John Reuter is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research focuses on the politics of authoritarian regimes with a focus on Russia. He is the author of The Origins of Dominant Parties, Building Authoritarian Institutions in Post-Soviet Russia and is the author of numerous scholarly articles on elections, parties, public opinion and political economy in Russia. So let's give him a welcome and thank you. Thank you. Yes, thanks for having me and it's it's very heartening to see such an engaged crowd here and I'm glad that you're all interested in Russia. I mean it's no surprise giving current events I suppose but but I'm glad to see it nonetheless. So my talk today is going to be on the topic of public opinion and regime stability in Putin's Russia and so that the central guiding question for us today is how stable is Putin's regime and we're gonna look at that question through the prism of popular support for Putin. Now I should say at the outset I'm happy to answer any of your questions in Q&A about the war or US policy towards the war although I'm not an expert on US policy I'm an expert on Russian domestic politics but I'm happy to conjecture on that if you'd like and we are gonna talk a good bit about the war in this presentation today but we're gonna talk about it through the lens of how it affects public opinion in Russia and think about what it means for the future of Putin's Russia. So what I'm gonna start to do start by doing is we're gonna talk about what kind of regime Russia is and we're gonna do this not just for academic purposes but because the type of regime that Russia is determines the role the public opinion plays in Russian politics and then we're gonna spend some time talking about why Vladimir Putin is so popular and he is in fact popular as far as we can tell from public opinion polls and we're gonna examine those underpinnings because what we really want to do where things are gonna get good is at the end of the talk where we think through whether the war is going to eventually erode public support for Putin and therefore erode the stability of the regime. I should also note in my it didn't wasn't mentioned the introduction but this is this is what I do in my actual research most of my research now is doing public opinion polls in Russia my colleagues and I we run the longest running election series of election polls going in Russia done by at least done by Westerners and so I'm active in doing polling in Russia we have polls in the field right now and so that's what I'm mostly what I want to share with you. Okay so let's start with some preliminaries in terms of what type of regime Russia is. Russia is what political scientists call an electoral autocracy and so what that means is that Russia has in fact all the institutional trappings of democracy if you look at Russia's constitution it it's gonna look like a democratic constitution there's elections, multi-party system, a legislature, an independent judiciary, human rights enshrined in the Constitution. So it appears like a democracy but incumbents in Russia they take advantage of their privileged position office to tip the electoral playing field in their favor to bend the rules of the game so that elections in Russia are not considered free and fair. It's important to note a very important feature of these electoral autocracies which is by the way the most common type of electoral authoritarian regime in the world today there are very few of these old style single-party communist regimes left there are very few military regime left most of the authoritarian regimes that exist in the world today have multi-party elections they just manipulate those multi-party elections so that outcomes are in the incumbents favor. An important feature of these regimes is because they because they have these democratic leaking constitutions the leaders of these regimes like Vladimir Putin they base their legitimacy on winning elections so that may seem obvious but think about how the leader of a monarchy a traditional monarchy bases their legitimacy well they they derive it from their their divine right to rule let's say or or deep traditions right I the king of Oman had the right to rule because it's so set down in our traditions and because I have special relationship with God or if you're already on top if you're the Soviet Union the leaders of the Soviet Union they didn't say that they had the legitimate right to rule because they had won some multi-party election they said they had the legitimate right to rule because they were building a better society or building socialism and that's in order to build socialism we had to have a one-party state that was going to we're going to guide the working class towards this better future so in electoral authoritarian regimes though rulers say that they have the right to rule because they win the win these elections and so this gives us an insight already into why public opinion is important in these regimes because leaders say that they have the right to rule because the public supports them just like leaders in democracy say they have the right to rule because the public supports them so research and political science shows that these electoral autocracies like Putin's Russia are much more long-lived when the leaders of these regimes are popular being popular helps these regimes win elections without having to resort to massive ballot box fraud which it turns out people don't like and if you use massive ballot box fraud people tend to pour under the streets and protest it legit as we just talked about being popular helps legitimate the regime it prevents social unrest one of the greatest threats to authoritarian rule is mass revolution breaking out so if you're popular for obvious reasons it's less likely that a mass revolution is going to catch on and popular leaders are less likely to suffer from elite defections they're less likely to have their lieutenants and their their advisors and legislators and governors defecting from the regime challenging them in elections criticizing them in the media so so i'm quite certain that the regime in Russia is very concerned about what the public thinks of thinks about it the regime in Russia is obsessed with polling they engage in a lot of polling internal polling to try to always keep tabs on what the public thinks of them they watch election outcomes in Russia especially the local and regional level to figure out you know where there are grievances and and where there are underperforming governors or where there's some social problem that needs to be addressed we have lots of other evidence of instances in Russia where the regime has changed course on this or that policy measure clearly because it was unpopular so one one example this was a pension reform in 2008 the regime was proposing to raise the pension age eight years by eight years from from 58 to 65 and there was this mass public outcry against this and they they backed off and they lowered it and they only raised it by five years and there's several other examples of this in fact as we'll talk about in a second I think if we have time we're seeing an example of this right now in Russia with the public backlash against conscription which they call mass mobilization in Russia which has caused the regime to change course on who they're conscripting to fight in Ukraine okay so that being said okay it's it's popular it's important for these regimes to be popular and luckily for Putin his regime Putin has always been very popular in Russia so this is just his popularity rating over time and when he came into office in the early 2000s he was very popular routinely polling about 70 percent this his popularity is kind of oscillated bounce around since then but that's kind of not the main story the main story here is it's never dropped below 60 percent and it's usually made remains somewhere around around 70 percent so why why is this well I think we can explain Putin's popularity as a product of what I'll call five pillars so the first pillar we might call his intrinsic popularity or something that's just a type of popularity a source of popularity we will be familiar with in a democracy which is simply that many voters like Putin as a politician and they like his policies so on this first point about views of Putin's character surveys show that voters view Putin as smart professional competent honest strong leader serious but that's not to say and actually what I'm about to say I think gives these these survey results more meaning that's not to say that people just like everything about Putin so they actually don't find him particularly charismatic they don't think he's empathetic if you ask people do you think Putin cares about people like me majority say no he's not viewed by russians as a type of politician that you want that you would like to have a beard they instead well not all of them but many russians tend to think of him as like I said smart competent professional a strong and effective leader and we should also note that many voters certainly not all but there's a large chunk of voters in Russia that like Putin because they like his centrist policy course we don't need to talk a lot today about what exactly Putin's policy course has been but he occupies this kind of centrist maybe center right position on the economic spectrum it's become somewhat more culturally conservative over time but generally speaking in any political system it's it's beneficial electorally to be situated in the center of the political spectrum and that and that's where Putin has positioned himself ideologically the second pillar and this is a really big one it's very important and very important for the main message and stays talk is performance evaluations lots and lots of russians support Putin because they think that he has made Russia better off so the big one here is economic performance and this chart is just showing you GDP per capita in russia over time most of you are probably aware that in the nineteen nineties in Russia Russia was experiencing a very severe economic crisis much more severe for instance in the great depression in the united states but coincidentally and i do mean coincidentally i don't mean that ironically after Putin came to office russia experienced a rapid economic rebound and russia's economy has grown a pace since then it's slowed down somewhat in the past few years but the general story of Putin's rule in the mind of many voters is one of economic resurgence voters also credit Putin with restoring what they view as stability and political order after a time of law lawlessness and chaos during the nineteen nineties and they also credit Putin with restoring russia's rightful place as a major player in world politics which many russians felt had been lost in the nineteen nineties so that's the second pillar the third pillar maybe a little harder to get our heads around but let's let's go through this is what i would call political disengagement so um Putin's support so right now it's sitting at about 75 percent if you just ask russians do you support Putin or not support Putin 75 percent it's very wide that's three quarters of the russian public says they support Putin but when you dig in advance you find out that that support base is very wide but it's actually quite shallow and true believers people who very strongly support Putin their strong idea ideologues for Putin in his policy course are rather few maybe 20 to 30 percent of the electorate a large share of those who support Putin they're more politically disengaged they're politically apathetic and they're just kind of going along to get along and they kind of support Putin uh because for a variety of reasons many of them because they believe there's no credible alternatives or maybe because of social pressures or because they think it's the politically or socially desirable thing to do to say so but the general point is that one of the things that undergirds the regime's stability is that they that the regime has not asked a lot of its citizens typically ideologically doesn't ask them to be invested in politics doesn't ask them to be ardent supporters of the regime this is in stark contrast to communist regimes right which very much did ask their supporters to be ardent supporters asked them to be engaged in the ideological struggle against as it was capitalism another key pillar of support for Putin is what i'll call elite unity and this is simply the notion that um uh all almost all important political elites in russia support Putin so there aren't a lot of influential opinion leaders in russian society who are out there going on television criticizing Putin or influential governors who are going to their constituents and saying oh Putin's doing a bad job everyone is on the same page they're on message about supporting Putin and then of course that kind of creates a feedback loop such that because everyone supports Putin it's very politically dangerous to oppose Putin and therefore um this equilibrium of elite support for Putin is sustained the final pillar that i presume and hope have you've already thought of it is is the fact that russia is an authoritarian system and so uh there are limits on competition limits on uh the opposition limits on free speech and so of course Putin is portrayed by media in a much better light than he would be if russia were a democracy and because there are limits on the opposition he