How to lay out a course? As a teacher, you have a lot of control over how your course appears to your students. For example, if your institution allows, you can change the full name of the course, which is written in large here, and the short name of the course, which appears in the navigation bar. You can also change the format, how your resources and activities are displayed. This course has numbered topics, for example, which can be renamed, as we'll see later. Many of the changes you can make can be done by going to the administration block, which here is on the right, and by clicking Edit Settings. This takes you to the setup screen of your course, where you can change if you need to, its full name and its short name, and again, only if allowed by your institution, the category in which it appears. You can hide it until you're ready, and set a course date. You can also add a description of your course for students who aren't yet enrolled, and if you wish you can upload a file, for example an image, or some information about your course. If we click Course Format, this is where we can choose how we'd like the resources to be displayed. Topics gives us numbered topic sections, and we can choose a number of sections. Here we can also select to have Weekly Format, where the sections are named as weeks, Social Format, which is basically just one big message board for discussing, or Single Activity Format, which would allow you to add just one particular item, such as a Scorn Package or a Quiz. If we choose Topics or Weekly Format, we can then decide whether we want to show all the sections on one page, which is what we will do, which is the norm, but if you think you're going to have a lot of sections, then that would cause some scrolling, and you can choose to show only one section per page. This has an effect on how your students view your course, as we can see here in this course, Types of Sport. The first time you access it, you can see each of the sections, and then grade out on the right the activities which are in these sections. If you then click the link on the section, for example our second section, Tennis, the student will then only see the activities in that particular section, and they'll navigate to the other sections by clicking the name in the section on the right, or on the left, or by going to the Jump to menu, and selecting from there. So this might be useful if you think your course will have a lot of sections.  The news forum is simply for announcements, and it isn't a discussion forum. If you set it to zero, you can then delete the news forum if you don't think it will be useful to you. Other options can be found by clicking on them and expanding them. For example, if you click an expand role renaming, if you don't want to call your students students, but you want a different name, Learners for instance, then you can change the name here and that will appear just in your course. You can also tag your course to help new students search for it. If we now click to save, then in the next video we'll turn on the editing and we can look at the changes we can make to our course, for example, how to rename the sections.


If I could advise one thing, it's like just put your full attention on God and pull it away from everything else. I mean absolutely everything else. You know, wake up in the morning with your eyes sparkling. Jump out of bed. Today is God's. It is my gift to him. Today I will judge nothing that occurs. You know, today belongs to God. Today is God's. God will use it for my healing. Today does not belong to my employer. No, it does not belong to the people in my life. It doesn't even belong to the person who I had believed I was. Today is God's. And when we give the day to God, you can rest assured there will be miracles. If you give the day to God, the miracles are natural. The miracles will shower on you. Shower on your awareness that you give the day to God.


Everyone, welcome. This is Melissa Arm of the Stock Swoosh and I'm doing an earnings season class special. Why? Because earnings season has started. It actually officially started right before the long weekend. So it's Martin Luther King Day, market closed today, federal holiday, but the earnings season really officially started Friday with the bank earnings. And you know what? They were all down. While some lifted on the day, some fell on the day, it wasn't really what I would consider a good start to earnings season for stocks, for people that wanted to go long and really go hog wild in stocks. Now again, that was only the first day. We'll see where we go from here, but I think a lot of the volatility this first quarter of 2023 is gonna be dependent on what happens with economic news and specifically the Fed. So while I am watching earnings and we're playing specific stocks, specific picks, I'm also looking at the overall market to see where I think we're going for the first quarter of 2023 and ultimately this whole year. 2022 was a volatile year for the market. We made out at the stocks, which why? Because I focus on shorting. That is my niche. If you're someone that didn't know how to short in 2022 or were scared to short, or just didn't short at all, you missed out on a lot of opportunity last year. This year you have a chance to start all over and actually have a fabulous year trading in 2023. So I'm doing an earnings season class, special to help people for the first class of 2023. If you have questions, you can email me at melissathestockswish.com. You can also call me at 929-3200 gap. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Skype. So ask yourself and you must be honest. Are you prepared for the market for 2023? Are you prepared to make money trading? Are you prepared with your long-term investments? Are you prepared financially for what the year may bring? Again, some people think we're going into recession. Some people think inflation has peaked. I absolutely do not know if inflation's peaked or not. But I know the cost of things has gone up astronomically in the last two years. And so people have to adjust. What can you do? Well, if you're in a position where you can't make more at your current job by working extra hours or you can't get a raise to cover inflation, you have no other options but to make money doing something else. So you can get a part-time job or you can trade. Now, while trading takes an initial investment to open up an account and take a class like mine, it can pay off for you not only in the long run, but even in the short run, if you learn what to do and can go after it and really take charge of your own life because no one is gonna do it for you. You can't change the circumstances of what's happening in the economy. And who wants to work 60 hours a week? No one. The nice thing about trading is that you can trade and get it out quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. So that's what I focus on. It's a short, fast moves. And again, that's what I'm focusing on for this year for 2023. So think about what I just said. It's January. We're only a couple of days into the year. You can still have a phenomenal year, not just trading financially for yourself and also who wants to work all these hours? I think that when you're someone and you're starting to get smarter, it's about thinking really, what's the best use of your time? You know what I'm saying? And so sometimes I think about it. And I like to trade in the morning. The trading room's only open in the morning. And I think about it's like, if I sometimes, if I hold a trade in the afternoon, I only make a little bit extra. And sometimes I give it back. So I decided a long time ago to stop doing that. I focus in the morning, the first 30 minutes of the day, the first hour of the day, that's it, okay? Making money and trading has to do with quality of life. You can improve the quality of your life if you don't have to worry about money, okay? If you can pay your bills effortlessly.  So think about that. You can have a great year this year. This is the time when you wanna be optimistic and positive. And if you didn't have a good year last year, you gotta shrug it off, okay? So it's a new year, a new you, time to start out to learn something new. So I teach my method in the class once a month. It's called the Golden Gap course, but it is really a checklist. It's a 26 point checklist that goes through all the things that I use to make the stock picks that I use each and every day. So how do I pick that I'm doing Tesla, the Q's, or whatever we happen to be doing in any given day? I rate it, I rate the gap in the morning, in the pre-market. This is what you'd come and learn from me. You can use my method for day trades, for swing trades, or options. So the earning season class special is if you sign up for the class by January 22nd, which is Sunday, you will receive the trading room free till the end of 2023. The normal class tuition is $69.99, so the room is a great bonus. It's normally $500 a month after the class. So this allows you to be in the room the whole year, and the class is January 28th and 29th, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time. I'll go over that here when we're done. But getting back to what I was saying about trading fast and being done very, very quickly, it is about chunking it out. Not just in this market, but any market, okay? Take a calculated risk when you take a trade. Again, you have to put the trade on and put in a stop, why? If you don't have a stop in, you essentially have unlimited risk to far too many traders do that. Put the stop in. If you take the stop, you can always do a retake. I teach retakes in the class as well. But everything I do is based on my golden gap course strategy, the golden gap 26 points, the golden gap rating system. That is what I use to trade. That is the reason for my huge success. It is because I'm very, very picky about what I look at. So again, this checklist is the meat and potatoes, which how I use to make decisions every morning. And the benefit of being in the room is that I call the trades live. I call the entry, the stop, and the exit. And that is a huge benefit. And again, it's a bonus for the earnings season special that I'm running through Sunday for this month's class for January. So again, here's the market. We're starting out the beginning of this year. You could say, oh, we had a very bullish start to 2023. