Good morning and welcome to Vermont House Judiciary Committee. It is April 1st and we are starting with H203 and actually relating to criminal threatening, a state employee or elected official. And actually, Representative Richardson is one of the, or maybe the elite sponsor. I don't know if you wanted to say a few words before we do the walkthrough or I'll just briefly say that this past year and definitely the past few months, we've seen a lot of officials and government workers threatened, including in our state and there's one actually I just sent the chair that was in the newspaper. I forget now which one that was I think it was maybe Winooski, but but it's been rather a regular occurrence nationally and here in Vermont. And one of the things that seems important is us taking a stand that just because somebody is a government worker or an elected official. That sort of over that crosses the line to be making threats of harm of death to these people and I'm hoping that it would deter other people from from doing such actions that are not in the spirit of civility or public service. So that's it basically. Great. Well, thank you. Appreciate that. And we're now going to turn to Attorney Bryn Hare to help us again realize it's a short form so we're not doing a walkthrough but certainly update us on the on the law. Other states have have similar laws. So I will turn it over to you. Thank you so much. Sure. Good morning committee for the record Bryn here from legislative council. I thought it might make sense to talk briefly about the existing criminal threatening statute for just as a reminder to the committee of what it is what it says what it does. Before talking about this proposal to create an enhanced penalty. So, we can, if everybody wants to pull up the statute or I can just talk about it, or I can share my screen what would the committee prefer books. Do you have a preference to want to look at it want me to just talk about it. I've got it in front of me already so. Okay. We have it. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. So, so the criminal threatening statute was added about five years ago and is 13 vs a 1702. So the this existing statute provides that a person shall not knowingly threaten another person. And as a result of that threat place the other person in reasonable apprehension of death or serious bodily injury. So this statute is really designed to reach only true threats. And as many members of this committee is aware. True threats is a category of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. And they encompass like those statements that are where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence against a particular person or group of people. So that that is really the definition of true threats from US Supreme Court jurisprudence, and this statute the criminal threatening statute is pretty narrowly drawn to only encompass true threats. And if you are looking at the statute, you'll see that there's a subsection B is the penalty section. And if you violate that subsection a is subject to a misdemeanor penalty of one year imprisonment or $1000 fine or both. And then subsection C provides an enhanced penalty. And this, I think was added probably that a year after the criminal threatening statute was created. It creates an enhanced penalty for a person who commits the act of criminal threatening as it's set out in subsection a with some specific intent and that specific intent is to prohibit or prevent a person, another person from reporting child abuse or neglect to the department for children and families. So that imposes a heightened penalty of two years or $1000 fine or both. And then subsection D creates the definitions. And that's where you define what serious bodily injury means, which is what it means throughout Title 13. And then you also included some language here that says threat or threatened shall not include constitutionally protected activity. So this was this, some of the committee members may remember the discussion about this language. This was added to make sure that the statute was only covering true threats or other speech that is not protected by the Constitution. And then subsection F or subsection E provides that a person who's under 18 she'll be adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent if they're charged under the statute. And then subsection F sets out an affirmative defense that a person can raise if they can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that they didn't have the ability to carry out the threat. So the H203 the short form would create the short form proposes to create another enhanced penalty. So like that enhanced penalty that you see in subsection C for an intent to prevent a person from reporting child abuse or neglect. It would be an enhanced penalty. If the person had the intent to threaten the state employee or an elected official. And the short form statement of purpose doesn't set out what that enhanced penalty would be specifically but obviously that would be up for up to the committee to think about and decide. There are other states that provide for some sort of some type of criminal penalty for threatening a public official. I thought I would give a couple of examples. One is Louisiana has a has a has a separate statute for threatening a public official. And so they they have a statute that prohibits threatening a public official with serious bodily injury or death. And they also have an enhanced provision for if a person threatens a public official with the intent to influence his or her conduct in relation to their official duty, or with the intent to retaliate against that person for one of their actions that were considered as a part of their position as a public official. So, that's one example. There's also Wisconsin also has quite an assortment of criminal threatening statutes and prohibitions. And similarly they have they have a provision that a threat to a witness is prohibited so a witness and some type of contested case or judicial proceeding threats to an officer of the court threats to law enforcement officers. The Department of Revenue employees are also specifically prohibited and threats to Department of Public Safety, or professional services department or workforce development employees so they get pretty specific with what kind of employees. They, they are protecting here. So that's just a couple of examples. There is not it's the majority of states don't have specific protections in place for elected officials or state employees with respect to criminal threatening. But I did I was able to find a couple of them. I'm going to pause there to see if there's some questions for me. I think I'm going to get you in a second so bring the Wisconsin and the other states these are separate laws as opposed to enhance penalties. Yes, they are separate provisions. And Wisconsin actually has a separate provision for each category of employee or protected person that they want to prohibit criminals running with respect to. They do break it out quite, quite, quite liberally there. Okay, thank you. Tom and then Barbara. Morning. I'm just wondering about Louisiana and Wisconsin, how, how long these laws have been in effect if you knew that. And I guess another question would be, why did they choose to go in this direction. You know, I that I don't know I didn't do. I didn't do sort of comprehensive research about their statutes, it would be I'm sure it'd be easy for me to find out how long they've been in place. And I can try and find out what their, what their motivation was. That would be great. Yeah. Thank you. So when I introduced this I didn't think about town clerks or mayors and I know that they've been some of the people that actually have been receiving threats and other sort of either retaliation. So, I don't know how that would affect this. If that's something we could do if we take this bill up or, or not. So anyway, I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. And in terms of the other statutes are against the actual official or our family members. So that is varies depending on the statute so in Wisconsin. It does also include family members for certain types of protected officials. I think that it's witnesses. And actually, no, for everybody, everyone in Wisconsin is it also includes their family members, not just the protected official, but also their family members. And Louisiana only includes the public official and not additional members. Thank you. Well, thank you. Yeah, just a couple things. Obviously, this is, you know, for me, this is a certainly bill I'm interested in. Last year, my family had to buy a home security system because of threats my wife received in her role as president of the Roland City School Board. So I mean, this is something that that we've thought about. And also quite frankly, you know, it can be a little frustrating because the what my wife received were threats via text and via email. And there are websites out there which allow people to go on and send these message anonymously and they're very hard to trace. And so, you know, it also seemed like, to some degree, I mean, I understand it's not the easiest task for law enforcement to trace it, but there seem to be a time issue. It seemed to be like it certainly never seemed like anyone's priority, quite frankly. And you know, maybe with an enhanced penalty that would be a little added impetus to move things along. But one other thing I wanted to know was in regard to something that Barbara said in regards to, you know, intend to threaten a state employee or elected official. And thinking back to my time in local city government. I'm not certain anyone quite frankly was more threatened than the building inspector. So I would certainly if we move forward encourage something that said, you know, threaten a state or municipal employee, because there are people like the city clerk like the building inspector like the zoning inspector, who are employees of local government who often take the brunt of people's people's anger and that boils over sometimes. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And that made me also think about their number of appointed officials, in addition to elective so something else to put on the consideration list. Bob. Yes. Good morning, Brian. I didn't have the number of the bill you were quoting. I've got the short form bill here to review what was that again. So the short form is h203. And the other bill you're looking at this morning is h302. Easy to remember their opposite each other. Thank you. And looking at this and listening to many other members of the committee here obviously, as written this is a wide and could be very encompassing a bill with many different avenues of family members elected employees and I'm looking at state employees or elected officials and I'm looking at state employees which happened to be, say, Vermont State police officers fishing games so and so forth. And there's no inclusion in there for I can I can just see the other, the share some misciples coming forward and say, Well, wait a minute, you know, aren't our two cents worth anything here also mean, because it's defined as state employees and state officials. And I don't know I'm looking at why don't we just have a law and enhance a law that says no one should be subject to being threatened or versus trying to identify school boards and town clerks and mayors and all these things just. It's just a thought I mean just just a lot on itself it says everyone's included in this. No one's known should not be left out of this. That's what you have currently that there is a prohibition on criminal threats to anybody currently. And when you win the legislature created the criminal threatening statute there was some initial conversation about whether or not there should be certain protected categories that were subject to a heightened penalty and the idea didn't didn't take hold. I don't know if it's clear, but I think that there was a thought that continuing conversation was needed on on that. Well I just, it just seems as though I mean I know we're all elected officials here, which was a few exceptions but why would we create something that puts us at a level higher than than the general, then general public sort of speak is guess what I'm being protected I'm not concerned about it after dealing with it for a number of years here but when I look at things I look at things that are available for all of the members throughout the state of Vermont here and I'm just wondering why we're looking at a special section to put in this particular case us in that section. I appreciate that certainly certainly a consideration and certainly we'll hear from the witnesses is as well I'm sure regarding regarding that. Let's see. Tom Felicia will if I'm not getting your order correctly that bad. Bob great minds think alike I guess it's exactly what I had on my mind is that we have. You know we've got a law for that already. You know from the way I understand it and a little bit that I've heard so far is that there's some impression that an enhanced penalty. Will, you know, even for a special category I guess will maybe toward what's going on and you know, to me if we were going to go in this direction instead of making new laws. If an enhanced penalty is, you know, is potential I don't think it's going to but if it's going to potentially be a discourage people from doing it then just enhance some penalty and everybody's covered that way. Questions for for Bryn. We're going into committee discussion a little bit about policy which is which is fine but we also have witnesses here so questions for Bryn regarding the