doesn't suffer the same criticism that a politician would in a democracy there are limits to this authoritarian control there are limits to the extent to which the narrative about who can be controlled information about the government and its actions can be controlled um and so we don't want to overstate the extent to which the state can just shape public opinion to to its will okay um now now what i want to do is i'm actually going to um talk a little bit about support for the regime uh on the eve of the war so in december and january 2021 2022 because i think this is important because this is kind of a snapshot of what the status quo was like before we had this highly irregular event happening we have this rally around the flag effect and this upsurge of patriotism that i'm going to talk about uh in a second so um one thing we should note even though the that putin's popularity is consistently high is that it was at its historically lowest point right on the eve of war it was kind of settling out here around 60 percent um and so at least in terms of of uh uh putin's popularity it was not um at um not at its highest point and more importantly and very worryingly for uh the authorities in russia performance evaluations of the regime have begun to decline now there's a lot of numbers here so i'm going to walk you through what's important to look at so on uh i think in surveys that that um my colleagues and i have conducted over the past several years and were conducted by our credits researchers prior to that uh we ask respondents um since putin came to office in 2000 have the following things increased decreased just stayed the same and we'll just focus on the red numbers uh for a moment and first here let's look at the standard of living as your standard of living uh gotten better or gotten worse or stayed the same and so uh far less than the majority of voters think that their standard of living has now gotten better under putin this was not the case so we don't have the survey data here but this was not the case 10 years ago or 15 years ago under putin but increasingly the regime was not getting high marks for uh economic performance similar with responsiveness of government corruption almost almost a majority said that corruption had increased actually uh inequality large majorities thought that inequality had increased under putin now russia's influence in the world this is one area the two areas where putin does do well among voters is that uh people thought that russia's influence in the world had increased but note that this share was decreasing over time in the years leading up to the war and the same thing for those who said that political stability in russia had increased uh that share of voters was uh decreasing in the years leading up to to the war so the point here is right before the war starts the regime is on probably a shakiest ground in terms of public support since uh 2000 so that's a backdrop now let's let's pivot and talk about the war and how it's affected public opinion in russia but before we do that i do want to set the stage by discussing what public opinion toward some hypothetical war was or so the public opinion towards ukraine and confrontation with the west was before the war because this is going to um play an important part in our story uh when we note that well i'll save that for later but um first of all russia's attitudes towards ukraine and their attitudes towards towards um uh relations between russia and ukraine so in november 2021 this this particular poll asked respondents whether they thought ukraine russia should be one state and very few russians thought that was the case the vast majority of russians thought that ukraine should be an independent state and we get these same responses going back in time all the way back to the 1990s the vast majority of russians think that ukraine and russia should be one should be uh separate states ukraine should be independent interestingly before 2014 a larger share of ukranians thought that ukraine and russia should be one state uh than russians did that changed of course dramatically after the war in the donbass the war opinions on the conflict in ukraine um so this question is asked in december of 2021 and the question was what what should russia do about the war in ukraine so remember before the current war started there was already a war going on in the donbass region of ukraine and this question that we asked asked respondents what do you think russia should do about this war and only a tiny share of russians thought that russia should engage in some sort of armed conflict to help the separatists in the donbass and fight against the ukrainian government a little bit more thought that they should maybe arm the separatists but the vast majority of respondents thought that the government shouldn't either shouldn't be involved in all or just offer some humanitarian resistance or moral or moral support so the very important point here is that this war that is going on right now wasn't called for by russian society it wasn't if russian society wanted war in ukraine at least before the war started in december january of last year similarly in terms of confrontation with the west i think there's a misperception especially now that the war started that the russian public kind of views the west as an enemy or as a rival but that's not the case at all polls before the war started consistently showed that large majorities of russians did not want confrontational relations with the west so in this question there are different opinions about the type of relations that russia should have with the west what do you think how should russia relate to the west so a sizable majority because we add these two up that's going to be close to 70 percent of russians said that we should think that the west is either as a friend as an ally and a very tiny share of respondents about eight percent said we should think of the west as an as an enemy so this is a very you know this this is from december 2021 and now we're already in this you know swept up in this rhetoric about nuclear holocaust and confrontation between the west and russia so again the point being the point i'm trying to drive home is that this confrontational relationship with the west was not necessarily called for by wasn't demanded by the russian public this wasn't a sentiment that was pre-existing in russian public opinion okay now let's come to the actual war so after the war starts there is a rally around the flag effect in russia an opinion poll showed that sizable majorities of russians supported the military operation now they did this both because you know rally around the flag effects they don't just happen in autocracies they happen in the united states most of y'all know in all democracies these things happen in time of war people tend to support the government in power but these types of rally around the flag effects are of course accentuated in authoritarian regimes where the state controls the media controls the narrative and therefore people are able to consume a lot of propaganda and television is heavily censored in russia and so they don't aren't exposed to alternative viewpoints and so in that backdrop there was strong but not overwhelming strong but not overwhelming support for the military operation in russia and in concert with this prudent's popularity also spiked up so back to its historic highs people like i said rally around the flag and and supported uh said they supported the government more after the war started however support for the war has been declining since then and now this latest poll which is just two weeks old this is not my poll by the way it's some colleagues who do this work in russia it's sitting just above 50 so this reached its lowest point since the war began and this this tick downward that you notice here is almost certainly although it's only three percentage points but i think it's going to grow is almost certainly in response to the russian government announcing mass mobilization they're going to be conscripting soldiers into the army and sending them to ukraine prior to this con there have been some mistakes but conscripts were not for the most part fighting on the front lines uh in russia i mean sorry in ukraine now interestingly so support for the war is at its lowest point and if you phrase the question differently uh you you you uh um you begin to see that support for the war is on pretty shaky ground so i meant to translate this for you but anyways this question phrasing says uh what do you think should we start from the or should we should the russian government continue its military activities in ukraine or should we start peaceful negotiations and so the orange lines are start peaceful negotiations the blue lines are continue with the military operation and so it's about even if you add these two up about 48 to actually the start military start peaceful negotiations group is a little bit bigger than the continue the war uh group so support for the war as it stands right now in october 22 into about 50 50 but a very important uh thing has happened in russian politics that's completely novel and that is that there is very high levels of polarization over the war so we're in this country we're very familiar with polarization this is you know something that is is uh everyone's talking about because we have the highest levels of political polarization in the united states since the civil war right now but in russia actually prior to the war there wasn't very much political polarization society wasn't drawn into two ideologically opposed camps people who supported Putin didn't really most people who support Putin didn't really hate people who support the opposition and most people who who supported the opposition didn't really have very strong negative feelings towards people who support Putin they're like okay fine most people are kind of apolitical and even if they were involved in politics they kind of you know understood that if whether friends or family members supported the opposition or the opposing party but what happened with the war is that society started to polarize around the issue of the war and in particular on a generational dimension so support for the war among uh older generations is much much much stronger than is among under generations so among among younger generations it's fair to say i think that more people are opposed to war than support the war and the obverse is definitely true for older generations and you see this same thing if you stratify that other question that i've put up there by age group that younger voters those under 40 are much more likely to say again this orange is saying that they prefer to start negotiations they're much more likely to say that they want the regime to start negotiations okay and i'll interpret this in a second this this is very important for our for our final conclusion but i'll say more about that in a second the final thing to note this is just important context for our discussion is that the war of course has put the russian economy into economic crisis and this is at a time this is very important to note when most other economies in the world are growing very rapidly right so you have this every country in the world goes into a recession because of covid and then almost every country in the world is bouncing back right they're economy are bouncing back rapidly after covid russia's go in the opposite direction because of the sanctions because of the business uh the the business of voluntary business withdrawals um so you have a five percent drop in quarter on quarter drop in gdp and q2 and inflation at high levels and uh public opinion polls bear this out that russians are feeling this pain 56 percent say they've had to be more frugal because of rising prices 39 percent say the income has been affected in some way uh by the war and as you might expect though those who are have suffered economic consequences during the war uh survey show they're less supportive of uh the war and so given that we expect um we don't expect russia's economy to improve so long as the war is going on it's going to continue to be in recession or at least stagnation one would expect these numbers to grow and one would expect this to eat away at support for the war and i would say that this is particularly problematic for the regime given that on the eve of war back in 2021 russians were less and less likely to approve of the job that putin was doing in handling the economy so okay so let me sum up some of these points i see what i which points i have made and haven't made so i made the point that war this war wasn't um wasn't fueled by a demand from society i've also made the point that current levels of support are really mostly of a function of this rally around the flag effect that's manufactured by propaganda censorship there wasn't strong support for such a war before the war started um and then those who support the war and therefore putin are made up of two two groups i would say one is vigorous supporters and then the second group are those who are kind of passively acquiescing to what the government is doing but what's precarious for the putin regime is that we know from political science that these patriotic rallies around the flag effect they can be very intense in the moment but they can also very dissipate very quickly because they're often founded on what are at the time like