So we are going to get started. Can you hear me? OK? I do have a mic there, but my dad told me once that I was meant to be a public speaker before they invented PA systems, and he would always go, shh. So we're going to introduce ourselves, and then we'll talk about the procedure and the procedure for both amending the Constitution and the procedure for what we're doing tonight. And the ding-ding that you hear means that the House is having a roll-call vote. The House is right now dealing with paid family leave, and they will probably have at least 20 more roll-call votes tonight, and every time they have one, it takes them about half an hour. They'll be here all night. They're 150 people. So I'm Jeanette White, and I chair the Senate Government Operations Committee. This is the Senate Government Operations Committee I represent the Wyndham District, which is down by the Massachusetts-Nuhanshire borders. I'm Allison Clarkson. I represent, I'm one of the senators representing the Windsor County District. And we're missing Chris Bright, who's quite ill, and he represents Addison County, except that he's not able to be with us. Hi, I'm Ann Faithfully, and I represent Washington County. Brian Collamore from Welling County. So the way we're going to do this is, I would remind everybody if you have a cell phone to turn off your cell phones.  So just so that you know the procedure for emitting your Constitution, our founders made it a little bit difficult to amend the Constitution for good reason, because it is the framework of our values, and it shouldn't be changed willy-nilly. There are states that have constitutions that are pages and pages and pages long, and they do it by voter referendum, which oftentimes those changes are written by advocacy groups or lobbying groups, whatever. And they change the Constitution. And sometimes people are, when they go to vote, they're voting on 20 or 30 constitutional changes that are many, many pages long. We don't do it that way. The way ours works is every four years, so every other biennium, you can introduce a constitutional change. So this biennium, 2019, 2020, is when constitutional changes can be introduced. They don't have to meet any deadlines, except that they have to pass out of both the Senate and the House by the end of May of 2020. In the Senate, they have to pass by 20 votes. There are 30 of us, so it isn't just, and it isn't 2 thirds of the people that are there. It's 20 people. So if only 20 people are there the day that the vote is taken, it still has to pass by 20 votes. It then goes to the House where they can't make any changes, but they have to pass it by a simple majority. It then comes back, the next biennium. So in 2021, 2022, biennium, it will come back and it has to pass the Senate by just a simple majority at that time and the House by a simple majority. If it meets all those steps, it then goes in the general election of 2022. In November 2022, it will go out to the entire population for a vote, and it has to pass by a simple majority. Then there won't be another chance to introduce a constitutional amendment, a proposal, until the 2023 2024 biennium. So it's only every four years that you can introduce it. So I hope that explained a little bit of how difficult it is to change the Constitution and why when we do change the Constitution, we take it very seriously. Because as was pointed out today on an issue, we've been living with this Constitution for a couple hundred years, and any change we may will probably be living with for the next couple hundred years because it is hard to change. So given that, what we're going to do is I know that we had said that two minutes, and that's the way public hearings work. Let me explain a little bit for those of you who might not know the difference between a committee hearing and a public hearing. All of our committee hearings are open. Our agendas are on our website every week. So we've held this on our agenda, I think it's five times up to this point. On our committee meetings. All of those are open. Anybody can come in, ask to testify, speak to us. And the value of doing it that way is we can have a dialogue back and forth. It's much less formal.  And we have a dialogue. Public hearings are very different. Public hearings tend to be more people come and want to testify. So it's usually limited to two minutes each. And there's no conversation back and forth. It isn't a dialogue at all.  Am I doing OK so far? You're doing really well. So what we have done is we had no idea how many people to expect. We weren't sure at all. So we did limit it to your conversation or your testimony to two minutes. That's the normal process for public hearings. And normally we have this little timer here, and Allison would do it. And when it gets to zero, I don't know if it's apt or what, but she'll do something and tell you that you're done. But given the fact that there aren't tons of people here, we won't use the timer. But we would ask you to keep your convict, your testimony not too long just because we don't know if other people might come who will want to testify. We also have done this in the past where we give you a little ticket. And we figured that that's the fairest way to make sure that people are heard and that where it isn't just whoever comes first gets to speak and those who come later don't. We will do the little tickets here until we run out of tickets. And then we'll just invite people to speak if we still have time. Does that make sense? Sure. OK. And when you speak, if you'd be kind enough to your name and the town you live in, that would be great. Yes. We would like to know that. So let me just tell you a little bit about where we are now. And what I think was one of the primary reasons for proposing the amendment in the first place, although I am on the amendment, but I didn't write it. So I'm kind of guessing as to what the primary reason was. The Constitution is clear, it says, after arriving at the age of 21. And I think that many people interpreted that to mean that slavery was actually permitted until the age of 21. What we've learned in our meetings, and we've heard from a number of people, a couple of constitutional scholars among them, Peter Teachout from the Vermont Law School. And what we've learned is that that, in fact, did not relate to slavery, it related to indentured servitude. And in most states at that time, you were free from your indentured servitude at the age of 30. The Vermont Constitution, when it was written in 1777, said men were free of their indentured servitude at age 21 and women at age 18. Then in 1994, we made the Constitution gender neutral. Because we made it gender neutral, we had to raise the age of women being free from indentured servitude to 21, the same as men. So that's what we have learned so far about the phrase after the age of 21. And we've found no, we know that slavery existed in Vermont. We absolutely know that. We've found no bill of sale that was acknowledged for either an adult or a child. So our understanding is that while it existed, our framework said that this is our value and it should not exist. So with that, should we get started? Let's go for the test, though. So I'll call out names, sorry, numbers. I'm assuming I don't have to use the last three numbers? Yes. And so I'll do one, and then just to let the next person know that they're in line, I'll call out the next number. So the first person to come out should be 134, followed by 136. Yeah, come on. Are you 134? Yes. Yes, please. And no, you don't want to use your ticket. You can keep that for years to come. That you're still going to be able to use your ticket. Just bring that down, sort of. Yeah, you don't need to be too close to it. There's so many people in here. But it's for the people who are blind. Because you're projecting to us, so they can figure it out. OK, hopefully they can do this all right. I think you can be a little closer. Yeah, if you're in the chair, you have to be great. My name is Nadahe Stoddard. I'm a living cabinet. Would you? Do you know how to spell it? No. N-E-T-D-A-H-E. And I can see new folks in a previous committee, depending on how high it is. And you're in cabinet. I'm in cabinet, yeah. So be brief and to say that I support the amendment change to take away the terminology of slavery. But also, I would hope that the committee would be bold in outlawing any language that allows enslaving somebody or stealing somebody's labor in any form, way, shape, or form. I think to not do so goes against the values that we do stand for and often pride ourselves on as a state. And I think it's really a matter of criminalizing poverty. I'm going to take a minute just to say that I grew up in Vermont.  My entire life is 30 years. And I don't think he ever made more than $1 an hour. At that time, he was never able to contribute to our family. Income on the outside. And I remember not even having graduated high school and being in a position to try to work, to save up money, to buy 15-minute chips on the phone that were overpriced to benefit the phone companies. So my ability to save, my ability to contribute to the state, to pay taxes, to let your imagination go wild, has been stunted by what is a horrible form of corporate welfare that takes not only the time and energy and value for people, but our relationships with each other and the rest. And so I would really just hope that we would not just take this opportunity to have it be about language, but to really conceive of what we can do to be true to our ideal and the previous committee meeting that I was in. I'm forgetting which one it would be, but I think it was one that said something to the effect of like, at least changes are hard to make. And we don't want to have to go back and change again. So we might as well make a change that really is true to what we want and feel. And I feel that to do this is so. And that we could actually be bold and have a stiffer understanding of things than the federal 13th amendment allows people to be enslaved in prison. And we can choose to not have that happen in Vermont and into Vermont. Thank you. So 136 is up next followed by 133. And I apologize for coughing. I didn't go home. Thank you. I'm Christine Malmore. I live in the Longton. I've spent most of my life looking in the Longton after moving in with my family. And I'm biracial for lack of a better term. And I think it's, you know, as I was listening to you describe the reasons for maybe considering not doing this and the difficulty around changing the constitution, this strikes me as kind of a strange reason not to do this. And I think that that kind of it should shed light on the difference between perspective of somebody like me that's of color and your perspective. And I think that that's really important to consider. And I think that if that's the only reason that you're thinking about not doing that, doesn't really seem like not your reasoning for me. And the only other thing I guess I'll share with you because I could probably sit here for hours and talk about what this means to somebody like me. But as we're driving down here, I was just remembering the first time I ever had to explain to my children what slavery was. And it's really difficult conversation. It's also really difficult to explain to like, you know, my brown sons that especially in the state of Vermont that if they ever come into contact with the police that they're gonna have to be extra careful, not just careful but extra careful because they're brown and it could be very easy for them to end up in jail even if they just said the wrong thing. So I hope you can understand like our perspective about why something like this is important. And I also think that most people really don't understand because you have to do a lot of research to understand the far reaching implications of having slavery in the Constitution including criminalizing poverty. I spent 12 years at the CJC in Brompton assisting people that were returning from the prison system to find employment and it was very difficult. It's especially difficult for, you know, a white man or a woman, even in the state of Vermont, to find employment with a criminal record. It is next to impossible for a lab around person to find employment or at least decent employment with a criminal record. So I think that anything that we can do to start decriminalizing the issues that are like, you know, what they say or other issues that really most other civilized places in the world don't incarcerate people for, I think that that's something to consider. And back to my story about spending slavery to my children, one of the things where I got stuck was when my daughter asked me if it could ever happen again. And I said, probably not, but I couldn't really say that with confidence. So I guess that's really all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you. Next is 135 to be followed by 132. 