law. I'm losing my order here let's see everybody's popping up so Felicia coach, Martin, and I'm sorry if I'm going out of order of when you raised your hands but go ahead. So, I guess my point was more committee discussion so I'll keep it very brief but to to Ken and Tom's point. There is absolutely the perception that some of the harassment and some of the threats we received we signed up, or an elected official signed up to work for the public and so we have to take it. And I don't think that that is on par with a neighborly dispute that might get into criminal threatening or, you know, a feud of some kind. I think that there's very different classes of behavior because the average person isn't writing their neighbor hate mail on a weekly basis and sending it around it's not that way and just to put a slightly finer point on it. My partner runs a newspaper, he gets his fair share of hate and discontent and occasionally death threats, but when he calls local law enforcement to say hey I've received this just wanted to let you know about it. It was finally asked him, do you want a no trespass order for this person do you want a no contact what would you like to prevent this from happening and when I received the same it's okay well if that rises to a different level you can absolutely contact state police and when my house was shot at this summer, it was state police came up and they took a record of it but, well you're a public official and people feel entitled to tell you how they feel. And there's there's a point that people are crossing the line and we're seeing that increasingly with tensions rising around politics that people's opinions aren't opinions they're threats. In some cases, and I think that this looks to put a finer point on that because it wasn't just me. Receiving threats there was people who had children at home, more work legislators who they protestors out front of their house and that can be incredibly scary and it can drive people out of public service as we have seen. And that's why we, we look at creating a different class if we were, because there is a very different set of access and responsibility, and, and the public knows that, and that's I think what we're seeing. So that's, it's just my two cents I have the committee discussion. I'm sure. No, no thank you I appreciate that in and bring in terms of the case law or have you. I imagine that's been discussed. Right. Yes. So, you know I think I'm hearing representative leftlers sort of anecdotes about the kinds of stress that she's received and I that that wouldn't be qualify as a political hyperbole there is a category of speech that is protected. The United States Supreme Court talked about this kind of political speech and Watts versus the United States. Some of you might remember that was a case from the 60s when a person was charged with threatening the president because he made a statement at a public rally that if he was drafted to fight in Vietnam that he the first person he would set in this site and the court talked about that as being political hyperbole that wasn't a specific threat to the president and the I can give you a little quote from the from the court. They said debate on public issues should be uninhibited robust and wide open and may well include vehement caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. But that, that kind of language is protected, but that true threats language if the language is intended to place the target in fear. Then that is not protected speech under political hyperbole so I think that I just want to make it clear to the committee that threats to public officials threats that are that you're receiving the place you in fear. If the person intended to place you in fear. That is a, that is a true threat. If it's motivated by political animus or mom. Thank you. Coach Martin Barbara. Good morning, everyone. Sorry, sorry I had two of me go on there. Had some problems with connectivity. And I just like to say that wills comments earlier and Felicia's speak directly, you know, to the reality of what's going on. And I don't think that they're, you know, just by having the general that the people will respond the way that we would hope. And so, you know what I what I've seen over time and I think we've all seen it is members of the body, you know, being threatened.  You know, when people come into your house, or in on your property, that's different.    You know, the the expectation, you know, discourses discourse and conversation is conversation.  It's over the edge, you know, that's crossing the line. And I think that this will hopefully, when we hear from our witnesses, especially the state's attorneys, who actually have the discretion to work with more intentional language, especially if we enact something to this regard, then that's where the change is going to occur. You know, you prosecute a few of these folks that thought they would do what they used to do. And that will change behavior. But I just wanted to thank Will and Felicia for their, their comments. Thank you. Thank you coach. Let's see, Martin and then Barbara. So, I do have a question for Bryn, but I'm going to jump in and throw my two cents within as well since everybody else before I get to my question. So, my view, I mean if we start if we start having enhancements for one particular class of people, we're just going to be going down. And we'll start putting teachers in there medical profession. You know, we can, you know, once you start down that road as we've seen in other places where we've done enhancements we keep on having people say well why not me. And that we're really this is an interesting area because of course the Supreme Court jurisprudence on First Amendment law really restricts what we can do here. And, and I guess one other point is that, you know, enhancing the penalty is going to do nothing frankly and I'm sure we'll hear from Marshall out to this extent, enhancing a penalty is not something that really affects behavior. It's an enforcement and that's where I'm going to get to a question in this in just a second. But I guess the question I have for Brent it's not what I'm expecting you to give it as an answer right at this moment but it's something will broader is, you know, where else, you know, looking at what other states have done look at looking at the latest jurisprudence over this area. Are there any other ways that we can strengthen this area of law of criminal threatening. I tend to doubt that because we've been looking at this for a while, but it's worth a look and that's a little bit broader and it's not something that can be done in the near term I wouldn't think maybe this is an interim, you know, something for an intern or whatever or maybe you already know, bring if there are other areas of being able to strengthen this that's one question the other point I'm going to make and I don't know if this is this may be a question for bring as well. As far as I'm just this enhancement is there. Should we be looking at what what gov gov ops can do as far as training, or as far as giving law enforcement the tools they need to be able to identify, you know, the wills issue, as far as trying to improve enforcement in other words, as as far as just an enhancement. And that's another question I have, as far as, you know, maybe there's something out there that we can do that really gets to the issue, which is identifying who is actually sending these anonymous threats. So I'll have a lot of questions there. Brent if you want to respond. Yeah, you know, you you summarize it pretty well you've been looking at these issues year after year really ways to strengthen these types of threatening behavior ways to strengthen the penalties or the prohibitions on these types of threatening behaviors. You have discussed in the past, the enforcement question there there you have heard testimony in the past that there may be uneven enforcement of these probe of the criminal threatening prohibition across the state. You know, I think the gov ops committee has heard testimony to that effect as well. And with respect to your question about how to how to strengthen the criminal threatening provision. You know, I think that your, your goal with the criminal threatening statute was to only prohibit the kind of speech that is not protected by the Constitution and, and you've done that pretty carefully and clearly. If we look at H 302, I think that expands it a little bit in a way that I believe is constitutionally permissible to prohibit threats against a person's family, because really what is true threats are threats that are intended to terrorize a person. So, so it may be that a person is receiving a threat against a member of their household and not personally against them. And, and as long as that person is reasonably placed in terror, then that that is true threats territory there so I think H 302 does expand it a little bit, strengthen a little strengthen the, the prohibition a little bit. So I'm sure you'll hear from here from other witnesses about that question too. Can I just follow up question wouldn't I get a chance because I had one more question I forgot to ask. Yeah, actually I'm going to go first. Can you tell us more about intent you talked about intended to terrorize or, and I'm looking at the language of, you know, knowingly what can you speak to us about what what a court would look to and in terms of intent here. Okay, so the way that you have established the mens rea and criminal threatening is to use the, the men's rate of knowingly, which is when a person is aware that it's practically certain that their conduct is going to cause a certain result, it's practically certain that the conduct will cause the person to be in fear of serious bodily injury or death. And we talked about this before that there is a requirement there's a constitutional requirement that the speaker have intended to place the person in fear. And that is to avoid like chilling legitimately protected speech. So I think that it was, I may be reading which the US Supreme Court decision talks about this I believe it was the aloneness decision. But the court there provided that by requiring the speaker to intend to scare his or her targets, the law would guard the speech of those individuals who need no harm. So there is an intent element that's required. There's a there is a split in the way in the way states handle this intent element. It's, it has what aloneness made clear is that it has to be that recklessly, it has to be some somewhere above reckless. It's the Supreme Court hasn't made it totally thoroughly clear if it has to be what what the mens rea element has to be. But we know that it has to be above recklessly. So that's why the legislature went with knowingly when it was deciding what kind of intent element to place in the statute. Okay. Thank you so Martin for your follow up. My question was on h 302 and we haven't had to even to walk through 302 yet so I'll hold mine. Okay, I know I'm thinking that I wonder if I, maybe I could have done this differently because they're really we're looking at the same, the same statute but anyway sorry. Okay, Barbara, I want to just amend my answer to that last question just for a moment, if I may. I want to just split in the federal circuits about whether about what level of intent is required. So that's why I'm sort of relying on aloneness at this point. Okay, right. Thank you and hopefully our witnesses will will speak to that as well. Okay, so Barbara Selena coach I see your hand up I'm not sure if it's from before but Barbara Selena impossible. So, a couple of things I think Martin makes a good point and wonder about a separate law maybe and maybe one that I think there was a law that we passed that when child abuse investigators were getting threatened a lot because I remember at my organization, how excited they were and we put a sign up that said something about whatever the wording was but you're like you're not allowed to it's against the law to threaten and people felt really good about even the signage. Obviously you're not going to put that up at your house. I also want to remind people that I think it has an effect on people running. I mean we lost a committee mate who couldn't take that I mean it got to her and her family was unsafe. So, I don't think it's about so much protecting ourselves as it is about not having it be what people sign up for the last thing that I want to say is yesterday. One of our witnesses talked about a neighbor calling in a threat or concern, and the police. I don't know who shared it but obviously the person who called it in then got the, the whole ire of the person for calling it in. I don't know what confidentiality there is about reporting that because that was really I keep thinking about that yesterday, like that made matters worse. So as we think about this stuff. I would hate to have an unintended consequence. