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The former governor of Virginia, four years removed from the end of his first term, is vying for another shot at leading the commonwealth, running as the closest thing to an incumbent in a place that bars governors from serving successive terms. McAuliffe enters the race as the clear frontrunner, buoyed by a significant fundraising advantage, a who's who list of endorsements and near total name recognition.

But both Democratic politics and Virginia have changed since McAuliffe's successful 2013 run, a shift exemplified by the Democratic legislature -- which went blue in 2019 with McAuliffe's help -- moving to abolish the death penalty, tighten gun laws and reckon with the legacy of the Confederacy in a commonwealth closely tied to the Civil War South.

With less than three months until the Democratic gubernatorial primary, McAuliffe -- who faced no primary challenge eight years ago -- is now being pushed by younger, more liberal challengers to explain how a leader synonymous with the political establishment reflects the future of the commonwealth and not the politics of a bygone era.

The anti-McAuliffe charge ahead of the June 8 primary has been led by former Virginia delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy and Del. Lee Carter, two gubernatorial candidates who have been unabashedly critical of the former governor. Two other Democrats -- state Sen. Jennifer McClellan and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax -- haven't been as pointed in their criticism of McAuliffe, but they have all echoed a similar message: McAuliffe's time has passed.

"He was the right candidate for that moment. He was the right governor for that moment," said McClellan, referring to McAuliffe's 2013 bid, which she supported. "Times have changed. Virginia has changed."

McAuliffe, a figure whose story in the Democratic Party is defined by millions of dollars raised, the Clintons and a tenure as chair of the Democratic National Committee, dismisses any suggestion he isn't the future of the party. He points out that even after his time as governor, Virginia Democrats called on him to lead the effort that eventually won control of the Virginia General Assembly, giving the party full control of the state's government for the first time in more than two decades.

"I don't pay any attention to them," he said of his opponents suggesting his time has come and gone. "I'm laying out my own plan on why I'm running."

McAuliffe has already flooded his Democratic opponents in three things: Money, policy and endorsements.

The prolific fundraiser fired a warning shot early in the campaign when he announced he had raised $6.1 million in 2020, a staggering number that dwarfed his opponents' own efforts. And when he announced in December, his candidacy came along with a long list of endorsements, including a number of high-profile Democrats who serve with some of his primary challengers.

Since then, McAuliffe has rolled out policy after policy, aiming to both burnish his progressive credentials and argue that because Virginia is now in Democratic control, something the governor did not enjoy during his tenure, he will be able to get more done.

"I leaned in (as governor), but I had a Republican legislature. Now, with a Democratic legislature, all the big things that need to be fixed, we can get done," he said. "Heck, I just warming up. You give me a Democratic legislature, there is no stopping me."

'The appetite for career politicians... is long gone'

McAuliffe's desire to run for a second term as governor has long been one of the worst kept secrets in the commonwealth. The former chair of the DNC and CNN political commentator relished the job, often joking about how his election -- after Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson served as Virginia's first and second governors -- was a sign of American exceptionalism.

If McAuliffe were to win in November, however, he would do something neither Henry nor Jefferson ever did: Serve two four-year terms as the commonwealth's chief executive. The Virginia constitution prohibits governors from serving two successive terms and very few Virginia politicians have done so. The last person to do it was Mills Godwin, a segregationist who won as a Democrat in 1966 and as a Republican in 1974.

McAuliffe argues that even though he feels like he accomplished everything he could as governor -- "I don't know if you could find (a regret). I mean, I worked like a dog," he said -- it just makes sense for him to reprise a role that is part Virginia's chief executive, part commonwealth cheerleader.

Virginians "know I can get things done," McAuliffe said. "I did it before and they all know with a Democratic legislature, boy, I feel bad for those other 49 states cause I'm telling you Virginia is going to lead the country."

But his third run at governor (he tried and failed to win the party's nomination in 2009) also means standing in the way of possible history: If either McClellan or Foy were to win, she would become both the first woman to lead Virginia and the first Black woman governor in US history.

The significance of making such history, especially in a state that once housed the Capitol of the South during the Civil War, is powerful to both women.

