardines struck a chord. In just three months, the movement succeeded in organising demonstrations in 90 cities, the largest mobilisation of civil society in the history of the Italian republic. Their efforts were vindicated. In 2014 turnout in Emilia-Romagnas regional election was 37.7%. This year it jumped to 67.7%. This spike is almost certainly down to the Sardines, without whom the PD may well have lost control.

The most immediate implication of Sundays result will be to prop-up the current government, which now looks set to endure for the foreseeable future. Again, this has less to do with the virtues of the PD itself than the comparatively dire straits of their lead coalition partners, the Five Star Movement (M5S) which was happily partnered with the League before Salvini broke ranks in a botched attempt to grab power for his own party last August.

In the 2018 national elections, the self-styled anti-establishment populists M5S won 33% of the vote, making it the countrys largest single political force. Since that peak, however, its support has been in freefall. On Sunday the M5S won 7.4% of the vote in Calabria, and a meagre 3.5% in Emilia-Romagna. Its attempt to court both left- and rightwing voters, and failure to deliver on key policy pledges, has seen a steady haemorrhage of its largely liberal base. Even before the weekends vote the partys leader, Luigi Di Maio, stepped down from his position, recognising the need for the movement to adopt a more consistent ideological stance this is most likely to mean a move to the left.

With the M5S in chaos, and left-leaning voters swinging to PD, Sundays elections have confirmed a shift in the power balance inside the coalition government. Having picked up leftwing swing voters from its senior partners, the PD, the junior partners, will now dictate the political agenda. In a potential sign of the changes ahead, government ministers have already suggested abolishing the security decree, a piece of legislation passed by the League-M5S coalition to criminalise NGOs and individuals who aid refugees. Overturning this law is one of very few explicit policy proposals supported by participants in the Sardines movement the PD is trying to send a message to the congregations in the piazzas that the party is taking their concerns seriously. Meanwhile, the M5S remains the only Italian party that consistently emphasises the climate emergency, and is still working towards some kind of green new deal for Italy. Committing to this in more concrete terms now seems its best chance at avoiding a further collapse in support.

Whats most interesting about these elections, then, is the extent of the Sardines sudden influence. By manipulating the main parties fears of Salvini this makeshift movement has not only blocked the right: it has effectively made the ruling coalition dependent on their endorsement. For now, the organisers are playing down the possibility of forming their own party. This seems wise. While being outsiders has its drawbacks, it has enabled them to avoid self-defeating echo chambers and foster a remarkable pluralism that has been key to their success.

The Sardines are not here to save the old left. Instead their task is more foundational: to rebuild a culture of political participation, and demonstrate to Italys sceptical population that grassroots politics and activism can yield results especially so soon after the M5Ss own failed experiment in direct democracy. That theyve succeeded in this to some degree, in a country where pessimism has become so deeply ingrained is already a minor miracle. If this belief in collective action can be maintained, the Leagues road to power may not be as smooth as the pollsters would have it.

Jamie Mackay is a writer and translator based in Florence

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Italys progressives had lost hope. The Sardines movement is starting to restore it - The Guardian

T

he first Novomatic linked progressive jackpots have been installed in Cambodia with local distributor Indo Pacific Gaming IPG.

From the start, the machines have created an instant impact amongst players with a variety of linked games including special versions of Novomatic titles as well as new games. With large signage that creates a big impression on the casino floors, the linked progressive jackpot has been introduced on the latest Panthera Curve 1.43 cabinet that features compelling graphics on a 43 curve screen. The games feature titles from the Fortunes series such as Asian Fortunes, Voodoo Fortunes, as well as leading games Book of Ra Mystic Fortunes and Goddess Rising.

Loren Stout, VP of Operations and Sales IPG, said: "Our customers and partners are very pleased with the new Novomatic installations thus far. Comments are positive, and we are continually impressed with the performance of the machines. We look forward to future additional placements and working with our partners to provide the very best machines and equipment we can fit to each specific market."

