Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds added movie theaters, aquariums, museums, wedding venues, and bars to the list of businesses that will soon be allowed to reopen, but FilmScene's doors will stay closed for the time being.

Movie theaters made the list of Iowa businesses included in Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds Wednesday announcement that will allow more businesses to reopen beginning May 22, but Iowa Citys FilmScene wont be firing up its popcorn machines for movie-goers just yet.

The nonprofit theater announced on their website and social media that FilmScenes locations will remain closed while the theater continues to prepare its facilities and create a plan for reopening.

Todays announcement by Gov. Reynolds that movie theaters would be allowed to reopen is a necessary step towards our eventual reopening. We will continue to monitor public health conditions, film availability, and public confidence to determine the right opening date, FilmScene announced on their website Wednesday.

The theater closed its doors at both its Chauncey and Pedestrian Mall locations on March 16 in order to help mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus, and has been offering rentals, curbside concession sales, and virtual screenings in order to continue doing business amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The theater stated it will continue to offer these services as it determines a reopening date.

Movie theaters were among several other businesses that will be allowed to open in the coming weeks, including aquariums, museums, wedding venues, and swimming pools for lap swimming and swim lessons only on May 22. Bars will be able open both indoor and outdoor seating at half capacity beginning May 28, and starting June 1, school-sponsored activities including high school baseball and softball seasons will be allowed to resume.

We look forward to lighting up the big screen again when the time is right, FilmScene stated in the announcement.

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Movie theaters get green light from Reynolds to reopen, but FilmScene will remain closed for now - UI The Daily Iowan

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LED Secondary Optic Market 2020: Industry Growth, Competitive Analysis, Future Prospects and Forecast 2027 - AlgosOnline

Dutch commercial photographer Roelof Bos has, like many of us, been looking for a creative outlet ever since his professional work ground to a screeching halt. But while many photographers have opted for in-door projects or porchraits, he wanted to create something more stylistic and striking.

Thus was born Lockdown, a series of poignant twilight portraits of his fellow countrymen (and women) coping with isolation in various ways.

The imagery is highly stylized and symbolic. By shooting at blue hour and compositing multiple shots, hes able to capture photos that feel simultaneously intimate, and symbolic of the dark and lonely times were living through. Each image seeks to tell a complete story in a single frame.

But dont take our word for it. Roelof was kind enough to share his experience in detail, explaining how the project came to be, how it has evolved, and what each individual image represents. Scroll down to hear the story from Bos himself.

Here in the Netherlands we also experienced a sort of lockdown (of course). Not as tight as in other countries, yet it had a serious impact. I was thinking about what other photographers or artists were doing in reaction to this lockdown, and I felt some light urge to do something myself, especially while my workflow had dropped.

But taking family shots at home (porch photography I believe you call it) or portraying care workers for example isnt really my thing too journalistic.

In my daily work as a commercial photographer I most like to work with art-directors who have a great concept, which then can be turned into photographic images by choosing the best location, model, lighting, etc. and when necessary combining several images into one composite. All to achieve an image that tells the story at its best. As a painter more or less.

Recently, while I was walking my dog at twilight, I saw people in their homes with the lights on during the magic moment when the sky is still blue. It struck me that this time of daywhich is known to me (and many photographers) to produce a nice look when day turns into nightwas in fact perfect to show the isolation of people, locked in their homes as seen from the outside.

You could shoot a whole house with its environment in near darkness with just one room lit with a person standing there.

Despite the small seize of the person in relation to the entire image (necessary to emphasize the isolation/loneliness), because of the lighting, your eyes immediately go to this person and thus to the story of the image. The images could be very beautiful while simultaneously tapping into current events, and the dark setting of the images are also symbolic for the dark times of this pandemic.

