Adam Radly Adam Radly

The Florida government has passed a new bill that bans schools from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity. Is this a good idea? The argument behind it is that it allows parents to work through these issues with their kids rather than letting them unfold in school where apparently something might go wrong.

If you could vote directly on this policy to ban schools from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation, would you vote for it or against it?

Okay, what does this bill actually propose to do? According to this article from NPR:

The bill, which some opponents have called "Don't Say Gay," was signed by DeSantis on Monday. It reads, "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards."

Why do the people behind the bill think it's a good idea?

Supporters of the legislation say it's meant to allow parents to determine when and in what way to introduce LGBTQ topics to their children. It also gives parents an option to sue a school district if the policy is violated.

What does Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis have to say about it?

During a press conference ahead of signing the law, DeSantis said teaching kindergarten-aged kids that "they can be whatever they want to be" was "inappropriate" for children.

He said, "It's not something that's appropriate for any place, but especially not in Florida."

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/florida-dont-say-gay-yes-no/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. 

The Biden administration has announced a plan to freeze federal student loan payments until Aug. 31. The existing moratorium was created to allow millions of Americans to postpone payments during the coronavirus pandemic. Is it the right move?

If you could vote directly on this policy to pause student loan repayments until August, would you vote for it or against it?

If it happens, it will be the sixth time the loan repayment freeze has been extended since it began in March 2020. Okay, so how many people will be impacted by this policy? According to this article from ABC News:

"The action applies to more than 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student debt held by the federal government, according to the latest data from the Education Department."

"Nearly 37 million borrowers have saved about $195 billion from the moratorium through April 2022, according to a report released last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

"The same report also found that student loan borrowers who didn’t benefit from the extended moratorium had 33% higher rates of delinquency on other debt."

One way to figure out whether this policy is even required is to look at the number of defaults on student loans.

"That includes more than 7 million borrowers who have defaulted on student loans, meaning they are at least 270 days late on payments."

So how will this work specifically?

"Borrowers will not be asked to make payments until after Aug. 31, and interest rates are expected to remain at 0% during that period."

So is this just about the pandemic or is this part of a push to eliminate student debt?

"Sen. Patty Murray said more time is needed to help Americans prepare for repayment and to rethink the government’s existing system for repaying student debt."

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/extend-student-loan-pause-to-august-yes-no/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. 

Russia has been suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council after invading Ukraine and, as far as I'm concerned, committing multiple war crimes in Ukraine. As you can tell from what I just said, none of this is surprising but I was surprised to see the number of countries that voted against the resolution or decided to abstain. Did your country vote in favor of the resolution to suspend Russia, or against it or did it abstain and, if you vote on it directly, how would you vote?

So what was the final vote and what is the criteria for suspending a country from the UN Human Rights Council? According to this article from the Guardian:

"At a meeting of the UN general assembly on Thursday, 93 members voted in favor of the diplomatic rebuke while 24 were against and 58 abstained."

"This met the required threshold of a two-thirds majority of the assembly members that vote yes or no, with abstentions not counting in the calculation."

This is what Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations had to say after the vote

“War criminals have no place in UN bodies aimed at protecting human rights,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted in response. “Grateful to all member states which … chose the right side of history.”

Okay, how did this process of suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council get started?

"The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, had launched the effort to suspend Russia from the 47-member human rights council with the world still recoiling from images of mass graves and corpses strewn in the streets of Bucha following Russian soldiers’ retreat."

Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s UN ambassador, introducing the resolution before the 193 members of the general assembly, said Russia has committed “horrific human rights violations and abuses that would be equated to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/what-should-the-criteria-be-for-suspending-nations-from-the-unhcr/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. 

Congress has decided to resume using earmarks. It was always known as "pork" or "pork-barrel spending". The reason it was known by those names is that it involved spending taxpayer money on small, low-priority projects that only matter to one politician. Why was it used in the first place? Why was it eliminated? And why has it made a comeback? 

If you could vote directly on this policy to resume using earmarks in Congress, would you vote for it or against it? 

So what is an earmark? According to this article from CNN:

"Member-directed spending" is just a fancy name for earmarks -- a system by which federal spending in a certain district or state can be appended to legislation as a sweetener for the members of Congress representing those areas.

"Earmarks had long been part of the legislative process as a way to grease the wheel of bill-passing."