132. 132. 133. Yeah, followed by 135. Correct me. I'll be fired for this job before I'm fired. We're a little better with concepts than numbers. Thank you, thank you for this hearing. My name is Wafi, W-A-F-I-C. Last name, Faur, F-A-O-U-R, Richmond, Vermont. Richmond? Yes. Thank you again. I am not a scholar of constitution and I cannot answer the professor from Vermont State why this excuse he gave about the language of the constitution that we have to keep this language and this constitution. And I don't find it very hard to take this language from the constitution, even the founding fathers, but it made it very difficult to change it. After all, we know in 2019, slavery is wrong, but the founding fathers were owners of slaves. What concerns me the most that this language and this kind of relaxation about it, that it's all right to have it when we have now and witnessing more and more the modern way slavery. I see it, the treatment of people of colors, mainly black people, all through history, Jim Crow, and on putting black people in huge numbers in prison, stopping them here on this state, more at 67% on our biggest city, more higher than white commuter, putting them in jail and transfer them to private jail, which is any one of you if you can look at the documentary like 13, named after the amendment of the constitution. We found multinational big American company are using the laborers of the people on jail for less than $1 a day. This is modern day slavery. And our silence about what's happening to our sisters and brothers here, the rural area, the amount on our farms, they are living on fear day after day on the shadow of the bonds that they have no say of what tomorrow can bring to them. And us here on the house of the government, on this state, we cannot protect them. This is what concerns me. And we shouldn't be take this language as an easy language for people of colors or there. Any kind of people, you have to understand that is big percentage of people living on the state of Vermont, they feel as adults, if you are not white, you are adults, even though if you came hundreds of years from the beginning of this state, from the beginning of this country, you still consider as adults, you don't belong. We succeeded last week that we passed FDOT3 to change the education. But there are other areas we are not touching, the housing, the healthcare, and we have to look again and again on the policing on this state. Because how much we think we are liberal and open minded, the treatment of people of color on this state is very dangerous. And this is 2019 and we have to work together. Thank you. 135. So I think I made a bad explanation at the beginning. I didn't mean to imply that because it was difficult and this language was in there that has been interpreted in a different way, that we shouldn't change it. I didn't mean to imply that it shouldn't be changed. I was trying to give an explanation of what we've learned about the intention of the language to begin with, but I have no doubt that it should be changed in some way. So I just wanted to make that clear. I'm just asking if I can make a testimony. Yeah, be good. Did you say you was up next, Dr. Martin? 132. And I should mark just handed in his testimony. If anybody else has written testimony that they would like to give us at the time or a segment later, please feel free to do so. Don't embarrass me. Please provide a copy of me as well for the record. Yeah, we'll give it to Dr. Martin. Yeah, I got an extra one right here. I'm sorry. Good afternoon. Madam Chair. Senate Government Operations Committee, my name is Mark Hughes for the record. And from? I'm from Burma tonight. Sorry, Senator. Oh, that's okay. It's good to see you all again. And thank you for the opportunity to come out and be a part of the hearing tonight. I'm the Director of Justice for All and also the coordinator of the Racial Justice Reclaim Alliance. We brought you Act 54, Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System, Advisory Panel. We also brought you Act 9, Racial Equity Panel and Director. The Attorney General of the Human Rights Commission, Act 54 Task Force, reported, it stated, quote, while slavery has been outlawed in this country for over 150 years, the vestiges of it and of Jim Crow remain today in the form of systemic racism. Act 9, quote, it created within the executive branch the position of executive director of racial equity to, quote, identify and work to eradicate systemic racism within state government. These were both done in 2017 and 2018, respectively, as you all know. Now we bring you PR 2. It's sponsored by all of you as well as 19 additional senators. The purpose of this bipartisan bill was to amend the constitution, quote, of the state of Vermont to eliminate reference to slavery. And the purpose of the original proposal went on to say, quote, eliminating reference to slavery in the Vermont Constitution will serve as a foundation for addressing systemic racism in our state's laws and institutions. Now we've all come to understand that through those well attended are pleased to remove slavery, quote, remove slavery from the Constitution. They kind of fell a little bit short of our collective intention to ensure that the Constitution actually expressly prohibited slavery. I think we can all agree upon that. Our purpose, however, remains clear that it is still, quote, to serve as a foundation for addressing systemic racism in Vermont, asking that the essence of this intent not be erased. I'm asking that it be restored in the purpose of the language that we're moving forward. I'm asking that you do so, along with the history of the partial prohibition as well as that of the 13th Amendment that was in the original language, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. Second, I ask you to consider removal of language indicating, quote, or bound by law for payments, debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like from the Vermont Constitution. This language, it supports the criminalization of poverty. Title 13, 71-80, is clear from the fact that incarceration is a remedy for a failure to pay fines across surcharges and penalties, end of quote. Again, Title 13, 71-80 is a remedy of a department states that it is a fact that incarceration is a remedy. Incarceration is a remedy for failure to pay fines, costs, surcharges, and penalties. That's a quote, okay? Ominously familiar to that of the Constitution. United States Constitution is even clearer that those incarcerated for punishment of crimes are slaves to the 13th Amendment. Now outside of federal implications, the implications of these types, this type of servitude amounts to here in the state, nothing less than modern day trafficking. Finally, the wealth of whites being 13 to one, 13 of that African-Americans clearly, the impact is gonna be disproportionate on people who come. Now, third, moving on to Chapter Two of the Vermont Constitution, the words quote, F-R-E-E-N-E-N appears in our Constitution and free women, F-R-E-E-W-O-M-E-N in the quote. They appear in Chapter Two, Session 42 of the Constitution as descriptors for eligible voters in the constitutionally mandated general referendum required to amend the Constitution that you, Madam Chairman, explained at the top of this meeting. Now, this should be replaced with quote, maybe voters' qualifications and oaths or some rewards to that effect, clearly. And I also ask you as we focus on systemic racism in our Constitution to note that the terms free men and free women also appear 16 additional times in Title 17, Session 32. And the term also appears in Rule 84, your rules, this in. All occurrences, obviously, they pertain to voter qualifications in the general referendum to amend the Constitution of this state. And lastly, it'd be irresponsible if I didn't provide some clarity surrounding the premise that the language, the Constitution probably never intended to permit slavery as floating around here. Just a little clarity on that if I might be permitted. You see, Jacobs versus the Vermont Supreme Court was not a decision on the question of constitutional intent surrounding slavery. It never was. You see, the case was about a Supreme Court judge who owed and employed a slave named Donald for 17 years. Windsor brought a claim against this judge because the time was caring for her, being homeless. And she was blind and sick at this time by the way, because Jacobs wouldn't do it. Now, after Jacobs' recusal, the purchase receipt was challenged and Judge Tyler stated that the purchase receipt was inadmissible because slavery was prohibited in Vermont. This is arguably one of the worst court technicalities in Vermont history and a far cry from a decision on constitutional intent surrounding slavery with all respect to Mr. Teach Out, his premise is poorly placed. This time, this is the time now that we're up coming to the surface in this nation, okay? And there's a lot of stuff that we need to unpack. We need to do it together. Southeast state correctional facility is six minutes drive from Judge Jacobs' house, 70 State Street, Windsor, Vermont. That's where Diana lived for 25 years. A woman, black, a slave, sick, disabled, homeless, unemployed, uninsured, she represented almost all of what society has historically neglected, abused, oppressed, and criminalized. Let's use our legacy to embrace the history and let's commit to the future of this state.  