At first the plan was to just show people in their homes, doing basic things like staying connected on their smartphones with friends. So this was the first one, a daughter of friends in my village:

The result was a composite of the houses at the right time of twilight, the best shot of the girl (different lights in the bathroom were explored) and an added night sky shot of the stars. I also added some fake light pollution for suspense. The light on her face is actually from the phone. No strobe used.

I posted it on my Facebook, mentioning that it was my plan to make it a series and hence the invitation to participate in being a host/model for a new photo. This resulted in two more images, but the rest were arranged by myself.

Sometimes I was triggered just by the house and the location itself, the story then arose together with the model/owner of the house. For instance in this shot:

I used a big light stand as a tripod (height in photo is approximately 4 meters) and off camera strobe with warm filter (1 CTO) in the street for the guy. However, I used the house from a shot without the strobe and added the cat from yet another shot, and added the sky and moon. The whole shoot took only half an hour at most, but it took several hours in Photoshop to make it look like this.

In most images of the series it is a search for the ideal composition as well as finding a balance in the different brightnesses in the images. Often, I had to darken large parts of the image to not let your eyes be distracted by bright parts in the empty spaces. To obtain the right proportions, I sometimes transformed houses or moved or removed elements which were otherwise attracting too much attention.

The more the series evolved, the more the plan for the image was in my head beforehand, soI began searching for people and locations to best suit the idea. And sometimes I met people whose story or situation were already interesting enough to make it a good image.

For instance this man: he loved old wall-maps (used for education purposes). Thats how the idea arose to show someone who longs to travel.

Although you could use the available light from the living room, I did use a strobe indoors, radio-triggered from camera (again with warming filter).

People tend not to be able to stand still for half a second, and I didnt want to raise the ISO too much because most of the times I shot really wide. I wanted to have the ability to crop afterwards (to avoid making the wrong framing decision because I was losing the light) and sometimes the crop was severe. To end up with a messy grainy person is not what you want. The sky was not replaced, but stars were added.

I noticed that people were more into decorating and construction work in their houses, so I added my friend who is just in the middle of expanding his house.

Ironically, as the model in the shot it looks like hes making a lot of hours constructing it by himself, while the whole project is done by a building company. This shot was pretty straightforward, although I used different exposure values for the house to give the black wood some visible structure. Stars and Venus added.

After the first images and the good reactions I got from social mediaI posted on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TwitterI really got inspired to keep going. At the same time, there were special days coming.

The 27th of April is Kingsday (birthday of the king, all flags in the streets and normally much festivity), and the 4th of May is Memorial Day (victims of WWII, 75 years this year) and Liberation Day (comparable with VE-day I think). So I starting making images especially for these days, to be posted on these very daysimages that would be relevant to both the lockdown situation as well as the day itself and how different people were experiencing them.

For Kingsday, I did this one, with a wife singing the national anthem and a husband who dislikes that and rather enjoys his beer:

For Memorial Day, I asked my wife to play The Last Post, flag is at half-mast to show mourning, and I added a black edge on the image as well. This shot was taken during daytime, partly because I had a different shot planned in the evening, and partly because the Last Post is at 8pm, a time when it is still not twilight.

To emphasize the mourning, I added the dark sky.

Then came Liberation day (VE-day). Now I could add more layers into the story. Celebration of freedom in a time when one is restricted to ones home. My father, who has witnessed WWII as a child, saw the bombers fly over his house. Now he sees pigeons (symbol of freedom) as a squadron flying freely outdoors, while he is stuck at home.

This shot took heavy manipulation. I adapted the house (got rid of window and wall on the left), added a flag, a new sky in the reflection, as well as the pigeons of course. My father is taken from a separate shot with strobe, indoor shots mixed with reflection in windows:

Then there was going to be a Supermoon. This phenomenon is often over-hyped (IMHO) so this shot is a wink to that hype: a boy searching for the moon yet its behind him. The size of moon is also highly overdone by design.