i said intense emotions but they're not rooted in strong ideological convictions and so as these emotions fade away they can dissipate very quickly and that is a particular danger for the regime and also one of the reasons i think that the regime is often ratcheting up its rhetoric and ratcheting up its um uh uh uh the the rhetoric around confrontation with the west in order to keep fanning the flames of this rally around the flag effect because if it dissipates the regime collapses that's the final point is about polarization so as i said before prior to the war russia was really a mostly an apathetic deep politicized society people just didn't follow politics care about politics and they definitely apologize now for the first time in post-soviet history we have people that are really angry and engaged with politics specifically on the issue of the war so you know 29 percent of respondents say that they've stopped speaking to a relative or friend over the war um that's not something that that would be unheard of you know not speaking to a relative friend because of something political prior to the war and so what the concern here for the regime would be that now you have a sizable share of russians young russians it turns out who are who have very strong negative attitudes about the regime they're very angry about it they're not apathetic anymore and so if that rally around the flag effect starts to dissipate you're going to be left with some core of people who are actually quite motivated angry and politicized and that could be very perilous i think for the machine all right so i'm going to leave it there and i very much look forward to hearing your questions and comments you talk about pudin being so popular and not having anybody that is opposed to him what about the gentleman i mean if you were opposed to him you were thrown in jail what about the gentleman that was poisoned i can't think of this saying came back nevolny is he still in jail just that he have followers what is his situation politically how was that resolved great yeah so the person you're talking about is alexa nevolny so alexa nevolny is the most staunch opposition figure in russia opposition in russia is a complicated entity there are some parts the opposition that are kind of co-opted by the regime and and work with the regime somewhat temper their criticism of the regime in exchange for access to policy and then there are there is the parts of the opposition that's headed by mostly alexa nevolny who don't temper their criticism of the regime and are very very staunch critics of the regime and they call openly for the removal of the regime and you know would support they do support mass street protest as a potential way to to remove pudin from power and uh yeah so alexa nevolny the leader of this he was put in jail he was first poisoned by the fsb incontrovertible evidence of that and then he's since then he's been in jail um i mean uh very tragically in macabre in macabre fashion that he was put in jail for violating his parole he was supposed to check in because he was already he had already um had been convicted of another crime and he was on parole and he was supposed to check in with his parole officer while he was abroad but he could not check in because he was in a coma from being poisoned and then they put him in jail for not checking in with his parole officer so yeah he's in prison but he still has a following his support base was unfortunately never very wide before this part of that of course is due to russia's authoritarian system and the fact that his megaphone was stifled right he could only speak to his supporters through the internet he wasn't allowed of course on state television but at the same time he is a very for many russians he's kind of he's too hardline of a political figure he's a very he's a very um for some he has a very grating political presence and he's not he doesn't he turns off some russians and so that also limited his um his ability to expand his support base this is very common in in closed authoritarian regimes where dissidents the type of person who has the kind of courage courage and strident personality to become a dissident is often not the same type of person who's a good politician in democratic politics and that's what we are observing with the let's see where do you get your list of respondents or how do you contact them to get all of your information for these polls right so um we work with a survey company in russia that has been doing surveys in russia since the soviet period actually and they they draw representative samples so they have survey teams in scores of russian regions and you first draw a sample of regions and then within each region you draw a sample of settlements there would be cities and villages you do that randomly at both those stages and then within those settlements let's say it's a village you're going to randomly select households to interview and then within each household you're going to randomly select to respond and so it's done just the same way that opinion polls are done in the united states or any other country except in russia the quality of opinion polls is actually a lot higher than in the united states because they're still done face to face and that's possible in russia because the cost of labor is much lower so you can actually go into someone's home make tea sit down at the kitchen table and do an interview with them and it's not these annoying things you all get on your phones where you're trying to do a survey over text or someone's calling you and in a robotic voice doing a poll so i think she's in charge um with the polling and you mentioned the regional is there any polling i don't know the population distribution of russia i'm assuming western end of russia's the majority of population how it is out on the hinterland the other factor is as i understood a lot of the recruiting in the army is from the rural areas in the western for the eastern part of the state and promises of money and i'm wondering how that works into the polling i'm going to throw one more if putin suddenly should have a heart attack or fall from a building and die what's the power of white who's next in line nabali's in prison he doesn't sound like much but is there any group that would come in and fill that boy okay your first i got i remember the second one the first one was can you remember the regional distribution how the polling does any polling indicate eastern russia or western russia versus eastern i don't know the distribution of population in that country it's huge right i know the eastern st petersburg and but well in terms of drawing a sample it would be done in a representative fashion so the areas that are less populated where you'd have less respondents from there and moscow would have more respondents because there's more people from there so it is it is nationally representative if that's our situation the farther you get away from moscow house of reliance on the party out of the moscow the central so i mean yeah in terms of regional distributions of support for putin which i guess maybe you're asking about so like it is true that uh in cyberia and the far east they traditionally have lower levels of support for the authorities it's kind of cyberia the far east is kind of the wild west of russia they fancy themselves as being more free thinking and more independent than the western parts of russia so you do see those patterns in public opinion polls your second question uh was well now i've already lost that one you have to avoid oh that's okay i can do the void yeah so um what we don't know and that question's impossible to answer because and it relates to what i was saying in response to her question the type of people who are going to be effective politicians in a democratic system are the not the same type people who are effective politicians in an autocratic system and that goes for dissidents but it also goes for politicians within the regime some of the people who are close to putin within the ruling party let's say they have made their careers within this autocratic system and they know how to advance their political careers in that system but that doesn't necessarily mean that if tomorrow the whole thing collapses and we have free and fair elections and the tv lights are on and they're having open debates that that's going to make them into good politicians so we've seen this happen over and over and over again in countries that transition from authoritarianism to democracy and oftentimes totally new figures emerge that people didn't predict would emerge would emerge beforehand okay so the why my republic couldn't result that the backlash was hitler the same thing is coming going on in this country right now it's going to lead to an economic collapse and it might lead back to what we had before i wonder what happened in russia in the 90s that led to putin right well i mean uh so there's an argument out there that there's that um many people supported putin because they saw him as uh rectifying many of the social ills that had existed during the 1990s so in the 1990s in russia there was this collapse in state capacity there was this breakdown in law and order there was this economic crisis the state that the so the the social safety net that existed in the soviet union collapsed um and so much of russian society was adrift in the 1990s and uh it's unclear how much putin is responsible for this more likely it's just due to the fact that oil prices went up in the early 2000s but whatever the reason putin comes to power and a lot of these problems begin to be fixed and so putin is very lucky to be coming to office during this period i think when uh the russian economy and the power of the russian states and and russia's foreign policy influence were all being restored i'm just wondering if it was the same as like the one we already talked about like it's broken but in the early stage of that it's going to lead to an economic collapse well you know i mean it's a good point i mean it's a good it actually right now the crisis in russia isn't nearly as bad as it would have been under weimar germany right so they're in a recession they're in a recession but it's not a deep depression yet in terms of drop in output i'm at the 90s hmm yeah well we're 30 years away from that or yeah 30 yeah 30 years away from that it's a long time so i do have a question what is the average standard of living for most um russians and how does that play i mean do they get are they allowed to travel i mean i've heard that they've gotten they've been allowed enough for the western kinds of things just to keep them peaceful and happy is there any truth to that um well russia's not a closed society in that sense i mean before the war i mean before the war in the the 30 years after the collapse of communism like um people are allowed to travel freely um russia has a middle class many people go on vacation abroad um i think the latest polls suggest over half of russians have traveled abroad probably more than americans traveled abroad um and uh now that doesn't necessarily mean that their standard of living is higher than the united states of the average income in russia is much lower than the united states and the median income is even lower so it's very high inequality in russia there's there's there's a lot of very rich people and then a lot of very very poor people so inequality is high in the us as we all know but it's even higher in russia i'd be interested to hear your comments about putans rattling his atomic weapon threat yeah i mean i think um uh i hope at least that this is um a bluff you know he's so what's happened is like the battlefield situation in ukraine is not going in russia's favor um and they're outnumbered on the battlefield in ukraine because ukraine declared general mobilization of all able-bodied men and even many women uh and so and ukraine's not necessarily that small of a country right it's about 40 million people russia's about 145 million people and russia is fighting there just with primarily contract troops so professional soldiers and so they're currently outnumbered on the battlefield and so they're losing ground right now um and um so you know i think hopefully putan is using this nuclear threat to try to get the west to back off and not provide more weapons uh to ukraine the reason why i do think that's right and he's not just crazy and going to use nuclear weapons is because there are a lot of levels of escalation i think that russia could engage in short of using nuclear weapons there will be no reason to escalate all the way to nuclear weapons at this point and and by the way to the extent anyone's discussing nuclear weapons i think most people are talking about tactical nuclear weapons battlefield nuclear weapons not launching icbms against the united states and um and so there you know uh uh there's a lot of things russia could do to escalate bombing more civilian infrastructure bombing government installations in Kiev which they've which they've avoided doing thus far destroying the ukraine electricity grid which they've avoided doing thus far they may have started doing just yesterday in the day before but there's a lot of things they could do before they get to nuclear weapons so i think it's a bluff and i think you know but i mean we have to hope it's a bluff because if it's not a bluff we're all screwed there's no point in analyzing