This is our opportunity to make a clean break. The state, of course, let's continue the work that we started, let's continue to live up to who we are as Vermonters, whether it has been immigration, cannabis legalization, to fight for women's rights, to choose concerning their own bodies. Nothing has deterred us here in Vermont for a fight for what is right. Let's continue to fight against oppression and criminalization of black and brown and poor folks in this state. Thank you for your time. From 32 to be followed by on 37. I'm so heart resident of Shelburne, Vermont. H-A-R-T, H-A-R-T, and so, C-O-V. I wanna thank the committee for holding this hearing. I'm here to speak out in support of proposal two of the proposal to amend the Vermont Constitution to eliminate reference to slavery. In particular, I would ask that the committee send the proposal to the floor with the language as originally proposed by Senator Ingram and the other sponsors. The language originally proposed is straightforward and clear and I believe represents who we are as a people today. Nobody would read that language today and say, oh wait, we forgot to mention slavery. The very idea that such simple and clear language could be improved by adding the mention of slavery to it is incomprehensible to me. My understanding is that there's a desire by some to retain the language of slavery in our constitution to enshrine the fact that Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery. Setting aside very real questions about the degree to which Vermont truly and fully abolished slavery, I think that it is time for us to stop clinging to that history, to stop patting ourselves on the back for that past and start the very real and crucial work of addressing the racism that remains a part of our present day society and institutions. If we must hold on to that history, let's make sure we're holding on to our full history, both the grave wrongs committed and the acts of which we can already proud. And let's remember that history in museums, both blacks and statues, but not in our living constitution, the critical foundation of our current laws. There is so much important work to be done to address the dismantled racism in our state. One small piece of that work would be the full and complete elimination of slavery from our state constitution. I ask the committee to please restore the clean and simple language originally proposed for proposal two and give us a clean constitution. Thank you. Thank you. And so would you kind of have to submit that? I did drop it off and I'll give one general. Electronically, very well, yeah, together. Up next is 137, followed by 131. Good evening, Madam Chair and others. My name is Rashita Butler, R-A-S-H-E-T-A. I am currently a Vermont law school student, a 3-O, class of graduate in Maine, originally from Chicago, Illinois. I do not have a prepared statement. However, I do want to voice my opinions on this matter because I think it's important to have a voice. As stated earlier, I believe section two, article one, of the constitutional amendment that's up, the amendment should be eliminated that says, unless bound by the person's own consent or bound by the pain of death, damages, fines, costs, or the life should be completely eliminated. And for the reasons that I heard tonight, for people who spoke before me, it is also known that prison is a form of slavery, if not a form of individual servitude. We have prisoners who are mostly of color in prisons doing free labor. And I think the elimination of this section of the constitutional amendment, section two, article one, is essential to accomplish that goal because it makes it apparent that Vermont will not stand for its institutional racism to persist, especially in prisons. Thank you. Ms. Kathleen. Oh, yeah. 130, we're next. My name is Kathleen Void Walsh. I have written a statement. You have digressed from it. I'm very proud that my family is here with me. They're probably at a change then. Ruby and Maya are some of the reason that they are. I've had a lifelong sort of wanting to learn more about black culture and my bookshelf has always had those books that I never got around to reading, but my life has been an exploration of race and what it means to me and what it means in our society. More so now that I have such amazing, wonderful grandchildren. I come here today on this 51st anniversary of the passing of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because I want the beloved community to come live here in Vermont. Before he died, he started to talk about poverty and it is really true that poverty is criminalized and it's true in the words of the Constitution as well and it's not okay. I would respectfully offer to you that it is the past time for Vermont to finish the task of ensuring what we started in 1793 when our forebears, I should say forefathers, and they were white and they were probably landed in wealthy and that's worth making a note of. An active Vermont state constitution. I want to share with you, I've been trying to learn about race and art history and I learned something, I found it out recently. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to do more research and give you more information about it, but. So 1612 is the year that sticks in my mind because I heard someone say it and I don't know for sure but I think it might have been the date that the first ship landed with African Americans. I don't really know for sure but I know that it was significant to the man who was saying it, who was the black minister that I was listening to. In 1640, the people in Virginia legally sanctioned slavery for people of color and they did that because there was a court case where there were three indentured servants that ran away to Maryland from Virginia and the three indentured servants were found to be guilty and all three were sentenced and the one African servant was sentenced to a full life of servitude and the white servants were not. So whatever the rules were, I think it's great that Vermont did better than those rules but the rules were, those rules are still there and they're there for an economic reason. Our country has, I struck out of my original notes a comment about who made the laws and they were white people, they were white men, they were from someplace else and this land wasn't theirs and it wasn't free for the taking but yeah, we took it. So all that is part of that. But in 1641 that slavery was legally sanctioned.  So it was really the beginning of racism. I think that in Vermont, there might have been an intention. Vermont was maybe trying to blaze a trail but the cultural and economic underpinnings of slavery were still at play in them, in their lives. I mean, Ropee Museum was owned by a gentleman who took in people who were fleeing with slavery but yet when one of those people asked him, could you please pay my former master so that I can be free because I don't have the money even though I worked really hard. They sent a letter to the master, to the former owner, and that person said no, that's not the market value of that slave and I will not take less than us and such.  He later regretted it but the fact was that he still had that, he had a certain viewpoint in the world that didn't treat everyone the same and his idea of what was right was his and he had the freedom to do that. That's like me. I mean, I recently read a book by, you know, I don't know the case, by Angela and now I'm gonna lose my train of thought. So if you're probably there, I should start reading it. She was heartbroken when Martin Luther King died and when I read her autobiography, I realized I didn't have to be heartbroken. So back to my notes. When in 1793 Vermont was trying to blaze a trail but we have exceptions in our constitution when they wrote it, which you all know well. Our constitution does not yet guarantee freedom for wrong. And as has been already said, neither does our federal constitution. So the conditions of poverty and whatever people decide is gonna be criminalized are conditions of slavery to nationally and work in Vermont. What I am asking is simple. Do whatever you have to do now to make this keep on going because I know there are people who are gonna grow up and I don't want them to have to fight this battle. Not when they're 12, not when they're 16, not when they're 20, not when they're, you know, has it has been prohibit slavery with that exception. Give free, especially give Vermonters the opportunity to heal the wounds that we still have of slavery that are hiding and racism. It's legacy, racism. It lives here. It's past my first to do all that we can and the constitution needs to be changed. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing Ben's back. Thank you. Such a treat. Up next is 130s to be followed at 138. If other people have come in after we've done this, we don't have any more tickets in here. So I can give you a ticket if you want or if you don't have one, we will still have some time and we'll take other people. Good evening. Thank you very much for having us here in. My name is Sylvia Knight, K-N-I-G-H-T. I live in Brompton, Vermont. Proposition two provides a unique moment in history when we can begin to rectify the troubling and damaging legacy of slavery in our country. It is time to make certain that Vermont's constitution with bases of our laws does not in any way provide a basis for inequity or inequality between persons or groups of people. Since the 1960s, I've become painfully aware of the effects of inequity and racism on myself, my family and on my brothers and sisters of color. As whites, we participated implicit bias and benefit from institutionalized racial inequity. It is ingrained in our laws, institutions and cultures. Slavery and racism based in the social construct of white supremacy has been perpetuated in Jim Crow lynching mass incursorations of black and brown people and desjured segregation, not de facto, desjured based on laws. In Vermont, we have seen neighborhoods with restrictive covenants failure to protect black people in Vermont from racial harassment and criminalization of black and brown people with unequal treatment before the law, as our nation was built, would also include in that the criminalization of our immigrant farm workers. As our nation was built on systemic racism and inequality based on law, we must remove the legal basis for inequality and systemic racism in order to create racial justice in Vermont. Healing cannot happen without movement toward justice. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, signed by the United States, we read recognition of inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world. The amended version of PR2 beginning with therefore no person born in this country still maintains references to conditions of inequality that are not clear or helpful in moving toward racial equity and justice. So I urge that you adopt language suggested by Peter Teachout, such as adding after the word therefore, adding slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited and omitting the remaining language. I would also accept us going forward with the original PR2. For me, this makes it clearer. So please help us to embody our constitution so that upholds the principle of inherent dignity and equal inalienable rights for all. Thank you for having this hearing. Because I'm tight. Thank you. So the last take I have is 1.38. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come speak on this issue. My name is Uman Hadarian, I'm here on my own time and I'm a University of Vermont student in the graduate program, CTA Masters of Public Administration. And I'm here to voice my opinion on eliminating all language regard and slavery in Vermont Constitution. I'm originally from Maryland and I came here primarily for furthering my education, but I could have chosen many different schools but I wanted to come to Vermont knowing that Vermont invests in the people and in the land. I also want to continue my work in agriculture and food policy, which is something I'm very interested in being here in Vermont and seeing how robust it is. I believe from my short time here, so far that Vermont is a progressive state in that the government adopts new policies that would continue to invest in the people in the land and in keeping with those traditions and values, I urge you to support the original language in PRT. And also, UVM celebrated the Andrew Harris who was the first black graduate of the school and seems to me that will also continue in that same path of, in fact, not holding back minorities and criminalizing poverty but to in fact celebrate the minorities that we do have in Vermont. That support our economy and as well as agriculture. Thank you. Thank you very much, Laura. So has anybody come in after we started that would like to speak? Do you have that one? Would you like? Yeah, but she was only going to be on stage. I'm going to keep an eye on her. Hi, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for holding this hearing at a later hour for the opportunity to speak. I didn't submit testimony because I wasn't sure if it was going to be able to get here, but I did send an email. I'm peacefully written earlier, so I appreciate the chance of speaking. My name is Susan S-U-S-A-N, Schumfeld S-C-H-O-E-N-F-E-L-G from South Burlington, Vermont. I retired in 2014 after working for the state for 