The camera is my own, because while I was hoping for a real telescope with star tracker, I insisted on getting the photo posted on May 7th so there wasnt enough time. In the end, the boy (instead of the dad) was willing to pose, so actually a camera on tripod suits the situation betterits more of an amateur look.

This shot was captured with strobe once again, and I added some red to the sky.

The last image to mention is the reference to the holiday season, camping on your own property. All the images in this series were taken by myself, but to add to the feel of a holiday in beautiful nature I came up with the idea of adding the northern lights as a backdrop for a befriended couple in the camper.

Although I have lots of skies and landscapes in my personal stock, I had no northern lights shots. The dont occur on our latitude, so I would have travel to Norway to shoot it. I could have bought a stock image, or use a creative commons image from Wikimedia, but I would rather make it myself, just for the sake of the fact that the whole series was made by me.

So, instead, I searched for clouds more or less in the shape of these northern light flames and transformed them in post, changing the color and stacking several clouds in different opacities, some with motion blur, to get a sky as shown.

All images were taken with a 50MP full-frame camera (Canon 5DsR), mostly with a EF 16-35mm f/4L lens, except the moon photo, which was taken EF 70-200mm f/4L, and the moon itself, which was shot on with an EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L + 1.4x teleconverter.

When flash is used, it was a Godox AD360 in a softbox, always with a 1 CTO warming filter to imitate tungsten light.

A big thank you to Roelof for sharing these images and the story behind them. To see more of his work and browse the entire Lockdown collection, visit his website or by giving him a follow on Instagram.

Originally posted here:
Striking Twilight Portraits Capture the Loneliness of Lockdown - PetaPixel

Are you still looking to buy or sell a house (or both) thisyear?

While many real estate experts are confident the marketwhich has seen a significant decline in sales and a small month-over-month drop in priceswill recover in the fall, it's hard to say how the pandemic will affect buyers and sellers goingforward.

Real estate brokerage and website Zoocasa also says there were 532 new listings in Mississauga in April and 260 home sales; reflecting a steep 72 per cent year-over-year decline intransactions.

Average home prices in Mississauga grew faster than the regional average at 8 per cent annually, ending April at$832,112.

A closer look at housing types reveals that detached house prices grew 5 per cent year-over-year to $1,168,041, while semi-detached and condo apartments grew 6 per cent to $802,661 and $500,349,respectively.

Here's a look at some of the most (and least) expensive homes inMississauga:

MostAffordable

8 - 3360 The Credit Woodlands

This two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo townhouse (which boasts up to 1,399 square feet of space), sold for $299,000 after being listed for $325,000. The unit features two parking spots, wood floors and a walk-out to a private, fenced-in yard. It also has a finished basement with a tenant renting thespace.

712 - 1110 WaldenCircle

This condo sold for $355,000 after being listed for $349,900. The approximately 699 square foot unit boasts one bedroom, one bathroom, and one parking spot. Located in Clarkson Village, the suite comes with a membership at the Walden Club, which has squash courts, tennis courts, a heated outdoor pool and a partyroom.

119 - 111 Bristol RdE

This one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit sold for $369,900 after being listed for exactly that price. Offering about 599 square feet of space and one parking spot, the end unit also boasts cathedralceilings.

501 - 880 Dundas StW

This relatively rare studio unit sold for $373,000 after being listed for $289,000. Offering one bathroom, two parking spots and about 500 square feet of space, the suite has floor to ceiling windows and the maintenance fees cover allutilities.

312 - 2900 BattlefordRd

This home sold for $375,000 after being listed for $319,000. The unit boasts one bedroom, one bathroom, two parking spots and about 699 square feet of space. It has an open concept living and dining area, and the kitchen has a ceramicbacksplash.

MostExpensive

1570 WatersedgeRd

This custom-built lakefront home sold for $11,999,000 after being listed for $12,888,000. It boasts six bedrooms, eight bathrooms and seven parking spots. Offering over 12,000 square feet of living space, the home features a gourmet kitchen, a formal lounge, a master bedroom with his and hers walk-in closets and a basement with a theatreroom.