anything anyway do you have any statistics on uh voting how many people vote do they have confidence in voting or the younger generation the older generation yeah so um uh rates of voter turnout in russia are about the same as they are in the united states roughly speaking however um and and a lot of people who who participate in elections probably about 70 75 percent they think that elections are more or less free and fair these are people who support the regime and so you know they engage in motivated reasoning or motivated skepticism and they are like well you know more or less elections are free and fair or this isn't that bad fraud's not that bad i go i vote for united russia i vote for putin i get on with my day um there's also a large chunk that are kind of coerced into voting um so something that's very common in russia is what's called workplace voter mobilization and so uh a lot of votes are mobilized in russia through the workplace you're the boss at your factory says okay it's election day we all have to go vote and everyone goes out and vote and so a lot of those people they're not that jazzed about voting they're just doing it in a perfunctory in a perfunctory manner um but um but yeah but that leaves i mean for context you know rates of voter participation in the u.s i compare it to the u.s and i said it's about the same as the u.s but rates of voter participation in the u.s are very low relative to other democracies and so there's a lot of people in russia just like in the u.s who don't vote and don't think that elections are worth participating in and they're completely uh disaffected from electoral politics and don't believe in it that's i just got a quick um thought i'm just kind of curious about the their gross production their economy um how much is their gross production output and balancing with what they need to potentially suppress their population i mean what's the spending cost militarily and in contrast to that military budget what is their budget for social suppression for lack of a better term i guess when you say social suppression do you mean like repression or do you mean like spending on social services to keep people shaping happy popularity staying in power you know you have a certain amount of that in china the spending there is getting higher and higher and higher and i would say in russia they have to spend quite a bit on their budget yeah going towards policing and making sure the population stays in check well i wouldn't put it that i actually don't think there's a very large share of the budget that goes to domestic repression that's probably just not a major line item what's it what is it the two huge line items are actually the same in russia as they would be in the united states or almost any country which would be military spending and social spending so spending on pensions that's the big government expenditure and and health care and wealth what we would call welfare support so i guess maybe i'm looking at the budget to shape popular opinion you know he is not going to necessarily let the shine come off his image so the cost to the people to keep his ego going for no other way of putting it how is that sustainable in the long run you know economically before it begins to fade in that you know he cannot sustain this he's age 70 right now well i agree let that support this yeah well that that's the point is that like primarily he's generating support to primarily the regime generates support by uh demonstrating that's able to provide adequate standard of living for people so that's what's expensive is maintaining spending on social services maintaining spending on pensions in russia just like in any country in the world it's the older generations that vote more and so they're the ones that are politically relevant and important and so pensions are the main thing that they care about because pensions are state provided in russia there's almost no almost no private pensions whatsoever and so yeah so you're right in that a constraint for the regime is how in the face of economic crisis it can continue yeah spending on social services such that people don't get upset with their standard of living i guess that's it then how important are the oligarchs to put in keeping him in power and supporting him yeah that's a really good question because the traditional belief among russia watchers is that they were absolutely crucial that they were kind of one of the legs of his regime and by oligarch she means these group of people who became fabulously wealthy in the 1990s because of their close ties with the state but also because they were able to accumulate a large amount of economic assets in russia during the transition from communism to capitalism and so these are big businessmen we would call them in the US captains of industry except for in russia they have very very close ties to the state all of them and certainly when putin came to power he was very reliant on the support from the oligarchs and he made a deal a very famous deal with the oligarchs when he came to power when the deal was you get to keep everything that you took control of or stole or whatever it may be the case during the 1990s but but you don't the deal was you get to keep that and you but then you don't support the opposition you have to support me and so everyone believed that their support was very important the war comes along and many of these oligarchs not all of them they lost almost everything because a lot of their assets were in the west and these were of course among the first individuals that the west placed sanctions on so all these stories you read about yachts being seized and bank accounts frozen these are the oligarchs right and so everyone thought aha well this is going to impale his regime and they're going to you know tell putin to take a hike because what's the point of supporting putin if i can't have a yacht in monaco right and uh but it turned out that in 2022 their support wasn't as important anymore or that's you know they didn't have the same influence over putin that they once did and the security the support of security services the fsb the army the other security services it seems to be more important for putin than supporting oligarchs our sanctions really effective against russia because you hear that for instance india is getting their oil now from russia china is uh dealing with russia the western world needs uh the oil from russia as far as europe is concerned how long can we in your opinion can we stay united right so well yeah and the first point about how effective sanctions are well uh they're both effective and ineffective they're effective in the sense that the russian economy is in recession and they've lost a lot of government government revenue because of you know western oil embargoes and because of uh sectoral sanctions and and more actually the largest part actually of the recession in russia is not so much uh government actions it's the informal business withdrawals because after the war tons and tons of western corporations just took their business out of russia preemptively maybe some were concerned about later getting sanctioned for doing business with russia others were concerned about problems um financing their operations in russia because there were sanctions in the russian banking system and still others were concerned about the what the the pr consequences of continuing to do business in russia whatever the case may be like almost all russian businesses withdrew from russia and that's really the big thing that's causing recession in russia but to the the second point about there being ineffective of course sanctions against a country is big and um pivotal in the global economic system as russia are going to be less effective than would be sanctions against north korea or venezuelan uh because well a russia is just a big economy in its own right it's better able to kind of better able than many other countries to provide for itself um but then also as you're alluding to uh a lot of russia's market for its products and of course its primary product is is hydrocarbons a lot of that market is not in the west it's actually china and india and turkey the middle east and and so on and so forth um but that being said i mean the west is still a crucial market especially for gas and that's why you know most of europe is still buying gas from russia oil is a different story from gas i'm talking about natural gas natural gas west a lot of europe not so much western europe but central a lot of central europe is still very dependent on russian gas and there's they're still buying it for that reason yeah i would say these sanctions have been very ineffective i mean what good did good did they do with ukraine i mean they're just practically level to thousands dead i don't see where it's healthy korean at all i mean we've heard russia but how's it healthy korean there's a comment more than anything do you have any comment on the relationship of the russian orthodox church and putin's regime i've read things heard things about a a tightness there and almost a complicity well yes this is a tradition in russia that the orthodox church is much more closely tied to the state than would be churches in the west to to the state i mean of course this wasn't true during the communist era which was of course an atheist regime but during the czarist era the the the the church was very closely tied to the state and the czar was was you know by official church doctrine that god's representative on earth and and so in the in the in the post-soviet era at least in the putin era yeah the the russian orthodox church is very closely associated with the state and very supportive of of the state and they've been very vocally supportive of the war that's that's for sure but the russian orthodox church doesn't have as much kind of influence on public opinion as do churches in the united states i mean church attendance is very very low many people many russians report well first one levels of religiosity in russia are much lower than the united states but then levels of church attendance are much lower still in orthodox christianity church attendance just doesn't have the same meaning you know there's not like sermons in the same way there are in protestant religions um so so orthodox priests don't really have the same opportunity to influence public opinion they can't on sunday give some political sermon it's all in these you know yeah any other questions absolutely any other questions no does your work have any predictive value well i don't know i guess we'll see right i asked god a lot of studies in psychology say that the masses are always wrong at critical turning points you can use our stock market as an example and when everybody goes right i'll be better off to go well and that's right is any of this use for predictive purposes i mean it seems to be very interesting but the figures aren't showing any type of correlation to change i could say that huh yeah i don't know i guess well i guess my point is we'll see right i mean so that uh sure yeah i mean that's you know like that's what i was saying earlier like you can you can definitely see evidence that the regime responds to changes in public opinion they do things in response to to changes in public opinion so yeah is that it then for everybody nope it's okay if you say the the regime will respond to public opinion everything that i've read about the current situation is very very volatile and since the conscription announcement over 700 000 men have tried to flee and get out of the country that has to have some public repercussions um and in the whole issue about the threat of nuclear war and the kind of deranged speech that putin just gave uh but the sense at least as i read western media is that it's a very very volatile and do you think that the russian people understand that kind of voluntary volatility or what do you think the response eventually will be uh so do they what i think um oh okay let me put it this way so polls indicate the russians are very concerned and anxious more so than americans are they're very worried about nuclear war they're very worried about being nuked by the west they think most russians are most but the same numbers of russians that i put up here to support the war most of them also think they really do think that the west is trying to destroy russia and that the west is you know intent on wiping russia off the face of the earth so they're very anxious about this they're very concerned about this happening um so yeah if that answers your question about like they're concerned if that's what you meant by volatility


This is a small script to cover chaining I've been using chaining for well over a year at work And I just love the way it looks. I think it's very clear So these are just a couple of the commands that I use very often So to filter the data frame I use query when I want to select columns. I use look So here I'm selecting the columns name height and sex Then of course group I where I have as index equal to false I think that makes it downstream processing a little bit more straightforward and Finally, I use a sign to make new columns and With just these these small handful worth of methods. I think that you can get quite a bit done in a very clean way That's it. I guess I can go ahead and show what this data frame looks like real quick Scroll down just a little bit too far That's it.