"I feel the weight of it because... to know what my family has gone through, the fights that my parents and my grandparents and my great grandparents had to fight, to know that I'm still fighting those fights and I need to keep my children from fighting those same fights, I feel the weight of that," said McClellan, growing emotional as she described the potential for history. "I feel the weight of knowing I am running for a position in a system that was never built for me."

To McAuliffe's opponents, the reasoning for his candidacy is deeply flawed. And no candidate is more eager to go after McAuliffe than Foy, who resigned her assembly seat in December to focus on her gubernatorial run.

"I can't allow Terry McAuliffe to run a status quo race, while he romanticizes his time as governor," said Foy, who has argued her experience as one of the first women to every graduate from Virginia Military Institute and a mother of two who still struggles with child care and student loan debt is more representative of the commonwealth.

Foy has attacked McAuliffe on everything from donations he has taken to deals he made as governor to the fact he did little to address Confederate monuments. But her overarching criticism is that she represents Virginia's most progressive future, while McAuliffe represents the past.

"The appetite for career politicians who have continued to maintain the status quo that has hurt so many Virginians is long gone," she said in an interview.

But Foy is not alone in trying to run on McAuliffe's left. Lee Carter, the self-proclaimed democratic socialist state delegate with deep ties to the Bernie Sanders network of supporters and liberal organizations, has begun to lambast the former governor as not progressive enough.

"I see him as the guy that got us here and that's in very, very real ways," Carter told CNN, hammering McAuliffe for his support of pipelines through the state and economic policies that focused more on the rich than the poor. "We've spent the last eight years fighting against some of the worst things from McAuliffe's time as governor."

Neither McClellan nor Fairfax has been as direct in their criticism of McAuliffe as Foy and Carter, but their differences are primarily in tone, not substance.

"The voters decide what they are looking for in their candidates and in their visions for the future. But I do think it is very clear that people want their leaders to be focused on a vision for the future," said Fairfax.

For Fairfax, opposing McAuliffe is personal. During a chaotic period in Virginia government, Fairfax was accused of sexual assault by two women in 2019. Both women still stand by their allegations.

It is apparent that it still bothers the lieutenant governor and people close to him that McAuliffe, by then the former governor, had quickly called for him to step down due to the allegations.

Voters are "totally against the politics of the past and the traditional tactics of personal destruction that we have seen govern for too long," Fairfax said, a not-so-subtle nod to McAuliffe.

'People are looking for tested leadership'

"People are looking for tested leadership," said Louise Lucas, the president pro tempore of the Virginia state Senate and a McAuliffe campaign co-chair. "They need people with experience who can hit the ground running day one, who doesn't have to try to cultivate all those relationships."

Referring to Biden winning in 2020: "That in and of itself tell me people are looking for tested leadership."

Virginia overwhelmingly backed Biden during the 2020 primary, selecting him over liberal leaders like Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. And the state, which was once considered a battleground but has moved towards Democrats in recent years, would later back Biden over Trump by 10 percentage points in November. And McAuliffe is very close, both politically and personally, with the President.

Comparisons to the 2020 presidential election, however, ignore the fact that Democrats were as motivated to vote against Trump as they were to vote for Biden.

"That's so simplistic, I don't even know what to say," said McClellan. "Biden won in large part because he was the candidate who had the most government experience and the most experience solving people's problems. ... I have more state government experience and public service experience addressing the needs of Virginia than all of my opponents combined, including Terry McAuliffe."

Foy was even more pointed, comparing McAuliffe's candidacy to Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential run.

"The comparison I hear about is Barack Obama and Hillary," she said. "How you had people saying that there's a person who is inevitable, who is a money machine, who has been around politics for a very long time and therefore everyone needs to make way."

The issue that these anti-McAuliffe candidates run into is space. People close to McAuliffe cheered when Carter entered the race, believing he will further box out candidates like Foy. And the longer the four challengers stay in, the harder it will be for either candidate to make up for their lack of statewide name recognition or consolidate the anti-McAuliffe support.

"If you believed that was so important, wouldn't you gather together and consolidate your vote?" asked Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Sabato concluded that, along with Virginia Democrats' desire to win, will help McAuliffe.

"Because Democrats lost for so long in Virginia... Democrats still have a minority mentality even though they are in the majority and because of that, they do tend to make practical decision in primaries," he said. "That may be the best thing McAuliffe has, other than incumbency and money, on his behalf."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect first name for Glenn Youngkin.