25 years, and I'm currently teaching part-time at the University of Vermont in the public health program. When it first came to my attention, the wording related to slavery being prohibited except for under 21 conditions in Vermont that I was startling and distressing. Clearly the last, I think over the last several years in particular, maybe the last couple years, I've come to have an even deeper appreciation of the importance of language, the way that our cost, the strength in our constitution when it's worded well and the potential problems when it isn't worded well. We want to be able to trust our courts that interpret the law and they base it on the constitution so wording is really important. I read the first proposal submitted by Senator Ingram and others and thought it was great, it was clean, clear, and understandable and not subject to potential problems. And then when I read the revised version, I don't feel the language is clear, I don't feel that it's clean. I was typing this out and the word hold came up and that's not in the dictionary on my phone anymore. I mean, there's like the languages older, it might be in line with the other in the constitution but it's not clear. And when we get to the part that's left in about, unless bound by laws for payment of debts, damages, fines, costs in the light, could we say that someone is bound by law to be a servant or apprentice because they have a debt I would like to think we wouldn't get it, that we think we know what that means and it's always the wording is a little unclear but I don't trust that anymore. I think we have to be very, very careful. So I support returning to the language to be a regional proposal and particularly if there has to be some compromise, removing that unclear language. I mean, do see this as important not only to the importance of the body in clear but also racism has never been gone in this country or in this state. We happen to be in a time where it is, there's more blatant acts being identified and more, I think, hopefully for all the sense that we need to address this within our state government and our institutions of society and I look to the leadership of people of color and what it means to them and we should be listening and understanding that and I think that we need to use, we can use the clarity of this language and a statement of changing the constitution as a basis for showing our commitment to understanding the systems of racism in our state and how we can address that and I urge returning to that language. Thanks. Thank you. Number 139. My name is Rachel Wilson. I live in Woodbury, Vermont. I ran a social justice group at high school in Hardwick, Vermont for four years. I have done a lot of racial justice work in the state through the Peace and Justice Center and I'm just here to speak on behalf of the young students of color who are here in the state of Vermont and people of color. I just want to say that having any language that keeps slavery in the Vermont Constitution sends a very clear message to the people of color that we are not safe in Vermont, that justice may not be served to us and I have to say that I have seen so many instances of racism in schools that have just been swept under the rug and so time and again we see that we're not being supported in the state of Vermont and when we stand up there's always backlash and people of color move to Vermont and then a lot of them leave because they don't feel that they have the support of the community and of the state behind them and I know just firsthand after doing all this work around racial justice, feeling the effects of the backlash and the emotional and mental stress and strain and trauma that it causes has made me want to leave the state and I feel that I have a lot to offer to the people of Vermont and I want to stay here and I think that the people who are in power and are in positions of power need to make sure that a message is sent that the people of color in Vermont are going to be safe and that we're all going to be safe that any language that has to do with slavery needs to be removed from our Constitution and I thank you just here as a mother and I'm a very concerned person and thank you for hearing me. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anybody else? So the committee will continue to discuss this and take your comments into consideration and I would suggest that you also watch our website for our committee to see when we take it up next because we will continue this conversation and when you come, if you come to the committee as some of you know, it's a little less formal and we can actually have conversations with you and ask you what about this or how would you do this or can you explain this? So I would encourage you to come when we take this up again and remember that this, just one second, this does not, this has until May of 2020 to pass both chambers. So we want to get it right. We don't want to rush it. We want to make sure we get it right. So, did you have a question? What time of day are you right now? We are an afternoon committee so we meet, typically we should meet from one until about 4.30 or five but oftentimes we're on the floor on Wednesdays and Thursdays, we're on the floor at one o'clock so sometimes we don't get done until later but it will be on our calendar but we are an afternoon committee. And if you have testimony or additional thoughts, if you get Gail's email, please send them to us. We would appreciate having any testimony and if you send it straight to Gail, it comes to us. Mark. Madam Chair, I just want to thank you for taking the time tonight. I think there's a lot of people in the room that would have never had the opportunity to voice to after voices heard so it's a really big deal to me as well that you took the time and your time to do this this evening. So thank you very much for that. That's a two way street, we appreciate you guys. And also just the last point is simply that just inherent in the very nature of what we're talking about when we start, when we're talking about poverty and we're talking about criminalization of poverty and this ties into it is when can we show up? Because a lot of us, we just can't show up and it's so important. And if we would have had it a little bit later, you probably would have had some more folks out but thanks for making the effort. But and also remember that you can always send us written testimony and if you have something when we have anything on the calendar, you can also testify by phone. You can talk to us by phone because we understand that not everybody circles around this building every day like we do. So feel free to ask to testify by phone if you would like to. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.


The Governor of Delta State, Ifai Okoha, has described the ethnic diversity of the state as a strength and virtue. Governor Okoha was speaking during the celebration of the 2023 Anyoma Cultural Day Festival in Asabata State Capital. The rich cultural heritage of Anyoma in Don's, Tong, Dressing, Lifestyle, among others were showcased. The Governor recommended cultural celebrations for all the diverse ethnic groups in Delta State as a way of preserving the rich cultures of the state. We are come to realize that though our tongues may differ, we are one people in Delta State. And the unity of this state, by the special grace of God, is something that we must all strive to be strength to. And one person that has to live, that we are stronger together in Delta State. And I believe that when you have the united Anyoman, when you have the united Rogo Nation, when you have the united Isoku Nation, the Shetri Nation, the Jordan Nation, we are better off for it. Because all we need to do is to ensure that we keep ourselves together and we are the united Delta State. Notified about fresh news updates.


All right All right, this friggin branch needs to go I mean for that whole thing to come off I guess it's dead. Oh good firewood right now though My pipes are still lined up Ducking here, but I'll have to duck this thing is so tall. Oh, don't have to duck don't duck. Okay Come on break At some point Leveled with some concrete under them just like kind of like a Well, I'm still ducking. Why am I ducking? I don't have to duck everything's super hot Yeah Yeah, kind of like railway tracks, but I don't need things that go all the way across I just need like circle there or circle there or circle there with it all leveled out right with the part Make them nice and yeah Look a little boat Man, what a cool. This is so good. Oh, this is so good once upon a time Jamie dreamed of living on in a little island with a lumber mill What oh Yeah, I think it's lunch time Maybe while I'm eating lunch. I'll think about What goes up here? On one side I want to put some solar panels that were Powell that will power a lumber mill then the other side I'm thinking just some stainless steel sheet metal and That stuff. I'll probably just use full sheets Just in case I want to take them off and do something else with them in the future. Oh And you know what I just realized I Need the saw to start at that end and cut this way, which is totally fine. I can go either way But I'd always just been imagining it starting here and cutting that way But if I bring the logs up wait a minute, maybe I won't bring them this way No, maybe maybe this path keeps going Gradually gradually because this park. It's a little steeper. Yeah. I have that path Right there Right down there. Yeah that path there. That's where I can bring the logs up It's a nice gradual slope should be easy to get them up And I can have them keep going up and then just come in that way that that's probably why I was thinking It would always start at this end.  I just realized so I Keep looking down here to check that the wheel is on the track, you know Centered just right but obviously I can just look down these things There it is right down there Right on the track you All right, so I have a whole bunch of this fiberglass stuff that's Stacked up beside my house. It's kind of in the way and irritating and annoying I took it off a boat because I was changing the roof whatever. This is the second boat I've changed the roof on recently Anyway, there are these big panel things that used to have solar panels attached to them and I'm using them as roof shingles giant shingles like giant roof tiles. I Think those are great. I'll probably want to paint them again at some point It's funny this this whole frame here was the roof of one boat and these things are the roof from another boat and then all these things Were the roof of the houseboat All my boat roofs are going into this. That's great though. I wanted to use them for something cool Those look like they are gonna be excellent and over here Since these Didn't quite reach to this. You know, I just put an extra piece in there Whoa, I like it under here. This is oh so shady. Oh, that's beautiful. Oh There's solar panel They're right up there Where the tile the panels would ever meet the solar panel.  I might not even need it Yeah, I'll probably do it at some point anyway Because it would be nice if it was totally drip-free in here And then I wouldn't have to worry about, you know, lumber mill parts getting wet or anything And then, you know, there's some holes drilled that were for those that were for Wires to come through and I can put some some cocking in those I do have an extra tube of silicone cocking in my house, too. Well, anyway, I Don't have to worry about that right now.  It's a working zone. I don't want it all fancy and pretty I wanted a little beat-up looking to start But it's all made of fiberglass. So as long as I keep paint on it This thing is gonna last like a thousand years And that's pretty good for now. I think it's time to go eat some food. I Hear egg sandwiches. Oh, I hear them. Oh, they're calling me and there's my firewood. Yes