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And then coach. Hi, sorry. In a minute. I just want to know, I wasn't sure if I should speak up now or later but I share some of the questions and concerns that folks have raised about like creating enhancements I know there's enhancements for you know DC in certain kinds of DCF case threatening. I share some of the current concerns folks have raised around creating an enhancement just for elected officials. I think that might be. Well, we know that we're in a moment where you know there's a there's a lot of threats directed and by pop folks that Asian Americans in our community and I just I just worry about sort of being like I think it could be a really hard read to pass something on its face that just address selected officials when many members of the community would like all editorialize and say rightly you know think probably we haven't done enough to offer protection and support. And so I share those concerns that folks have raised and I also know that one those identities intersect. It's particularly has clearly been particularly hard for folks of color to serve in elected office in our state. And, you know, like, we used to have a colleague with us on this committee whose wisdom I really miss on partnership and I know that at times the interpretation of the law has been kind of like what Felicia described experiencing like well you're an elected official so you're actually less protected. And I just wonder, Bryn, if you could speak to that ladder point and like how if there's something. If there's a way of approaching that interpretation. So represent Colburn for the question I understand the question. And I just would reiterate what I said earlier which is that I do not believe that it's true that you're less protected by the statute because you're an elected official. And this is where it might get to that enforcement question, because the criminal threatening statute applies to everyone. And, and I you know talked a little bit earlier about that kind of speech that is protected that political hyperbole speech. But that that is a category of speech that does not include what is prohibited by the criminal threatening statute. So, so I read the statute is being quite clear that it applies to public officials you're no less subject to protection because you're a public official. And it's, I think that maybe there is the maybe enforcement law enforcement may have some question about what what the what the speech looks like. But again if it if if the speech falls within the within the statute then it is a true threat and it is not protected speech. Thank you. Coach. You know after after hearing the continued questions. I went back to a session that we were having with the prosecutors. And part of the discussion was around prosecutorial discretion. And I think that gets to what Tom and and Bob were talking about as far as within the general category, you know of criminal threatening, if we're very, very clear about that fear and fear of bodily harm or fear of injury to family. It doesn't matter which category, it is, you know, fear is fear if someone places any individual like the, you know, the existing, you know, statute reads. Then that falls within that category. So what came out of that that meeting because I went back to, you know, my, my notes, and one of the witnesses is here today and I'll raise that that question with him when, when he's testifying.  But that's, and then that also includes what Martin was talking about, as far as the training, you know, piece, you know, if it's a clear understanding that this is unacceptable. So it isn't a question of, you know, one person thinks, you know, one law enforcement officer or one prosecutor thinks that, well, this is kind of almost there. No, it is, it is or it isn't. And I think that's where that training and clarity really could be helpful. I think. And maybe that's something that, you know, I'm not sure how you do that, Brent, you know, with with language. But it just raises, you know, an interesting theorem. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. So Brent, I guess. Lord my hand here. No better way to put it for me anyway. I, no matter what we, what we put into law is, is criminal threatening plain and simple just criminal threatening. Regardless of special interest groups or penalties. Or anything. I mean, even if we try to redefine criminal threatening, there's, I'm going to guess that there's already a standard in, you know, in courts higher than than we are that have defined it. Yep, that's the true, that's the true threats doctrine. That's the category of speech that the criminal threatening statute deals with that is speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. Okay, so the only thing we can really do then is to potentially create. This is a question potentially create a special interest group with an enhanced penalty. Well, so you've done the legislature has done this before and in different types of statutes for example there's an enhanced penalty for assaulting certain kinds of professionals like EMTs and fire fighters and I think there's some others DCF workers. I think that it's really it's a question of whether you see certain types of conduct as being worthy of a greater penalty than other types of conduct. Right. Yeah, yeah, I mean I have, I mean, it's, it's nothing to you I know, but I have a, just have it on this one, an issue with creating this special interest group and. I mean, after a while I mean with all these enhancements for special interest groups for just bringing more and more and more people into the fold and, and you know john cube public is is going to be left out. And I don't know I guess I would go back to we have a lot of cover it. And if we feel the need to enhance the penalties for for the public and put everybody on a par would would make sense to me because I, I understand you know, you know there's certain things to sign up for and not sign up for you know that type of thing but why should, to me why should I have a special category for myself because somebody threatens me over a political thing. Why should I be considered special when, you know, I'll go back to our testimony yesterday when, you know, people were threatened down in Bennington, and, and, and potentially, you know the same type of threat, the same type of fear that's involved in the same feelings and, and they don't get the, the considerations that I would. Barbara. Sorry, I'll be quick. Um, so, when Tom was saying that what occurred to me is, it could interfere with people doing their jobs, for example, if you get threatened very much about a position you have, you might choose not to vote that way or not show up for the vote, or, and I'm just thinking about other people doing their job so it's not that we're above the people I, and again, it's bigger than us. You know, like, it was somebody who recently threatened the Commissioner of Agriculture. A couple of weeks ago, like, like, I don't know. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Well, and then Felicia. I'll be very quick, but I wanted to, to address the question, you know, sort of close to when Tom raised it. And, you know, one point I just wanted to make is, you know, you're talking about secluding John Q public from, from this group the group of elected officials, but any member of the public can become an elected and why I think this, this discussion has merit and considering this enhanced penalty or some other way to address this has merit is because threats people sending these threats are in effect having a negative consequences on who runs for office. I can name four people in Rutland City who chose not to run for public office, because my wife was threatened, who said, I have kids. I can't put myself out there like that. These sort of attacks on public officials these sort of threats directed at public officials are shaping our discourse, because they are not just potentially affecting the decisions of the officials who are threatened, but they are also convincing other people who want to serve their communities that it's not safe for them to do so. Thank you. Okay, Alicia and then I'm going to turn back to bring and then we'll take a break. Yeah, it, I just, I kind of wanted to respond to some of the comments and just in discourse. It's not elevating an elected official of any level above a member of the public. The public has a very different role than we have and when threatening behavior, not dealt with when credible threats not political speech not hyperbole when it's not dealt with. It impacts the votes, you're able to take you feel safe taking it impacts who runs who resigns. When I was looking to get into politics. One of the first stories I saw was Kaimort's resigning. And we've seen that trend continue where people feel so harassed and so unprotected as officials as leaders in their community that they don't even bother staying in the state let alone staying in that position. And it's not elevating our positions or other elected officials positions over that of the public. It is protecting our ability to do our job for our constituents. I represent 4000 disparate voices, and I should be able to do that. Without being the focal point of a lot of hate and direct threats, I have a thick skin I can take that annoyed that frustrated. But when it rises to that level. We have to do something about that and whether it's enforcement whether it's a heightened penalty. I don't think that we can push it off as well we don't want to make ourselves a special class, because it's not about us right now it's who's doing this job in the future. So that's just my two cents. Okay, thank you I was going to turn to bring but then Tom your, your hand. Just real quick, and then I'll be done for now I guess is that I can be threatened I haven't been. I can be, you know threatened, you know, maybe with physical harm, you know, with death or whatever, and my neighbor can too. My neighbor that's not in, you know, in the public I can be threatened to and, and I guess, why shouldn't he, he she they have the same considerations and the same protections as I would have. And not, you know, and then we eliminate any potential look of having elevated ourselves or, you know, creating another special interest group and protect all Vermonters. Okay. Well, well thank you and I certainly have let this discussion go on longer than than we usually do but it. It felt important to give committee members the the space to do this. And I think hopefully our witnesses will find it helpful when they when they do testify it says some of the policy considerations that we are that we are looking at. So before our break bring if you could, please just walk us through 302 and maybe I should have done that one, one first but I think it just might be helpful to for us to look at that and then witnesses can either do the bill separately or or together because they were really in the same section so. If I might just respond to one of representative Rachel since points that there I just wanted to point out we there is also a felony prohibition on hindering a public official or a public officer and that's 13 vs a 3001. That statute provides that if a if a person impedes a public officer. And that requires that they actually impede the public officer, the performance of their duties, whether they actually make the performance of their duties interfere with the performance of their duties. Then that that is a felony so that may also be a statute the committee wants to look at. So. I'll jump to 302 now. That's all right. And would the committee like me to put it up on the screen or does everybody have it available there. Everyone has it. Okay, I think we have it. Yeah. Thank you. So I already kind of walked through the existing criminal threatening statute so I feel like this is going to be this won't take too long. This bill really changes the criminal threatening statute in three ways. First it expands the existing criminal threatening prohibition to apply if the speaker threatens the listeners family. As we discussed before, it talks about that a little bit before. So that's at the bottom of page one. So the person would have to knowingly place the other person and reasonable apprehension of death or serious bodily injury to the the listener or to the listeners family. And I wanted to point out that in the bill family is not defined. And if you do want to work on this draft I would recommend defining what family means. And one suggestion might be to use the household members definition that you use in title 15 abuse prevention chapter.  So I just want to point that out. The second thing that the bill does is if you scroll down to page two, it adds an enhanced penalty to the criminal. As you've been discussing as an enhanced penalty for violating the statute by threatening to use a firearm or an explosive device at a school on school grounds and a school building at an institution of higher education. So that comes the penalty from one year to five years with $5,000 fine or both. So you've been talking a lot about enhanced penalties this morning so imagine that doesn't need a lot more explanation. And then the last change that the bill makes is down at the bottom of page two and subdivision F. I referenced earlier that this subdivision provides an affirmative defense that a defendant can raise to a charge under the section that they didn't have the ability to carry out the threat. So what this would do is it would instead make the fact that the defendant didn't have the ability to carry out the threat, rather than removing criminal liability for that, if the person was able to successfully introduce that evidence as an affirmative defense, it would instead make it a mitigating factor of sentencing. So essentially what with that change, effectively that change would really say this doesn't remove criminal liability, but it does. It does maybe require a little bit less of a penalty if the person didn't have the ability to carry out the threat. And that that's it to the changes made by each 302. Great. Thank you friend on line 18 and in F should that be the word that should that be struck out as well. Yeah, it should. Okay, thank you. Good catch. Great, thanks. So, okay, any questions about the language and 302 before we take a break. No. Great. Great. Thank you. So, let's take a 15 minute break please. And I'll be back here.


