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RICHMOND, Va. Virginia Democrats are in the spotlight as they argue over how legislative and congressional boundaries should be drawn, with only a few days left to make a decision.

Redistricting reform has been a top priority for Democrats in Virginia and around the country after a tea party wave a decade ago helped Republicans convert big electoral gains into favorable congressional and state legislative maps. Democrats have called those maps political gerrymanders that have helped accelerate polarization and entrench minority rule.

Many Democrats have pledged to back changes to make sure voters pick their politicians and not the other way around, and Virginia represents a key opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.

All eyes are on Virginia, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former California governor who is an anti-gerrymandering advocate, tweeted earlier this week.

Virginia Democrats are split on what redistricting reforms should look like and lawmakers are continuing to put off any final decisions as this year's legislative session winds to a close.

The U.S. Constitution requires a census once every 10 years. The census conducted this year will be used to redraw districts for the U.S. House and state House and Senate chambers next year.

Both parties have been accused of using partisan advantage to draw unfair maps and more than a dozen states, both conservative and liberal, have passed some sort of redistricting procedures designed to keep partisanship in check.

This year, voters in 35 states will elect more than 5,000 state lawmakers who will help craft the new district maps.

Virginia is ahead of the curve because it holds off-year legislative elections. Democrats won full control of the General Assembly last year for the first time in a generation and are now in charge of determining how maps are drawn next year.

Schwarzenegger and many other anti-gerrymandering advocates around the country are urging Virginia lawmakers to accept a proposed constitutional amendment establishing a bipartisan commission made up of lawmakers and citizens charged with drawing maps.

The measure passed the General Assembly last year with broad bipartisan support and must pass again without any changes this year before going to voters for final approval.

Republicans said the delay in passage of the amendment is an ominous sign that Democrats aren't serious about redistricting reform.

Somebody needs to make a decision, let everybody know what their decision is, said House Minority Leader Del. Todd Gilbert. I hope it's that they follow through with their longstanding commitment.

But several black lawmakers in the state House objected to the proposed amendment last year on the grounds that it would dilute African Americans' influence in drawing maps. They still oppose it this year, and have proposed an alternative they said ensures fair redistricting next year and allows lawmakers to come up with a better constitutional amendment in future years.

Both the proposed constitutional amendment and the alternative plan would form a bipartisan commission made up of lawmakers and citizens who would present maps to the General Assembly for approval.

But a key difference is who would have the final say in approving new maps if the commission's work ended in a stalemate. The proposed constitutional amendment would give the last word to the conservative-leaning Virginia Supreme Court while the alternative plan would still give the General Assembly that power.

Proponents of the proposed amendments have advanced accompanying legislation that would ensure minority representation on the commission and limit the Supreme Court's discretion at drawing maps in the event of a stalemate. But opponents of the constitutional amendment said those measures are still inadequate and a new one is needed.

There is no way that I get to a yes vote for a fatally flawed amendment that does not equally protect voters of color," said Del. Cia Price.

Price's alternative plan has the backing of some liberal groups and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is led by former Attorney General Eric Holder and endorsed by former President Barack Obama.

The Senate has already passed the proposed amendment this year with strong support from black senators and there are more than enough votes to pass it on the House floor. After a lengthy delay, a House committee on Thursday scheduled a hearing on the amendment Friday.

Meanwhile, the Senate has put off making a final decision on Price's alternative proposal.

The session is set to end by March 7.

The worst outcome, said some anti-gerrymandering advocates, would be if nothing passed. Terrance Carroll, the former Democratic Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, said it would hurt Democrats' image nationwide.

It would send a strong message about the commitment of the party to its own principles ... and whether the party is for power for power's sake or whether it's really a party about empowering the people that elected them, he said.

Continued here:
Virginia in the Spotlight as Decision on Redistricting Looms - The New York Times

AUSTIN Texas Republicans arent devouring their own as much as they used to, but in a Tarrant County House fight and two other GOP contests in legislative districts that reach the fringes of Dallas-Fort Worth, there are big philosophical splits.

And big moneys sloshing.

The past months expenditures in a Hurst-Euless-Bedford Republican House primary surpassed a quarter-million dollars. That was small potatoes, though, according to campaign finance reports published Tuesday on the Texas Ethics Commissions website.

In a GOP fight for the open House seat in District 60, which stretches from Granbury nearly to Abilene, the two biggest spenders including the son-in-law of fracking billionaire Farris Wilks burnt more than a half-million dollars between Jan. 24 and Sunday.

Make it nearly $850,000 for the three Republican contenders in District 59, which rambles from Glen Rose to Brady in West Texas.