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Terry McAuliffe wants to be Virginia's governor again. His opponents say it's time to move on. - CNN

PAYETTE COUNTY Nine weeks into the 2021 Idaho Legislative Session, the total number of bills that have been introduced this year has now reached 551 between the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The latest topics to be included among House legislation include transportation funding, public art, drivers education and even social media censorship. In the Senate, retail wine establishments, unemployment benefits and abortions have caught their attention.

Following are examples of legislation introduced since March 5. Actions listed are accurate as of Friday afternoon.

House Bill 298 by the Education Committee would require school officials to give certain information to parents, including exemptions, when they are asked about student immunizations.

Exemptions for preschool through grade twelve students exist in Idaho code 39-4802, its statement of purpose states. With the addition of this legislation, any notifications to parents or guardians regarding vaccinations must include a verbal description of their right to exempt their child.

Introduced March 5, the bill has been filed for a third reading.

Idahoans who appreciate public art may be interested in House Bill 311 by the Revenue and Taxation Committee; It would establish provisions for approval of property tax expenditures on such projects.

The purpose of this legislation is to adopt higher standards to fund public art display projects with taxpayer dollars, according to its statement. It will allow the public to be more involved in the decision-making process of taxpayer funded public art displays in their communities.

Introduced Monday, it has been recommended for placement on the General Orders canvas as of Thursday.

The ways and Means Committees revised House Bill 314 would amend Idaho Code 40-720 to increase the sales tax used to bond for the Transportation Expansion and Congestion Mitigation program from 1% to 4.5, with no less than $67 million to be put towards roads and bridges.

Its fiscal note states the move would allow the Idaho Transportation Department to bond at least $670 million for related projects, all the way up to $1.34 billion, without raising taxes already being paid.

The bill was introduced Tuesday and filed for a second reading with a Do-pass recommendation Thursday.

Pay attention, student drivers: House Bill 320 by the State Affairs Committee would replace mandatory drivers education law with these new provisions:

- Learners 14 years of age will need a learners permit and 50 hours of supervised driving experience by a licensed parent or guardian who is at least age 21.

- Learners 16 years of age will be able to apply for an intermediate license, conditioned upon passing the state driving exam and including rules for graduated drivers licenses.

[The rules] have been proven to be safer and more effective than drivers education classes, its statement reads.

No changes would be made to laws for drivers 17 years of age or older.

It was introduced Wednesday for a Thursday printing.

As social media companies crack down on user-generated content, House Bill 323 is giving some pushback against it.

This legislation protects against wrongful censorship by social media websites; providing definitions; providing that the owner or operator of a social media website is subject to a private right of action by certain social media users in this state under certain conditions; providing for damages; authorizing the award of reasonable attorney fees and costs; providing exceptions for the deletion or censorship of certain types of speech, according to its statement.

The bill was posted for a first reading by the State Affairs Committee Thursday.

For parents whose kids are just entering kindergarten, House Bill 331 aims to fund optional full-day Kindergarten so school districts and charter schools will have flexibility in paying for such without having to rely on student tuition and supplemental levies.

The bills impact on the general fund is expected to not exceed $42.1 million in fiscal year 2022 and will be ongoing. It was introduced for a first reading Thursday.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, and Sen. Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville.

Senate Bill 1171 aims to define a brewery, a retail wine establishment and clarify when a minor can be in a retail wine establishment and to make technical corrections.

Introduced March 5 by Sen. Chuck Winder, R-Boise, the bill has been filed with a do-pass recommendation for its second reading as of Wednesday.

Following a year of COVID-19 related strain on the State Unemployment Insurance Fund, Senate Bill 1182, introduced Monday by Sen. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, would adjust how funds are paid out to ensure the funds solvency. Payouts would still be tied to the overall health of the economy, but benefits would be reduced from 26 weeks to 20.

There is no direct cost to the State General Fund. However, there should be a net benefit to the State Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which has been pushed to the limit in the past year, even with a large influx of federal funding, its fiscal note states. By paying out fewer weeks of unemployment benefits, particularly during a good economy, the State Trust Fund will see a net reduction in spending.

The bill had its first reading Thursday. If passed, the bills sunrise provision would not put it into effect until July 1, 2022.