After having the nastiest season in the NFL last year, the Chicago Bears looking to clean things up a little bit, going into next year. See how things work out for them. First four games of the season, I think things start off okay. Two and two, I think those two dubs come against Green Bay and Tampa Bay. Next four games is a little, you know what I'm saying? I think they get one dub and that's against Las Vegas. Next four games, I'm kind of thinking they're singing the same tune. I think they get one dub and it comes against Carolina. Fresh off the vibe, the Lions are coming in the tone. Cleveland, probably not. Arizona, yeah. Atlanta, yeah. Green Bay, yeah. Is it the most pretty season? No, but it's an improvement of where they were last year. So, you know, build on that and see where things go. Chicago, baby.


Christian Yelts is back at DH.  Let's go Brew Crew


From Hollywood, it's time now for Johnny dollar Amy Bradshaw Johnny Amy. It's 1 a.m. Anything the matter. Yes, can you come over right away? Sure your apartment? No, I'm in my dressing room with the criteria and theater at 1 o'clock in the Amy There's a policeman assigned to you. Is he with you? No, I went out the back way. I came over here alone But why he's supposed to be protecting you Johnny. I can't explain now, but I think I finally know who's been trying to kill me I want to talk to you right away over here. Hurry. Please hurry Tonight and every weekday night Bob Bailey in the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. No, it's truly Johnny dollar New York City expense account submitted by special investigator Johnny dollar to the home office Northwestern and Divinity Alliance Hartford, Connecticut The following is an accounting of expenditure is during my investigation of the Amy Bradshaw matter Expense account item 12 $5 taxi from my hotel to the criterion theater on West 44 Two bucks for the fare three bucks for getting me there in five minutes. Amy had sounded plenty scared over the phone The cab skidded to a stop in front. I caught a glimpse of somebody at the other corner of the theater It looked like Porter Kane. I couldn't be sure and I didn't have time to find out right now Backstage it was quite dark and I had to feel my way through The shot came from the direction of Amy's dressing room Mike Pomeroy the agent was lying on the floor dead. There was a gun on the floor to just inside the door What happened Amy Amy stop it. Tell me what happened Ran outside the dressing room across the stage into the alley no one in sight back inside I found a light switch so I phoned else and tell a police headquarters told him what had happened Amy was quieter now Amy look look I know it's tough for you to talk right now, but you've got to try and tell me No, the laughter midnight Mike called me at my apartment. He said he wanted to talk to me about something important His office is nearby and he asked me to beat him here in my dressing room So I came over right away go on Mike and I started talking Suddenly I saw the door opening a crack a Hand with a gun Mike Mike easy easy But between me and the door and collected the slug He fell against the door and it slammed on the hand gun dropped and The next thing I remember You were in the room. You didn't see who was holding the gun No, just the hand Amy There was something on one of the fingers that I recognized a Large-signet ring Yes, yeah It belonged to the guy out on the sidewalk Porter Kane We will continue with the Bradshaw matter in a moment Friends, how'd you like to thrill your favorite youngster with some of the most exciting toys of the year? Picture the breathless excitement of any child surrounded by six gaily colored balloon like giant animals up to three feet long and all for the Low-low price of just one dollar now first you get bounced over clown with round potbelly and funny nose Next comes hoppy the Australian kangaroo third. There's Roscoe the roller skating bear He's two feet tall and looks almost like real fourth There's whitey the fat indoor snowman and fifth Mortimer the giant mouse 18 inches long and sure to scare the whiskers off Any cat that's five different giant animals But now hold your breath for the most sensational toy of all the star of the whole Christmas season the jolly giant talking Santa Claus Guaranteed to make everybody's Christmas a merrier one. He's a big roly-poly happy Santa He stands erect on two legs is actually over three feet tall and 32 inches around best of all He actually talks just pull the tape and he says Merry Christmas for all to hear He's the biggest merriest talking as Santa ever sure to please your youngsters and spread good cheer Yes, giant Santa proves there really is a Santa Claus That's a total of six giant animals made of brightly colored preformed sturdy latex Which the kids can easily inflate and the cost just one dollar not for each just one dollar for all six of these lovable Giants who turn your home into a circus parade and here's a surprise mail your order today And you'll also receive absolutely free Peter the rabbit actually over two feet tall with big red ears Almost nine inches long, but you must send now Rush one dollar plus ten cents for packing and mailing for each set you want to giant animals box 1918 Grand Central Station, New York City If not delighted with every one of your seven giant animals return them to the Super Animals Company for a full refund But keep the giant talking Santa as our gift order now supplies are limited rush one dollar and ten cents We're packing and mailing for each set and cash check or money order to giant animals box 1918 Grand Central Station, New York City, that's one dollar plus ten cents with your name and address mail to giant animals box 1918 that's box one nine one eight Grand Central Station, New York City giant animals box one nine one eight box 1918 Grand Central Station, New York City Lieutenant Centella arrived at Amy's dressing room and Amy repeated her story to him He sent a couple of his boys out to pick up Porta Cain Alan Amy and I went down to headquarters We left her in one room while we went into another to question Cain who'd been picked up at his apartment See here lieutenant. I don't know what this is all about, but I certainly object to being routed out Just hold it Cain. You know why you're down here. I certainly do not you don't know that Mike Pomeroy's dead Amy's agent really really I never did like that chap quite an insensitive person while he's real insensitive now Cain He's dead how did it happen Mike was shot by mistake the real target was Amy good heavens No, when's the last time you saw Amy the night before last I spoke to her briefly after the show You haven't talked to her on the telephone. No, you're lying. I see her apartment about 11 p.m. I was there. All right I did telephone her I Suggested she meet me somewhere. I I told her I'd wait for her outside her apartment Go on I saw her come out later by the alley So I followed her to the theater thinking she meant for us to talk there But then I I heard a shot so you admit being in the vicinity. Well, yes But I definitely did not go into the theater didn't you Cain Amy got a look at the hand holding the gun. There was a ring on one of the fingers ring your ring But she's completely mistake. That's a very distinctive ring.  