Led by self-funded, staunchly conservative Stephenville businessman Cody Johnson, the two other primary candidates are center-right incumbent GOP Rep. J.D. Sheffield of Gatesville and Stephenville lawyer Shelby Slawson.

For GOP, a mostly calm cycle

With second-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott playing a larger role, and GOP leaders still chastened by the Democrats dozen-seat gain in the House in 2018, the 2020 primary lacks the all-out brawling that characterized the height of Republican rule in Austin.

Its gone out of vogue to challenge Republicans in primaries in a significant way, said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. That said, there are points here where youve got some significant money from the conservative interests.

Most of the decisive action in this years crucial battle for the Texas House wont come until the fall. The 2020 election will determine whether Republicans get to maximize their gains from next years redrawing of political maps for the third consecutive decade.

Seizure of a House majority by Democrats especially would impair a GOP bid to wring more Republican seats in the U.S. House out of the states next congressional map. That has national implications, and partisan groups from outside Texas are prepping for the November contests in Texas.

In the run-up to Tuesdays primary, Gov. Greg Abbott also is flexing his political muscles in House races. He and some long-standing, GOP-leaning political action committees intervened after Speaker Dennis Bonnen became ensnared in a scandal last year that forced him to announce he will leave the chamber after 14 terms.

This years Republican House primaries have been relatively quiet, especially after tea party-style insurgents spent nearly a decade trying to topple moderate conservative Joe Straus, the former speaker of the House. He stepped down after the 2018 elections.

Freedom Caucus toeholds

Two open-seat GOP contests, though, are spirited, high-dollar affairs. One is for outgoing, staunchly conservative Bedford Rep. Jonathan Sticklands seat in District 92; the other is a battle to replace retiring Granbury Rep. Mike Lang in District 60.

Jeff Cason, who is Sticklands choice to succeed him, spent $120,000, while former Bedford Mayor Jim Griffin spent $113,000. Associated Republicans of Texas, which in recent cycles often has not flinched from backing incumbents under fire from the tea party, gave Griffin nearly $115,000 $90,000 in TV ads and mail pieces, and $25,000 in cash. Taylor Gillig of Arlington, the third Republican in the race, spent about $10,000 in the period.

In the race to succeed Lang who was, like Stickland, a charter member of the Texas Freedom Caucus that strongly criticized Straus for being too moderate Cisco oilman Wilks gave $150,000 to Jon Francis, his son-in-law. Francis is the favorite of the party-purifying group Empower Texans, which says Republican centrists have sold out true conservatives.

In the period, Francis spent more than $372,000, while Graford veterinarian Glenn Rogers spent almost $158,000. Former Gov. Rick Perry is supporting Rogers. Two other GOP hopefuls, Kellye SoRelle and Christopher Perricone, are running shoestring campaigns.

Trying to topple an incumbent

Even bigger sums are being poured into staunch conservatives latest challenge to Sheffield, who was a Straus ally and represents District 59. Over the period, Sheffield raised about $200,000 and spent nearly a quarter-million.

That paled against the tide of money unleashed by Johnson, his biggest-spending opponent. Owner of a country music venue, Johnson has put more than $1.1 million into his campaign. Between Jan. 24 and Sunday, he spent $501,000. Slawson, the third Republican in the race, emptied her coffers, shelling out $110,000.

The 92% recipient

Tuesdays money reports showed that in District 106 in Denton County, conservative activist and donor Darlene Pendery of Flower Mound is largely bankrolling freshman Frisco GOP Rep. Jared Pattersons challenger Harold J. Trombley.

Pendery has given Trombley $127,500 or 92% of the more than $138,000 hes raised throughout his campaign.

Patterson, whos raised more than $350,000 for his reelection, outspent Trombley during the latest period, $109,000 to $73,000. Patterson is also flusher, with almost $153,000 of cash as of Sunday, compared with Trombleys balance of about $20,500.

Abbott steps in

After the scandal over a secretly recorded Capitol conversation with an Empower Texans leader brought down Bonnen, Abbott has sought to defend House members of his party, a role the chambers speakers usually play, according to Rottinghaus.

Greg Abbott has circled the wagons and has made it known he will be the one wholl do the culling in these primaries, he said. He is the pack leader, and the message is, everyone else can step aside.

During the reporting period, Abbott shelled out about $250,000 to help 10 Republican House candidates in contested primaries, mostly for digital ads.

Patterson received $32,000 of help from the governor. Retired Navy fighter pilot Jake Ellzey of Midlothian, whos in a three-way GOP race for the Ellis County-Henderson County seat of retiring Waxahachie Rep. John Wray, got nearly $43,000.