Hey guys she bear 1,000 here Today we are going to try some exotic beef jerky Stay tuned. Okay guys We got some beef jerky here. It's not I don't know. Yeah We'll call it a challenge, but it's not so much a challenge as it is kind of a taste test We're going to try three different jerkies We have got Alligator jerky We have got Ostrich jerky Well that camera don't focus anyways, and we've got what's this one lungy Kangaroo this is alligator too, but this is for eating pleasure. I love getting me now all these you know my guess is Now I have eighties before like the actual meat but It's it's got beef with it. So my guess is it's just going to taste like beef jerky. I don't know so anyway We're gonna open these up and try Yeah, all right. What do you want to try first? You want to try the gator first? Yeah. Yeah, okay. We're gonna try the alligator Wow first The long week guys But we got three days off. It is it Tis Friday this weekend. I'm gonna upload a bunch of videos Because we're not going anywhere because it's supposed to what? Yeah, well, yeah Here in Florida, we're having storms and rain pretty much Well off and on all week this week and all last week every single day Didn't get nothing done Come on Gator open up. I think a they're not monkey.   Right, why do I have to be first? You don't have to be is do it Oh It's jerky What part of the alligator is that? I his anus. I don't know Uh, like I said so far Really kind of just tastes like beef jerky to me It's thicker than the other stuff. Oh, and it's spicy But it's very good. What do you want to try next? Oh, I haven't finished this one yet What do you want to try next and I'll get it open But it's very good though. I mean it's delicious, but yeah, it is good. It's thicker though. What we're doing now You pick I picked that one. No, you pick this is it's your turn.  I want the heck I'd lose anyways. Oh kangaroo. I guess you want to try the kangaroo Yeah, I have eight real kangaroo before Yes, is it good? Yes, very good. Yeah, and I have a um Ostrich as well Well, I've ate ostrich burger but Oh, yeah, yeah Spensive. Yes. Yeah, but It's supposed to be good for you But I've ate a lot of different kinds of meats, you know being from Ohio and a hunter I used to go to a lot of wild gene um Cooks, you know cook out of the wild gene feast. I have a skunk Skunk is actually very very good Skunk is very good Of course, I didn't know what I was eating till I had to eat it But there's no denying. Yes, it was very good Speaker Why are you whispering? I want to make sure it's on Okay Yay Now this one's got a little different smell to it You go first Here? Really? Yeah, because you never do challenges Oh Come on baby bite it. It's turkey Well, there's no flavor to it It's got a flavor. It's good Um, it'll get better. I think even though it's a little spicy for me.  It's delicious, but I can't really taste kangaroo Easy, come on So we got The ostrich left it does after a while that has a good flavor. It takes a bit though It's good. Yeah, I just can't taste the The um Kangaroo meat in it. No It's mixed with beef. So I think the beef is overtaking it Is that what it is?  He likes it. He's like Mikey. He likes everything. We're going to do Another one maybe And we're going to do the uh saltine one tonight Yeah, what is it uh, six saltines and 60 seconds, I think Yeah, something like that It'll be tough. All right, I'll do this one first Got a twang to it. It's got well each one of them's got a different smell, but That's got more of a weird smell than the other two That's hard really hard. Yeah It's jerky Marty Turkey babe, but It tastes like beef jerky to me Don't get me wrong. They were delicious, but Because they they have different flavors. Yes, but they just taste like different flavors of beef jerky In my opinion, what do you think? Can you taste the ostrich? Well, you've never had ostrich. No It does taste weird You don't like it? No, I like it. I like the other two. Oh my god I'm gonna try the Gator again That's got a weird taste to it. I like it. I don't want it for that much. I'm gator. I know it So guys Quick little upload for you If we get it's supposed to be decent tomorrow, isn't it? Like yeah, they're saying it if you're gonna do anything do it tomorrow because Sunday Monday or Right, because we got that storm coming in But they're thinking that's going to the west coast, right? Yeah, like up into like Texas or something. Yeah, somewhere over there So anyway, there's that one. It was Snickers, wasn't it? Oh, she's behind the tv set Her catch behind the tv set. Okay All right guys, stay tuned for our next one, which will be the uh saltine challenge. We'll do that one Fine with me. Maybe I'll do a little vlogging tomorrow. I'm back here in the door So maybe I'll do a little vlogging tomorrow and I'll have her in it I keep looking at the screen instead of the damn camera. Me too. Yeah, it's a habit I mean once I'm in the frame. I don't I don't even why I need that screen flip this way. You don't And that would stop well a lot of it is because you know of all the technical difficulties I've had I want to make sure it red light still blinking up there. Remember, I've had this This camera here shut off just for no reason. Yeah full charge battery Yeah a lot of problems. So I'm gonna put this on charger. We'll get the saltine thing ready and I'll look it up and make sure to see I think it's six saltines in 60 seconds If it is that's gonna suck. We've all ate crackers before man. I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it I don't think I can do that if I choke, you know how to save me Yes, I do Call 911 Really? No, seriously.  Yeah, something bad happens if this you won't be seeing it anyway, so You better be nice to me I brought you food She did I've been craving doritos and french onion dip for like two weeks never heard of it You never heard of which one Not putting them together never heard of it Maybe separate. Well, I got to do a video on that guys. Let's know in the comments below. All right. Thanks for watching guys We appreciate it and uh Stay tuned for our next one saltine challenge. All right. See you guys later. Shea bear. I'm gone Monkey's out monkey's out. Bye. Bye guys. Bye


It's Allah who has created death and life to test which of you is good and deeds. Yeah, if you wouldn't have any good and evil, where would be the test? Of course, if you wouldn't have different belief systems, different religions, different political ideologies, war and peace, where would be the test? There would be nothing, everything would be easy, peasy, it would be already paradise.