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Doesn't mean much of anything to me. Yeah, we rallied a couple of days. Some days we started down and rallied. Some days we started up and dropped. It was a really nothing burger so far as the year goes, as far as the market. We've only been open a few days. Let's go back and look at the last three months, four months, six months, 12 months. If you look at where we were, 12 months ago from today, shocking, shocking almost. And I know a lot of people that have money invested in the market, they're 401ks, or nowhere near where they were from their profits from 12 months ago. So how do you make money in the market? As an active trader, you can make money by chunking it out. But you have to learn what to do. And far too many people go into the market, think they know what to do and don't, or just take haphazard trades, risky money and have no idea what they're doing. They really don't have a strategy at all. Again, the reason for my personal success and the success of my clients at the Stockswish is because we're applying a strategy daily. I'm rating the gap using the 26 point rating system. So this was a nice options trade that I call in the Qs. Actually, let me show you the trade first. This was on the newsletter. I called a put in the QQQs 275 puts that expired in the 23rd. I caught it in the 15th. So let's go look at it here first. It costs $5. Let me find you here. There. So again, well, no, let me go back. It was here. So 14th, 15th. Closed here, gap down, fell, boom. So again, this was a put, which was a short. We could have done a day trade in it, where you could have done an option in it, which is what I called here. So it costs $4. It's midway priced for the market right now. 20 contracts, which is an advanced risk with $8,000. You could have made seven grand, 88% return on investment. If you did three and risked 1200, you could have made over $1,000. That's a good solid trade. Again, a put is a short. You're doing it as an option. And again, your risk is what? You have a fixed risk in an option. So you can't lose any more than your risk. If you take three contracts, you can't lose any more than you have at the cost of a contract, $1,200, that's it. I mean, you're at the point where you are seeing something and you're looking at it, and you're like, okay, this is worth the risk. I looked at the gap, I rated the gap, I'm seeing where it's going. We're trading momentum, momentum, momentum, momentum, momentum. That's what this is. The momentum here is to the downside. This is selling. And then we add shorts, okay? And then the market fell, boom. So that was a good one there into the first second week of December, into the end of December, that fell. But again, when you're trading, it is extremely important to get the momentum as big and as fast as you can and get in and get out. It's not just for options, it's for day trades too, because in a day trade, you have to be out by four o'clock, which is a long way away. So I try to be in and out in several minutes when I'm in a day trade. So again, then you don't have to worry about all the market fluctuations as well. Now I get this question a lot.  Of course, you can learn as a beginner. I've taught beginner traders. I've taught people who've never traded in their life. Sometimes people that have never traded are better off because they don't have any bad habits. A lot of people that have been trading the market and losing money for years have negative thoughts about losing and also bad habits. And all of that is problematic. So you've gotta start fresh. Again, January's a great time to do that. But it's all about making money and not only that, but having fun. I do my best to try to make it enjoyable in the trading room so people can have a good time, make money, stay focused, and again, enjoy your life by having the rest of the day to yourself. It is about freedom. It's financial independence and working for yourself. What do you wanna do? Everybody wants to just take one big trade and make all this money. It's really not about that. It's about the long haul. It's about longevity. It's about consistency. It's about commitment. It's about education, learning what to do.   You are the one that has to make it happen for yourself. No one else can. I'm the vehicle that helps you by teaching you in the class and in the live room, but you're the one that has to take charge of your own circumstances and your own life and change your situation. If you wanna improve your life, the only way that's gonna happen is if you take active steps to do that. It's the same thing with your trading. If you are losing money in the market and you're not doing well, the only way you're going to do well is if you change what you're doing. Learn a new strategy.  People that were buying the market in every dip all last year in 2022, I lost the whole year, they still wanna keep buying every dip even to start off the year in 2023.  They're just gonna keep losing, losing, losing, losing, losing, losing, losing. You can't keep losing money and expect to have different results if you don't change what you're doing. So learn a new strategy. Do something different. And again, invest in yourself. For me, the process is easy because I've been doing it now for 15 years. But again, for you, if you're new, you will learn from me. So I go through the whole system. It's a golden gap checklist that I go through. It's a two-day class. It is a 14-hour class. It's 16 hours, really, but we get break an hour for lunch and Saturday and Sunday. I teach it once a month. I teach the entries, the exits, the targets, and it's called the golden gap courses. It's my signature class. And again, I teach it once a month. The class for January is January 28th and 29th, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time. Class tuition is $69.99. Class is online. You can be anywhere in the world and take it. If you wanna do the combo, this includes the trends course, which is January 31st, 11 to three. This is 74.99, includes the golden gap and the trends. And again, the earnings season special includes the trading of free to the under 2023, which is a really nice bonus. This ends Sunday, January 22nd, 2023. Don't miss out. If you have questions, you can email me at melissathestockswush.com, have a great week, everyone, and have a fantastic earnings season.


I'm Ryan, we're here from So Is It Any Good, we're here today to talk about everything Star Wars, The Force Awakens. This is going to be a spoiler heavy video, so if you haven't seen the movie, check out now. We're here with a huge panel of guests, I'm Ryan. Jared. Scott. Nick. We're all writers from the website and we're just going to delve into the movie, talk about everything we thought we liked and we hated. So first off, So Is It Any Good? Jared. Yes, a resounding yes. That's exactly how I'd say it as well. Alright, what were the flaws? I felt it was a little lazy on the storytelling side. They're fine words, they are fine words. I feel like at one point they just kind of, you know what, we've done enough, it's Star Wars, everyone will get it. Let's just get on with the action and that's not what it's supposed to be about. And then it felt super rushed after that, everything was happening all over the place. It didn't have that kind of, it didn't feel as grand as it should, even though they're destroying planets and blowing shit up, it still didn't have that grand feeling that the originals did. It felt small and rushed. But look at the size comparison, it's clearly bigger and better. Technically, yes. In case you didn't get it. But yeah, I don't know. I mean that's just one of the reasons as well that it's very similar to, you know, the, do we call them the originals? What's the phrasing for it? The only other three films. And I actually wrote a list of the comparisons that I think most people have picked up on. And even watching the originals again after watching the new one, the first 15 minutes of A New Hope, I'm thinking, ah, so it's an old lightsaber out of a box routine.  There's lists and lists. Yeah, it references everything and basically re-does the plot, but I don't care. No, and that's it.   It's done well. All of the new characters are really interesting. The action scenes are really good and easy to understand. They don't go into Michael Bay territory where everything is just everywhere. You can follow people. You actually care about the fighter pilots at the end.  No, and that's it because they took things you loved, like having, you know, she lives in an atat for God's sake. Yeah. It's like, okay, cool. And there's a chase scene through one of the Imperial Star Wars. Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah, all that little fanboy stuff is brilliant. Well, I saw it again. I've seen it twice now. And a lot of the flaws I thought were, I thought the resistance won the battles too easily. And they just kind of came out of nowhere and took over the joint. But on second viewing, I thought that most of that was actually just because I was sitting there going, Star Wars, I'm missing out on most of the actual plot. What did you think about Kylo Ren? He was like a huge character coming into the trailers. And there was a lot of fan excitement about him. Did he live up to it? Did he bring it down? I feel like... So I hated him again. Did you just hate him? No, no, no. I didn't hate him. I just hate him. And I think he's going to be an interesting character that's definitely going to play a big part. Right. And I'm curious to see which way he goes because they're definitely showing that he wants to go to the good, but he also mainly wants to go bad. And he's sort of stuck. And it feels like it's not even, I don't know, anyway. But I feel like a lot of people got his tattoo very prematurely. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like I've seen a lot of people make Captain Phasma costumes and our spent on that. Who? Captain Phasma. Were you even in it? Yeah. Yeah. Captain Phasma was the chrome trooper that showed up for about two and a half minutes throughout the entire film. And then got apparently dumped in a goer shoot. Yeah. Quite apparently. Yeah. And she's quite dead. Yeah. Well, they've got to bring her back because that's just... It's just no point to her otherwise. So branding as well. Yeah. They did that at the start of it. They'd call each other by the name. Oh, BB-8. They somewhat said that about 50 times in the first 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Until yesterday I thought this was a storm trooper. Then I realized, oh wait, it doesn't have that circle thing here.  And it looks cool though. She looks great and everything. But yeah, they don't do anything with it.   Do you remember they cut out some scenes? They must have. They must have. Who do you think Max Von Cider was playing? Because it seemed like he was a character from a previous movie. Ruro is supposed to be some character from a previous movie. Yeah. Previous movie. Right. Well, the character's name was Lawsanteca. Tika. How do you pronounce it? It's got a look at you for pronunciation. You're the guy that's reading everything in between the movies.  You'd be more... Well, to be honest, I haven't seen him in anything. So I've read most of the Kenan books and the comic books, but leading up the Journey to the Force Awakens. And you would think that he would appear in one of those, but he hasn't appeared in anything. So he was just straight up and started the movie, wiped out, gone away, played by a really big name actor. So he had some connection to Kylo Ren because they knew each other. Yeah. And there was some feeling behind that strike down. Yeah, I feel like maybe he knew Luke. Yes. And maybe he had some sort of force connection, but I don't think he was a Jedi. Well, maybe he was helping Luke with the Jedi training or whatever. Right. Or he's just his sat-nav. I've got a map to where he is. He's just staying there forever.  Who do you think Snoke is? Whatever you want to call him, Gollum. Any CGI character, Snoke. It reminds me of Voldemort on the back of the head in the first Force of the Stone or Sorcerer's Stone, depending where you're coming from. My theory is that he's Plagueis. I don't know if anyone knows who Plagueis is. He was Darth Sidious's trainer. He was his master. So Darth Sidious was a power team. And in that scene in Episode 3, he talks about how Plagueis had worked out a way to use the Force to create life.  Or that's what Palpatine says.  