"How did it "grease the wheel of bill passing"?  In simple terms, if a particular politician didn't want to vote for a bill, they could be convinced to change their minds by including some additional funding for some small project in their jurisdiction. How and when did this start to change?"

"But beginning in earnest with Arizona Sen. John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, earmarking began to be regarded as a bad thing. McCain was a longtime opponent of earmarks -- known derisively as "pork" to Beltway insiders -- and would regularly call out what he believed to be over-the-top pet projects inserted into bills by lawmakers."

McCain made a big deal out of in his run for President. That's when everybody outside of politics became aware of it and they didn't like it.

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/how-can-we-improve-the-rules-for-the-use-of-earmarks/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced legislation in Congress that would effectively ban large technology mergers. It's called the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act (PAMA).

The simplified interpretation of this legislation is that it would break anything that is big and it would prevent anything from becoming big in the future. Will this solve any real issues? Will it cause more problems than it solves?

If you could vote directly on this policy, would you vote for it or against it?

Before getting into any detail, let's just try to understand where Senator Warren is coming from. I'm going to refer to articles from Vox and Engadget.

Engadget: Her new bill, the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act, doesn’t just break up Big Tech: It breaks up Big Everything, and it prevents companies from getting too big in the future. It would also fundamentally change how agencies evaluate and block proposed mergers, a process that currently gives companies a lot of power and agencies relatively little. Warren says the bill crystallizes her vision for how the government can stop industry consolidation that has broken America’s markets, hurt its economy, and threatening its democracy.

As far as I can tell there seems to be an underlying philosophy to break up anything that's big and prevent companies from getting big in the first place. Okay, so, what is this bill proposing to actually do? 

Engadget: The Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act (PAMA) would make it illegal to pursue "prohibited mergers," including those worth more than $5 billion or which provide market shares beyond 25 percent for employers and 33 percent for sellers.

So the assumption here is that merges that meet this criteria are anti-competitive.

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/ban-tech-mergers-over-5-billion-yes-no/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. 



If you're new to all of this, check out the other videos in my channel and the links in the description of my videos.



#Democracy #directdemocracy #onedirectdemocracy #adamradly #politics #democraticpolitics #congress #democracyandrights

The US Senate voted to make daylight savings permanent. What do people think about changing the time twice every year? And, if we're going to stop doing it, should we choose standard time or daylight savings time? What do sleep scientists have to say about all of this?

If you could vote directly on this policy, would you vote for it or against it?

What does the Bill propose to do?

According to this article from Fortune:

"The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make daylight saving time permanent from 2023."

One of the first questions that come to mind is - what do sleep scientists have to say about it?

"...sleep scientists argue the choice of daylight saving time over standard time—in other words, choosing the "spring forward" rather than "fall back" time—would leave Americans permanently out of sync with their natural schedule and potentially lead to a range of health issues."

Okay, so we already have a problem. But, before we get into more detail about that issue, why do we have daylight savings time?

"Originally, daylight saving was meant to reduce energy consumption, by setting clocks forward thus extending the hours of daylight further into the evening. With more sunlight, people require less electricity for artificial lighting. "

So, that was the theory at the time. What does the research tell us about the theory was correct?

"In fact, one 2008 study found that moving clocks forward actually increased electricity consumption as people started using more power-hungry appliances, like air-conditioning, later into the evening."

The sun obviously rises and falls at different times based on location, so what impact does geographic location have on daylight savings time?

"The U.S. population has also trended south in recent decades, with population growth in states like Arizona, Texas, and Florida significantly outstripping their Northern counterparts. Southern states see a smaller seasonal difference in daylight hours, which reduces the need to “save” daylight. For example, northern Detroit gets over 15 hours of sunlight in the summer and only nine hours in winter. Southernly Austin gets 14 hours of daylight in summer and 10 hours in winter."

Check out the listing for this topic on the One Democracy platform:

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/policy-listings/make-daylight-savings-time-permanent-yes-no/



---------------------------------------



Adam Radly's TEDx Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7npLVcymHGc



One Direct Democracy

https://onedirectdemocracy.com/



IIMAGINE

https://iimagine.life/



Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/adamradly/



Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/adam.radly.9/



Twitter

https://twitter.com/adamradly



Adam Radly's website

https://adamradly.com/



One Direct Democracy

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical. 



That's why I created One Direct Democracy. It's a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy. 



I've created the technology and a plan for how to make this work.