1396 CrescentRd

This French country-inspired home sold for $4,130,000 after being listed for $4,349,850. The Lorne Park house boasts six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, eight parking spots and about 11,000 square feet of space. It also offers a second-floor nannysuite.

2060 DicksonRd

This 10,000 square foot Gordon Woods home sold for $3,975,000 after being listed for $4,099,000. The home offers five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, 10 parking spaces and a large 75 x 442 "Muskoka-like" lot. The house boasts an in-ground saltwater pool, a hot tub and acabana.

1430 BirchviewDr

This Lorne Park home sold for $3,228,000 after being listed for $3,499,800. It offers five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and eight parking spots. It also boasts a gourmet kitchen with granite countertops, wood flooring on the main and upper levels and a walk-out to a coveredterrace.

181 KenollieAve

This Mineola West home sold for $3,020,000 after being listed for $3,298,000. It boasts five bedrooms, six bathrooms, about 7,300 square feet of space and eight parking spaces. The home is set on a large private lot at the end of a quietstreet.

More:
PHOTOS: The most--and least--affordable houses that recently changed hands in Mississauga - insauga.com

Blaine Noland Construction has moved to a new location on Third Street, and has also begun building new, custom residential homes

Blaine Noland Construction and Painting has moved to a new location.

Blaine Noland moved his office in November 2019 to 896 NE Third in Prineville, a site formerly occupied by Jay Porter CPA. Noland's construction skills are evident throughout Crook County, including the remodel of Club Pioneer, the paint job on the Associates Real Estate building, several new shop constructions and countless paint jobs and remodels. In addition, Noland also builds custom, new residential stick-built homes.

Noland said that he remodeled the Stafford Inn (now Country Inn and Suites), which included 60 rooms and 10,000 square feet of tile. He has remodeled a number of offices in Prineville as well.

Noland provides services as a general contractor in construction remodeling and additions, interior and exterior painting for both residential and commercial jobs, and handyman work. Recently, Noland has added residential construction.

"I started off just myself, and then I brought on a painter," Noland indicated of his beginnings as a contractor.

He started his business six years ago. Prior to beginning his own business, he worked for his father doing construction. They were partners for four years. Noland grew up around construction. His first remodel was the "Roundup" building on Northeast Harwood Street.

"I was scared to death and got my license and was on my own, and next thing I knew I needed employees."

Noland has expanded to the current level of 15 employees. His wife, Ali, works in the office. He has resolved to not have partners in his business.

"I am here in a wonderful new location, and I have great employees, great painting side, handyman and construction side," Noland exclaimed of his current location.

He indicated that their business does 300 to 400 estimates for jobs per year, and lands about 250 jobs per year.

"It ranges from a 20-minute fix-it to building houses," he noted. "I build my own spec houses."

He also started flipping houses approximately three years ago. Since then, he has done a number of houses. He added that when he began doing new constructions, he started with custom shops and that has grown to building custom residences.

Noland did his first custom shop in Powell Butte about four years ago. Since that time, he has built several similar custom shops, which include apartments.

"My motto is, we have moved a few times. However, we are not moving out of town. We are just moving on up," he said.

Noland also supports Crook County sports and he supports sponsorships in Prineville. His company does an annual paint give-away. He also donated the labor and paint for the CC signs on the hill on the south side of Crook County High School.

He commented that he specializes in designing spaces and helping people reconstruct spaces.

"I just love doing that," Noland said. "That is definitely what I specialize in; helping people understand their space and understanding how to fix something anything."

Sidebar

Blaine Noland Construction and Painting

Owner: Blaine Noland

Business Address: 896 NE Third St., Prineville 97754

Phone: 541-233-9619

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hours: Monday through Friday: 8:30 to 4:30 (lunch 11 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.)