Hey Classic Replay fans, I just wanted to share this moment with you all, it's a collector vision Phoenix. I've waited since February for this and so here goes, pair of scissors always come in handy so let's cut through this. I probably should have done this beforehand so apologies in advance Don't think much of the box design, let's hope there's something better, more special inside. Just one more to go there, very very exciting. I've kind of got the microphone set up in a weird place and the camera so apologies. Here we go, let's have a look. Well that was the actual box unfortunately. So look you've got a HDMI cable, a Phoenix memory card, well Phoenix branded memory card which is pretty cool and I think that says two gig, don't know if you can see that two gig for the memory card. We've got the manual, the arcade quality video game system. Now it does show a controller on there but there isn't actually one with it, just show you that, what you can, how you set it up, where the controller goes, you can use the original controller as well but you can also use your favorite SNES controller also I'm led to believe so and there's a variety of games that come with it on the SD card and then all the instructions on how to play them but look at this, tiny little thing, sorry I'm really excited. Can you see that? Hopefully you can see that, the camera's not, the light's not the best but you've got controller one, controller two and the logo at the front there and then the model number, this is 951 so they've sold quite a few. So you've got an expansion slot on the back, I'm not sure what that's for, you've got expansion slot, you've got HDMI and then obviously you power in and then that's for your Super Nintendo controller I think on the side there but don't quote me on that, I was a Sega Mega Drive fanboy. So you can plug apparently a keyboard, a PS2 keyboard into it, wow I've never seen that before in a console and then the SD card goes in the front there, I don't know if you can see that, just goes in the front there. So yeah really impressed, really compact, it plays games as well, you can plug the cartridges in there. So let's get on and see what these games are about and let's also play some, let's load some onto the SD card and see how we get on. So I just wanted to do a little re-edit at the end of that video and I'll show you why. As I was putting the console back in the box, look what was in the box, look what I found. So if you see that, Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death. So and I think this is from 2019, I know nothing about this game but so let's get this show started with Phoenix, nice little intro there. Now I'm using a really crappy gamepad, I don't know if you can see that, it's from the 1990s, well I don't think it's a crappy gamepad actually but most people think it is, it was for the ill-fated European Amstrad GX4000 console and if you've never heard about it, check it out, honestly there's some really good games on it, it's sold about 15,000 units so I'm not sure why this isn't starting, there we go, so let's have a quick look, well Atari 2600 apparently, yep just place the ROMs there so I'm going to do that later, that's another video, I think it's the same there, you can put Colecovision, the original game ROMs in there as well, only if you own them and the Phoenix games which is why I'm here, chess, that's yeah, right I saw a video of this, Mecha 8 and I must admit I really liked what I saw, so if you don't already know I'm a big massive shoot em up nut, mad for it, I like this, you've got normal veteran and destroyer, now most shoot em up games don't come with this, you just have to go in there and the programmer has already set the difficulty level and you don't just go into a boxing gym or a dojo and expect to face off with the best fighter in the club, you work your way up it's like levels and so having this I suspect I can get the family involved, the kids and then myself as well as I get used to the game I can step up in levels rather than just go in at bloody destroyer level, so despite everything I've just said let's go for veteran, published by team pixelboy, so emergency reminds me a little bit of chase HQ and Nancy, so really good so far, yep I'm here I'll pilot it for you, I've been piloting ships since I was eight years of age, yep, all right come on Metal Gear Solid, yep I like that these bastard aliens, come on, ooh and autofire as well, lovely, so many games admit autofire and then some games or some programmers think oh you can't include autofire because that's cheating, oh the box, one it saves the gamer, two it saves you bloody fingers, ooh never chase an upgrade and it's exactly what I'm doing, so I'll do that again, ooh I've got firing, spewing out two weapons there, lovely vertical scroll and everything seems really well detailed, fast moving, like the enemy sprites as well, they're simple but they do their job, the enemy fire is a bit psychedelic, you probably don't want to play this if you suffer from epilepsy, it's not too, doesn't seem too difficult, it's definitely no bullet hell shooter, which is not a bad thing in itself because I'm not in the mood for a stressful shooter, I just want to, it's been a hard week at work so I just want to take it, not saying this is leisurely in any way, I've still got a thing but I've got to talk and concentrate, whoa, very nice so far, what would be really, we'll top it off is if you've got an end of level boss as well but I suspect they will be able to fit that into a clicker game, these are bloody out, look at this, whoa, whoa, trying to stay between the beams, four beams of light that shoots down, there we go, I think, seems like I've such the, yeah I've such the pattern, this one should, oh bugger, game between, that's it, go on, the main protagonist sprite is a bit big and although it's detailed it's not coloured in, it seems monochrome, you don't, you hardly notice once you're in on the action and everything's visible, that's one of the big things so far I can take away from this, you can see everything coming so if you get hit it's your own bloody foals, I imagine with a bit of practice I'll whiz through this, no problem, look at that, lovely, I like the fact you've got the energy gorge as well and you can see the enemy gorge, ah so speed and power are the pickups, I should have read the manual, sorry and I've got the camera mounted in a stupid place again so I don't know where to put it, I just can't do the whole eye level thing, I need to get used to that, so this one it looks like he's not flying now, he's running across the landscape, there's little goblins, ships there, oh I need that power, I need that pick up because it's not having much of an impact when you fire on the enemies, what do people think of this game, are I so far, I think it's as good as pretty much anything I've played, good sound effects, nice music, spot effects, oh look at that, that's it, that's, this is it now, I like it, you've got this weapon, or this power, power increase, so what does that give me, I think you get only two is the maximum and then the rest just helps your energy when you pick it up because I think those help up your energy, so you get hit once by a certain type of enemy and it's back to single fire, it's another thing that I didn't realise but and be good if somebody could explain to me what can the calico vision display, how many colours can the calico vision display on screen at any one time, it seems to be, it seems to be quite a few colours here, maybe 16 colours or something and it's no slouch, I think it's, I think the console uses the z80 cpu which is different to the c64 and probably not too dissimilar to the amstrad cpc computer and the z-expection because they use they use that chip set as well but what, what graphics, graphic display does it have, is it, because it seems to be, it looks like it's got hardware sprites, has it got hardware sprites and hardware scroll, I don't know, so hopefully there's somebody out there who understands the hardware and can explain that to me, from what I've seen it can pretty much handle anything really, any type of arcade conversion, I mean look at zaxxon, that's absolutely brilliant I think that's better than the Commodore 64 version personally and although it doesn't look as good as the arcade version, okay it's just in here really struggling, I don't think I'm going to survive this, and I can't continue because I don't have the original calico vision controller where you can click that supposing button, so I need to order one of those but so far so good let's move on, anything the zombies in, that sounds good, let's have a look at that the mega cart, seems like this pixel boy has done quite a few, one player, I don't know what that means let's just go for that one, nice sprite, oh I like it, I've played lots of games like this back in the day, so I take it I've got to do something with that computer or telephone and rescue that woman, do these things fire back, steal that flask, what's that some sort of right okay, do you want to think what it reminds me of? I mean in theory, I mean everything looks like Gauntlet when it's top down but um but something different, controls aren't, don't feel that tight but it could be the controller I'm using as I'd expect, I don't want to miss anything, the enemy sprite there that he's, this must be the age of zombies, they're all zombies but I wouldn't have known they're zombies unless the game had the zombie in the title, yeah I like this, it's good, is that blood on the floor there, these computers are they all need taken out or do they need powering on, uh maybe they all need powering on to go back, I'm not going to do that, I wonder if shooting gets you know more, even more zombies come, is that yellow one it's a bit difficult to, it's good, atmosphere, oh he's got me, it's all right, I'm not sure I'd want to play it too long, it's probably work out what it is that I've got to do, much intelligence there, I just got to rescue people, see it just doesn't go down when you want it to, you know so they're a bit dumb that they didn't follow me, it's good, it's a big game, find out we're on our three lives, so in a supermarket or a school or a library or something, I don't like how you walk through the door and the zombies just there waiting for you, you have no choice but to even walk back or get hit, he hasn't followed me, somebody else there waiting to be rescued, quick say there, seems like there's lots of different floors, you die pretty quickly if you come into contact with them, oh is that it, am I free, oh no maybe I've got to, that's the way out but probably, but I've got a little bit more to do, I feel like I've been this way, I don't like to just flash through the games, I like to give them a good plague and I like the calico vision so much that I like to play the games, you have been this way, I remember that green light at the top, so I've probably got to map this, I've got one life left, I wish these games just held your hand a little bit more and told you where you had to go, it wouldn't hurt much just to put an arrow to say you've got to go this way, a map on the bottom of the screen, nobody wants to sit there mapping things these days, oh well let's move on then I'm obviously rubbish at that game, I like that sprite there, oh let's just quickly see what that's all about, oh let's play it too, so yeah this is emulating from the Phoenix hardware through a Elgato HD 60s, so we're actually capturing the game footage from the console, look at tank mission, very impressed with the sound, I won't be able to start this one because I don't have the joystick, apologies about that, I'll have to look on eBay later, let's have a look at Armageddon, 2011 wow, I love anything Missile Command, I even love the new one from Atari on the iPhone, where you use your finger, oh something's not right, it's not firing, it fired for the first shot but not, it hasn't fired since, let's see if it's any better this time, is it fires, fires for the first couple of shots and then doesn't fire, what's all that about, that's a shame, I obviously need the bloody original controller, I'm definitely going to play that one, I love anything Missile Command and that looked really good chess, so straight in, no messing, oh that's easy, normally on chess you've got to type in what square you want to go to, that's bloody easy, that's really good, I'm definitely going to play this, that is really good, I like it, I really do, yeah well I'm not going to bore you