To hear him tell it, no one is a bigger critic of Obamacare than Florida Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Except, that is, when he’s making decisions about his health insurance plan. Rubio campaign staffers confirmed to NBC late Thursday that he continues to accept a $10,000 federal subsidy reserved for congressional members under an…
Cover Photo Credit: Marc Nozell/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Over 375 U. Of Central Florida Students Worked To Give This Beloved Bus Driver An Incredible Birthday Gift
A well-known bus driver at the University of Central Florida got a welcomed birthday treat this week that he had no idea was in the works. And the gesture is warming the hearts of many.
Maurice, a UCF bus driver celebrated his birthday on Valentine’s Day (a Sunday this year)
Joshua Gicker is a new student at UCF, having transferred to the Orlando area college last fall from Tampa. Gicker said that Maurice was one of his first friends at UCF and that he really appreciated the way he interacts with people.
“If everyone lived like Maurice, I really believe there would be no problems in this world,” Gicker told Knight News, a UCF student news organization.
Gicker said that he found out about Maurice’s upcoming birthday last week and immediately worked to get people who live at his apartment complex to help raise $450 to give to him.
According to Knight News, 376 students came together to raise the money for Maurice.
A video of Gicker handing Maurice the money and a birthday card was uploaded to YouTube, where it has begun to cycle through social media.
“This is so great, I’m going to go through every one of these,” Maurice said in the video when he saw a list of people who donated money to him. “This is so nice, you guys are so great. You guys are the greatest and I’m just so overwhelmed.”
Happy birthday Maurice!
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RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. Anyone can write for us as long as you are fiercely interested in making the world a better place.
Cover Photo Credit: Joshua Gicker/ Youtube (Screengrab)
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Jeff Greene Is Helping Daphne Campbell In The Final Week Of The Campaign
What’s News In This Story?
Updated: 2:27 PM EST- August 22, 2018
–Jeff Greene, a Democratic candidate for Governor has been assisting Senator Daphne Campbell’s struggling campaign in the final days before the August 28th primary election.
-Greene, through his PAC, paid for a slate that endorses Campbell and a series of other local and statewide Democratic candidates.
–Greene’s action has drawn harsh criticism from many in Miami-Dade Democratic politics.
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Jeff Greene has promised to use his immense wealth to help Democrats beat Republicans up and down the ballot in Florida this year.
But he’s also helping one controversial incumbent Democrat fend off a fellow party member in a high profile state senate race.
Flyers that claim to be the “Miami-Dade Democratic Slate” feature a headshot of Greene next to popular Congresswoman Frederica Wilson.
Below Greene on the endorsement card?
Embattled Senator Daphne Campbell.
“Shame on Jeff Greene that he would do something like this,” Sears said.
Campaign workers for Senator Campbell have been seen passing out the flyers in Miami Shores and Biscayne Park by local community members and by a RISE NEWS reporter at the North Miami Public Library early vote location.
The “Miami-Dade Democratic Slate” flyer was paid for by Greene’s “Florida Defense Fund”, a PAC he set up at the end of July according to public records on the state election website.
And according to a source inside the Greene campaign, Campbell’s ex-husband and current campaign advisor Hubert Campbell is now working as a field organizer for the Palm Beach billionaire.
Greene campaign spokesperson Claire VanSusteren said that Greene has not endorsed a candidate in the race between Campbell and former Miami-Dade assistant State Attorney Jason Pizzo.
VanSusteren also said Greene has never given money to Campbell or Pizzo.
Tangela Sears is a well-known Miami politico and anti-gun violence activist who has strong ties to Congresswoman Wilson.
Sears blasted Greene for paying for the flyer and using Wilson’s picture on it.
“It’s got the Congresswoman’s photo on that to mislead the voters,” Sears told RISE NEWS in a phone interview. “We know that the congresswoman has endorsed Andrew Gillum [in the governor’s race].”