Let's say that there's lots of stuff on the ground you don't want to be making big steps You might step on a soup can and and slip or step on a banana peel. So that's why the Wing Shed They tend to shuffle along the ground like this shuffle along the ground so that So that you don't actually step on something and slip now you probably wondering a couple mantis What kind of stances are there mantis? Well, there's many stances mantis first one boost the Horse dance very common for many kung fu


d the thing about you is you've kind of had this outsider strategy and you've been incredibly critical of Democratic Party leadership rightfully. So you panned an op-ed. I think it was earlier this year where you said that Nancy Pelosi is not a progressive. That's obvious, I think. But I'm curious, how do you keep that level of pressure knowing that if you are in Congress, she could easily hold a committee assignment above your head and try to marginalize you within Congress? So how do you call her out without dealing with those institutional disadvantages? Yeah, ain't nobody gonna marginalize me. Or any other progressive as long as I'm in Congress. So the most powerful thing in Congress is not a committee seat. It's the mic that you hold on the floor of the house. That's where you can move the country.  And here are all of the bribes that the Republican Party has taken on that drug bill. But I got bad news for you. Here are the bribes that the Democratic Party has taken on that drug bill. That's why the Democratic Party is only talking about negotiating prices for 25 drugs rather than all of the drugs. They're gonna leave thousands and thousands of drugs unaddressed because they take money from drug companies. I mean, that would immediately be a bombshell, a political bombshell that you would drop in the middle of the national conversation. So that is way more powerful than any morsel that leadership would give you off their table. It is a totally wrong and ineffective strategy to go and beg leadership for a tiny little crumb off their table and wait 20 years to take any action. The correct path politically, not because it feels good, but because it's pragmatic is to force a national conversation that they cannot win and we will definitely win. We have the entire country on our side. No one else thinks it's not a bribe. It is, and it affects every issue, healthcare, climate change, guns, you name it, it all comes back to the same problem.  So the question that I wanna ask you and what it sounds like you're saying, by the way, is that you can't be reined in, which I love and the Democratic establishment is going to hate. The question I wanna ask is, what do you think the response will be to you? Because we're gonna see probably one of two things.  What do you think that your approach will be with you? Because you will be someone who they can't really get to acquiesce. So how do you think they're gonna respond and do you think that will be effective? Yeah, good luck with them trying to ignore me. I don't think that's gonna work. So, and look, they could do that honestly when I was on the Young Turks. We've got over 12 billion views and I think we helped to move a generation and so did you, Michael. And so did all these other wonderful progressive shows online. And millennials and Gen Z are 80% progressive and we've landed our ships in the next generations and they're already totally screwed. But in today's politics, they could just say, oh, well, yeah, I mean, humanist report, that's online, please, it's not on MSNBC. So we're gonna ignore it. Okay, well, you can do that until I'm inside your house. And by the way, it's of course not your house, it's our house, it's the people's house. If I'm on the floor of the house and I'm giving speeches like this, ain't nobody ignoring it, it's just not possible. Now, what does that mean? They will fight me with everything they've got. They're already doing it. They're throwing the kitchen sink at me. Oh, did you know, he said this 19 years ago, did you know, he said this 17 years ago and on and on and on. And then they turn around and they say, did you know he criticizes Obama from the left? Hey guys, make up your mind. Am I too far right or too far left?  So a lot of the groups in California that are part of the Democratic Party machine, they all came out on the same day with the same exact talking points. Gee, I wonder how that happened. Okay, that happened, because they've got marching orders. This guy's not playing ball, take him down with deliberate speed. Well, okay, what's happening though, and what they didn't expect, is now our army is fighting back. And so, I tell people online, every time you see one of their bots or trolls, attack me online with old comments, give me a dollar at jank2020.com, until they cry mercy, okay. Believe me, all they care about is money. If they see us raising money, every time they use their trolls and bots, they're like, ah, okay, he's raising too much money for me. Okay, back peddle, back peddle, back peddle. So, they just disrespect us completely, both in the online community and progressives.  Well, sad day for you guys. I've now had raised a significant amount of money. I appear to be in the lead in terms of money. And I did it through 14,000 individual donations, averaging 28 bucks. My Democratic opponent, her average is $2,700. It's unbelievable. That's insanity. That's almost a max. It's because she's had like 150 organizations give to her. It looks like there's only 22 actual human beings who gave to her, 22 versus 14,000. They don't know what they're messing with. So, if I go to Congress, it's not gonna be just me. I'm gonna bring all of you guys with me.  Yeah, it's our house. It's the people's house. I wanna invite people in. I know the Democratic Party machine hates that. Sad day for them. We're gonna reclaim the Democratic Party for populism and for progressives. It's exactly where the Democratic Party belongs. And I love everything I'm hearing. It seems like there's no way that they would be able to hold you down even if they tried and they will try. But my question is, will you be able to still co-host the Young Turks or will you have to divest? Because can we use that as like a way of bolstering your agenda in Congress or will you basically separate from the Young Turks? How is that gonna work out? Yeah, so if you win, you can't have two jobs. So that means that I will not be a full-time host on the Young Turks. But that doesn't mean that I have to divest from the Young Turks. So almost all of the folks in Congress have some sort of investments. And in a sense, Young Turks would then become an investment for me after having put in 18 years on it. But most importantly, just like other progressives come on the show now, whether they're candidates or Congresspeople, I can come on anytime and be a guest host. I could be a guest, I could be a guest host. So for example, today, Ro Khanna's on the show and he's a sitting member of Congress. He's coming on as a guest. So I can do that anytime I want. And look, in terms of online media, I was born in it. Okay, so this is my home turf. I'm not going anywhere. So I'll give interviews to progressive online media outlets before I'll give it to TV. I believe it in my bones and I think that this is where the real revolution is. So yeah, they won't be able to get rid of me online. That's great. That's great. It's nice to have that platform because in the event they do go for the ignore strategy, there's no way that that can work because you do have online progressive media behind you and you have this platform that you founded that is dedicated to the cause that you are promoting. So I think that there's really, like you are the worst case scenario for the establishment. And I saw an article, I think this was from the Daily Beast. They called you the Trump of the left and the worry from Democrats, the worry was that you would lose that seat or lose that district for them because it's a purple district. Talk through the dynamics of that particular race because it's wide open currently. There's a lot of people running for it but explain why I already know the answer. I'm sure most of my viewers know the answer but for those of you who are unfamiliar about why you know, Cenk is being a firebrand in a purple district. Explain why this strategy is the winning strategy. So a couple of parts to that. So first of all, I love that they, so Daily Beast says, oh, it might endanger the district because he's Trump of the left. I don't know if they know this, Trump won. So the Democratic Party did the same exact mistake in the national election as they're doing the 25th district. They said, no, it's okay. We've been knowing to the leader. We handpicked her and she's best equipped to deal with a populist on the right. Turns out they were 100% wrong. She was almost the only person who could have lost to Donald Trump and she did because they didn't believe in the voters. They didn't trust the voters. They didn't want there to be a real primary. They rigged everything on behalf of Hillary Clinton and it turned out that that is not the right way to run a party. And then if you do it that way, you could even lose to a monster like Donald Trump. And also, by the way, an imbecile like Donald Trump. It's amazing that they lost to him. We were right, they were wrong. And here they are, they're trying to do it again. They're like, no, we've been knowing to the leader in the 25th district and she's going to be a corporate Democrat, a centrist Democrat that tries to appease Republicans. How could you possibly say that's more electable? It's never been more electable. Ask Hillary Clinton if that was more electable. Ask Claire McCaskill if that was more electable. Ask Joe Donnelly if that was more electable.  So in terms of this particular district, the thesis of the corporate Democrats, which is almost the entire Democratic Party machine in California, with the brilliant exception of Roe Conn, their thesis is, no, in purple districts, people love big business. And so, and they love appeasing Republicans.  It's never been backed up by evidence. It's a preposterous theory that as soon as you say it out loud, people go, well, that is pretty stupid, isn't it? They've got no love for big business in Palmdale or Lancaster or CME Valley or Santa Clarita. None of these cities. No, they want somebody who's gonna fight for them. So take a progressive fighter who's gonna say, I'm gonna get your family health care no matter what. There is not going to be any co-pays premiums or deductibles.   No way, not on our watch. We're gonna get you higher wages by focusing on renewable energy, which is perfect for the Animal Valley. So solar energy, wind energy, higher paying jobs so you don't have to commute. These are real issues. And those real issues are the ones we win on if we have the courage to fight for our principles instead of laying down to Republicans. So if they wanna go with that strategy, God bless, have at it, Hoss. Then I will almost certainly win this election. January 2020.com. I'm curious about the situation in your district with regard to income. I don't know if you know the numbers off the top of your head, but you're running a very populist working class centric message, but it's around the Los Angeles area. Is that correct? So is it a higher income area in general? And if so, how do you kind of offset that? Do you know anything with regard to that? Because Kyle Kalinsky brought up a really good point the other day on his show about how in higher income areas it's more difficult for progressives to win. Like they still can win, but it's just a little bit more difficult. Like have you thought this through at all? Yeah. Look, I love this district. It's perfect for us. It's middle class through and through. So the Animal Valley's a little bit poorer than the suburban part with just Santa Clarita and Simi Valley. And by the way, because they're poorer, they get ignored by the Democratic machine. And I ask, that doesn't make sense. That's the more Democratic area of the district. Why is it ignored?  