with chess but that looks like a really good version and there's a timer as well, so let's move on to the next one, not really into these light grid racing games, I think I know what it's going to be, player one versus player two, now I'm going to play the sleepy you, let's try that, like I said I'm not a fan of these games, I had quite a few back up back in the day and Tron was alright but I can take and leave it, the clips are a bit slow, oh you press the fire button it speeds up, there you go that's easy, I'm sure it'll increase in difficulty but it's probably more of a tomb battle game this, oh did I just warp from one area of the screen to the next, so let me try that again, so perhaps you do that coming down the other one and it looks like you can have four players, if you can that's a game changer especially for the family, because you really want to get your kids involved in this sort of stuff as well because like dad what are you playing, what are you doing, so we'll move on in the air from that one because like I said I'm not a fan, Mr. Turtle final, looks alright, okay I can only select, I wish they'd let you select up and down rather than press the button because that means you've been forced to use the original pad, I can't even select, but yeah right on to the next, I'd have paid bloody extra for the controller if they chucked it in, why not chuck the bloody thing in, the legend says that a beautiful princess was born to give happiness to a true knight, wow those days are gone, in with magical powers kidnapped the princess, taking her away to a denomic kingdom, princess quest 2012 and it's pixel boy again, there he is, keeping the calico vision alive, how platformer, can I jump hold on a sec, I recognise this, he's got some goblins, he even climbs the ladder like Arthur, oh lovely scroll, that's lovely, oh I can't jump, how do I jump, how do I jump over these things, oh I've got to get the controller, so anybody watching that's thinking about buying the phoenix, the collective vision phoenix, this is the big problem that you're going to come up against, if you don't have the original controller you're in trouble, as far as I can see, it'll work for some games but not for all, so that looks really good, that's definitely my sort of game and I'm absolutely gutsy that I can't play it, golden chalice, yeah that's it, why not let people select rather than bloody type of number, hold on a sec, what's this, Zelda, and I can't pick up the bastard kid because of the controller again, this is massive, this looks like it's massive, I've been chased, I've been pursued by the dragon, ah okay that looks good, sacred tribe developed by exceedy, see that and it's quite a recent one really, hold on Sydney Hunter, I've got this one, I'm not sure if it's the same one but I've got that, I like it so far so good, they've put the effort in, very Indiana Jones, even got the hat on, oh maybe Rick Dangerous, oh greeting stranger, we don't want to hurt you, our people are in trouble but we're keeping you here against your will, I will let you go if you carry out a death defying almost impossible mission for us, jump, I like this, this is good, what's going on there, that's quicksand, hold on let's just go back a sec, what was over here, so you've got to be pixel perfect, oh goodness, pointless going across there, anyhow it looks like it's a dead end across the quicksand, out that door, ah you are kidding me, you died, so I think this one's a different one, the one I've got is Sydney Hunter and the Caverns of Death, so maybe this is the second one, bonus, we'll have a look at that in a sec, don't seem to be able to press the button to continue, yes I'll help you come on, let me go, hurry up, I do like, I like the graphics, I like the style of the game, I'm not going to go back and try and get that diamond, probably got to get them all as well haven't I, just want to see a little bit about the game, oh he's changed colour, this is brilliant, this is right up my street, definitely my cup of tea this one, oh you bastard, wrong piece of spider, so I'm not going to be able to get past that guy am I, oh goodness sake, no, I'm not going that way, I think to go that way you've got to find a way to put the flames out first, jump across there, I couldn't do it, so I'm my trap now, so if you fall down there you're screwed, I don't know how to, you can climb down here, it feels a bit like Rick Dangerous, you know, are you bloody idiots, you can't just jump straight up in the air, right I'm going to play that one a lot, so let's move on to the next, very impressed so far, Spunky No Resale, what a Kiwi, Spunky Supercar, okay I like racing games, so this is a remake, oh here we go, I've got to press the bloody number one, it's really pissing me off this, it's the only negative so far, the only negative I can think of, play Tank Mission, there we go again, I think I tried that didn't I, it wasn't, it didn't work, all right let's try this one then, let's try a real real life cartridge, so we turn the power off, plug it in, back on, deep in the waters of the South Pacific lies the mysterious Sundar Island, love these little intros, I'm not going to wait for that boat, so let's press the fire button, there he is again Sydney, old Sydney Hunter, a geologist and an adventurer, let's go Sydney, come on then, that looked nice, I'm a massive fan of the 8-bit graphics on the Colecovision, really do like them, oh it's a bit, the shades of Kirby, oh look at that Indiana Jones, fingers crossed the boulder is going to chase us, I mean this is the Colecovision just showing off now, it's really good, this is a great 8-bit, let's just see what the options are, so just easy and hard okay, so I'm going to go for easy on this just, so this is a 2019 game, I'm really chuffed that I've got this, it came as a pack in a free game, so there's a password system as well, so that's good, all right it's already better than the other game because the problem with the other game you jumped and you couldn't change direction, this you can do, you can change direction, so somebody somewhere must have complained and they fixed that, let's see if I can climb up here, yeah, oh no, no, no, so this very much reminds me of Rick Dangerous and I see it got the gold, just got to get used to it, that water rising, lava, ah that thing's lifted up so I can get through, brilliant game, I'm looking forward to this and if you haven't played it you've got to get it, it's really good, let's see if I can play another section and I like the password system because that means I don't have to go back, oh brilliant game, are you bastard, oh well I'm going to play that one another time, so that's it really, I just wanted to show my, a new prized possession of mine which just happens to be this wonderful Collector Vision Phoenix console, it's a lot smaller than I thought it would be, I kind of thought it would be like the old one, you know VHS shape and size but I'm still pleased with it, I think it's good, in fact I prefer that it's this size because I can just pop it on the shelf next to all my other consoles, you know I can fit it on there and play it through the big TV, so I can't think of any negatives other than the controller, why didn't one come with it, I mean it was expensive enough, but hopefully they're affordable enough that I can source one off eBay and happy days, so until next time, bye!


I know for a fact that this training will benefit future astronauts down the road. I'm currently serving as a chief astronaut. My hope is over the next few years that we get at least a dozen of our astronauts through here because this will be the critical training as we start to build the foundations of landing on the Moon. One of the things we're taking away is how to use those vertical flight cues, especially in a degraded visual environment, to help out our crewmates who are on the controls or to be on the controls ourselves. When we land on the Moon, we expect a really different terrain than anything we're used to on the ground. So we're going to have to be ready to react. As a career jet pilot, when you fly a helicopter, there's a lot more going on. You're a lot closer to the ground. Our goal was for me to fly the entire 2.0, which I did, and that was an awesome feeling. When I first started, I couldn't even imagine doing it straight for 30 seconds. When we land on the Moon, we're landing on unprepared surfaces, most likely coming down vertically to the final touchdown. So if you want to learn that sort of flying, where do you go? You go to Fort Rocker, Alabama. You train with the Vast. You train with the Army aviators here.


Another thing I want to bring up is luggage. This is my piece of luggage. Anyway, it's a pretty big thing. But as soon as I get to the airport, I can check it in and I don't have to think about it anymore. And I don't get, I don't know, because I keep seeing people and in fact I've read on blogs online, on travel blogs, people like, oh, I'd rather give up a kidney than have to check my luggage in. I don't like checking my luggage in. I don't get it. Why? It's like the extra five minutes you have to wait for luggage, you know, really that important? I don't know. I don't get it. I'm checking this in. That way I don't have to deal with it. I just have my backpack that I'm going to be wearing. I try to put as little in it as possible. Actually, I think I just thought of the main complaint people will have is that the luggage could get stolen.  It's happened twice. Once with Alitalia and once with Air France. But now what I do is I have this cool thing, which I got as a present, called Track Dot. I'm not sure if you can see that. Probably not. You put it in your luggage and turn on the sensor and then you have an app on your phone and it basically says which airport your luggage is in. I'd much rather put that in my luggage and not have to deal with it, once again, rather than just looking at a little place with me.  I want to be as mobile as possible. I realize I should probably mention something about this car as well. Because when I came here, I didn't know how long I'd be here, if I'd be here indefinitely, or just a few months. It turned out to be like eight months total. So I didn't know what to do for a car because you need a car here. Anyway, I ended up renting a car. I found it on Kayak.com and from Alpensa they were renting these cars out for eight euros a day, which is like nine bucks a day. Which is awesome. So they had a cap of like, I think, two or three weeks and so, you know, every three weeks I would go return it and then the same day pick up a new one because they kept having this deal, three or four weeks, something like that. And so anyway, definitely check out Kayak.com if you're renting, especially from Italy because I've seen these deals in a couple places in Italy, usually airports. This is the room. So simple, no frills except for that weird painting up there. And yeah. So I'm here at the hotel except as any good translator can tell you, I'm stuck here doing work because I got assigned another job and in fact I've got two jobs to do the day after I land, I guess, but you know, I'm landing kind of late so I need to work on those. But I'm treating myself. I have an overpriced focaccia from downstairs and some local brew from Milan, Camarillo, actually not half bad. And now I'm going to get some work done. Also for some reason, the space in front of the seat that has all the magazines and everything. Hi, it's the next day and I'm here in Charleston, which you can't see behind me because it's too sunny, so it's kind of backlit. But I wanted to film a bit more of the trip itself, but well, on the plane I slept most of the way. Then when you get through security, you have these big science aid, no photography, no cell phone, blah, blah, blah, even though a lot of people weren't taking pictures, but I felt like I shouldn't. And then I saw my family, my parents are here, my wife and my sister even. And so I just wanted to talk to them and catch up with them and not have to film and do all that. So anyway, then I slept very well and I woke up and I'd be getting work done and it's already 5 p.m. over the next day. And yeah, so that was my travel. Just wanted to give you a brief account of how I travel as a freelancer because again, I do think it's quite different from how many other people travel. I hope you found some of that useful and informative and if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. Otherwise, I'll talk to you in the next video. Bye. Thanks.