So he should be dead. However, if you look at Darth Plagueis, there's a novel called Darth Plagueis or Plagueis. The image on the front of it is quite literally the same shot as what's in Episode 7 of Snoke. I think it's Plagueis. There's giant being and Sidious sitting down the bottom, kind of like bowing to him. And there's really dark and blackened room. And Plagueis is sort of like a human-esque looking character in novels. But he also is like a... His species is a moon or a mun, which kind of has an elongated head, which was similar to what I thought that character looked like. So that's my theory. I think he's Plagueis. And it would make him more powerful than Palpatine and would also have him in that same kind of lineage of Sith Lords and stuff like that. What's the deal with the lightsabers? And everyone's only knowing how to use them proficiently enough to take on everyone. So what's the question? I can answer this one. I know I can. I've heard stories that only someone who's strong with the Force can operate a lightsaber. Correct. But I think people who don't have the Force can use it. They're just not any good. So they won't have the reflexes to deflate. But Finn, on picking up one of these lightsabers, can actually take on Wren in a fight. Very well.  But he did pretty well for a good five minutes or so. And the same with Rey. You don't think Finn, not Finn, Kylo Ren was almost toying with him? The looks he was giving him and when the scene where he was pushed up against the tree and pressing that edge of his saber into his shoulder, you don't think he was just kind of like, Oh God, mate. Ain't got no time for you. For someone who's a janitor and all respect to Palpatine and everyone in that field, but I'm not sure a sanitation worker could actually pick up a sword and straight away be able to do something like that. He's definitely trained in Stormtrooper things. And you've also seen a Stormtrooper with the right gear that has the baton. So why wouldn't he be trained in that? Not to battle you, but... No, no, no. Please battle away. Because then I suddenly saw him take on the Stormtrooper with, you probably know the name for it, the big taser-like gun thing. Yeah, taser-baton. Yeah, taser-baton. That's an official title. Official title. But straight away just, Oh look, there's a lightsaber. Look, let me just, you know, use that.  It was only because of Han with Chewie's... Bowcaster. Bowcaster. But he won that battle. He lost both times. But if you gave me a sword and I went up against someone with one of those things, I wouldn't last half as long as that. And I just think it felt like it was, it made it look easy, whereas you look at Luke in A New Hope and he's like spending ages trying to learn how to use it, it just felt too easy for all these guys. And unless there is a bit of a force in him, I don't know. It could be. The only thing I have to say towards that is that they're all trained, like to say the Stormtroopers are trained from the same day of birth kind of thing, all the way up. That's where it comes into play. Yeah, Poe is clearly quite, not Poe, but Finn is quite clearly good with blasters and whatever he kind of picks up. Maybe he's quite good with weaponry and that guy might not be very good with blasters. That's why he has the baton thing, because he's rubbish at everything else. Like every Stormtrooper ever. It comes from a long lineage of shooty, fiery Stormtroopers. No, that does kind of make sense. His final was probably the one that battled his head. Yeah, that does make sense if they're trained to something similar, like stun, baton or anything. And I had the same sort of problem with Rey, the way everyone else, it takes ages to learn how to use these things and then Rey suddenly could pick one up and use it as well as everyone else and shorty strong in the force and maybe it's a new type of skill that comes with someone being that good in the force. I can just do this straight away. But it felt like in the original movies there was so much discipline and training and learning. Training with the odor, etc. or all that over one. More about learning skill. Hey, you can now do that. Yeah, this is what that does. Okay, cool. For me, that just felt a little bit too easy. Same with the Falcon. But maybe that's a tiny issue. She took over the Falcon and she was suddenly amazing at flying. See, that I can understand more because that's her background and she's trained and all that sort of stuff. And I guess she's also trained in using that staff thing. So I think it's just her. Yeah, she could handle herself before that. And that was one of the funny... and this movie is funny as well. But one of the funny moments is where she's getting beaten up by the guys trying to take BB-8 and Finn's running in like a hero and then he just stops and it's like, I guess she's fine. Fair enough. All right, so the last thing I want to ask is the biggest spoiler of the movie. How do you all feel about Han dying? I'm glad.  What do you call you unexpected Scotty? I like it. Someone needed to die. And it had to be Han. It had to be Han. Who else was it going to be? Oh, they killed that. They definitely killed a top lip. And if... Oh, sorry. Was that CGI under her eyes? Occasionally she looked really soft on its CGI to imagine. That was the Vaseline on the lens. I mean, a bum. Yeah. But also, I can see that it needed to be done. Yeah. And it was done well. They didn't stuff it up at all. It was like a... It was an emotional ending. It was a half-assed Luke Invader moment.  No safety rails. I think that's a prurik, is it? Why did they not put safety rails on any of these things? It's not the Death Star. It's the same issue. It is crazy. They don't have any time. They don't call it a safety star. It's not the budget. It's not the budget.  But yeah, for me, luckily, I don't know how I managed to forget that there was talk about this being his last movie and all that sort of stuff. So if I had have had that in front of mine, that would have really annoyed me. But yeah, it was still... I wanted Wren to actually turn to the good. But I was still really optimistic. And some people, it was just like an obvious he's going to die because he's not doing any more movies. He said he'd come back for this one. Whereas for me, I was sort of almost a bit optimistic. I'm like, oh, look at good. And then he's like, yeah, yeah. Let go of the lightsaber, mate. You're almost there. Kill one. And then for me, the weirdest part about that was I'd actually kind of lost track, to be fair, of why they were planting these bombs and what Finn and Rey were doing up the top and how everyone had like this kind of lovely little view of what was going on. And then why they needed to go up there for whatever. That's just me not paying attention, I'm sure. But then... They were pulling out fuses and then suddenly they were outside. Yeah, so... It all felt very... They were there for that specific reason. So all in all, are you excited about episode 8? Episode 8, will you see it? And will you see it at 12 o'clock in the night session? Of course. No. I'm still very excited, but I don't think... What was the reason why? Sorry. Oh, I like to sleep. You don't hate the movie at all. You just want to sleep. Fair enough. Sorry, Neil. I'm excited, but I don't think anyone could be as excited as they were for this time. No. I mean, unless they release an incredible trailer. The thing is we probably answered a lot of the questions in this one, like if you show the character from The Force, they'll be like, oh, well, I know who that is. There's no mystery there. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Unless Captain Phasma comes back, or her and Poe probably have like a separate thing together where, you know, I mean, I feel like that's how it's in itself. Yeah. Because they went in that movie. That's right. Yeah, they had an adventure in that missing hour. Yeah. It's just like a spin-off TV series. Yeah. Yeah. A couple. But no, I'm looking forward to, I think, because I think I'll take my kids to see that one the first time I watch it this time around. Right. Because I'm going to watch it with them again and see their reactions. I'm pretty excited. I don't think Ryan Johnson has the same sort of chops that JJ Abrams does, but I'm a huge JJ Abrams fan, so that's probably me just geeking out. But, all in all, I think it's going to be really good. Yeah. I think Ryan Johnson will pull it off. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. So that's it for today. If you want to check us out more, head to the website, www.SalesAnyGood.com, or head to our Facebook and give us a like on www.Facebook.com, salesanygood. That's us. We're here. We're home.


This is JSATV, the newsroom for tech and telecom professionals. I'm Dean Perine, and welcome to JSATV. We are coming at you live from the big easy of New Orleans, Louisiana at Hosting Con 2016. And I am sitting here with my new friend, my new friend, Mr. John Hiderscheit. John is the chief marketing officer for MDI Access. John, welcome to JSATV. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you at Hosting Con. Outstanding. So John, how's the show going for you so far? The show has been excellent. It's a great mixture of educational sessions, networking, and a beautiful exhibit hall behind us. So it's been really informative and fun. And I would recommend it to anybody who's looking for new networking opportunities. Outstanding. I can't imagine why Hosting Con would not want to use that soundbite. Very, very good. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. So John, for our viewers that don't already know, why don't you tell us a little bit about MDI Access? MDI has been around for 20 years in various different forms. But MDI Access started in the early 2000s when some of our clients asked us to GC data center builds. Since then, we've built more than 500,000 square feet of data center, usually about a 15 to 20,000-foot footprint for our customers. So break that down how it breaks down. Recently, we've gotten more into the development side of things rather than the contracting side of things. We offer a new model now where your average operator can save about $60 to $70 a kilowatt hour per operation in their facilities that we construct and manage for them. So we've got some really exciting things going on at MDI. Excellent. You're segueing better than I possibly could myself. So tell us a little bit about those new and exciting things coming out of the newsroom there at MDI. Right now, we're doing a three-city rollout for a customer. We're in Northern Virginia, San Jose, and Atlanta. We've also been talking to some folks in those same areas, but for separate projects about putting up anywhere between eight and 10 meg data centers and pre-leasing those. So we don't build on spec usually. We will if a customer comes and asks us to. But our idea is always to have at least one or two pre-lease tenants. Outstanding. John, thank you very much for being with us today. Enjoy the rest of the show. I understand lunch is going to be wonderful full of local fare. So we're in for a treat, I think. It's going to be tough to beat yesterday's lunch, but I'm sure the good people at the convention center can do it. So thanks so much for having me. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you and be here at HostingCon. Outstanding. Thanks, John. And thank you viewers for watching JSA-TV. We'll see you soon.