Sonya Nikolova, VP Sales Asia & Africa, added: "The new game concepts and latest range of slot machines introduced to the markets in South-East Asia have been designed with the aim to respond to customer demand, but also to prove the strategic approach of Novomatic to strengthen the brand recognition and customer satisfaction in the region. The efforts of our partners in supporting our mission are highly appreciated."

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Novomatic and IPG roll out Linked Progressives in Cambodia - Yogonet International

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Progressive and State Farm have both been around for almost 100 years, and each has plenty of happy car insurance customers. But which one is the best choice for you?

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*Market share statistics are from a 2018 report by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). J.D. Power statistics are from the 2019 U.S. Insurance Shopping Study and the 2019 U.S. Auto Claims Satisfaction Study.

Progressive has been in the insurance business since 1937. Since then, the company has introduced a number of innovations. For example, Progressive was the first major auto insurance company to launch a website, the first to sell premiums online, and the first to offer usage-based insurance. The company is the third largest auto insurer in the United States and wrote $27 billion in premiums in 2018, according to the NAIC.

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Progressives customer service track record is average, which is an important thing to know when comparing Progressive vs State Farm. Its not the best, but its not the worst. On J.D. Powers Auto Claims Satisfaction Study, Progressive ranked in the middle of the pack. However, on the Insurance Shopping Study, Progressive came in second-to-last place, with 18 other companies faring better.

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Even if you dont end up buying a policy from Progressive, it could be a good idea to get a quote from the company. Thats because you can compare quotes from other popular providers right on Progressives website at the same time. We think comparing multiple quotes at once is easier than filling out multiple online forms.

Also, Progressive wouldnt offer a price comparison tool unless it offered competitive prices. In fact, many people find cheap car insurance through Progressive. Certain things can help you find a better rate, like having good credit scores, a clean driving record, and being a safe driver. The type of car you drive can also influence your premiums.

As of 2020, State Farm will have been in business for 98 years. Its not quite the oldest car insurance company, but it is the largest in the United States it wrote $48 billion in premiums in 2018 according to the NAIC. The State Farm website says that the company had 43.7 million auto policies in force at the end of 2018. Thats a lot. Chances are, if you dont have State Farm, you know someone who does. So, lets compare Progressive vs State Farm and see if the latter is worthy of that many customers.

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Comparing customer service between Progressive vs State Farm doesnt really tip the balance in either direction. State Farm scores high ratings in some areas but average ones in others. For example, State Farm was ranked in fifth place on J.D. Powers Auto Claims Satisfaction Study 11 places ahead of Progressive. However, it didnt impress on J.D. Powers Insurance Shopping Study.

The company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Also, it has fewer complaints on its BBB page than Progressive does, even though it has many more customers than Progressive.

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Neither State Farm nor Progressive provides discounts to seniors or members of the military. However, that doesnt mean seniors or military personnel cant find good rates from these companies.

Progressives Snapshot program and State Farms Drive Safe and Save both provide usage-based discounts to good drivers, but whats the difference?

If youre thinking about joining Progressives Snapshot, consider yourself warned: Not everyone is a good driver, and not everyone gets discounts. In fact, about 20 percent of Snapshot program participants actually see their rates increase, according to Progressive. Rates can increase because of high-risk driving habits, not just by losing the introductory discount.

If you drive late at night and tend to take corners fast, Snapshot wont be worth it. However, if you really are a good driver, it could pay off. You can save about $25 on your first policy and about $145 on average after that.

State Farms website says that drivers can save up to 30 percent with Drive Safe and Save. Drivers get a 5 percent discount for signing up. Drive Safe and Save tracks speeding, fast corners, hard braking, acceleration, and distracted driving. The good thing about this program is that it cant raise your rate because of high-risk driving. Now, your rate might increase if you become ineligible for a low-mileage discount you previously had, but thats different.

Considering all the evidence, we think both of these companies would make a great choice for auto insurance. If youre a student, it would be unwise to pass up a quote from State Farm. If youre looking for affordable car insurance after college, Progressive is a great option. Plus, with Progressives comparison tool, you can also check out a few other companies at the same time.