Oh, God, that's sickening. So I don't need to go and fundraise from fancy people. I love that it's a working class district. I love that it's middle class. So those are exactly the kind of people that we could raise wages for. Not just minimum wage. Of course it should be $15 minimum wage nationally. It's already in California. They pass the law, but we need it to be national so that they're not trying to take jobs away from us by saying, oh, you can go pay people less in Kentucky. But it's not just for the minimum wage. It's for middle class. Corporate power is also squeezing you guys. And you know it in all of your lives because every dollar they give to their employees is a dollar less they make in profits. Now, if all of your politicians take money from those corporations, they're going to help them suppress your wages. When you gotta progress a fighter on your side, my whole job is to get you a higher wages. I guarantee you that that works better in a middle class district like the 25th and in a purple district like the 25th. That's great to hear. I do want to talk a little bit more about strategy. So I'm not sure if you saw, there was a poll from Kaiser Family Foundation that found out that support for Medicare for All throughout the year had actually gone down slightly and support for a public option increased. And I think that this is largely attributed to corporate Democrats like Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg just hammering away. Initially, Pete Buttigieg for those of you who don't know supported Medicare for All, but he started taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health insurance industry. And all of a sudden, those legal bribes amounted to him driving down support for Medicare for All. So if you actually have a message with regard to an issue like Medicare for All, let's say hypothetically speaking, best case scenario, Bernie Sanders is elected, you're in Congress. So there's going to be a lot of Democrats who we're gonna have to win over to get it passed. Do you think that shaming them essentially for taking these legalized bribes, which I think is the only way we should be characterizing it, do you think that will actually be effective at flipping people or are we going to have to actually crush them and get them out of Congress using, you know, justice Democrats? Yeah, so it's a three-part process. First of all, you have to get people to real facts. The reason the poll numbers I'm gonna get for all are going down in some of the polls that they are is because the entire media and all the corporate Democrats and the entire Republican Party have all joined forces against essentially two people, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And so now Bernie's got the better Medicare for All plan. That's why I endorse Bernie. But the amount of free media that they have put into bashing Medicare for All is millions upon millions of dollars. Now it might even be up to a billion dollars in essentially advertising against Medicare for All. But still in one recent poll, it pulled at 55%. It has withstood all of those thoughts. So step one is tell people what it actually is. So I was on CNN the other night and Chris Cuomo said, well, it doesn't get rid of private insurance. I was on NBC today. They asked me the same thing. It doesn't get rid of private insurance. Well, you've gotta finish the sentence, brother, okay? It gets rid of private insurance and gives you better insurance. It gives you expanded coverage. It covers more than all the private insurance out there now without any co-pays, premiums and deductibles. And it costs less because it gets rid of the middlemen, the corporate executives, the advertising, the bureaucracy. It costs less in every single country that has ever tried it. So when you get people to real facts, they go, whoa, well, then what's the downside to which I say, exactly, okay? So point one is getting the information. Point two is yes, shame people that are taking insurance company money, drug company money and put it out there. Say, hey, look, if you wanna defend taking $360,000 from drug companies and you say that doesn't affect you, have added Haas, good luck to you.  And so this is called hardball and no one on the left has tried hardball for decades. So arguably obviously AOC, Roe, Bernie have begun to do that and they've done a wonderful job at it but hardball is my expertise. And then finally the third step is, yeah, I'm gonna put your name on a list. And so those corporate Democrats if they didn't already despise me, they will have significant issues with me. But listen guys, if you're not voting with us on Medicare for All Green New Deal getting money out of politics higher wages, you're not voting with us? Well then we gotta get somebody who will and that's how politics works. So if I'm in Congress, bet your bottom dollar I'm making a list and then we're gonna make sure that there are progressives that are coming for those folks. And I love that. This is why I called you a wrecking ball because we need someone in Congress who will make them afraid. Like we have people who are speaking truth to power like AOC and Roe Conna but there's nobody who is aggressive. And I think that aggression in and of itself is something that we can utilize to our advantage. Like we're no longer going to lie down and just take what the establishment says we should accept. No, those days are done and getting you in Congress would actually have someone that I think would almost for lack of a better word intimidate corporate Democrats into doing the bidding of the people which you shouldn't have to resort to that, right?  So I know you've gotta get going to host the main show before we leave give us your main pitch and I'll kind of set you up with a softball so you can use your main catchphrase are you gonna win this thing? Of course. Okay, so look, in all seriousness, Mike, nobody's ever seen a race like this. So even Bernie, I love him to pieces but he's too polite. Yeah. And so no one has ever taken on the establishment with this kind of force. So can I accurately predict how the voters are gonna react to this kind of aggressive attitude where I say, I'm gonna fight for you no matter what and that includes fighting democratic party leadership if I have to. I hope I don't have to. Wouldn't it be great if they also represented the voters? Wouldn't that be lovely? That's the whole point. But that's who I am and I'm gonna give them who I am. I'm not gonna be a slick politician and change any stances to try to win votes. No, I'm gonna be honest with people, tell them where I stand, tell them that their instinct that they're getting screwed over by the politicians is correct. They are serving their donors and I'm not gonna do that. I don't take corporate fact money. I don't take lobbyist money. I'm gonna serve the actual voters and they're gonna run a classic corporate Democrat strategy. Almost all their energy will be focused on trying to attack me personally and trying to do character assassinations. They will avoid the issues at all costs because they're not right on a single issue. They don't have the voters on their side on a single issue. So they will run from the issues and run towards smears. Will it work? I don't know, they'll have a ton of money. That's why I ask people to give small donations. If you can, bigger one's great. I would love it. Volunteer, we're gonna do rally in the valley. Every weekend we're doing rallies. Come out and join us. We're gonna show them people power. And so it's gonna be the people versus the establishment. The fight's in the 25th. Come join us, jeng2020.com. If we win this, it'll be a cannon shot over the heads of Washington and we'll finally be able to fight corruption together. And I'll leave that there. jeng2020.com, let's change national discourse and not just shift the Overton window to the left. Let's yank it to the left aggressively and make sure that they can't take us for granted. They can't ignore us any longer. So thank you so much for coming on the program, jeng. It's been an absolute pleasure. We're rooting for you. Thank you, Mike. I really, really appreciate it. And look, I actually end on this. Guys, me winning isn't the answer. What we're going for at the end of the day is passing the bills. If you don't pass the bills, then we didn't get anything accomplished. We didn't get anything accomplished by getting progressives into office. We didn't get anything accomplished by being progressive media. No, the whole objective is pass the damn bills. You've got to get Medicare for all. You've got to get an amendment to end private financing and elections. You've got to pass the Green New Deal. So when I play hardball, whether it's in the middle of a campaign like this or in Congress, the whole point is not for ego, it's not for pride, it's not to get on TV. No, it's to move the national conversation so you could pass the bills because that's what changes your lives. If you didn't pass the bills, we didn't get anything accomplished. So please, whether it's during the campaign or if I'm lucky enough to make it into Congress with your help, in Congress, come join me so that we could put all the pressure on the world to actually get the legislation done so we change people's lives for the better. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanna hear. Thank you so much, Cenk. All right, thank you, Mike. Well, that's it. I don't have anything left to talk about. Thank you all so much for tuning in if you've made it this far. Thank you so much to all of the people who helped the show not only survive but thrive as well. That is our Patreon patrons, our YouTube members and PayPal contributors, regardless if you sent in one donation or you contribute monthly with a recurring donation. Thank you so much, truly. It means the world to me. I will see you all next week. I'm Mike Figueroa. This has been the Humanist Report Podcast. Take care, everyone.


Before I came to Australia, I've been in Malaysia for three years, and then I came to Wagah, and now I've been in Wagah for nearly 13 months. I got help from the multicultural council. My case worker is Christy, she's very good, and she has been helping me a lot. She helped me to find a house to move, and she helped me a lot. My English is not very good, so sometimes if I don't understand a letter from the centre-link or a letter from the school, I'm going to ask him outside. The HSS programme is basically, well, in terms of our organisation, we have case workers who provide initial intensive settlement services to new arrivals in Wagah, so they work pretty closely with them for the first six months upon their arrival, from greeting them off the plane to Wagah, and then showing them the ropes, like taking them to the bank, setting up Medicare, getting them sorted. So as soon as the family arrive, we basically meet them at the airport, set them straight into a house that we've secured before they arrive as well, and then within two days we basically set them up with bank accounts, Medicare cards, and start the process, and of trying to establish a life in the first six months that they're in Australia. At the moment we've got quite a few Burmese families living in Tolland, so we try and find accommodation close by to there, so we can set up a bit of a community and have some links for the family. We treat people, you know, as you see them when they arrive, and sometimes you forget the enormity of what they've been through in their home country, and it's not until you really start to build a relationship with the family and they share their story and their journey that you realise kind of what an integral part you are in their life as a whole. Thank you.