Well joining me now here in Boyans is the home man, this is your home stadium, now we talked about it before, you won here in 2001, it must be good to be back here. Yeah, that was on the small track though but it would be nice to do it here on the big track as well so it would be nice to win tomorrow in front of a lot of fans. Now we've been racing everywhere else you know with a lot of Polish fans supporting the Polish guys so it's going to be fun tomorrow and to see a lot of Danish fans here supporting me. But again it's not about the meeting, to win the meeting tomorrow, it's about collect a lot of points as possible and be stable all the way to the end in Turin. Yeah exactly, points win prizes. Now we've been talking about those gates, qualification cancelled, you've got six, Bartos has got eight, we just had a look at that. How does that work out for you? Are you sort of happy with the gates that you've got? Not too happy, two yellow was not my choice if I could choose, yeah but yeah it is what it is and it's the same for everyone so I just have to produce some good starts tomorrow and hopefully score a lot of points. Yeah for sure, okay well we saw you talking to Olli Olsen earlier. We call this Denmark's spiritual home of Speedway. There's a lot that's happened here, it must be quite nice to have Olli. Olli was talking to me, he's pretty proud of your achievements so far. Yeah good to hear that but yeah I try to keep it going you know and a lot of things have happened here in Wains, it's been some years ago since we raised here last time and I just came here and I have to look at all the improvement that they made, you know Jakob have done an incredible job to improve the stadium and the facility so it looks amazing and yeah I just can't wait for tomorrow and hopefully the weather will be better. Yeah it does look like it's going to be better so tell us what the track is like, what it's like out there. Obviously because we didn't do the practice I can't tell you too much about the track but normally it's a good track here, a good racing track, we saw that in the second event as well and with the weather and when they covered the track it might be on the slick side so it can be a little bit difficult to make some passes but we crossed our fingers for a good racing track tomorrow. Yeah for sure okay and an incredible atmosphere well we look forward to all the racing tomorrow thanks so much Leon. Thank you.


Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The Biden administration's announced plans to open processing centers across Latin America where asylum seekers would have to request permission to come to the United States, blocking tens of thousands from seeking relief at the U.S.-Mexico border. The first processing centers will be located in Guatemala and Colombia. Migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean will be forced to journey to one of the nearest centers to start an asylum application or ask for refugee status to then be resettled to either the United States, Canada or Spain. The U.S. has agreed to take in 20,000 refugees over the next two fiscal years, while doubling or tripling the rapid deportations of migrants who are deemed not eligible to enter the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out the sweeping measures Thursday, threatening migrants at the southern U.S. border with harsher consequences, including possible criminal charges. This is Mayorkas. Beginning on May 12, we will place eligible individuals who arrive at our southern border in expedited removal proceedings. Those who arrive at our border and do not have a legal basis to stay will have made the journey, often having suffered horrific trauma and having paid their life savings to the smugglers, only to be quickly removed. They will be removed most often in a matter of days and just a few weeks. This comes as the United States is preparing to lift the Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy in May, which for the past three years has been used to expel some 2.7 million migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border without due process. Immigrant justice advocates have denounced the Biden administration for violating international law and enforcing policies similar to those pushed by Donald Trump. The new measures exclude migrants from Africa. Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First said in a statement, quote, the Biden administration should focus on measures like increasing refugee resettlement in regular pathways and abandon its plan to impose an asylum ban that would be a legal, moral and political mistake, end quote. In Sudan, heavy explosions and gunfire continue to ring out across the capital Khartoum, even after Sudan's army agreed to a 72-hour extension of a humanitarian ceasefire with the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. There are reports of fighting near Sudan's army headquarters, the presidential palace and Khartoum's main airport. Residents report severe shortages of flour and other staple foods. People are not thinking about anything except worrying about themselves, their families and extended families. The situation now is that the food supplies are dwindling, and citizens will soon face a famine or at least a crushing food crisis. Even before fighting erupted between rival factions of Sudan's military government on April 15, the third of Sudan's 46 million people were dependent on humanitarian aid. Back in the United States, attacks on transgender rights continued Thursday as Republican lawmakers in Kansas overrode a veto by Democratic Governor Laura Kelly, enacting the most sweeping bathroom law in the nation. The legislation bars trans people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity in schools, locker rooms, prisons, domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers. In Nebraska, Democratic State Senator Megan Hunt is facing a conflict of interest investigation after a right-wing lawmaker complained she did not officially disclosate a transgender child before voting against a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. Senator Hunt blasted the probe as harassment. Meanwhile, in Montana, Republican Gover Greg Genforte's own son, David, whose non-binary, lobbied his dad to reject a series of bills attacking the trans community, including restrictions on healthcare and banning drag shows, after headlines will be joined by Montana's first and only openly transgender lawmaker Zoe Zephyr, whom Republicans have barred from the House floor for speaking up for transgender rights. In reproductive rights news, near total abortion bans failed to advance in two conservative lead states. Thursday, South Carolina and Nebraska both narrowly defeated draconian anti-choice measures, allowing the procedure to remain legal until 22 weeks of pregnancy. Meanwhile, lawmakers in Vermont passed a bill Thursday, further protecting access to abortion, including medication abortion, as well as gender-affirming healthcare by shielding providers from liability. On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans filibustered to block ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would codify gender equality in the Constitution. The measure was first introduced a century ago and passed 50 years ago, but has never been ratified. As conservative opponents have argued, the deadline for ratification has expired. Ahead of Thursday's vote, women, House Democrats marched to the Senate to demand their colleagues pass the ERA. Legal experts believe its ratification would have helped prevent mounting attacks on LGBTQ communities and reproductive rights. The Senate's voted to rollback emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks set by the White House. Conservative West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin joined Republicans in Wednesdays 50 to 49 vote, setting up a veto by President Biden if the Republican-led House also passes the measure. This comes after environmental groups and some Democrats condemned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm's endorsement of the Mountain Valley Fract Gas Pipeline earlier this week. Arizona Congressmember Raul Garhava said in a statement, quote, "...fully green lighting the pipeline will condemn Appalachian communities to generations of pollution and related health and safety issues while also doing nothing for our ambitious climate goals," he said. Demanding urgent action on the climate crisis have ramped up across the United States. On Thursday, a pair of protesters smeared red and black paint on a glass case housing artwork at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., demanding President Biden declare a climate emergency. This follows demonstrations earlier this week outside the offices of banking giant Citibank in New York and Wells Fargo in San Francisco. A new study titled Banking on Climate Chaos finds the world's largest private banks loaned $5.5 trillion to fossil fuel projects since nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement. On Tuesday, climate activists interrupted a talk by John Podesta, who heads the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation. They were demanding the Biden administration reverse its approval of Conoco Phillips Willow Project in Northern Alaska and act swiftly to end the use of fossil fuels. The protest was organized by climate defiance. It's a new organization that's vowed to disrupt the annual White House Correspondence Dinner in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Former Vice President Mike Pence has appeared before the federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. His testimony Thursday came a day after a federal appeals court rejected an emergency request to quash special counsel Jack Smith's subpoena of Pence by Trump's lawyers, who cited claims of executive privilege. Vice Media is cancelling its award-winning show Vice News Tonight as part of the company's mass layoff of over 100 workers, including most of its audio team. Vice is the latest media outlet to cut jobs after BuzzFeed last week announced its shutting down BuzzFeed News. Vice Union said on Twitter, quote, these workers are suffering the consequences of years of poor decisions they played no part in. And the white woman whose discredited accusations led to the lynching death of black teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi seven decades ago has died of cancer at the age of 88. It was 1955 when Carolyn Bryant Dunham accused Emmett Till of whistling at her in her store. That prompted Till's abduction, torture and murder. Dunham's husband and his half-brother were tried for the lynching and acquitted by an all-white jury. In 2007, Dunham confessed she had fabricated her claim, leading the FBI to reopen Till's case. But the Justice Department ended its investigation in 2021 without filing charges. Last year, a team searching for evidence in Emmett Till's case found an unserved warrant charging Dunham in his kidnapping. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report, I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today's show in Montana, where the Republican-controlled State House of Representatives voted Wednesday to censure the state's first and only openly transgender lawmaker Zoe Zephyr, banning her from the House floor and forbidding her from speaking during floor sessions. Zephyr will only be able to cast votes remotely for the remainder of the legislative session. The move comes a week after Representative Zephyr delivered a searing condemnation of a bill that would ban gender-affirming health care for youth. If you disallow the use of the medical care that is accepted by every major medical association, if you disallow that care and don't allow people to have access to that, the only therapy left is either A, meaningless, or B, conversion therapy, which is torture. If you are forcing a trans child to go through puberty when they are trans, that is tantamount to torture. And this body should be ashamed. And if you vote yes on this amendment and yes on this bill, if you vote yes on this bill and yes on these amendments, I hope the next time there's an indication, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands. After this speech, Republican lawmakers in Montana moved to censure Zoe Zephyr. Ahead of a vote to ban her from the House floor, she addressed her fellow lawmakers again. Today I rise in defense of those constituents, of my community, and of democracy itself. Last week, I spoke on the governor's amendments to Senate Bill 99, which banned gender-affirming care. This was a bill that was one of many targeting the LGBTQ community in Montana. This legislature has systematically attacked that community. We have seen bills targeting our art forms, our books, our history, and our health care. And I rose up in defense of my community that day, speaking to harms that these bills bring and that I have firsthand experience knowing about. I have had friends who have taken their lives because of these bills. I have fielded calls from families in Montana, including one family whose trans teenager attempted to take her life while watching a hearing on one of the anti-trans bills. So when I rose up and said, there is blood on your hands, I was not being hyperbolic. I was speaking to the real consequences of the votes that we as legislators take in this body. And when the speaker asks me to apologize, what he is on behalf of decorum, what he is really asking me to do is be silent when my community is facing bills that get us killed.  That was state representative Zoe Zephyr. Montana's first and only openly transgender lawmaker. The Republican-led Montana legislature has voted to ban her from the House floor and has forbid her from speaking there. Well, Zoe Zephyr is refusing to stay silent and joins us now from Montana's capital, Helena, Montana. Welcome to Democracy Now! State Representative Zoe Zephyr. You represent Missoula, a place that's very close to my heart. My first college roommate was from Missoula. Her dad was the band leader at Heligate High. Talk about what happened on the House floor and your response to the censure saying you cannot speak in the House of Representatives from the floor. What we saw in the vote to censure me, it was inherently undemocratic. When the speaker had been refusing to recognize me for my comments on Senate Bill 99, he was taking away the voice of the Montanans who elected me to speak on their behalf. And when those community members showed up in protest and said, let her speak, let her speak, and he gaffled him down, he was continuing that process of silencing the people who sent me there to represent them. And talk about what this anti-trans bill is. Why are you so fiercely objected to it? The bill we were looking at bans gender-affirming care for trans youth in the state of Montana. And that begins with something as simple as social transitioning. That's what the earliest form of gender-affirming care is, which is letting someone grow their hair out or cut it short, go by a different name, etc. And this bill banned the use of state property for advocating for anything like that. As you get older, it looks like going on puberty blockers. Again, and this healthcare is done slowly, carefully, in conjunction with the child, the parent, and your chronologists, health practitioners following best practices by every major medical association. And so when you're looking at bills that take that necessary care away, what you're looking at is things that make the conditions for trans people impossible in our state. The motion to censure you was introduced by the Montana House Majority Leader, Representative Sue Vinton, a Republican from Billings, Montana. This is what she said about you Wednesday ahead of the vote. Every member of a legislature is presumed to be the equal of each member, and each has rights that must be respected. The rights of the minority and the majority both must be protected. Freedom in this body involves obedience to all the rules of this body, including the rules of decorum. Monday, this body witnessed one of its members participating in conduct that disrupted and disturbed the orderly proceedings of this body. This member did not accede to the order of the speaker to come to order and finally to clear the floor and instead encouraged the continuation of the disruption of this body. Your response to Vinton's comments. So when we talk about every member being equal to one another, it's important to note the way that they are applying the rules of decorum unequally. We have had legislators who have screamed in their closing. We have legislators who insinuated that my very existence is somehow sexualizing children.  Decorum rules weren't used. There were hearings where we begged the Republican chairs not to allow harmful discriminatory language. And they said a lot of people have a lot of opinions will carry on. So what you're seeing here is a Republican controlled legislature using a tool like decorum as a way to silence those who are holding them accountable for the very real harm that their their bills bring. Now just understand what's happening to you right now. You were sitting in a hallway trying to work Thursday. You've been banned from the House floor and they tried to kick you out of the hallway as well. Can you talk about the Montana Freedom Caucus, which called for your immediate censure, who also deliberately misgendered you in a statement they wrote. So much like the unequal and hypocritical ways the quorum has been enforced. I'm not surprised that the Freedom Caucus would misgender me in the same moment that they call for civility and discourse. It's a caucus that calls for limited government while simultaneously using government to take away necessary and life-saving health care for people in my community. And I sat down Thursday. I walked in and I said I want to be as close to the people's house as I can be so I can speak to legislators so that even despite the fact that my voice and the voice of my constituents isn't allowed on the floor, I can do everything in my power to make sure their voice is heard. Tell us about your decision, State Representative Zephyr, to run for office and the significance with you being the only the first transgender lawmaker in Montana. So I testified last session in 2021 and as I was testifying on a transport span, I saw that the people listening on the panels didn't seem to want to hear. And then I watched votes on anti-trans legislation passed by a single vote. And I thought, I need to be in that room. You need representation in that room if you're ever going to be able to move the needle. And so I was happy to run, go through my community where I lived and walked through and spend all of my time. And they were gracious enough to elect me and I'm happy to serve in Montana alongside Representative S.J. Howell, who's the first, the state's first non-binary representative. So tell us about the other anti-trans and bills targeting the LGBTQ community that are going through the Montana legislature. And then talk about where the governor stands. So we're seeing an array of bills targeting the LGBTQ community and particularly the trans community. We've seen books that are trying, we've seen bills that are trying to ban our books under the guise of obscenity laws. We've seen bills that are trying to ban our art forms under the anti-drag laws. We've seen bills that tell students they're allowed to misgender people. We've seen bills that say trans people don't get health care and even if they have access to health care, medical practitioners who don't want to provide it can just ignore you for any reason. And these bills, again, as I mentioned, began with the sports bands. And so we're seeing the moment people got a foot in the door saying, oh, trans equality has limitations. They put an asterisk on that. As soon as that got in, they started escalating the attacks, which is what we're seeing in Montana and across the country as well. And Governor Gianforte, whose own son, David, is non-binary, who's labied his dad to reject the series of bills attacking the trans community? You know, I have not had direct contact with the governor's office on these bills. I have spoke to folks in his staff about these bills and how their harmful policy, how they hurt our community and how, quite frankly, communities in Montana do not want this. And so one of the things it's important to remember is that trans people, we live lives full of joy.  And so whether you're working a day job in an office or you're the governor of the state of Montana, you are never far from someone who is trans or non-binary and worthy of love. And let me ask you about what happened in Nebraska, Democratic State Senator Megan Hunt, facing a so-called conflict of interest investigation after a right-wing lawmaker complained she didn't officially disclose that she had a transgender child before voting against a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. She is saying that the probe is harassment. I think that much like Tennessee, much like here, much like Representative Maury Turner in Oklahoma, what you're seeing is far-right legislators are passing policies or bringing policies forward that are incredibly harmful, get marginalized communities hurt and killed and those communities and the people that care about those communities are beginning to rise up and say, this isn't acceptable. This isn't something we can stand for, and we're holding them accountable to the real harm that these bills do. And obviously the attacks on Senator Hunt are harassment. You wouldn't expect every time a bill on public education came up, someone to disclose that their child went to a public school. This is targeting a way much like Decorum was used against me. They're looking for processes and procedures in the rulebook that they can use to justify silencing and targeting someone for standing up for vulnerable communities. Montana State Representative Zoe Zephyr, we are going to break and then come back. And we're going to invite Justin Jones into this conversation. I am wondering if they decided to simply ban you from the floor, that's not hardly simply, but and not expel you entirely, precisely of what happened to the Justin's in Tennessee, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson of Memphis and Nashville, because they were reinstated by their communities. We'll be back with Democratic Montana State Representative Zoe Zephyr in a moment. We'll be joined by Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones. Stay with us. This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman. From Montana to Tennessee, we're speaking to lawmakers who've been expelled or silenced by the Republican colleagues. Joining us now in Washington, D.C. is Justin Jones. Earlier this month, a largely white Tennessee House of Representatives with its heavily gerrymandered Republican supermajority expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the two youngest black representatives in the Tennessee House. They stood accused of breaching House decorum for non-violently protesting the Chamber's inaction on gun violence in the wake of the March 27th Mass School shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville where three nine-year-olds and three adults were killed. Days after being expelled, both Jones and Pearson were temporarily reinstated to their seats by local authorities. Earlier this week, the two Justin's, along with Gloria Johnson, a white lawmaker who narrowly escaping expelled, met with President Biden at the White House. What the Republican legislature did was shocking. It was undemocratic and it was without any precedent, but you turn it around very quickly. And look, we passed the most significant gun laws that have passed in 30 years with more to do. You understand exactly what it's like. It's just tragic to see what's happening in your state in particular, in your city, but also across the country. And, you know, nothing's guaranteed about democracy. Every generation has to fight for it as you are doing just that. After their meeting with the President, State Representative Justin Jones spoke outside the White House. We lifted this issue above the partisan divide that this is not left or right, but we talked to the President about how this is a moral issue, an issue of conscience, an issue in the south where we are trying to build