Sears said that this was a political trick that has a long history in Miami politics but that it distracts from real issues facing the community.
“Shame on Jeff Greene that he would do something like this,” Sears said.
She also had choice words for Senator Campbell.
“I guess Daphne Campbell, being desperate, accepted the money,” Sears said. “Campbell will work with any candidate. Loyalty really doesn’t matter to her.”
Senator Campbell is in the middle of a brutal re-election fight with Pizzo.
Slates are common in Miami politics. This one is supportive of Andrew Gillum’s campaign for governor and is paid for by Miami politico Willis Howard. It was being passed out by Gillum paid staff at the North Miami Public Library early vote site.
Though she has never lost an election and has been in elected office since 2010, a recent poll shows that Pizzo has a solid lead in the race.
Campbell has had a tough year.
After Hurricane Irma, she was caught texting an FPL lobbyist trying to get him to turn on the power at her home, she has had to face questions about whether she has ever lived in the district that she represents in Tallahassee and has called the police on reporters, twice. She has also confirmed her continued opposition to gay adoption and abortion rights, two stances that many Democrats feel is in direct contradiction to the values of the party.
“They matter,” Hardemon said. “When those slates get in the hands of older people, who vote right down the line.”
The Greene campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
A source connected to the Greene campaign told RISE NEWS that Hubert Campbell- Senator Campbell’s ex-husband is working for Greene as a field organizer.
A Campbell paid staffer holding the Jeff Greene PAC flyer under her left arm while working the North Miami Public Library early vote site. Photo: RISE NEWS
A source connected to the Greene campaign said that the flyer was generated by local community organizers and paid for by the PAC.
The Greene campaign source said that there is no “suggested or explicit endorsement on those cards”.
State Representative Roy Hardemon said that he wasn’t mad at Greene for paying for the flyer that endorses one of his primary opponents- Joseph Beauvil.
“He’s trying to win the race,” Hardemon said of Greene in a phone call with RISE NEWS. “Typical politics.”
Beauvil told RISE NEWS that he had nothing to do with the flyer.
Despite not being angry at Greene, Hardemon does believe that the slate like the one paid for by the gubernatorial candidate’s PAC, does have a serious impact in elections.
“They matter,” Hardemon said. “When those slates get in the hands of older people, who vote right down the line.”
Senator Campbell’s opponent Jason Pizzo blasted Greene for getting involved in the race.
“I thought Jeff Greene was directing resources to competitive state races to help Democrats, not to indirectly fund one against another,” Pizzo said in a statement to RISE NEWS. “And frankly, funding a slate card with someone who votes against fundamental democratic values, makes this even more confusing.”
Watch Something Else:
Interview: Jeff Greene Says He’s A “Good Billionaire” Who Can Bring Democrats Back To Power In Florida
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Here’s What Valentine’s Day Is Like For A Person In A Polyamorous Relationship
By Julia Fox
Still believe that exclusivity is necessary for deep, committed, long-term and loving relationships? The modern divorce rate of 50% says otherwise.
As traditional Valentine’s Day-themed pink and red greeting cards replace the tired Christmas & New Year colors on the stands of stores, most of us are anticipating (or dreading) the invasion of our social networks and television with the typical romantic scenarios of exchanging gifts, kisses and love messages between two lovers of the opposite or the same sex. Very few of us ever imagine the holiday routine in relationships where there are more than two lovers involved.
The images of cheating two-timers running between the deceived spouse and the scheming mistress aside, we are hardly bombarded nowadays by pictures of non-traditional family unions, such as polyamorous families, where the conventional Valentine’s day gift exchange is a little bit more complicated.
Polyamorous unions where ethical and responsible non-monogamy… are estimated to have around 1.2 to 2.4 million followers in the United States alone.
Polyamorous unions where ethical and responsible non-monogamy is practiced with knowledge and consent of everyone involved are estimated to have around 1.2 to 2.4 million followers in the United States alone.