Okay, so again, this is just like the last problem except this is an anion instead of a cation. Okay? So for the following symbol, we'll get the atomic number, et cetera, et cetera. So first, we have phosphorus. So with no the atomic number, we just look at the periodic table, you'll always have one. Right? We look up there, it says it's 15. Right? That's the atomic number of phosphorus. Okay? The mass number is given to us here is 32. Okay? The number of protons equals the atomic number. Okay? So the number of protons is going to be 15. The number of neutrons is the mass number minus the number of protons. Okay? So that's going to be, in this case, 17. The number of electrons. So now we've got to look at this particular symbol and it's got a charge associated with it. Okay? With that charge, since it's a 3 minus, we know that 3 electrons have been added to the neutral atom. Okay? So the neutral atom should have the same number of protons as electrons. So if that's the case, the neutral atom has 15 electrons. We add 3 to that. Right? We're going to get 18 electrons. Okay? Now we look at the number of valence electrons. Well in this case, phosphorus is here. Right? Normally it has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 valence electrons, but we've done a lot to it. Added 3 more. Right? So we go 1, 2, 3. So now it has the argon configuration or 8 valence electrons. Okay? We've got 8 valence electrons there. Okay? And then to determine how many inner electrons you have, you don't count the valence shell, but you count everything else. Right? So you're going to take the number of electrons, subtract the number of electrons from the valence shell, and you get the number of inner electrons. Okay? Does that make sense?


Well, tonight was Super Tuesday 3, and the results are not good. It was a clean sweep for Joe Biden. Three states voted, Florida, Arizona, and Illinois, and Joe Biden won all three handily. In the state of Florida, with 98% of precincts reporting, Joe Biden won with 61, almost 62% of the vote overall, and Bernie Sanders got just under 23% when it comes to Illinois. Joe Biden won with 59% of the vote, Bernie got 36%, and in the state of Arizona, it was called almost immediately for Joe Biden once the polls closed. He is with 56% of precincts reporting at the time I record this video, winning with 42.6% to Bernie's 30.2%. By the time you see this, we'll likely have 90 to 100% of precincts reporting, but I don't really expect Joe Biden's lead to shrink. Now going into Super Tuesday 3, there were a couple of things that we were looking at with hopes that that would maybe shift the dynamic of this race, because this has been an incredibly volatile primary process. The first failed. So that was the Democratic debate on Sunday. Joe Biden was able to keep it together long enough for two hours to at least seem as if he's not in complete cognitive decline, even though he showed that at previous debates, but he held his own. And I don't think Bernie was aggressive enough. I think that at the end of the day, it wasn't enough to move the needle. So the second thing that could have possibly changed the dynamics of this race was the global pandemic that we're all facing. At every single state so far where the vote took place, exit polls showed that people support Medicare for all, regardless if they were voting for Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. I think that, given how important healthcare is, especially now, people would maybe wake up and opt for Bernie Sanders and not vote against their own self-interest. That wasn't the case. They still voted for Joe Biden. And before I start to talk about what we need to start thinking about going forward, I do want to get to some additional numbers. Because once again, Medicare for all was a winner. In Illinois, 59% of voters supported. In Florida, 55% of voters supported. In Arizona, 58% of voters supported. So far in every single state, Medicare for all is winning by large margins. But yet, people are still voting for the candidate who is openly hostile towards it and said he would veto it. So it's completely nonsensical and people are now knowingly voting against their own self-interest, but they're clearly making this decision out of what they believe to be necessity. They think Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump. That's why they're opting for him over Bernie Sanders. Now one poll that I found absolutely nonsensical is this exit poll from Florida where it shows that when it comes to who voters trust to handle social security, Joe Biden is winning this with 59%. So it really doesn't matter that there are numerous video tapes of Joe Biden saying he wants to cut social security. Voters in Florida still think he's the best to handle social security. Incredible. Now one thing that I find interesting is that Bernie Sanders over the last month has been beaten over the head with this attack because he apparently praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro even though he just praised their education and healthcare system. And they claimed that this would hurt him among Cuban Americans, but he actually won over Cuban Americans by a percentage point over Joe Biden. And I just found that kind of funny. So what's happening now is the same thing basically that happened in 2004. You had a Democratic Party base that was so anxious, so terrified at the prospect of the Republican incumbent being re-elected that they just voted for the first person who seemed to have momentum and Bernie had the momentum at first. But having Obama pull the strings behind the scenes to get everyone else to drop out and endorse Joe Biden, that really made a substantial difference. The voters who were backing Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and also Elizabeth Warren seemed to opt for Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders and here we are. Now as the results come in, dropout Bernie is trending on Twitter. So it's funny because all of these people are very giddy. They're kind of dancing on Bernie Sanders' political grave, so to speak. But have fun beating Donald Trump without Bernie Sanders supporters because now is the time for unity, as you all like to say. And you're getting what you wanted, you're winning. So what you have to do now is try to convince people who are not going to be voting for Joe Biden, who are going to stay home to get on your team. And gloating like this is not a good idea. You should be reaching out saying, look, we'll work towards Medicare for all in the future doing anything, right? Because you saw what happened when you ran a centrist back in 2016, a centrist lost to Donald Trump. Now the economy is crashing. Stock market is falling. We're facing a global pandemic. So if that doesn't change, Donald Trump could very well be defeated by Joe Biden. And I want to think through the consequences of that and what we should do as a left movement going forward. But I don't just want to be 100% down. There are two pieces of really good news. The first is that Marine Newman defeated Dan Lipinski in Illinois. She ran before, but she lost. And now she beat him. He is an anti-choice, anti-gay, conservative Democrat that the establishment supported over her who's a justice Democrat and she just beat him. That is phenomenal news. I don't know how good of a progressive she's going to be. Maybe she'll be an AOC. Maybe she'll be an IANA Presley, a more warrant type Democrat. Don't know, but I do know that that is a drastic improvement over basically a Republican in Dan Lipinski. Now, I don't know if Anthony Clark won his primary. So we're waiting on that. But overall, let's kind of talk through the implications of this and what the left should do going forward. There's a lot of people talking about leaving the Democratic Party. And I intend to do that. I had to re-register as a Democrat in 2019 after dem exiting in 2016 because I live in a closed primary state. So I can't vote for Bernie Sanders in Oregon if I don't register as a Democrat. However, after I cast my vote for Bernie, I will promptly re-register as an independent because I don't identify with the Democratic Party. So there are people talking about dem exit. There are people talking about Biden possibly picking a progressive VP to woo Bernie Sanders supporters. I don't think he's going to do that because it's Joe Biden. So I feel like that's almost out of the question. We have people floating the idea of creating a third party. And I think that that's something that we always should have had on the table. I was in support of the draft Bernie movement back in 2017 and 2018, I believe, created by Nick Branham. But with that being said, I want people to think pragmatically, for lack of a better word, about having a third party. Because if you're going to have a third party, you don't want it to just eat away votes from the Democratic Party. I mean, certainly that's important for having leverage. But I want a third party that can win. And I don't just want a third party. I want five to six parties. I think that's a pretty good number to really represent the range of ideologies in the United States. And the way that you do that is very simply, you call on your representatives to support HR 4000, which changes us from winner take all to proportional representation, it increases the district magnitude from one to two or three. Which means rather than us just having one representative, we have two to three. Which means that the results will be more proportional. Because if you have two people going up against each other, a corporate Democrat and a progressive, for example, maybe they both get elected to Congress. So that increases automatically the number of progressives in Congress. That's important. On top of that, it institutes nationwide ranked choice voting. That's something that absolutely is crucial if we want a viable third party. And we do. We want green party members in Congress. We want socialists in Congress, right? And in Maine, you see a very competitive race with a progressive Democrat. There's a corporate Democrat, but also a green party member. So ranked choice voting would do wonders. And even if it doesn't get passed through legislation like HR 4000, ranked choice voting is something that at the state level, you can try to get on the ballot, right? Have a vote on it. A statewide referendum, if that's available in your state as an option. It's tough. You have to collect signatures, put in the work. But it is something that I think is warranted. I certainly don't do that during self quarantine, of course. But the thing about having a third party or a fourth party is that it may solve some of our issues. But I want people to really think broader because our system is a very, very ruthless and vicious capitalist system. So we might be temporarily satisfied with a viable third party alternative. But capitalism is like a virus. So it eventually will