Very good evening to all of our friends and welcome to the Hindu News Analysis of Shankar IAS Academy for the date 24th November 2020. Here is the list of the relevant news articles taken for today's discussion from five different editions of the Hindu newspaper along with their page numbers. Also the handwritten notes in the PDF format and time stampings for all the news articles taken for today's discussion is given in the description box and also in the comment section for the best interest of the viewers. Let us now begin our news analysis. First let us take up this front page article and this editorial which are based on a recent ordinance which was introduced by the Kerala government. The ordinance so to amend the Kerala Police Act of 2011 and empower the police to prosecute persons disseminating defamatory content. This measure has been criticized as draconian by the opposition parties and the medias as it could violate the freedom of speech. So in this context let us understand the important provisions related to defamation in India. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. Know that the Indian Penal Court which was enacted in 1860 has a separate chapter on defamation. Here section 499 of IPC defines defamation. Suppose a person by words either spoken or intended to be read or by signs or by visible representations makes an accusation concerning a person. So if this is done with an intention to harm the person or knowing that it will harm the reputation of such person then it is called defamation. To put it simply a defamatory statement is one which injures the reputation of another person. It also says that no such claim or imputation is said to harm a person's reputation unless in the views of the others it lowers the character of that person or causes the body of that particular person to be in a disgraceful state. Section 499 also cites several exceptions to defamation. This includes imputation of truth which public good requires to be published then an opinion made in good faith regarding the public conduct of public servants or conduct of any person touching any public question. Other exceptions or publication of reports of proceedings of the court or merits of cases decided in the court or conduct of witnesses. Also it is not defamation if an accusation is made in good faith against any person who has lawful authority over that person with respect to the subject matter of that accusation. So it is very clear that definition of defamation is vague and thus it leaves a wide scope for its misuse. Now coming to section 500 it says that whoever defames another shall be punished with a fine or simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years and section 501 deals with printing or engraving matter having a good reason to believe that it is defamatory. Then section 502 is about selling printed or engraved substance knowing that it contains defamatory matter. In both the cases the convicted shall be punished with a fine or maximum two years of imprisonment. See the issue of defamatory laws is that in many cases it compromises freedom of speech guaranteed by the constitution of India. We know that article 19 close one sub close a provides that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression. However such freedom is subject to reasonable restrictions. Here the restrictions on free speech can be imposed in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India. Then the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court or in the case of defamation or incitement of an offense. So it is clear that the protection of reputation of another person falls within the ambit of reasonable restriction. Hence any remark which hampers the reputation of another person unless it is true would invite liability under the law of defamation. And in this context we should know about the Supreme Court judgment in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India 2015 case. Here the Supreme Court invalidated section 66A of the Information Technology Act which criminalized sending messages causing annoyance and inconvenience. It also struck down the section 118 close D of the Kerala Police Act which made causing annoyance in an indecent manner through verbal comments or telephone and offense. The Supreme Court observed that both the offenses were overbroad that is it was defined so widely that both innocent and offensive messages could be brought under its ambit. So to conclude we can say that though freedom of speech cannot be absolute criminal defamation should not be used to discourage legitimate criticism. So this is all about this news article and this editorial. In this discussion we saw some of the important provisions related to defamation in India. With this we will move on to the next news. Now this editorial article talks about how neglect of health in public policy has led to loss of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors explain what could be the reasons for the variation in death rates among the states in the country. So in this regard we will discuss some related important aspects mentioned in this editorial. The syllabus relevant for this analysis is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic it was frequently reported that the COVID-19 death rates in India is lower compared to other parts of the world. See at national level this death rate is an average that will not portray the range of death rates among the states that is it will hide the maximum and minimum death rates among the states. See there is a variation in the death rates among the states in the country and the authors attempted to find an answer to this variation. First the authors looked for a relationship between the income levels and the COVID-19 deaths. It is found that the states with higher per capita income often had higher death rates. This suggests that the wealth of a state has not acted as a shield against death for a section of its population. Also it is found that there exists inverse relationship between income levels of states and the public health expenditure they do. That is even though the economic growth of some states are higher the public health expenditure made by such states was found to be lower. And these states focused on growth as mere GDP numbers and not as development. While growth is quantitative development is qualitative and development improves the standard of living of the people. And since the income levels are not explaining the variation in the death rates the authors focused on the data related to public health expenditure. It is found that the public expenditure on health has a good relationship with the death rate. There is a high variation in the public expenditure on health as a share of domestic product among the Indian states. The public expenditure on health and the death rate is negatively related that is more the public expenditure on health the lesser is the drive rate. In states where the public expenditure on health is lesser their death rates were found to be higher. So we can say that more and adequate public expenditure on health acts as a shield against the death to COVID-19 pandemic. Next, the author talks about what is more important for diseases like the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it is the doctors or medical infrastructure like hospitals or hospital beds per person. The authors highlight the point that even if there are adequate beds or hospitals, if the required number of doctors are not there, then the scenario will worsen. This is because patients are treated by the doctors and not by hospital beds. So doctors in the public healthcare system is also a major need of the hour and not just hospitals and beds. Thirdly, the authors talk about the importance of funding in order to handle an epidemic or pandemic. This is because during a pandemic, serious steps such as detection, contact tracing and isolation have to be performed before the treatment is started. And this process along with the treatment will cost a lot of money. And at this scenario, an effective combination of medical expertise, protocols and management practices becomes central to the effectiveness of the response to a particular epidemic. And for this combination to occur within a short span of time, sufficient funding is a must. Having said that, while money can do a set of things, governance aspects also play an equally important role. So both have to be given adequate attention and importance. Next, the authors tell how a number of deaths could have been avoided. For this, they selected a state with a median level of public health expenditure. And they applied the death rate in this state to the national population. And by this, they arrived at the number of deaths due to COVID-19 for the entire country. That is, if all the states have the spending level of that selected state, then the number of COVID-19 deaths till November 7 would have been 35,000. But in reality, the number is 1.25 lakhs. That is, till November 7, 1.25 lakh Indians have died due to COVID-19 pandemic. So the authors conclude that if there was adequate spending on public health across all the states in India, we could have avoided or prevented around 90,000 deaths. In other words, we could have saved the lives of 90,000 people from COVID-19. And this is where the authors post a strong criticism that the deaths are indicating the lack of attention to health in public policy. In the end, the authors call for paying the required attention to health in our public policy. Economic policy should prioritize development and not economic growth. And also political processes should be carried out with ethical awareness. Simply, adequate public health expenditure and also medical infrastructure with required number of doctors are important. Sufficient funding and good governance are also equally important to prevent loss of lives, generally and more particularly during a pandemic. So with this, we have come to the end of analysis of this news article. Now let us move on to the next news. Now this news article says that the Environment Ministry wants to expedite the environment appraisal of industrial projects. So in this context, before going through today's news, let us have a brief recap on what is Environment Impact Assessment and what is its need. The relevant syllabus is highlighted here for your reference. Please go through it. See, every anthropogenic activity or human activity has some impact on the environment. It can also be said that this activity is more often harmful to the environment than being beneficial to the environment. However, these activities must be done for the food, security and other needs of human. And consequently, there is also a need to harmonize the developmental activities with the environmental concerns. And the environmental impact assessment is one of the tools that are available with the planners to achieve this harmonization. So EIA is a planning tool. It is generally accepted as an integral component of a sound decision making process. The objective of Environment Impact Assessment is to foresee or to predict the potential environmental problems or concerns at an early stage of project planning and project design. Next is to deal with how to address the same potential environmental problems or concerns. So here the EIA should assist the planners and government authorities in the decision making process. And this will be done by identifying the key impacts or issues and by formulating the mitigation strategies or measures or the impact reduction measures. So we can say that EIA is a process that is used to identify the environmental impacts of a project prior to its approval. And the assessment systematically examines both beneficial and adverse consequences of a proposed project. It ensures that the environmental impact and the mitigation measures are considered during the project design stage itself. Now we should know that there are many benefits of considering environmental effects and mitigation early in the project planning cycle. The benefits such as protection of the environment, optimum utilization of the available resources, and saving overall time and cost of the project is possible by Environment Impact Assessment. Also know that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is the nodal agency for making rules and regulations pertaining to environmental clearance or EC. The Environment Impact Assessment and Environmental Clearance mandatory for certain developmental projects through its notification of environmental clearance and post clearance monitoring in 1994 under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. Then subsequently, after keeping in view the experience gained in the environmental clearance process over a period of one decade or 10 years, the Ministry brought out another notification that is the Environment Impact Assessment notification in September 2006. The process of granting environmental clearance for projects has been defined in this 2006 Environment Impact Assessment notification. The process comprises of four stages. They are screening, scoping, public consultation and appraisal. See, screening is done to see whether a project requires environmental clearance as per the statutory notifications or not. The screening criteria are based on the skills of investment, the type of development and the location of development. Then the scoping is the process that details the terms of reference of Environment Impact Assessment. That is what are the things that the Environment Impact Assessment must look into. Then the third stage that is the public consultation refers to the process