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Speaking of getting multiple quotes, there are a few other great providers out there. We recently reviewed the best auto insurance companies in the industry, and along with Progressive and State Farm, USAA and Geico rounded out our top four choices.

You should check out USAA car insurance if you or your family have any military affiliations. USAA tends to be an affordable option for those who qualify and can be cheaper than State Farm or Progressive. After comparing multiple insurance companies, USAA was the only provider that we gave five stars for its prices and reputation for great customer service.

Its also a good idea to include Geico auto insurance in your search. Geico has affordable coverage and is one of the better options if you have a speeding ticket on your driving record. The point is to look at multiple rates so you dont just pick the first quote you see, whether thats from Progressive, State Farm, or another insurance company.

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Progressive Vs State Farm: Cost, Coverage, And Reviews - Motor1

Political Report

Boudin eliminated cash bail and restricted pretrial detention in San Francisco. He also reaffirmed a flawed quest to predict who should be jailed for what they might do.

Last week, San Franciscos newly elected district attorney, Chesa Boudin, released his offices new bail policy. Following his campaign promise, the new policy forbids prosecutors from requesting money bail under any circumstances. In addition, it allows them to request pretrial jail time only for people who face certain violent charges and who prosecutors believe pose a high risk of violence or flight.

With these provisions, Boudin has adopted what is easily the most progressive prosecutor bail policy in the country. His reforms are more comprehensive and transparent than those adopted by other leading progressive prosecutors, such as Bostons Rachael Rollins and Philadelphias Larry Krasner, let alone those of DAs elsewhere in the country.

But the policy also reveals how tough-on-crime norms limit the contemporary vision of progressive prosecution. Boudins office will continue the practice of assessing risk to justify incarcerating legally innocent people for their future crimes. It has defended this approach with unproven appeals to public safety and predictive accuracy, that in a prior era of bail reform would have been seen as an intrusion on fundamental civil rights.

For decades, activists and some legal scholars have denounced the practice of incarcerating people pretrial as a violation of the presumption of innocence, unlikely to improve public safety, destructive to communities, and racially discriminatory. Awaiting trial from a jail cell, people suffer worse case outcomes and risk losing their jobs, their homes, and custody of their children.

Money bail has been the primary mechanism for pretrial incarceration: A judge conditions the release of a person upon the person posting a money bond, often on the recommendation of the prosecutor. Amounts are often set beyond what the person can afford. On any given day in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people are detained pretrial because they are unable to post bail.

In recent years, some progressives have won DA elections on promises to transform this bail system. Boudin, Krasner, and Rollins have released three of the most emblematic prosecutor policies on the issue so far. Each expands the circumstances under which people not yet convicted of a crime will be released from jail without financial conditions.

Only Boudins reform outright eliminates money bail, though.

According to the policy he set, prosecutors in his office can never request money bail, and they can never defend someones incarceration on money bail. Thats a big shift in policy that should enable many people to avoid jail pretrial.

On the other side of the country, prosecutors in Rollins office can still request money bail in situations where they believe there is a flight risk. In Philadelphia, Krasners prosecutors face looser restrictions. Krasner instructed his prosecutors to not request cash bail for certain low-level offenses (misdemeanors and some felonies classified as nonviolent). Otherwise, prosecutors there are free to request money bail.

So even in jurisdictions with progressive prosecutors, incarceration on unaffordable money bonds continues to be a problem. Through extensive court-watching efforts, the Philadelphia Bail Fund has found that, although the pretrial jail population has declined, Krasners prosecutors continue to request unaffordable bail amounts that result in pretrial incarceration, as The Appeal reported in the summer of 2019.

By contrast, prosecutors in San Francisco will no longer be able to ask judges to detain people by imposing financial conditions on their release, at least if Boudins directive is properly implemented. In San Francisco, peoples freedom will not depend on their ability to post bail.