destroy that third party and make it a corporate party as well. So you really have to be fighting to reduce the influence of capitalism as much as you possibly can. And that's so hard to achieve when we don't have political power. So we have to focus on electoral politics. But really, I think that the thing that gives me hope is not just this hyper focus on electoral politics, not the prospect of a third party and attacking capitalism head on and trying to teach people about how capitalism is impacting their lives in a very negative way. I think that we need to really harness the power of grassroots organizing. And I think that that's really the only way that we can influence electoral politics until we get power. Because we can't just keep waiting every four or two years to have elections and then we do nothing. We need to have action that is taken immediately. Because we don't have much time left to act on climate change. Thousands of people die every single year because they don't have health care. So I want to see like a nationwide mobilized effort like Occupy. Like, we can't just wait for elections. We have to demand now, regardless of who's president, regardless of the makeup of Congress, action. We need a really simple message. A student debt cancellation, Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, something that is going to be clear, concise and communicated to people. It's based off of popular policy positions. The thing about Occupy is that it was difficult to get it to last because there was no leadership and movements need leaders. That's, I think, an unfortunate fact of reality. But on top of that, the media, it smeared Occupy because it claimed that it didn't have any underlying goals. So we need to be clear and have underlying goals. But we do have to expect the media to be equally hostile to whatever movement emerges out of this, if that is, in fact, something that happens. But we have to take on the media as well, protest the media. Like, you've got to understand that at every single town hall, we should be occupying these town halls, protesting these town halls, demanding Medicare for All. If we need to, we should have a general strike to get the policies that we need to help working-class Americans. Like, we don't have time to wait for the next four to eight years to try to get someone who's progressive that may lose in a Democratic primary or maybe a fake progressive like Barack Obama. We don't have time to try to build up some type of new organization. Like, we need action right now. It can't wait. So that's why I think all this grassroots power that manifested in 2016 and I think reemerged or at least came back together in 2019 and 2020, that needs to be harnessed in a new way to just put constant pressure on both Democrats and Republicans and never stop organizing, getting people out to vote. You know, these are just things that I'm kind of throwing out there, right? But I think that one thing that's clear is regardless of what happens, you know, you shouldn't give up. You shouldn't give up. And trust me, I know how easy it is to want to give up. There are times where I feel like I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. It's difficult to not be blackpilled, you know, because the system just beats you down and it just feels like every single thing we do is hopeless, like trying to spread the word about Joe Biden's record on Social Security and Floridian's think that he's better to deal with Social Security. So it's just, it's so frustrating and I feel your pain. I feel you. I live it with you, right? I get it. And on top of that, I'm dealing with my own issues currently, you know, besides this election. We're all dealing with COVID-19. So I get how easy it is and how desirable it seems to just check out of politics, but you have to keep fighting. And I don't necessarily know how to fight going forward, to be honest. I don't know what that entails. I think some type of organization would really be important, some type of movement, you know, a wide, massive movement that is a rainbow coalition, you know, that is of all working class people, of all colors and, you know, origins. I think that's important. I don't know how we get there. I don't know who organizes it. There's a lot of things that we have to do. But on top of that, I also think that this is a time of introspection. I think that we have to try to figure out what we did wrong in this election cycle, maybe the amount of things that we can control.  You know, the media is always going to hate us. So that's something that we can't control. Maybe we need a better media strategy, though. But the things that we could control, what could we do better? Did Bernie Sanders campaign do enough to reach out to older black voters? That's where he was lacking. That this was something that his campaign needed to address back in 2016. I don't think that in 2016 he did enough. And in 2020, clearly he didn't do enough because he didn't win them over. So there's a lot of things that we have to think about. What did we do right? What did we do wrong? Because I don't think we're perfect. You're never going to run a perfect campaign. We're never going to be a perfect movement. So it's not it's not going to be, you know, helpful for us to just say, well, you know, we just we got beat by the establishment. That's true. But we also have to try to figure out what we could do differently.  Bernie Bros. That's not like we have to be realistic about what actually we could control it no matter what we would be labeled Bernie Bros. I think that's out of our control no matter what the media is going to paint Bernie Sanders movement as disproportionately white straight males. So there are things that we have to do better in the future. And I don't know when the next progressive champion is going to come along. You know, the problem and I heard Jamie of a majority report and the Michael Brooks show made this fantastic point that left wing movements around the world, they have an issue with succession. Like they have leaders, but these leaders oftentimes are older and there's nobody else really that can take their place. Like after Bernie, who's the next progressive champion? AOC is very young. I don't think she's going to want to run. I don't know that she, you know, is going to be able to do what Bernie Sanders did. You know, she has to work on foreign policy. So who's next? Is it Elizabeth Warren?  She revealed herself. So we have to think about succession. We have to think about our next steps going forward. But one thing that I just want to stress overall is that you stay engaged in the process and you don't check out of politics as difficult as it may seem. If you check out, then all hope is gone. And so long as there are people willing to fight, then I think that there's something to be hopeful for. There's something to be hopeful for because we have made some huge gains. I mean, it sucks that we're not getting a nominee who supports Medicare for All, but the fact that we convinced everyone in four years to support Medicare for All, that really is important, you know, because it shows that we have been effective at messaging. So we just have to figure out what to do differently. And I'm not I'm not suggesting that Bernie should drop out. I have a separate video coming tomorrow where I talk about why he shouldn't drop out because he has to stay in the race for very specific reasons. He has leverage and political capital and he needs to spend that wisely. But I just think that, you know, it's very obvious I'm not going to sugar coat it. Bernie can't really win at this point unless something giant happens that is completely unforeseen. We're on a trajectory to where Joe Biden is basically going to be the nominee and the Democratic voting base just wants to coordinate someone who can beat Donald Trump in their view. Can he beat Donald Trump? Generally speaking, no. But if there's like a huge recession, not good for the sitting president. So Joe Biden might just have the luckiest timing ever, right? Where you're running against an incumbent and a demoralized and fearful Democratic base. And there is this huge crash. Now, the scary part with the economy, by the way, the scary part about this is that Joe Biden is not fit to deal with this economic downturn. He's not fit to deal with a global pandemic. Is he better than Donald Trump? Yes. And certainly if he's the nominee, I'll be rooting against Donald Trump. But I won't be rooting for Joe Biden. I hope he beats Donald Trump. But I mean, if he beats Donald Trump, we may be better off for four years. But long term, we're not going to be better off, right? He takes control of the Democratic Party apparatus. You know, once again, centrists are in control and it doesn't matter if he is the nominee and then loses to Donald Trump, centrists will still say a centrist is the most delectable. The media will still push that. So, you know, I don't know what we do as a movement going forward. But the one thing that I do want people to take away is that you can't give up as long as you're still willing to fight in some way, no matter what that way is. Maybe we don't know yet, maybe it's not clear right away. But so long as you are committed to fight, then there is still hope. But once we say we're not going to fight, once we say we're giving up, once we say we're all black peeled, then the hope diminishes.  And I think that you should take some time to, you know, give yourself a little bit of a break. Animal Crossing is coming out on Friday. Play that. Just, you know, distract yourself if you need to, because we have so much on our plates. The deck is stacked against us. And I get how easy it is to be demoralized and part of me wants to give up a big part of me wants to give up. But I know in the back of my mind that that's something that. I can't do. We don't have a choice. We don't have a choice. We have to continue to fight for what's right in whatever capacity. Going forward, that gets us change and maybe we keep losing. But as long as we keep fighting, then that's just that's something that holds us all together and makes us stronger.  I get it. It absolutely is depressing. I know that a lot of you are feeling this, but you're not alone. We're all experiencing the disappointment together. We're all feeling incredibly demoralized. I mean, I'm grieving Bernie Sanders campaign and my dad at the same time. He just passed away two weeks ago as of today. So times are tough. You know, we can't leave our houses because of self quarantine. It's so easy to give up right now. But just if there's any fight left in you at all, even just the tiniest bit, 0.01 percent. Hang on to that. Hang on to that little fight. I don't care what it is, what, how, which way you want to fight. Just hang on to it because that's the only thing that we have going for us going forward. And I'll leave that there. Just hang in there. That's all I can say.