Call for free estimates

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Expanding business in a new location - Pamplin Media Group

Some architects design monuments, even entire cities. Others build custom homes for private clients. One requires assistants, political acumen, lots of money. The other can require an extra dose of empathy and patience when dealing with finicky clients and lots of money, too.

Norm Applebaum focused on private residences.

My clients become my family, he once said. Their homes, and the architecture I create for them, are my children. They can never be duplicated, and the bond we share lasts a lifetime.

Applebaum designed and remodeled dozens of homes in more than 50 years and gave names to some of them, like Wings in Escondido and Sun Catch in Rancho Santa Fe. And unlike some architects who become frustrated with finicky clients, he befriended his clients for life.

Applebaum, a Chicago native and San Diego resident since the late 1960s, died March 25 of leukemia. He was 80.

He was a passionate guy, said his widow, Barbara Roper. He loved everything with depth.

Keith York, founder and curator of the Modern San Diego website on local architecture, said Appleton was one of those weird, unique bridges to the past to San Diegos post-World War II generation of architects who started their careers in the 1940s and 50s.

A member of the San Diego chapter of the American Institute of Architects since 1974, Applebaum received its highest honor in 2018, the Robert Mosher Lifetime Achievement Award.

His abilities and passion as an architect, artist and master craftsman are impressive, and they are readily reflected in his work, the citation read.

Norman Martin Applebaum was born in Chicago on Dec. 28, 1939, and moved with his family five years later to Los Angeles, where his mother was a mezzo-soprano and his father, a violinist.

Norm took up the trombone and studied at the Los Angeles Music Conservatory. He played jazz with the likes of Stan Kenton, Dick Shearer and Peter Sprague.

My background as a musician strengthens my creative process, he once said, and as a jazz musician, more so, because of improvisation.

Applebaum attended the Merchandising Institute in Los Angeles and took an aptitude test at LA City College to see if he was suited to be an architect. The test didnt say so, but he ignored the results and earned an architectural degree in 1968 from Arizona State University. He soon moved to San Diego, worked for several firms before earning his architectural license and started his one-man firm in 1972.

All my homes are done artistically, Applebaum said. I dont do any development or tract work or spec work. All my individual custom homes are art.

Applebaum took his cues from Southern Californias pre-World War II architectural heritage, drawing on both its Hispanic traditions and contemporary styles.

It began in the 1930s, he told The San Diego Unions architecture critic Kay Kaiser in 1984. So we should keep using it, whatever the contemporary ideas may be.

Roper, Applebaums third wife, said contemporary styles went only so far with her husband.

He hated the downtown area with all the Vancouver-like buildings with all the balconies, she said.

Applebaum never wanted to visit the Timken Museum of Art in Balboa Park, home of many Old Masters, she said, because the 1960s modern building clashes with the Spanish Colonial revival buildings around it.

One of Applebaums biggest and most contemporary homes was what he called Sun Catch, the Rancho Santa Fe residence completed in 2006 for investment company executive Charles Brandes and his wife Tanya.

Among its many features are 27-inch-thick steel beams, covered in wood, that extend the roof as much as 85 feet beyond the walls and act like sun catchers.

When you start defying gravity, you create a mystique, Applebaum told a Union-Tribune interviewer at the time. (People will wonder) how did he do it.

One of Applebaums many clients who became a devoted friend was Richard Matheron, a retired U.S. ambassador to several African countries. In 1988 Applebaum designed a home he called Wings, overlooking the San Diego Zoos Safari Park, and a replacement when it was lost in the 2007 Witch Creek-Guejito Fire.

He was my best male friend over the years, Matheron said. He used to say frequently that he must have done something right if clients continue to invite him back to dinner.

Applebaum would typically interview clients about their goals for a new or remodeled home and then build intricate models out of corrugated cardboard that were works of art in themselves.

Both Kay (his late wife) and I always enjoyed the process, Matheron said. We never felt we were in a hurry.