multiracial democracy and challenge these extreme forces that, rather than passing an assault weapons ban, they assaulted our democracy as we saw when we were expelled from the state legislature. And so we talked to the President, Vice President, about why it's so critical for us to continue to lift up these movements in the south, to continue to lift up this multiracial movement of reconstruction that we're experiencing right now. We come here to say that the south will rise anew. We represent a new south, that is rising, and that if we can transform the south, we can transform this nation. If we can get common sense gun laws passed in the south, we can get them passed in this nation. And so we hope that the national media will lift up what's happening in the south, because our people are pushing forward a new vision. And I think it's going to be a point where we are on the right side of history, and those who stand against us are not. Well, Tennessee lawmaker Justin Jones is still in Washington, D.C., and is joining us from there now. We last spoke to you in Nashville, the city that you represent, actually still represent, even though you were expelled. Can you talk, Justin Jones, it's so great to have you back with us, about what it meant to be reinstated and then what it meant to meet with President Biden, with Bernie Sanders, with the Black Caucus and others, and what you're calling for now. Yes. Well, it's so good to be here again, Amy, and what it means is that the movement continues, is that as we saw in Tennessee, Tennessee has set a very dangerous precedent for the nation, with what happened to my friend here, Representative Zephyr in Montana, what's going on in Nebraska, and what's going to continue to happen as we see this rising tide of fascism and authoritarianism that's taken hold of our nation, and we see this weaponization of decorum, to silence dissent, to silence voices that make people uncomfortable, and that's really what they're doing, is diverging from their dominant narrative. And so to be here in D.C., we continue to lift up this struggle to nationalize what is going on, because it's not just going to impact us in Tennessee and in Montana, but it's really going to impact our nation that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. And so we continue to push the White House, and I've been grateful to meet with many members here in the Capitol to let them know that from our state services to the U.S. Capitol, we are facing some very dangerous trends in our democracy. I mean, connecting what happened to us to January 6th, which was an attempt to stop an election, to stop democracy. And so we have to stand together and we must show that we are not going to be divided and conquered, but that we're united in our struggle for multiracial democracy, and I'm lifting voices that have been often pushed to the margins. Justin Jones, you were elected to be state representative in November, before that you were well known in Nashville, Black Lives Matter activists. In fact, you had taken on House Speaker before. You're now calling for Cameron Sexton's resignation. But you had pushed and successfully pushed for the removal of the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol Rotunda, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand dragon of the Ku Klux clan, the Ku Klux Klan born in Tennessee. You ultimately won your battle but Cameron Sexton voted against removing the founding grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan's bust from the state Capitol. Is that right? Were you able to hear that question, Justin? I just missed the last part. Oh, I was just asking you won the removal of the bust of the founding grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest from the state Capitol Rotunda. The House Speaker whose resignation you continue to call for voted against removing his bust Ku Klux Klan born in Tennessee. Is that right? That's correct. And what we're seeing in Tennessee is this battle of us representing a new south. You know, the south that does not accept symbols to the white supremacy and the confederacy and racial tier. But we were trying to represent a new south that represents multiracial democracy and human rights, a south that affirms human dignity across race, across sexuality, across immigration status. You know, we want to say that, you know, the southern segregation has had a saying that the south will rise again. We stand as a new generation to say that the south will rise anew and that the south is a front line and this battle against white supremacy and transphobia and homophobia and xenophobia and misogyny and economic exploitation we represent this new voice and that's really what they're trying to expel Amy was not just us as individual lawmakers but what we represent and this vision of the future that they're so fearful of because it means one in which all of our voices are heard and all of our people are treated with respect and protected and not just the voices of a small white power structure of man of a particular religion and particular economic status who've dominated our politics for so long. Can you talk about the state legislature trying to give immunity to the gun manufacturers this vote right after the mass shooting in Nashville the city you represent that killed three nine-year-olds and three adults? I mean it is immoral that the only gun law that we passed took the lives of three nine-year-olds and three adults and it was not the first mass shooting in Nashville as well we had the shooting five years ago last week at the Waffle House in Nashville and so what they decided to do was say let's not protect kids as we've been asking but let's protect firearms manufacturers from lawsuits this is how immoral it is that we're dealing with people who care more about the profits of the gun industry then they do the lives of our children then they do the safety of our community and it's immoral and it shows where their allegiance is to to these special interests it shows the corruption of money in our political system that's the first action they take in light of a mass shooting was to pass that law and also to expel the two young black lawmakers this is the way that they are moving and so it's not democracy it is mobocracy it is terror for our communities and it is insulting to the victims of this mass shooting in their families that is the step four that they're taking and also to armed teachers as well as the other proposals they had and it's just it is so hurtful for our people who are grieving still and demanding that we pass common sense gun laws that the majority of Tennesseans across the political spectrum support red flag laws and ban on assault weapons universal background checks and safe storage that's what we should be passing before we bring Representative Zephyr back into the conversation I wanted to ask you now about what's happening with you and Justin Pearson you're back in as state representatives in supermajority but you now have to go through an election both in Nashville and in Memphis the two of you to because you were expelled how much does this cost when is this going to happen yes so we have two elections we have a primary in a month and we have a general in August and it's all being you know at the expense of the taxpayer to run again and I know and so we're going to be pushing and we're going to be running an active campaign because we know that this is not just about us but it's a referendum on democracy and that's what we're going to be fighting for and pushing for is that their attempt to expel us was an attempt to make a spectacle of authoritarianism that if you dare dissent if you dare challenge the dominant power structure this is what will happen to you but I also want to say too is that though Representative Pearson and myself are back we're still not being allowed to speak on the house floor we still have not been given committees again so they've stripped our committees from us and so they're doing everything they can to make us feel like second class members though our community sent us back there after being expelled to represent them unanimously in the Memphis Council and in the National City Council and so it is it is extreme what's going on you know we're still unwelcome in the people's house but like I told somebody we're not there to make friends with them these are our colleagues and the voices of our constituents you know some of the most diverse districts in the state of Tennessee who deserve to be heard and every time they silence us they silence our constituents and that's why we must fight so hard against these authoritarians and these fascists who've taken hold of our state government well speaking of being silenced that brings us to bring in Democratic Montana State Representative Zoe Zephyr of Missoula Montana the first transgender woman ever elected to the Montana Legislature and led state legislature has now banned her from the House floor and also forbid her from speaking there I'm wondering is this the first time the two of you as state legislators are publicly speaking together I believe we spoke together a couple days ago briefly but this will be the second time well I want to know first Justin Jones if you could address state legislator Zoe Zephyr to talk about what this has meant for you and your reaction to what happened to her and is there any move for state legislators around the country to ban together the silence to refuse to remain silent definitely well Representative Zephyr we talked on the phone of the day of this horrible and moral decision to censure her and just knows that we stand together and as I said that night and as I said that day an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us and so we are united from Tennessee to Montana to Nebraska to Florida as I was just talking to some lawmakers there against this trend toward authoritarianism that's silencing voices who need to be heard and if you look if you look at what we represented it represents the future of our politics people who are who are proximate to these issues should have a voice in challenging them when it comes to the safety of our communities when it comes to the well-being of our communities when it comes to what democracy should be in our states and so Representative Zephyr knows that I'm standing with you that whatever I can do to show up with solidarity to push back and let them know that we're not going to be divided that we see this as a united struggle that we see this as a struggle in which solidarity, deep solidarity matters in which I'm resisting together against these forces of authoritarianism that is going to be something that we continue to do nationwide and so thank you for your courage and I'm just so grateful to see when you walked out you had that same feeling of dignity you walked out with your head held high and because we know that we are on the right side of history and so it's just beautiful to see those photos that you were unbound that you were pushing forward and that you did not let them shame you but you saw that the community stands with you the people of this nation stand with you and will continue to push forward and be afraid and and unbound against these forces and state representative Zoe Zephyr if you could respond and talk about the effect it had on you this is right before you were centered seeing Justin Pearson and Justin Jones being expelled from the state legislature did you at that point have any sense what was going to happen to you I didn't but I think you know what people keep saying is courage is contagious when you watch people stand up for what is right to defend their community when marginalized groups come together and say as representative Jones has said an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us when you see people stand up it drives you to stand up similarly and that's also why as one of the first groups to come out in support of me was Montana's American Indian caucus who said this is an inappropriate undemocratic attack on representative Zephyr and they know that firsthand because they've experienced that and the attacks on the Native American community in our state and across our country goes way back