I asked you what you do if you wanted something for your collection and couldn't get it You told me a story about what happened when you were just a kid nine years old The kid had a lollipop you wanted he wouldn't give it to you so you smashed it And that's what you were trying to do tonight in Amy's dressing room. You couldn't have her so you tried to smash her There wasn't much point in my hanging around So I got Alson tell us permission to take Amy back to her apartment. We could wait there for any new developments Amy didn't say a word all the way when we got there. She sat in the chair staring at the wall When she finally spoke it was more like she was talking to herself He's dead Amy is dead because of me stop talking that way Mike Pomeroy jumped in the way of a bullet if he hadn't you'd be dead Stop it Amy Yeah, I think you think what just a minute. I'll get it It was Al Centella down to police headquarters When he finished talking I didn't say anything There wasn't anything to say After I hung up I stood there a moment staring out the window and it started to rain I Felt old and tired and empty and sick. I Went back into the other room again Amy was sitting there looking at me Johnny Amy Was that call for me no who was it? The tenants and teller the gun that killed Mike Pomeroy There were no fingerprints on it You said you saw a bare hand with a ring on it holding the gun a bare hand would have left fingerprints You killed him didn't you? Yes Johnny the attempts on your life you faked them didn't you to convince people you were in danger So you could kill Pomeroy and we think the shot was intended for you Why Amy? You know why? Yeah, I guess You loved Mike you knew he was growing away from you Very fast you saw him get interested in a younger actress. You knew she was taking your place with him Mike. I Was dead I Couldn't stand that I really couldn't So I Started making it look like I was in danger Wasn't very hard Johnny. I'm a good actress Yeah After a while, I almost began to believe I was in danger Something was after me was hunting me Finally caught up with me and I did what I did which of us is the hunter Johnny Which is the hunted? Amy Yes, I Think one of lieutenants and tellers men is waiting for you out in the hall One thing Johnny what is it? I'll need something now Something don't forget me Johnny Give me that that you can count on Amy She walked out of the room and she didn't look back I'm glad she didn't Expense account item 13 16 dollars and 50 cents transportation and incidentals from New York back to Hartford Expense account total 185 dollars and 20 cents end of account end of report remarks Amy repeated her confession to lieutenants and tell her her trials coming up soon Sweet case Well tomorrow's another day So they tell me Yours truly Johnny dollar Johnny dollar will return in a moment to tell you about next week's intriguing story Friends send for your set of some of the most exciting toys of the year six giant inflatable toys for only one dollar Some up to three feet tall you get bounce over happy clown Hoppy the Australian kangaroo Roscoe the two feet long roller skating bear whitey the fat indoor snowman Mortimer the giant mouse 18 inches long and last but not least the great giant talking Santa a Rolly-poly giant over three feet tall and 32 inches around the belly that actually says Merry Christmas out loud When you pull the tape that six sensational giant toys for only one dollar made of sturdy gaily colored latex that the kids can easily inflate Send one dollar for each set to giant animals box 1918 Grand Central Station, New York City And if you order right now you get Peter the rabbit over two feet tall absolutely free If not delighted with your giant animals your money refunded immediately order today You may never hear this offer again rush one dollar plus ten cents for packing and mailing and cash checker money order to giant Animals box one nine one eight Grand Central Station, New York City That's one dollar plus ten cents for each set with your name of the dress to giant animals box 1918 Grand Central Station, New York City Now here's our star to tell you about next week's exciting story next week a case with a great big question mark accident suicide or just plain murder Join us won't you yours truly Johnny dollar Yours truly Johnny dollar starring Bob Bailey is transcribed in Hollywood written by Robert Reif it is produced and directed by Jack Johnstone heard in this week's cast were Virginia Greg Florence Walcott Don Diamond Larry Thor Vic Perron and Carlton Young musical supervision by Amarigo Moreno Be sure to join us on Monday night same time and station for another exciting story of yours truly Johnny dollar This is Roy Rowan speaking


You know how many people are going to see that and go in with that hoodie?  That's work numbers. That's light numbers too. That's work, and that's light. I'm just saying, I'm saying five, you might get... He ain't selling no 50 dollars. What you going to say? I'm going to sell that motherfucker. Five hundred. All right, do whatever. For the difference.


Two more big drug busts on the Red Lake Indian Reservation this week, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday. The Red Lake Police Department reports they served two search warrants at separate Red Lake homes. On Wednesday, officers seized over 48 grams of methamphetamine, 46 grams of cocaine, 2 grams of heroin and marijuana with an estimated street value over $12,000. They also found drug paraphernalia and located one child in the home. In addition, officers also confiscated cash and one vehicle associated with the search. On Thursday at a different home, they found 4 grams of heroin and seized cash and drug paraphernalia. Now after Wednesday's search, 30-year-old Terrin Renee Stately, 22-year-old Cassidy Rose White, 30-year-old David Emanuel Bowen and 38-year-old Carlene Josigana were all arrested and charged with unlawful sales of a controlled substance, child endangerment and possession of drug paraphernalia. After Thursday's raid, 30-year-old Joshua John Lucher and 21-year-old Kyla Renee Roy were arrested and charged with unlawful sales of controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Lucher also had an outstanding tribal warrant.


Are you tired of huddling? Tired of your friends pestering you about why Bitcoin really has value? There are hundreds of online retailers, social marketplaces, and even local restaurants that take Bitcoin. But it's even bigger than that. Here are the top 5 places you probably didn't know you could spend Bitcoin. 5. Expedia Feeling down in a bear market? Have you found yourself up only 6,000% instead of 25,000%? Is it time to just take a break from the stress of it all? Then why not use some of that Bitcoin to fly your way to a tropical destination through Expedia? That's right, the travel giant Expedia now accepts Bitcoin as a means of payment when booking your next vacation. 4. Playboy With many early adopters of Bitcoin only just now finishing up puberty, it's no wonder Playboy is one of the first to get on board with the Bitcoin Paytrain. Users can use their Bitcoin to access adult content on Playboy TV and plans to adopt even more cryptocurrencies as payment methods to access their content. With over 100 million monthly customers and a cryptocurrency community made up of 90% men, it looks like Playboy is thinking with the right head. 3. Overstock.com Overstock.com has long been a proponent of Bitcoin and allows it to be used to buy a multitude of items in their catalog. They were the first major retailer to start accepting Bitcoins and their CEO Patrick Byrne is a well-known cryptocurrency and blockchain proponent. This is certainly not Overstock.com's last venture into the space to the point where they are launching their own ICO, T-Zero. 2. Gift Gift opened the door for Bitcoin spending in a very big way. With access to gift cards for over 200 different retailers, they've allowed users to be able to spend their Bitcoin pretty much anywhere they'd like. From CVS to Whole Foods to Target, Gift is the one stop shop for you to use your Bitcoin to access goods from all of your favorite retailers. And that brings us to... 1. Life That is right. You can use Bitcoin to buy things in...life. You can buy things with Bitcoin from friends, family, and anyone else with a wallet address. You can use it at a multitude of restaurants and shops all over the world. Subway and KFC have both had locations that take Bitcoin. Or you could head to Old Fitzroy in Sydney, Pembury Tavern in London, or get yourself a pizza at Helen's Pizza in New Jersey. Not only will using your Bitcoin to make purchases help to show people the value of Bitcoin, it will also increase Bitcoin's legitimacy as a currency in the eyes of a world as a whole. Keep the cryptocurrency and blockchain revolution alive. Subscribe to Cointelegraph.