How do polyamorous relationships come about? I am sure it is rarely a case of waking up one morning with your partner snoring by your side and deciding ‘why not add to the duo.’ The stories of people entering into the polyamorous unions are as many and varied as those embarking on conventional ones.
The beginning of my polyamorous relationship was a case of almost choking on toast one morning after my husband of 10 years admitted to having a homosexual relationship back in his college years with a Ukrainian man named Sasha.
Skipping through the finding Sasha story and straight into the reality of maintaining a household and a life with two partners and, yes, surviving a Valentine’s day together, the polyamorous relationship with a bi-sexual partner and a homosexual one who spent all of his life in the closet became an adventure for me worth sharing.
Almost all of us enter into a romantic union with the desire to be happy and to make our partners happy. Unfortunately, helping Sasha “come out of the closet” and leave the Ukraine was a huge struggle due to the severe psychological repercussions of concealing his sexuality since he was a young teen.
Photo Credit: Roy Blumenthal/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Dreading being ostracized by the community, fearing shame, physical torture and even imprisonment, creating a heterosexual family and dissociating himself from the gay community altogether made Sasha (and many thousands of his compatriots) the broken man that he was when he joined our family. Thus, welcoming Sasha into our union and expecting a ‘happy-ever-after’ was just as irrational as anticipating an unclouded happiness in any relationship once the wedding bells quiet down.
Each person comes into a relationship, whether it is a traditional one or less then so, with one’s own baggage of expectations based on childhood memories, literature, social media and a load of personal traumatic experiences and their consequences, and thus Sasha joined us with the full baggage of his own.
Being forced into a traditional marriage by his parents and living his life as a heterosexual man affected Sasha’s mental health and contributed to the development of a whole range of mental issues, such as dissociation, depression, internalized homophobia, self-disgust, self-hatred and denial of one’s sexual orientation to oneself and others. There conditions are commonplace in persons with repressed sexual orientation, according to many prominent psychiatrists.
Sasha exhibited all kinds of issues, such as low self-esteem, negative body image and contempt for the more open LGBT members who decided to come out years before. More importantly, Sasha had a tendency to deny that homophobia was a serious social problem altogether. Remaining in a heterosexual relationship for most of his life in an attempt to pass as ‘normal’ and to gain social approval, Sasha became chronically depressed and took to heavy drinking. His fear of intimacy and his suicidal thoughts presented a bigger challenge and a threat to our union.
My brief relationship with Sasha opened my eyes to the many aspects of homosexuality and the life paths that LGBT men and women choose in the parts of the world where homosexuality is still considered an abnormality.
My brief relationship with Sasha opened my eyes to the many aspects of homosexuality and the life paths that LGBT men and women choose in the parts of the world where homosexuality is still considered an abnormality.
The freedoms that sexual minorities are enjoying in the majority of democratic countries today are precious and unheard of in such places as Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia, Azerbaijan and other post-Soviet territories. Giving American LGBT members a glimpse into the lives of those who are less fortunate and still struggle for their rights might be an eye-opening experience this Valentine’s day.
Sasha’s arrival in our life, the life of a typical monogamous heterosexual couple, meant re-imagining our relationship, challenging traditional marriage, sexuality and love itself. All three of us had to learn to navigate and explore the challenges and complexities of a polyamorous reality together against a backdrop of cultural and societal expectations and judgments.
Examining and questioning the dynamic and often challenging elements of marriage, relationships and acceptance, are just a few issues that polyamorous unions might bring out into the discussion.
Julia Fox immigrated from Russia in her late teens, settling in the United States in the early 90s. She published two books of poetry before leaving her home country, both in Russian, and published two more in English language after immigrating. And Then There Were Three: Sixty Seven Letters to Sasha is her first autobiographical memoir.
For more information about And Then There Were Three: Sixty-Seven Letters to Sasha, please visit Julia Fox’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages.
Cover Photo Credit: Roy Blumenthal/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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