before the attacks on trans people that we're seeing today and Zoe Zephyr what has been the response of the people who elected you I mean as I was saying around Tennessee it's not as if you're fired from a store that you're working at you were elected and so you have these other representatives who are saying the city of Missoula cannot have their elected representative speak what does it mean for them and when does this banishment end so that has been you know I've seen pride from my community they have said thank you so much first and foremost thank you for standing up for saying the things we elected you to say to hold the powerful accountable to the harm that they do and then I've also seen them express frustration when they copy me on their messages to Republican leadership saying you're taking our voice they're sending that message in emails they showed up at the Capitol to send that message and say you're taking away our representation and that's not democratic and going forward I showed up yesterday as best I can and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that the people who elected me the 11,000 Montanans who elected me have representation in the people's house and let me ask you Justin Jones about the anti-trans laws being passed in the Tennessee legislature the Biden administration has filed suit against Tennessee's ban on life-saving care for transgender youth can you talk about that in the position you took yeah I mean all session we've been challenging the slate of hate Tennessee has had 27 anti-LGBTQ laws this session more than any other state being pushed in our legislature laws to ban drag shows attack trans youths health care to challenge equality in marriage it's just been this very hateful agenda that we saw and we've resisted it at every step and we were, you know, myself, Representative Pearson Representative Johnson were some of the most vocal voices challenging this anti-LGBTQ agenda and so you know we're glad that the federal government is intervening and is challenging that law that will harm our youth and which we shared on the House floor this is harmful to the youth of Tennessee and it's very dangerous policy for these lawmakers to try and be doctors as they often try and do and so we have challenged it and we know that this challenge of attacking the LGBTQ community of attacking people of color of attacking immigrants is really an attack on democracy is really an attack on our future and the futures that we represent and so we are again, once again, fighting together united in this struggle against those who would try and scapegoat members of our community against those who would try and use members of our community as punching bags to distract from their failures to distract from their failures at the fact that in states like ours one in five children live in poverty the majority of people are struggling to get by because they're waging a cultural war instead of waging a war on poverty instead of waging a war to protect our communities from this wave of environmental injustice that is plaguing our communities and of a corporate attacks that are really denigrating our people who have to struggle between getting groceries or paying for their prescriptions I mean this is what we're dealing with is really an attempt to divide and conquer and we will not cooperate with that and we will not accept that because we know that what are the real issues in our community and that's not an issue that they're making manufacturing to distract from their failures is not the issues that we should be focused on Representative Jones in your state in Tennessee, the Grammy-winning rapper and singer Lizzo recently invited dozens of drag performers on stage during a Knoxville concert protesting Republicans efforts to ban public drag performances in the state your governor, Tennessee Republican Governor Billy signed the measure into law last February but it was blocked by a federal judge the following month who argued it was too vaguely written were you there? I was not at the concert but I was on the House floor fighting that bill and I said actually three weeks before the mass shooting happened at Covenant on the House floor I said why are we focusing on drag shows with this danger to our youth the real danger to our youth the number one cause of death in our youth that we should be focused on our mass shootings is gun violence and I said this before the shooting even occurred because we knew what the threat to our youth was we know what it is and they tried to make drag shows an issue which has never been an issue the lawmakers who presented this bill were just simply trying to instigate hate against a community the LGBTQ community and so we're grateful for others like Lizzo who have come to our state where we passed more lawsuits than laws to be quite honest Amy and so we knew that this was unconstitutional we said it in committee and on the House floor and a lot of the laws we're seeing are going to continue to be challenged hopefully in the courts to overturn this arrogance of a supermajority that passes laws targeting vulnerable communities and marginalized communities Representative Zoe Zephyr we're going to end with you you know I remember 10 years ago I or maybe it's a little more or a little less where every state was passing putting a referendum or measures on election day or before against same-sex marriage and the point of that was they couldn't get people out enough people to vote for conservative candidates but that would rev people up to go to the polls and then they would vote for the conservative candidates well that was a movement at the time and it completely failed conservatives well as progressives and liberals that was just that's not their issue anymore and so now you have this issue of drag shows who are trans laws and I'm wondering if you could end by talking about what this means in your community to be used in this way I think you get that perfectly you know when we see a tax on LGBTQ people whether that was back in the 90s or today it's trying to drum up fear stoke and other a community but the fact is trans people we live in our communities we are known in our communities and we are loved broadly in our communities which is why this effort ultimately is going to fail because when they're attacking trans people they're not just attacking us they're attacking our loved ones who care about us our co-workers our community members who care about us and in the same way that other marginalized groups are rising up and saying this isn't acceptable that's what we're seeing with our communities coming up and saying no you can't do this to trans people we love them we care about them and it's ultimately why even though we're seeing these attacks in the legislatures and they're going to fail in the courts they've already lost in our communities because we're loved Democratic Montana State Representative for the first transgender woman ever elected to the Montana legislature she has been banned by the Republican led legislature from the House floor forbidding her from speaking I want to thank you for being with us from Helena you represent Missoula and Justin Jones Democratic Tennessee State Representative Nashville recently reinstated after the Republican Supermajority heavily gerrymandered House of Representatives voted to expel him and his colleague Justin Pearson they were reinstated by their own communities until there's a special election thank you both for being with us coming up we look at president Biden's plan to send us nuclear arms submarines to South Korea stay with us this is democracy now democracy now dot org the warrant peace report I'm Amy Goodman as we end today's show looking at the crisis on the Korean Peninsula on Thursday South Korean president Yoon Suk-yul addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress and worn nuclear threat posed by North Korea on Wednesday Joe Biden pledged to deploy nuclear arms submarines to South Korea for the first time in 40 years into establish a new bilateral nuclear consultative group where the United States would involve officials from South Korea and nuclear planning operations targeting North Korea on Wednesday President Biden issued a stark warning to North Korea nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States its allies and partisans partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action President Biden was speaking in the Rose Garden at a news conference with the South Korean president to talk more about his visit to Washington and tension on the Korean Peninsula I'm joined now by Christine Ahn, founder and executive director of Women Cross DMZ a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War Christine is also the coordinator of the campaign Korea Peace Now speaking to us from Hawaii and we thank you for being up in the middle of the night for this conversation Christine talk about the significance of the meeting at the White House between the U.S. and South Korean presidents and what President Biden has promised Amy thanks for having me on the announcement that the U.S. would send nuclear armed submarines to South Korea is a very provocative and dangerous move it's the first time that U.S. nuclear weapons have been on or around the Korean Peninsula in 40 years in fact most Americans have no idea that the nuclear crisis actually began with the U.S. bringing nuclear weapons to South Korea from 1956 three years after the signing of the ceasefire and had them there up until George Bush Senior so that is not only a provocative act directed at North Korea but also at China and this is actually throwing fuel into already into a fire that has been increasingly dangerous there have been massive military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea spring all last year last year I think North Korea conducted 90 missile tests and the situation is just getting even more dangerous there is a three star general Dan Lee who says of all the conflicts currently taking place right now whether it's between U.S. China over Taiwan or the Russia Ukraine war that the Korean Peninsula is perhaps the one that may be the closest to a nuclear war so it is a very dangerous moment and the fact that the U.S. will be sending U.S. nuclear submarines to the Korean Peninsula and for Biden to make such a statement that is akin to Trump's fire and fury era where he threatened to totally destroy North Korea this is a wake-up call I think for the American people and obviously for South Koreans who feel that Yoon is basically drawing the Korean Peninsula on the front line of the U.S. war against China Well Christine this actually is being built as a compromise as part of the agreement President Yoon renewed a pledge not to pursue the development of a South Korean nuclear arsenal your response Well it is in the sense that there is growing concern in South Korea for its own domestic nuclear weapons program in light of the tactical nuclear weapons coming from North Korea or the program in North Korea but I think the problem is it is not addressing the underlying issue which is that the Korean Peninsula is continually at a state of war this is actually the 70th anniversary of the ceasefire this July 27th marks 70 years that the U.S. commander the North Korean commander and the Chinese representative from the voluntary people's army signed the armistice agreement where they committed to halting the war but they never actually followed up with their commitment which was to return within 90 days to negotiate a peace settlement so what we're facing is this continual militarization South Korea now is the sixth largest military spender in the world the U.S. we know is the world's largest our budget approaching a trillion dollars and the next nine countries combined and it is an unsustainable crisis and I think the way that the narrative of deterrence is as if there isn't violence as if they are preparing to prevent violence in the future when in fact we know violence is taking place right now whether it's the division of families whether it's the suffering of the North Korean people whether it's the ongoing investment in militarization that should be otherwise invested in things that make us secure I