And Lewisville school board member Kronda Thimesch, Abbott's favorite in a two-way primary for the right to try to unseat Carrollton Democratic Rep. Michelle Beckley, received almost $20,000 from Abbott. Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board president Nancy Cline is the other Republican contending in Denton Countys District 65.

In a 15-second ad Abbott began running on Facebook on Feb. 18, the GOP governor sits beside Thimesch and says hes proud to endorse her.

Generally, though not in every instance, tracking Abbotts efforts was Associated Republicans of Texas, the group founded by the late Sen. John Tower more than 40 years ago. It gave GOP House hopefuls almost $225,000 in the period. Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group that successfully undercut trial lawyers political clout, gave House hopefuls of both parties just over $322,000.

Original post:
Millions being spent in remaining Texas House GOP primary battles between tea partiers and moderates - The Dallas Morning News

TEA PARTY AT THE CAPITOL KEMPINSKI

Tea is a leisurely, indulgent affair at The Capitol Kempinski that stretches over five courses and at least two hours. Served at the hotel's Lobby Lounge from 3 to 6pm every day, each course is paired with a different blend from TWG Tea.

The afternoon starts with a trio of hors d'oeuvres inspired by local dishes - chicken rice arancini, chilli crab quiche and smoked duck with cantaloupe in Thai dressing served in a cornet. These come with Purple Buds Tea, an oolong with a citrus edge.

This is followed by an array of savoury Western tea treats such as smoked salmon and gravlax with sour cream, potato and egg in a brioche bun, and tuna mayonnaise croissant. These are accompanied by a green tea with wild honey called No. 10 Tea.

Next are scones, plain and with cranberries, served with clotted cream, house-made forest berry marmalade and caramelised passion fruit chocolate jam. This is matched with Happy Hour Tea, a decaffeinated green tea with spices.

The sweets continue, with three different flavours of financiers. The last course comprises different tarts, both matched with its own tea.

I was stuffed by the time I reached the pastries. So if you have a sweet tooth, pace yourself.

WHERE: Lobby Lounge, The Capitol Kempinski, 15 Stamford Road MRT: City Hall OPEN: 3 to 6pm daily PRICE: $58 with tea pairing, $78 with tea pairing and two glasses of champagne TEL: 6715-6871

If you are a fan of the prized star grouper, check out the current promotion at Yan, where the chef has come up with three ways to serve a whole fish.

The fillet (below) is sauteed with luffa and egg white. The belly is braised with clam sauce. A hot broth is brewed from the head and bones, and added to Chinese parsley and bits of century egg.

Priced at $168, the Star Grouper Three Ways Recommendations Menu is recommended for four to six persons.

Unless you have the appetite of a bird, this won't be enough to fill you up though. So think about adding on a couple of dishes, like a noodle dish. Or opt for another promotion the Cantonese restaurant is offering, where you get to pick three appetisers for $20.

I like the Wok-fried Carrot Cake With Chinese Sausage And Homemade XO Sauce and Deep-fried Fresh Mushroom With Salted Egg Yolk.

WHERE: Yan, 05-02 National Gallery Singapore, 1 St Andrew's Road MRT: City Hall WHEN: Till March 31 PRICE: $168 TEL: 6384-5585

Yun Nans, which specialises in Yunnan cuisine, is serving a complimentary single portion of chicken soup (above) with night-blooming cereus to fortify every dine-in customer during this coronavirus-stricken period.

The night-blooming cereus, or ba wang hua in Mandarin, is a flower that, according to traditional Chinese medicine, nourishes the lungs and reduces phlegm. Here, it is simmered with chicken to produce a clear-tasting soup.

You can also get the soup delivered at $19.90 plus delivery charges. Add another $14 if you want it in a thermal flask. Each order is enough for up to four persons.

WHERE: Yun Nans, 02-217 Jewel Changi Airport, 78 Airport Boulevard; and 03-07 Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive MRT: Changi Airport/Jurong East OPEN: Jewel Changi Airport: 10am to 10pm daily; Westgate: 11.30am to 10pm (Mondays to Fridays), 11am to 10pm (Saturdays and Sundays)

Cassia's new summer menu boasts many new dishes and dim sum items, but the one that stands out for me is the Poached Boston Lobster With Abalone, Dried Scallop, Sea Cucumber, Fresh Fish Maw, Mushroom And Vegetable In Rich Chicken Broth (above).

Besides being the dish with the longest name in the menu, it is a delicious clear broth with all the seafood cooked just right. My only complaint is that the abalone is a tad small, but I guess having a bigger one will push up the price.

A pot for two people costs $128. I can finish it all alone, but it is good to leave room for other dishes.