Senate Bill 1183, the Fetal Heartbeat Preborn Child Protection Act, would amend existing law to prohibit an abortion following detection of a fetal heartbeat.

A detectable heartbeat is a key indicator, in law and medical practice alike, of the existence of life, according to its statement. This legislation becomes effective upon the issuance of any decision upholding a restriction or ban on abortion of a preborn child with a heartbeat by any United States appellate court.

The bill was introduced by the State Affairs Committee for a first reading Friday.

Following are examples of bills which have seen significant action since March 5.

House Bill 216 by the Appropriations Committee, which provides an additional $369,764,100 to allow the Division of Medicaid to pay bills due in the current fiscal year under the current law, was signed by Little on Thursday after passing the House 37-31-2 on Feb. 25 and the Senate 29-5-1 on March 4.

Senate Bill 1137 by the Judiciary and Rules Committee, which would give justices of the Idaho Supreme Court a pay raise of 1.6%, for a new annual salary of $160,400 each, passed the Senate 33-0-2 on March 4. On Wednesday, it was filed for a second reading with a do pass recommendation.

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Immunizations, social media censorship on list of bill topics - Ontario Argus Observer

Although the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting brought all OTT platforms and digital news websites under its ambit in November 2020, the content streamed on these platforms remained out of its regulatory purview. This would now change with the news of the ministry working on a specific legislation, which reportedly would follow a three-tier mechanism the first two being self-regulation on the part of the platform and the third rumoured to be an inter-departmental committee established by the ministry for hearing grievances.

Most content generators, expectedly, believe that the backlash that followed the political drama series Tandav where Amazon Prime Video made voluntary cuts and apologised for unintentionally hurting anybodys sentiments had already blurred the line between self-regulation and censorship. In the absence of any regulation governing the OTT industry, this move by the makers of Tandav joins the thwarting-freedom-of-expression-and-creative-liberty list.

While there is a good reason for producers and artists to complain, but just how much does creative brilliance to depict reality, or latent rage amongst the masses, genuinely depend on, for want of a better term, shock value? To show real characters also means showing how they exist in reality. However, at times, this need transforms into something else as filmmakers argue that unless characters abuse or do something shocking, the narrative wont seem organic.

Many years ago, Dr Rahi Masoom Reza was criticised for repeatedly resorting to cuss words in his seminal Aadha Gaon (Half a Village), set around Indias Partition. It is believed that Reza lost out on popular awards because of the abusive text, but the author felt that people swore on the streets, and he drew his characters from real life.

Some of the greatest Hindi films that depicted societal rage in some form or the other such as Satyakam (1969), Namak Haram (1973), Garam Hava (1973), and Zanjeer (1973), rarely showed the protagonist abusing. Its ironic that Salim-Javeds Angry Young Man (AYM) character that set a new benchmark when showing onscreen rage never let go completely. Zanjeer is considered a precursor to not only the AYM seen in 1980s films like Arjun, remade in Tamil as Sathyaa (1988) or Meri Jung (1985), which was also remade in both Telugu and Tamil, but also art-house films like Ardh Satya (1983).

Unlike today, some of the greatest romantic or erotic moments on the silver screen rarely showed skin Nargis and Raj Kapoor in Awaara (1951) or Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa (1985). Forget the past, the success of Scam 1992 on the OTT platform has spun the entire argument surrounding the two significant tenets of the freedom of expression debate on OTT shown that abusive language or showing skin on its head.

Gautam Chintamanigautam@chintamani.orgFilm historian and bestselling author

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Of creative liberty and censorship - The New Indian Express

By Calvin Freiburger(Life Site News)

While Democrats dominate the federal government, state governments are taking the lead to combat anti-conservative censorship online, with several attorneys general detailing their efforts so far Wednesday.

The idea of censorship by Big Tech is one thats reached national proportion, Media Research Center (MRC) President Brent Bozell said at the online press conference. In at least 18 states, there is now activity taking place in one degree or another.

Organized by MRC, which hastaken a lead rolein the grassroots campaign against Big Tech, the conference featured Attorneys General Ken Paxton of Texas, Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, and Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, each of whom detailed their concerns about Big Tech and the actions theyve taken in response.