Hi, this is Marcy Turner and today I'm going to show you how to access Nearpod connected to your Google account and all the features that Nearpod has to offer. Okay, so to get started with this tutorial you're going to want to head over to nearpod.com. You're going to click the login button. It's going to take you to the sign-in screen. It gives you many options, but if you're an Oregon County school employee you're definitely going to want to click the sign-in with Google. Your first time signing in you're going to need to allow access to your Google Drive and Google account. Once you do that and you allow it you'll go to the main screen which is under my lessons that starts you there. I like to make sure that when I'm logged in I have premium plus here. Our district pays for the premium plus so I think that's awesome. We get unlimited storage so you can store all of your lessons in here if you wanted to. All right, so the first thing I do as a teacher when I'm looking for a lesson or I have an idea I like to head over to the Nearpod library. Once I click on that I can see that they break it down by grades, subjects, content types. There's different publishers that do publish different content on here. They have holiday lessons and fun things. I personally will filter to the certain grade level or subject that I'm teaching so that I'm just seeing content that's geared towards that specific subject. You can also filter by standards which I think is a new feature and I do like this idea as well. It gives you if you're teaching to a certain standard and you want to make sure you hit that standard you can filter by standard now which is a nice new feature. Okay, so I'm just going to showcase an example, a Nearpod curated lesson. I teach English so I'm going to go ahead and click on that. I can do let's see grade levels so maybe I just want high school and so this is going to filter the content to what specifically I'm looking for. I could alternatively also type in a certain topic. Maybe I'm teaching a poem or I'm teaching one thing I think I taught on here was Ethos Pathos and Logos so I typed in, well I typed in Ethos Pathos and Logos and then they had some content. They have a video, they have lessons that are made so I'm going to show the art of persuasion here. This one was created by the Nearpod team so I can hit preview and once I hit preview that allows me to see the standard that it's achieving how many and then plus 71 so all the standards it's achieving. You can teach it straight from this but I like to make sure that when I look at this I want to make sure it has all the things that I am interested and need for my lesson so if this is something that looks good to me and you can see they have interactive they have like their essential question which is very helpful and then it tells the students what they're learning about today and it even gives you time frames which again I love this. This is awesome so if I want to add this to my lessons that makes a copy of it in my lesson library and then I can from there also edit it edit lesson and then I can even take out slides that I don't maybe necessarily like I can edit the lesson myself. You might want to do that because I find that this one specifically is quite long and lengthy it does have collaboration it does quiz them and asks them to draw so there's a lot of different interactive items that it asks the students to do so I do love that once you're done when you edit it in here you can also add your own slides in so we can add your own content in your own pictures or you can just click and delete so if I didn't want this one I could just delete that slide and then it's my lesson I've made it my own so you can even from this preview it I also like to do that I recommend doing that because it might look at one way on the screen when you're editing it but you want to make sure like this is what the students will see on their screens so when you are teaching your pod you're going to activate a lesson and we'll get into that in a minute you're going to give a kid the kids a code or paste a code somewhere on your on your school g account so I go through and I make sure everything looks good that the content is clickable that the video works that sort of thing because sometimes if you didn't you're not sure exactly what you're getting so anyways that's one thing that you can do again this is the student preview so this is what they see on their screen and they can just type on here and it shows up pending approval that's a setting you can turn on as a teacher I can go to Google as a student and include an image my thinking this is a collaborate board I love this one okay so that's the preview and so I can just save an exit make sure you save an exit otherwise any changes you've made will not save so this is how you edit a lesson take something from your pod one of their lessons make it your own and edit it right in your pod alternatively you may as a teacher already have google slides that you just want to make more interactive and put them on near pod I personally love doing this for the very simple fact is that I can hold students who are absent accountable so I'm going to show you how to do that so if you go over to your drive and then maybe I have a google lesson or maybe I want to create just saying google slides so I can open up a google slide now you're going to want to install the extension for near pod so you'll have to do you know add-ons and get the extension I have this so it opens right up when I click on near pod so once that loads it gives you the same options in near pod I personally do like to create my own lessons in here if I'm starting from scratch I just like the view of google slides better so if I wanted to maybe start off with an open-ended question I could just click on that and it adds in a whole slide so I put my question here okay and then you can also add a timer you can enable if you want to enable student audio recordings you could add an image or audio or something else to catch their attention and then you just click save and then once you do that it will load into and create another full slide and make sure you don't delete this slide but there it is open-ended question now you can't see what the question was that you've typed in there so one thing I will say is like I like to make sure I keep track of my own of what I've done but you could also just click edit this slide to view what you've done with it to see that it's the right thing that you wanted in there okay so in addition to doing like an open-ended question I want to go through some of the options here so you can add an audio videos that you find online talked about collaborate board draw it is just simply asking them to draw they can use their finger on their keypad I find maybe this might match more with math than my content area specifically but I do find this useful as something that maybe a teacher might want to see them apply a skill that's going to take you across that you know rigor divide that we're always trying to get our students to the field trip option is great I think for social studies teachers or someone who teaches geography or that sort it's a VR pre curated field trip that actually near pod made an even cooler you could have them get VR headsets or if your school district had them you could rent them I'm sure you can get them somewhere that's also an experience that's so great if you're familiar with that you can also integrate into near pod matching pairs mainly for vocabulary if you need to do that and then PDF viewer so I use PDF viewer as a teacher of you know reading and writing I can put in a short story you make it a whole slide and they can actually view the entire PDF on one slide when I click to go to that during my lesson and so they can actually read it right on your part they don't believe near pod which I think is awesome because when you get to any tabs opening with kids they get confused and of course polls and quizzes the other thing I do also like is time to climb believe it or not my high school juniors love it they think it's interactive and fun you can put your questions in here and then your answer types there you can do images you can test their knowledge and they do have pre curated times climbs so you can check over here you could you could type on them and see you could click on one of them and see if that matches what you're teaching or make your own add questions okay so I think that is a good overview of what you can do with near pod again you can do all that in the near pod online platform but I personally if I'm creating my own lesson I want to do it on google slides I can also do a better drop of designing the slides and adding in things from canva okay so I'm going to go back to near pod so that's how you make an edit lessons on near pod I do find that I love that it saves here in my library sometimes when I make multiple copies I'll just simply delete it as you can see I have a couple here I just want to showcase one thing that I did do so I had one lesson that I made on a short story that we were reading but this was something the district made google slides and then I took those google slides from the from the content curriculum apps and I turned it into a near pod lesson but I wanted to show you you can do live participation so this is you're in the classroom you're in front of your kids you want you want them to be with you and so it creates this code I can copy the link I can post it you even have a co-teacher link if you want your co-teacher in on what you're teaching and then you just go and it changes their screen too so there's no confusion this is the student view by the way but when I click the teacher this is what I'm going to see when I'm up on the board there's a couple of things I do want to point out on when they have a question you may not want names no I don't have any participants right now but you may not want names listed so I can actually click on hide student answers or hide student names and I that way I can still see their answers and they'll show up right here and I can read them right from here but I don't know whose name it is and at least a little bit more anonymous I do like that from this if I'm like okay I'm done it's your turn I can do student paste mode which is more there on their own kind of on their own time and frame how they're doing it if I go back now if you want to return to the same session because you're going to grade their answers you're going to want to hit you can resume it later do you want to leave the session you can yes I want to leave it and then the same session is going to show up in your reports so that's when I go back and I'm grading to see if they've done what I've asked them to do in the slides like for example here at the end of the year I did this one it tells me the time how many students and then I can click on and see what they actually wrote and if I wanted to grade it that way I typically use it as more participation grade but you can see it'll calculate a total grade on what they did on like my time to climb the film the blank score I did a no but into question if you actually want to go back in and read those you do need to click on their name and then you can read what they actually wrote okay so that's an important thing key is the reports is where it's going to house how your students did so I go back to my lessons the one thing I also wanted to showcase was student base so I do always post student paste anyways on my classroom I just copy this link here this one is for my students were absent so I leave that purely for them so that when they come to me and say I was absent yesterday when I miss I'm like there's a near pun thank you so much for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe for more video tutorials