The second aspect of Boudins policy is that it limits when someone can be detained pretrial. If a jurisdiction only eliminates money bail, theres always the risk that, instead of facilitating peoples release, courts and prosecutors will turn to other methods of pretrial incarceration. This is the trade-off that critics say was made with Californias 2018 bail reform law (Senate Bill 10), which is currently pending a 2020 public referendum.

That is because money bail is not the only mechanism for jailing people pretrial. In many states, including California, a judge often acting on a prosecutors recommendation can determine that a person is dangerous or is a flight risk and order that person to be jailed until the criminal case is over.

Boudins policy restricts when this can happen. It sets a presumption against it, and enables prosecutors to recommend pretrial detention only for people facing charges for certain violent felonies. And they can do that only if the prosecutor is convinced that the person has a substantial likelihood of committing great bodily harm or fleeing the jurisdiction if released. These are narrower circumstances than SB 10 would allow. They are also somewhat narrower than Rollinss policy, which enables prosecutors to request pretrial incarceration for all statutorily eligible offenses in Massachusetts mostly violent felonies and gun charges if there is a clear safety risk to an identifiable victim or witness.

But in defining the circumstances where pretrial detention ought not to occur, Boudin, like Rollins and supporters of SB 10, is also endorsing the premise that it sometimes should.

These policies affirm that pretrial incarceration is justified based on predictions of future dangerousness. This conception of pretrial justice reflects the limits not just of particular policies but of the current horizon of progressive prosecution. Rollinss office has made use of such dangerousness holds, The Appeal reported in October, though she has requested these hearings with significantly less frequency than other Massachusetts DAs who use reform rhetoric.

Pretrial incarceration based on dangerousness assessments, a policy first proposed as legislation by the Nixon administration, swept the country in the 1970s and 80s. It permitted courts, for the first time in American history, to legally jail people awaiting trial based on a public safety rationale. These new laws were a turn away from the conclusions of the Johnson administrations seminal 1967 report The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, which had considered pretrial detention as way to reform bail but had determined that it might well create more of a problem than the imposition of money bail, in the light of the difficulty of predicting dangerousness.

In a 1987 opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the Supreme Court found the federal governments new preventive detention scheme to be constitutionally permissible. In dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall chastised the court for disregard[ing] basic principles of justice. He warned of the coercive power of authority to imprison upon prediction and the dangers which the almost inevitable abuses pose to the cherished liberties of a free society.

Boudins bail policy sides with Nixon and Rehnquist over Johnson and Marshall. The policy assumes that prediction can save us from the harms of pretrial incarceration.

Like recent reforms around the country, the plan is to develop better ways to identify the right people to detain pretrial. The press release accompanying Boudins policy promises that the office will release people who are safe and detain those who pose a serious threat to public safety.

But whether that determination is made through prosecutors judgment or actuarial risk assessment tools, the project cannot succeed. Neither prosecutors nor algorithms can know in advance who will commit violent crime.

It turns out that predicting violence is really hard. The information prosecutors see and the judgments they make are racially skewed. And although risk assessment tools are often touted as a solution to implicit bias, a perspective that the press release endorses by evoking the equitable decisions born of objective data, the data used to build actuarial assessments is itself deeply flawed and biased. Even the best actuarial risk assessments predictions of pretrial violence are frighteningly poor. Data from jurisdictions that use the Public Safety Assessment (PSA), a risk assessment tool that Boudins policy includes as a factor in bail decisions, show that 86 to 99 percent of the people that the algorithm flags for potential pretrial violence will not get arrested for a violent crime if released. Arnold Ventures, the company behind the PSA tool, has cautioned that the tool should not be used as the basis for detaining someone. Largely because pretrial violence is so rare, it is also hard to predict.

Even high-risk people are unlikely to commit a violent crime while awaiting trial, so a preventive detention system involves incarcerating thousands of legally innocent people for what a fraction of people might do. The fallout of these policies disproportionately impacts poor communities and communities of color especially Black communities.