Unless we address this soon, we may lose our ability to address it, warned Paxton, who isleading a lawsuitagainst Google for abusing its monopoly status to eliminate competition and control ad pricing. He also discussed thecivil investigative demandshis office issued to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Web Services, and Apple regarding their comment moderation practices particularly as it pertains to those companiesclaims that inadequate comment moderation was their justification for deplatforming alternative social network Parler.

In response to concerns about fines potentially being an insufficient deterrent to censorship, Paxton argued that a $10,000 fine per violation can add up, even to a company like Google.

Bozell then interjected to note that such enforcement actions are valuable not just for whatever direct deterrent effect they have, but also as evidence to bring before Congress to show that these arent objective platforms, but subjective publishers, and as such should lose their federal liability immunity and face antitrust action.

In addition to investigation, Rutledge explained that she has taken proactive action byintroducing legislationthat would hold the likes of Facebook and Twitter in violation of the states Deceptive Trade Practices Act and potentially be liable for damages if they take action against a user that is selectively enforced, in violation of their terms of service, or otherwise not made in good faith.

These social media platforms are the new town squares, and so we must protect freedom of speech and encourage the sharing of ideas, Rutledge said. We want to make sure that Arkansans thoughts and opinions are not edited out.

They choose to silence us just because they can, Fitch said of Big Tech. This affects everyone.

Fitch relayed her own recent experience of seeing ananti-human trafficking videoshe posted flagged by Twitter as potentially sensitive content. The minute-and-a-half-long video was taken down just 37 seconds after publishing, meaning a human could not have watched it in its entirety to fully assess its content.

Fitch, who has also joined legal action against Google, shared that her office is collect[ing] human stories that put a human face on censorship via[emailprotected].

The problem of online censorship and discrimination has steadily grown over the past four years, largely in response to the belief that former President Donald Trumps 2016 victory was due in part to his effective use of Twitter. Over the past year it has sharply accelerated, citing the twin pretexts of medical misinformation over COVID-19 and inflammatory political rhetoric. It is expected to intensify further still over the next four years, based onreportsthat the Biden administration wants to partner with Big Tech to clamp down on chatter that deviates from officially distributed COVID-19 information.

Even so, Bozell expressed optimism for the future. This thing is growing, he said. It is going to be a forest fire against Big Tech in no time at all. I think you are going to see all fifty states emerging, because this is going too far.

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Conservative AGs lead the charge against Big Tech censorship: 'This thing is growing' - The Jewish Voice

Machine learning is becoming the go-to solution for greater automation and intelligence. A recent study fielded amongst the subscribers of DBTA found that 48% currently have machine learning initiatives underway with another 20% considering adoption. At the same time, most projects are still in the early phases.

DBTA recently held a roundtable webinar with Gaurav Deshpande, VP of marketing, TigerGraph; Santiago Giraldo, director of product marketing data engineering and machine learning, Cloudera; and Paige Roberts, open source relations manager, Vertica, who discussed key technologies and strategies for maximizing machine learnings impact.

Advanced analytics and machine learning on connected data allows organizations to connect all data sets and pipelines, analyze that connected data, and learn from that connected data, Deshpande explained.

TigerGraph is a scalable graph database for the enterprise that is foundational for AI and ML solutions, he said. It offers flexible schema, high performance for complex transactions, and high performance for deep analytics.

The success of machine learning adoption is intertwined, collaboration is critical, said Giraldo. It requires an enterprise data platform that streamlines the full data lifecycle.

Machine learning with Cloudera provides customers with a hybrid platform across multiple clouds and data centers. Cloudera is one of the only offerings with integrated experiences with SDX backed security and governance, said Giraldo. It enables collaborative and integrated BI and augmentation from expert data scientists to data analysts.

Applications and services that enable our data-driven world use both BI and data science, according to Roberts.

When choosing the best platform that includes machine learning, she suggests not committing to only open source, only proprietary, or only one brand.

Dont lock yourself in to only one deployment optionsolution only works on-prem, only works on cloud, or only works on this cloud, Roberts said.

Users should not tightly couple componentseverything should be interchangeable, Roberts said. Switching out one component shouldnt break everything. And plan for the future, dont get locked in, she said.

An archived on-demand replay of this webinar is available here.

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Experts Talk Machine Learning Best Practices for Database Management - Database Trends and Applications