The dish comes with a choice of steamed rice or rice vermicelli.

I had the latter but found adding the broth to it dilutes the flavour a little, so steamed rice might be a better option.

WHERE: Cassia, Capella Singapore, 1 The Knolls, Sentosa MRT: HarbourFront OPEN: Noon to 2pm, 6.30 to 10pm. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays TEL: 6591-5045

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Food Picks: Tea party at The Capitol Kempinski - The Straits Times

It is one of the oldest truisms in the whole human story that it is not a great idea to take advice from your enemy. Thats why wolves put on sheeps clothing. Its why frogs shouldnt let scorpions hitch rides across rivers. Youre going to get bitten or stung, at best. However, for many American liberal politicians, it seems that listening to your natural adversary remains an irresistible temptation.

Republicans have always loved to lecture liberals on what they should be doing, sometimes adopting the pretense of telling them how to win elections. This always takes the form of encouraging them to be more like Republicans. To an easy mark, the offer of advice might seem to display a lack of self-interest that makes it trustworthy. But in the world of American politics, its a deviously effective strategy. If Republicans can convince Democrats to dilute their identity and abandon their principles, there are two possible results. The first is that they will appear so enfeebled and unreliable to the electorate that they will inevitably lose. The second is that even if they win, they will have become Republicans in the process. Like the scorpion sinking into the river with the frog, Republicans know that this defeat is also in some sense a victory.

Yet Democrats fall into this trap over and over again, a tendency that has risen precipitously with the emergence of the so-called #NeverTrump movement. MSNBC is crawling with Republican talking heads; the op-ed pages of major newspapers regularly allow them to address Democrats in the second person. By adopting the pose that Donald Trump is an aberration, a violation of their ideals, rather than a fairly orthodox Republican president carrying out the partys agenda of plutocracy and white supremacy more belligerently than his predecessors, the most cunning Republicans have won the trust of Democrats desperate to defeat him.

What follows is an inventory of the loudest among them. Democrats: do not listen to these Republicans. They mean to drown you. It is their nature.

Its a family affair for Bill Kistrol, the one-time New York Times op-ed columnist whose father, Irving Kristol, was the architect of neoconservatism. The younger Kristol has far fewer intellectual credentials, in spite of having founded a couple magazines par for the course when youre a professional neocon. He worked for the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and was one of the most vocal supporters of the younger Bushs war in Iraq. His highbrow intellectual heritage makes it no wonder he finds Trump distasteful, in spite of being fairly indistinguishable from him politically, and in spite of his personal responsibility for the growth of the American far right. For his surface-level objection to Trump, he is rewarded with constant MSNBC appearances and adulation from #Resistance Twitter.

Unlike Kristol, Erickson is a more modern kind of demagogue: a talk show host and blogger. He is also an idiot, having once expressed his opinion of the New York Times by posting a photo of a bullet-ridden issue he had literally shot a hole through. In 2016, he personally convened a meeting of conservatives that launched the Never Trump movement, a position he was all too happy to abandon when it finally sunk in that it meant he might have to side with Democrats. In 2016, he wrote a post on his vanity website The Resurgent called I Will Not Vote for Donald Trump, Ever. Last year, he wrote one called "I Support the President." Guess who he's voting for this year?

Frum is a former speechwriter for George Bush, and is best known for coining the phrase Axis of Evil. As one of the most influential advocates of the Bush Doctrine, he deserves a lifetime of exile at best. Instead, he is fted by some as a man of great conscience, for his objections to the Trump presidency. It is shameful that he should feel comfortable showing his face in public, and yet it appears all over cable news. Frum has recently dedicated himself to dictating how Democrats should approach their primary, rather hysterically describing Sen. Bernie Sanders as a Marxist of the old school of dialectical materialism, from the land that time forgot.

Rubin, a far-right columnist at the Washington Post, likes to evoke red-menace vibes that go back multiple generations. She too has dedicated herself to pleading with Democrats that they be harsher on Sanders, and lectures the party with a distinctly schoolmarmish tone. Those in the Never Trump camp who lived through the horror of a demagogic radical taking over their party (now my ex-party) have been speaking up, frantically trying to warn Democrats, she said in a recent column. Nice try, Jennifer! Youre a Republican.

Stephens is a man (or a bug) who perhaps needs no introduction, but for the record he is one of the worst Times columnists in the papers history. Lets not dwell on him, because there is not much to say: he is a moron of the first order, devoid of conscience. He has spent three years calling himself a NeverTrumper, before admitting this year that he will probably not vote for his opponent.