Boudin himself has researched the shortcomings of risk assessment tools. In a paper released last week, he and his co-authors show that, by overcharging cases, prosecutors can inflate a defendants risk score, leading to a recommendation for a harsher pretrial outcome, even if the charges are eventually dropped. Such outputs are a far cry from the objective data promised by his office press release.

Boudins policy prevents prosecutors from recommending pretrial detention without supervisor approval, in an effort to foster the presumption against it. But this only moves the problems with making reliable predictions up the hierarchy. Acknowledging the gravity of pretrial incarceration does not by itself make the decisions sounder.

By eliminating financial conditions for release and restricting when prosecutors can request to jail people pretrial, Boudin took more progressive action on bail policy than his contemporaries.

But Boudins policy also upholds a pretrial incarceration scheme justified by tough-on-crime conventions. Todays bail policies expect prosecutors and algorithms to know in advance who will commit crimes and who wont. But no one can know that. At its core, a preventive detention scheme endorses the view that with good enough math or intuition we can overcome the moral stain of incarcerating people not for what they have done but for what they might do.

Colin Doyle is a staff attorney at the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School. He works on bail and pretrial reform across the country at the local and state levels.

See more here:
Chesa Boudin's New Bail Policy is Nation's Most Progressive. It Also Reveals Persistence of Tough-on-Crime Norms. - The Appeal

Sanders and Warren, campaigning on promises to enact some form of Medicare for All, free public college, and a wealth tax, have delighted the leftmost segment of the Democratic base. Warren, with her steady stream of ambitious policy plans, has drawn consistently massive crowds that happily chant wonky slogans. Sanders raised $34.5 million in the last three months of 2019far more money than any other presidential candidate. And more than 26,000 people attended Sanderss October rally with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, making it the largest event held by any Democratic presidential candidate this cycle.

Bidens rallies are consistently much less well attended. And although crowd size is not necessarily predictive of electoral success, it could indicate whether a candidate has a sizable pool of enthusiastic volunteers to draw from in the general election. A Biden nomination would trigger a huge deflation in enthusiasm, and a shrinking of that volunteer pool, progressives argue. If a candidate that gets selected doesnt have the type of energy and excitement from the troopsthe people who give small dollars, the people who phone bank, who show up to ralliesit will be harder said Rashad Robinson, the president of the racial-justice organization Color of Change.

Read: The kumbaya candidate

For many Democrats, that warning triggers an unpleasant flashback to 2016. Sanders, after losing the primary, was late to endorse Hillary Clinton. At least 20 percent of the people who voted for Sanders in the primary did not vote for Clinton in the general election against Trump, according to one study. But every progressive organizer and leader I talked with for this story told me a variation of the same thing: Theyre not concerned that Americans will choose Trump over Biden. Theyre worried that, absent a Democratic candidate who excites them, many Americans might not vote at all.

Democrats have two theories of how to win the 2020 presidential election: persuasion versus turnout. Advocates of the former, generally moderates, believe that Clinton lost to Trump mostly because she failed to convince enough moderate voters in swing states. But progressives say that an emphasis on turning nonvoters into voters is more important for a Democratic victory in November. They blame Clintons loss on failing to inspire and mobilize Americans: An estimated 4.4 million people who voted for Barack Obama did not vote in 2016.

This kind of mobilization strategy relies heavily on local canvassing, and some of the activists involved with grassroots progressive groups told me that they have serious concerns about being able to mobilize volunteers for Biden. Jackie Dempsey, a 53-year-old member of the Forest Hills, Pennsylvania, chapter of Indivisible, a progressive group, intends to campaign for Biden just as vigorously as she would for any other nominee. But when Dempsey asked other members of the group what theyd do if Biden was the Democratic nominee, she received a range of responses: Some people said, Ill vote for him but I wont work for him, Dempsey told me. Some people said, Ill work around him. [Others said,] Ill make sure Democrats are registered, but I wont even vote for him.

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Progressives Warn of a Great Deflation - The Atlantic