Welcome to another edition of the original gangsters podcast. This is a quick hitter edition. I'm your host Scott Bernstein today I want to Touch on something piggyback off of some reporting from our friends over at mob talk sit down Dave Shratt wiser in Georgia, Anastasia There the the og reporters, you know, the best mob intel You'll ever find in New Jersey, Philadelphia air areas could be coming from Dave and George they had a had a blockbuster report last week about a appeal coming on a case back from the 1990s related to the Lucchese crime family's New Jersey crew Marty Tassetta One-time boss of that family for a short period of time. He was kind of the third in charge for a long time He's doing a life sentence for a racketeering case In state court, which was kind of a follow-up to a very very infamous case in the 1980s a federal case That charged a murder the June 1984 gangland slain of Jimmy Sinatra AK Vincent Kraparata who was a Lucchese soldier was beaten to death with golf clubs When he refused to allow or tried to refuse to allow his nephews Video poker machine from being a video poker machine business from being extorted Tassetta and a number of other members of that Jersey crew were acquitted in what became the longest federal criminal trial in American history lasted for two years a movie got made about it with Vin Diesel called find me guilty and What this appeal from Tassetta's attorneys are is saying is that in the 90s when they came back And hit him with a lot of the same charges in state court including the murder count in the Sinatra slain That it was it was it was pure vengeance and that they trumped up a case they doctored a case and Were dirty in in convicting Marty Tassetta who it should be noted Was once again acquitted of the Jimmy Sinatra murder He was acquitted twice once in in federal court and another time in state court But he was convicted in the racketeering and was hit with a life sentence his attorney has found some pretty glaring discrepancies it appears and some you know possible You know real traction and getting an appeal. There's gonna be a hearing in September I think that the two biggest things that that we're hearing about Is the fact that it seems like there's a 302 that was Put together on a debriefing from the Philadelphia mob underboss crazy fill The Annette who was one of the star witnesses at this case one of four star witnesses that are kind of coming back Into the spotlight in this appeal Questioning the veracity of their testimony. It seems like what? Leonetti it testified seems to be contradicting a 302 that has now been unearthed during this you know in the Process of building this appeal they found a 302 from Leonetti's that that contradicts his testimony on the stand and then there also appears to be some Records related to a dentist appointment from about 40 years ago That were tied to Marty Tassetta that his appeal appellate attorneys right now are claiming could have been Fixed or or doctored with with to affect his alibi And the dates could have been changed It's some questions for the judge It seems like there's gonna be a hearing on this and Marty Tassetta might have a chance at freedom after all these years He's in his early 70s His brother Michael mad dog Tassetta. He's out of prison has been out. I think for for 10 years or so His boss back in the day to Mac asked Toro Was one of the guys that eventually took the stand against him in the 1990s in the state case He's often witness protection somewhere, but Marty Tassetta is still fighting We might end up doing an episode a full-length episode on The incidents and the circumstances surrounding the Jimmy Sinatra murder. I think it's really interesting. It involves multiple crime families a Series of five different sit-downs across three states in three months over the course of the summer of 1984 The Luccheses and the Philadelphia Bruno Scarfield crime family were fighting over Jimmy Sinatra's nephews the Serino brothers their Video poker machine business It was being extorted and two crime families were fighting for percentages of it one of the sit-downs What took place in little Italy and involved the bosses of those two crime families Tony ducks Corral and little Nicky Scarful crazy fills uncle and at that meeting Tony Tony ducks allegedly started screaming and and threatening to kill the Serino brothers It's interesting how it got resolved eventually the New Jersey crew of the Luccheses took ownership of the video poker machine business and After at the final sit-down that decided that To Mac guys to Toro was like taunting one of the brothers who was shaking literally like turning purple and Sweating profusely shaking in his seat because he knew that this guy that had killed his uncle was was was taking over and and was gonna have a heavy-handed Presencing in his life and and It was a something that was very visceral and and was discussed at that trial by Philly and Eddie who was there And and by to Mac Acetoro. So We'll keep an eye out on that appeal I think I might want to try to do an episode on that extortion and I'm the Jimmy Sinatra murder With with Marty to set as attorney. I'm gonna try to set that up It's a fascinating case Longest case or at least the the preceding case from the feds the longest case in American history Check out the movie find me guilty by Vin Diesel but Marty to set us seems to have some a Window, you know, it seems to be there might be some light at the end of that tunnel possibly and Could get him out from under that life sentence from a racketeering case because he was acquitted of those two murders And if you believe his attorneys, it looks like this might have been a case that was You know that a dirty case and that he might have been set up in some regards So we'll we'll keep an eye on it for you here a shout out to Dave and George over and On the East Coast that you know for any type of mafia information you want Coming from New Jersey, Philadelphia Those are the guys to get it from and a great job by by snuffing this out and letting us all know about the appeal I kind of deep dove it on my website gangsta report calm We'll check it out there. And like I said, I'm gonna try to do a longer episode for the og podcast maybe with Dave and George possibly with with Marty to set as attorney maybe with Marty I don't know. We'll check it out. We'll see and maybe we'll do that leading up to the hearing in September I will be back on another long-form edition with my partner Jimmy Bucilato Thank you to Ben behind the glass for always producing us great And we will see you next time on og podcast Scott Bernstein out


Is the analytic process the only way of coming to terms with the shadow or becoming aware of it? Are there other ways for individual people to become aware? I don't know if it is the only way but it's the only way I know because to see one's own shadow is such a painful thing that you will never do it honestly in a gulp. You can't admit such painful little secrets so all the official confessions people make in groups oh I am jealous or I am childish are just words, they cover up when it comes to the really painful spots even the analyst has to be very tactful and very trading on dangerous ground and looking out of the window because the other is wincing under his realization of his inferiority and so he needs a man to human being to human being situation to help the other to become aware of his shadow and you can't do it in a big sweep It's the individual connection though The individual connection which is decisive because you can't stand your shadow when you are alone you just collapse you need a human being to hold your hand when you go into that dangerous area and if there's a group you slide out you slide out or you make gender you know like in the Oxford groups everybody said I'm greedy of money, I drink too much and they didn't mean it it's in the personal relationship that it becomes so awkward and then you are pinpointed and then it becomes an indelible shock to see your own shadow and then you have it, then you really know it you can't forget it again the next morning Well, doesn't that also happen in long-term friendships or marriages that you're kind of up against the wall All close relationships are in a way analytical relationships it is a, because it simply means a relationship in which both partners try to become conscious by exchanging with each other sharing each other's...


So, this was just a sneak peek into the world of globular and fibrous protein structure. There is a wealth of them available. And based on these structures and these concepts of folds we started to talk about, I think it makes sense to ask, well, is it true that there are only a few folds that can explain most proteins? And in that case, how many are there, roughly? One of the researchers who spent a huge part of their career looking into structural biology in general, and some of these fold concepts in particular, was Cyrus Schroetje at MRC Cambridge. He unfortunately died a few years ago. And Cyrus wrote a seminal paper around 1980, which was called A Thousand Folds for the Molecular Biologist, where he made the hypothesis that there are likely only the ballpark of one thousand folds, and these folds are not being reused throughout nature for all the proteins in my body, all the proteins in your bodies, and even all the two hundred thousand proteins in the Norwegian spruce. The question then was Schroetje right? You could say both yes and no. There was an interesting paper a few years ago when Mike Levitt followed up on this. And what Mike has done is that he has basically looked at new protein structures obtained the last few years, well, the last few years in 2007, and see to what fraction do these end up being new folds versus to what fraction do they just reproduce old folds. And the first observation here is that already in 2007, we had in the ballpark of one thousand three hundred folds. It depends a bit on how you define fold, of course. So from that point of view Schroetje was wrong. If we are already one thousand three hundred, there are certainly more than one thousand. But Mike made another interesting observation here that the fraction of proteins that end up being new folds is decreasing quite dramatically. So we have fewer and fewer new protein structures that fall on the white space of the maps. Most things appear to be the same as a fold we already knew. And based on that, if you extrapolate a bit that we might just have in the ballpark of two thousand folds or if we're going to be really, really generous, let's say three thousand, it's not certainly not ten thousand. And remember in this class, we're interested in orders of magnitude, right? From that perspective, Schroetje was right. There are only in the ballpark of one thousand or a few thousand folds that nature is apparently reusing for everything. We're going to come back a little bit to what that means in next lecture. I think, no, sorry, two lectures from now after the membrane proteins and discuss folding stability and in particular, why are there so many sequences, but most of them somehow end up in these same holds, the same folds, which is starting to be related to buying informatics. Nature appears to be a very conservative master here and there is less freedom in protein structure that you might think, despite the gigantic freedom in protein sequence. That's going to be great if you want to design proteins, for instance, because it's not a matter of designing one out of two hundred thousand genes. We will design our gene, but the goal of protein design should just be to make it stable in one of these relatively few folds we know, which surprisingly makes our job simpler. So if this is true, every protein sequence should squarely fall in one fold and it should be difficult for them to move over to another. In bioinformatics, that's mostly true. If two protein sequences share 30% of the amino acids, that is 30% sequence identity, I would pretty much eat my left shoe if they had different structures. But the interesting thing is that it matters where in the sequence these identity folds. Core elements of the secondary structure are going to be very conserved, while loops and some other regions might be much easier to change things in. Lynn Regan, who is now at Yale University, made an interesting observation over 20 years ago. So they targetly went after a protein and checked how few amino acid is as possible to replace, but still have the sequence at up the new fold. What she did is that she took a mostly beta sheet protein and then they replaced less than 50% of the residues. And with those residues replaced, this turned into a pure alpha helical fold instead. So 50% sequence similarity, and yet it's a different fold. That might not strike you as extreme. But remember, if I just said what this means is that this fold and this fold that are different, they share 50% sequence identity. Two minutes ago, somebody absolutely not me said that they would eat their left shoe if 30% of the residues were identical, but you had different structure. That's the case here. Very lucky it wasn't me. The reason why this works is that they went after and changed the residues that had relatively little influence on the structure while they maintained the residues that had a large influence on the structure. And this is slightly different than how evolution would do it. Of course, evolution would end up changing things more randomly. And that's why in bioinformatics, the threshold for finding these identities is a sequence. Nature does not decide to change the sequence, right? Evolution works because proteins are related. And if something would certainly suddenly end up in a completely different fold, the organism would likely not survive. So there are slightly different mechanisms, but I think it is worth remembering. Normally, roughly 25%, 30% sequence identity will mean the same fold, but it is possible, in particular in protein design, if you decide what residues to change to go around that rule.