Navarro is a Republican strategist who worked with former Florida Gov. Jeb! Bush and the late Arizona Sen. John McCain, and became famous for (rightly) insisting on using the word pussy on national television in quoting Trump. Her father was literally a member of the Contras, the Nicaraguan death squad that opposed the Sandinista government with the support of the Reagan administration. She seems proud of that, which one should probably take into account when considering her advice.

An undeserving beneficiary of the blogger-to-pundit pipeline, McArdle is a libertarian who used to blog as an Ayn Rand character and now writes for Bloomberg. She loves Italian food and is against fire safety.

As she is fond of reminding you, Meghan McCain is John McCains daughter. She parlayed that filial credential into a position on the panel of The View, an ideal outlet for her uniformed prattle. She has benefited from her fathers persona as the maverick, honorable Republican, a man who was supposedly guided by principled conviction and yet still chose Sarah Palin as his presidential running mate.

Rick Wilson is a Republican consultant responsible for developing TV commercials for Republican candidates. His literal job is helping Republicans win elections.

Ironically best-known for his headwear a rakishly tilted fedora Boot is a special flavor of conservative. He seems motivated almost entirely by imperial bloodlust rather than a general inclination toward traditionalism or laissez-faire economic philosophy. In spite of his love of aggression, Boot has been so dismayed by Trumps ungentlemanly demeanor he has gone as far as to start using liberal terminology like white privilege, eventually making a self-important pronouncement of his departure from the right. Fortunately for him, contemporary liberalism is mostly accommodating to military adventurism, and last time around, he found an ideal candidate in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. These days, he seems to be getting concerned that a potential leftward shift of the Democratic party might cause a worldwide reduction in civilian casualties.

As John McCains campaign manager, Schmidt is personally responsible for the national fame of Palin, his choice for McCains running mate. Arguably, Palin and the contemporaneous blossoming of the Tea Party are the most consequential precedents to the rise of Trump. Schmidt now goes on MSNBC nearly every day advising on how to resist the president, which is something like asking Joe Camel for advice on how to quit smoking. Democrats: you do not have to listen.

More here:
How to be a Democrat, according to Republicans - The Outline

Mairlyn Smith lost her sense of peace when her father died a few years ago.

Despite the pain, she motored through and returned to work, thinking everything would be OK.

When her mother died about a year later, however, it took a heavy toll on her well-being.

It really affected me, said Smith, speaking to farmers in late January at FarmTech in Edmonton. Im not sure why. She was my mom, but they were both now gone.

Smith, a cookbook author and professional home economist, said she embraced her grief. Even though it put her in a hole at times, it allowed her to process her pain and take care of herself.

In doing so, she said her inner sense of peace began to return.

I realized it was OK I didnt finish my to-do list. I cancelled my speaking events because I couldnt go out and say I was happy, she said. I gave myself that permission to grieve.

During her presentation, Smith shared her personal story to show people that its OK to grieve and feel sad when they lose a loved one.

She said it can allow people to practice self-love, which means they are treating themselves with respect and kindness, in the same way they would treat a friend.

When people dont embrace their feelings, deciding to store them away for later, it can come back to bite them, she said.

You have to admit to yourself that you are under stress and that you need help, she said. You have to accept the feeling is real and authentic.

But there came a time when Smith had to move forward.

She said a voice in her head told her it was time to get off the couch. She suspects the voice was her mother.

If I hadnt got off the couch I do believe I may have stayed on the couch forever, she said.

There is a fine line between grief and depression, Smith added. She said if people are unable to pull themselves through fully, they should seek professional help.

Smith said she gave herself pep talks to get through the days. Over time, things got better. She threw a tea party with her many friends to celebrate her mothers birthday.

She soon realized she was again practicing self-love, only this time it wasnt on the couch.

When you practise self-love, you have less anxiety, you have less depression and a more optimistic outlook, she said. My father was an optimistic man. He was always practising self-love.

Smith said practising self-love naturally leads to healthier decisions.

She wrote her cookbook, Peace, Love and Fibre, with her own personal story in mind.

In the book, she recommends people eat more fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and pulses to increase their daily dose of fibre. The recommendation is 25 to 38 grams per day.

Flax seeds, which are rich in fibre and omega-3 fatty acids, are especially important, she said. Research has shown they can help reduce risk of prostate and breast cancers.

She recommended people get up to two tablespoons per day, though cautioned them to take it slow.

If you start with two tablespoons immediately, youll blow yourself out of the bathroom, she said to much laughter. When you eat more fibre, youre going to need to drink a lot more water.

Mairlyn Smith says people should eat more of these fibre-rich foods:

Read more:
Peace, love and fibre called keys - Western Producer