mean I think about I'm here in Hawaii and we're facing the Red Hill crisis where you know this militarization means we are polluting Oahu's aquifer and this is the jet fuel that will basically fuel the ships or the ships that will go and wage wars in Asia so we have to break down this mythology that this is actually what is making us secure when in fact what we need to do is negotiate a peace agreement and that is gaining traction among people from the military to nuclear scientists to people like President Carter we have to normalize relations with North Korea to achieve the things that we want can you talk about this mobilization to end the Korean war scheduled for the end of July and also talk about China's response to all of this well first just since we're short on time I want to make sure that we are mobilizing hundreds to come to Washington DC I hope Amy you will be there or somebody from Democracy Now but July 27th marks the 70th anniversary of the Armistice and we are saying it's time to end this war this war that inaugurated the military industrial complex for the United States it set forth the US to become the world's police and it has been the war that has maintained this constant threat on the Korean Peninsula so we are gathering multiple organizations faith-based vets for peace and Korean American coalition so we are gathering the website is koreapieceaction.org and we'll be having a congressional briefing with our peace champions we want to also raise awareness that there is the first ever peace on the Korean Peninsula Act it was reintroduced by Brad Sherman in the last congress we had nearly 50 co-sponsors of that bill we have 10 seconds left what I'm saying is Amy there is momentum now to transform this state of war into a permanent peace and that's where we need Americans to recognize this is America's oldest war it's on our responsibility to bring closure to this war Christine on founder and executive director of women cross DMZ a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean war and the co-ordinator of the campaign koreapiecenow that does it for our show on Saturday we'll be speaking at 10am at American University in Washington on an old day conference titled in search of a new U.S. policy for a new Latin America burying 200 years of the Monroe Doctrine checkdemocracynow.org for details I'm Amy Goodman thanks for joining us


Happy Labor Day, friends. Rather than talking about something that's super newsworthy, I just wanted to take a moment to pump your brains with a little bit of much-needed helpium, because Labor is on the rise in the United States, and Labor activists are not taking Labor Day off. So Amazon Labor Union leader Christian Smalls led the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United in a march up 6th Avenue towards Times Square, and they're making it known that Labor is not slowing down anytime soon. Take a look. Now my favorite part about this march, for obvious reasons, is what happened when they made it to Times Square. Look at the chant that Christian Smalls led.  Love that. Now just to be 100% clear here, they're not just being edgy for the sake of being edgy. There's actual meaning behind this message. It's a meaning and a message to oligarchs that workers are no longer afraid, because understand at these large multinational corporations, they created this culture of fear toward discussing unions, and even worker rights was taboo. Like I remember when I worked at Walmart on my very first day at orientation, they showed us an anti-union propaganda video, and after being appalled by that, I talked to other workers, and they didn't even really know what unions were, what the points were, so they kind of just took that anti-union propaganda video at face value, and that's an anecdote, but I'm sure that that's the case for a lot of workers. But now workers are learning how powerful unions are, and they're no longer afraid, like yes, Howard Schultz, Jeff Bezos, they're going to try to retaliate if you organize, but these workers are saying, in spite of the repercussions, we're not backing down, we're not being quiet.  It's a clear message that these oligarchs don't have the power that they used to, and there's a lot of value in that statement there. I want to share a tweet from Bernie Sanders, who's basically the most pro-labor lawmaker in America, who puts things into perspective. He says, this Labor Day thanked unions for weekends, eight-hour work days, a minimum wage, paid overtime, breaks during work, the right to strike, child labor laws, workplace safety standards. Now let us grow the trade union movement and win more for workers. Now he's absolutely right. If you're wondering why we have weekends and why there are child safety standards, no more child laborers, it's because of unions. Now, thanks to propaganda, misinformation, mostly by the right, but also by a lot of neoliberal Democrats, well, support for unions went down over time. But now because of the rise of labor in the United States, well, support for labor is the highest it's been since 1965, as Gallup points out. And now 71% of Americans approve of unions. And this is giant. I need you to understand that to have 71% of Americans support unions, despite the intimidation of workers who try to form unions, despite the propagandistic lies and the right-wing attacks on unions, to have 71% of Americans say we support unions, that is huge. Now I want to talk about some more labor activity on Labor Day because there's things that you can do today to support workers. As in these times reports, Starbucks workers are hosting pro-union sippings where they're encouraging customers to order low-cost items or just the water and then leave a really big tip for the employees. And then they're also offering conversations about union organization and worker rights and exploitation. And I absolutely love this idea. But if you don't have a Starbucks near you that's hosting this, look, do this, go order a water and leave them a really big tip. Just let them know that you support them. I think that the best thing that you can do is to perhaps boycott these companies that are making their workers work on Labor Day.  They're going to be really appreciative of that. Now, let's look at this tweet from a more perfect union. They write, All the workers that at Taco Bell in Kansas City, Missouri, walked off the job on strike today as community members cheer them on. They're protesting unsafe working conditions, low pay and no paid sick days. Now, the video here, it's relatively short. It's like 45 seconds.  And I'm sure the same is going to be true for you as well. That right there is what solidarity looks like. And that was so encouraging to see, to have the entire community come out and show support for these workers. Again, 10 years ago, even five years ago, that type of thing was not possible. And think about one of these workers in the position that they're in, right? They're treated terribly, they're exploited, but yet if they try to speak up, then they could be replaced by another worker. Like they view these employees as expendable, as robots. But they're learning that when you bind together and when you have the community support, well, what are you going to do? If everybody is binding together, if everyone in the store is leaving on strike, nobody's there to run the store. You're taking your leverage back. And these multinational corporations hate to see it. Now, another victory for labor happened just a couple of days ago. This is from Common Dreams. The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday completely rejected Amazon's attempt to dispute and overturn a historic union victory in New York earlier this year, paving the way for the JFK 8 warehouse in Staten Island to become the company's first ever certified union shop in the United States. In a new filing, the NLRB officer who presided over weeks of ritual hearings on Amazon's election objections concluded that the corporation's protests against the union's landmark victory should be overruled in their entirety. Amazon, which used aggressive union-busting tactics and its failed attempt to fend off the JFK 8 organizing drive, said it strongly disagrees with the NLRB's decision and plans to appeal, claiming that the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome of the election. However, Amazon has two weeks to file its objections. If the company's last-ditch effort fails, it will be required by federal law to begin contract negotiations with the union, which could take months or years. And make no mistake about it, they're going to drag their feet. But just understand what's happening here. This is comparable to Trump claiming that the election was stolen from him in 2020. These companies are doing everything, including lying and sowing doubt about this democratized vote. And it's pathetic, but thankfully they are losing. Now, here's what Christian Small said about this victory. Today is a great day for labor. Amazon labor has officially won our objections hearing against Amazon. The hearing officer of Region 28 has officially declared that all objections are dismissed and recommended certification. Once again, we've proven that our campaign was power. Absolutely. But that's not all, because as Vice News reports, the National Labor Relations Board is demanding that Howard Schultz issue a personal apology to workers for engaging in aggressive union-busting tactics. And he has to explain in said video to all of his employees what their rights are. This comes after the National Labor Relations Board found in a complaint filed on Wednesday that the company is unlawfully withholding benefits from employees in unionized or unionizing stores. It alleges that Schultz, who is worth roughly $4 billion, threatened employees and told them it would be futile to side with the union on several occasions, including during a video call to all U.S. employees in a corporate weekly update and in a quarter-two earnings call, according to a statement from the NLRB. It also alleges that the company set up a benefits program that would be exclusive to non-unionized workers that would include higher pay, faster sick-time accrual, increased training opportunities, and more. Now, he focused a lot on Amazon and Starbucks, but I just want to stress here that this is a mass movement taking place at numerous corporations across the country. And in the event a CEO hasn't seen any stores organize in their company, well, it's only a matter of time. And currently they're shitting their pants because they know that if stores successfully organize at Starbucks, if warehouses successfully continue to organize at Amazon, well, it's only a matter of time before their workers see that and are galvanized by said labor activity and they form unions there as well. And I mean, it's already been a pretty difficult journey for people like Howard Schultz, who's trying everything that he possibly can to stop Starbucks stores from organizing. But the problem is that since they formed their first union late last year, more than 100 Starbucks locations have organized. So you see the desperation growing and sure, they're union-busting and they're pulling out every trick in the book. But even though that's terrible, it's a sign that these workers are winning. They wouldn't be doing this if they weren't terrified right now. So today on Labor Day, do what you can to support workers. That means that if you have a store that's trying to form a union, support those workers, stand in solidarity with them and don't shop at that location. In the events, those workers are getting penalized. Never cross the picket line. And in the event, you go to a store today, a Starbucks or a restaurant, tip those workers extra well because they deserve it. Workers make this country, workers built this country, and it's about time that they take the power back and have leverage for once and all, once and for all over their employers. So that's what I want to leave you with on Labor Day. Not some sad story about how we're all screwed, but a little bit of hope, because this is the one sign that gives me hope for the future of this country. Workers across this country standing up and demanding rights.