which ascertains the project as appropriate by considering all the material concerns in the project or activity design. This ascertains or settles the concerns of the local affected persons and others who have credible stake in the environmental impact which is going to happen with the particular project. This means that anyone who is likely to be affected by the proposed project is entitled to know that the project is appropriate. The affected persons may include the Bonafida residents, the local associations and also the environmental groups which are active in the project area. Then any other person who is located at the project site or the sites of displacement are also included in the list of affected persons. And see, public consultation usually have two components. One is public hearing. See, a public hearing at the project site or in its proximity in a district wise manner is to be carried out. And this is for ascertaining the concerns of the local affected persons as we have discussed now. And the next component is to obtain the responses in writing from other concerned persons who are having a credible stake in the environmental aspects of the project or activity. And then comes the fourth stage that is appraisal. And here comes the role of the expert appraisal committee. See, these exist in the union as well as in the state levels. Here for states, they have the state expert appraisal committee or SCAC. So they are set up to advise the government on environmental clearance of developmental projects. And the role of EAC is integral to the process of granting environmental clearance to development projects. EAC or SCAC are involved in various capacities in all the stages, except for public hearing. Now, today's news is that the environment ministry further wants to expedite or speed up the environment appraisal of industrial projects by ensuring that the expert appraisal committee meetings are held at least once in 15 days. But many environmental activists have criticized the move and expressed that accelerated approvals definitely don't allow for good environmental decisions. Also do note that the government has also brought in the draft environment impact assessment in this year. And if it comes into force, it would replace the existing environment impact assessment that is EIA 2006. And many proposals in the draft were criticized as they are directed towards diluting the EIA regime thereby threatening the precious and pristine environment. So this is all about the news and in this discussion, we saw about the environment impact assessment, its relevant provisions and also about the expert appraiser committee with this we'll move on to the next news. Now, have a look at this question. It is based on this news article, which talks about a cyclone in Bay of Bengal. Yesterday, we have discussed how a tropical cyclone develops and they also said that a depression is brewing in the Bay of Bengal and may turn into a cyclone in the next two days. Now, today's news says that the depression has progressed into a cyclone and it is named Cyclone Nivar. And as a matter of fact, we are experiencing heavy rains in Chennai today. And if you remember, in May this year, we had a cyclone called Amphan. So the question is, how cyclones are named? See the tropical cyclones forming over different ocean basins are named by the concerned regional specialized meteorological centers. Now, what is this regional specialized meteorological centers? See worldwide, there are six regional specialized meteorological centers or RSMC's and five regional tropical cyclone warning centers or TCWC's. Now, they are mandated for issuing advisories and also to name the tropical cyclones. Now, the India Meteorological Department is one of the six RSMC's to provide tropical cyclone and storm surge advisories to 13 member countries under the WMO ESCAP panel. See in the year 2000, a group of nations called the World Meteorological Organization slash United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, or simply WMO ESCAP which comprised Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, that is eight countries, decided to start naming the cyclones in the region. After each country sent its suggestions, the WMO ESCAP panel on tropical cyclones finalized the list. Later in 2018, the WMO ESCAP expanded to include five more countries and they are Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. So now in total, it has 13 member countries. And these 13 countries recommend names for tropical cyclones evolving in the North Indian Ocean. Each country gave 13 names, so a total of 169 names are now readily available for naming the cyclones. The current cyclone name that is Newar was given by Iran. Now, the cyclone which is named Gati developed in the Arabian Sea and it struck Somalia yesterday. The name Gati was given by India and the next cyclone name will be Burevi which is recommended by Maldives and then Taubte by Myanmar. So this is how cyclones are named. Now see this question. Consider the following statements. The cyclones developing in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea are named by regional specialized meteorological center of New Delhi. Yes, this statement is correct. Now the second statement reads only the countries sharing land border with India can recommend names for cyclones developing in Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. See this statement is incorrect because we saw that the 13 countries under the WMO S Cup recommended their names for the tropical cyclones evolving in the North Indian Ocean. And the 13 countries included not only the countries which share land border with India but also many others like Maldives, Oman, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen. So here the first statement is correct and the second statement is incorrect. So we have to identify the incorrect statement from these given statements. So the correct answer is option B2 only. With this, we'll move on to the next news. Now have a look at this question. It is based on this opiate article which was authored by experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization. In this article, the authors talk about the antimicrobial resistance, then a concept called One Health, and about the World Health Organization Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance. First, what do we mean by antimicrobial resistance? Think about a disease which is caused by a virus or simply a microbe and to get cured from this disease, we need to kill or inhibit this microbe. For this, we take a drug developed or certified to kill that particular microbe. And this drug is called as antimicrobial drug as it kills or works against the microbe. But what happens over a period of time is that this particular microbe develops a resistance to the medicine. As a result, even if a patient takes the drug, the disease is not cured. And this is because the microbe was not affected by the drug which was administered to the patient. And this resistance offered by the microbe to the antimicrobial drugs is called as antimicrobial resistance. So what if all microbes offer such resistance? Then for various diseases caused by various pathogens, we will have no cure or we have to discover a new cure. And is discovering a new cure is that simple? The answer is no. This requires a lot of money as researchers have to be conducted and a lot of investment have to be made. Now say an organization invests 10 crore rupees and develops an effective cure to the disease. And after the launch of the medicine, say within one month, if the microbe resists to the drug, then all the investments go in vain. And this may lead to bankruptcy and other financial exigencies for the investors. This is one of the reasons why in some cases there is not much investment to handle antimicrobial resistance. And that is why the authors mentioned that with rapid development of resistance, the life of new antibiotics becomes limited and the return on investments on new molecules gets diminished. See, AMR or antimicrobial resistance is a serious challenge as it can cause around 1 crore deaths annually by 2050. And this can happen if concerted actions are not taken as soon as possible. It will result in 7.5 percentage reduction in the livestock production which in turn weakens the nutrition security of the nation and the world as a whole and which will also negatively impact the global GDP by 3.5 percent. Now let us see the suggestions of the authors to handle antimicrobial resistance. See, given the challenges involved in developing a new cure to treat a resistant pathogen, the only option available for assistive use the available antibiotics carefully so that we can ensure their efficiency for as long as possible. In adopting the careful usage, the world has a roadmap from the World Health Organization in order to tackle this challenge. And this roadmap is called as the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance. All the world countries must develop their respective national action plans in alignment with the World Health Organization global action plan on antimicrobial resistance. See, the goal of this particular action plan is to ensure the continuity of successful treatment and prevention of infectious diseases as long as possible with effective and safe medicines. And these medicines are those which are quality assured used in a responsible way and accessible to all who need them. So to achieve this goal, five important strategic objectives are set out by this action plan and they are given here for your reference. See, one of the reasons for antimicrobial resistance is the indiscriminate usage of drugs. So, rational use of antibiotics in humans, animals and also in agriculture is required. And this warrant coordinated action in all the sectors. This is where the authors bring the One Health approach. This approach advocates a multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional response to public health problems, particularly pandemics and also to address issues related to antimicrobial resistance. So, these are some of the informations with reference to this OPED article. Now, see this question. In May 2015, which of the following organizations or mechanisms adopted a global action plan on antimicrobial resistance? Here, the correct answer is option B, World Health Assembly. See, World Health Assembly is nothing but the decision making body of World Health Organization. And see, it is attended by the delegations from all the WHO member states and it focuses on a specific health agenda prepared by its executive board. The main functions of World Health Assembly are to determine the policies of the organization, appoint the director general, then supervise the financial policies and review and approve the program budget of WHO. And also know that the World Health Assembly is held every year in Geneva, Switzerland. So, with this, we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles. Now, let us move on to the practice questions discussion section based on today's news analysis. See this first question. Consider the following statements with reference to the environment impact assessment. The first statement reads, It is a process that is used to identify the environmental impacts of a project once the project is completed. See, this statement is incorrect. We have seen that environment impact assessment is a process that is used to identify the environmental impacts of a particular project prior to its approval. Here, the EIA systematically examines both the beneficial and adverse consequences of a proposed project. So, here it ensures that the environmental impact and the mitigation measures are considered during the project design itself. So, the first statement is wrong. Now, the second statement reads, It was notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in the year 2006. Yes, this statement is correct. So, we have to identify the correct statement or statements. Here, statement one is incorrect and statement two is correct. So, the correct answer is option B2 only. Now, we have these three main questions. Please write your answers and post it in the comments section. Our feedback will be given in a reasonable time frame. So, friends, with this, we have come to the end of analysis of all the news articles taken up for today's discussion and also the discussion of practice questions. If you like this video, please press the like button, comment, share and do subscribe to Shankara IAS Academy YouTube channel for more updates related to civil service preparation.


Rechargeable zinc ion batteries are promising energy storage devices but suffer from the limited choice of positive electrodes. Hynyo and co-workers show a design with sodium vanadate hydrate as cathode, allowing simultaneous proton and zinc ion insertion extraction and enhanced performance. This article was authored by fan WAN, Lin Lin Jong, Eleven Dai, and others.


On the podcast this week I challenged people to use something that they hate and I did this because people are so passionate about things that they love and are so argumentative against things that they hate that oftentimes I think that they lose sight of the things that they actually hate. They maybe have never even used the things that they dislike so much that they argue about so much. The thing is I've decided to practice what I preach now I've already done this I've gone through and I've used Linux Mint for a whole week but the thing that I truly hate the thing that I preach about the most that I hate is GNOME so this is what I'm going to be using for the next week wish me luck