When the first house was lost, Applebaum met the couple shortly afterward and began planning a replacement, this time with photovoltaic cells and other sustainable architectural features.

The first house had much of a zen quality, he said. This house is, in a way, more monumental. The fireplace is massive.

In recent years Applebaum joined Matheron and other buddies at the AMC Mira Mesa multiplexs live simulcasts of New York Metropolitan Opera productions. They then would walk to Mimis Cafe for lunch. Applebaum insisted that Matheron order the French pot roast.

Youll want that, Applebaum said, but Matheron judged it Frenchish not French. It became a running joke.

Roper said Applebaum did not travel in San Diego society circles, where architects sometimes find their best clients.

He was hungry for work at times but he never complained about it, she said.

Roper said Applebaum arranged to have his drawings and other works donated to the UC Santa Barbara Art, Design & Architecture Museum with more than 275 collections include papers and drawings by leading California architects.

Norm said hes in good company, she said.

Besides Roper, Applebaum is survived by his two sons, Anthony and Jeffrey, who both live in San Diego, and five grandchildren. The family requests friends make donations in his memory to the San Diego Blood Bank or a charity of their choice.

Roger Showley, a freelance writer, can be reached at rmshowley@yahoo.com and (619) 787-5714.

Read more here:
Norm Applebaum, architect as friend and artist, 80 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will now be micro-managing everything in your life, including your health and your job, and what could possibly go wrong, comrade?

After all, this is the same state government that has done such an incredible job regulating the states nursing homes that only 3,574 of MAs 5,862 deaths have occurred in them.

Its the same state government that presided over the fiasco at the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, which due to state governments complete incompetence was allowed to kill at least 64 people.

Its the same state government that manages the Department of Children & Families, which didnt turn over 118 cases of sexual abuse of children to law enforcement because they didnt think it was particularly significant.

They also run the MBTA.

Not to mention the very honest Massachusetts State Police, with too many scandals to even list, and where embezzlers are allowed to continue collecting $100,000-a-year state pensions.

These same state bureaucrats who now imperiously order you around like a dog also run the Registry of Motor Vehicles, which killed seven people in New Hampshire last year when the hacks couldnt be bothered pulling the license of a foreign career criminal.

Lets check in with Lt. Gov. Karyn Pay to Play Polito as she explains the phase-in process to being the process of phasing in the phase-ins, after the meeting to plan the next phase-in meeting.

We have established a new restaurant accommodations and tourism work group consisting of industry representatives and municipal leaders that we will continue to have discussions with to help us determine the industry-specific protocols for meeting our safety standards. This group will help us shape the guidance that will allow these industries to reopen and when the data allows for it they will do so safely and in within mind the need to continue to fight the virus.

That would be the COVID-19 virus, or as its now known, the COVID-1984 virus.

So far its killed exactly 76 Massachusetts residents under the age of 50. If you are a woman under 30, you have a better chance of being allegedly assaulted by Gov. Charlie Parkers son on a commercial airliner than you do of getting sick, let alone dying from, COVID-1984.

By the way, many of the Reichs draconian requirements will be policed by the Department of Public Health. Which is very reassuring this would be the same DPH with the state labs in Jamaica Plain and Amherst where for a decade chemists were either fabricating or ingesting evidence in drug cases, leading to the tossing of 38,000 criminal convictions.

You read that right 38,000. And now your business will be answering to that very same DPH.

Can you imagine just how corrupt this entire reopening scam is going to be? Think marijuana licenses in Fall River. Or building permits in Boston. Or selling jobs in the Probation department. Or MSP overtime at Logan or the Mass Pike. Then multiply by 100, or maybe 1,000.

If I were U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling, I would be impaneling a federal grand jury right now on spec. This is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Just tell us all how much is it going to cost me to get you greedy hacks off my back?

We already know that if you pay off the right people, you can open up, its as simple as that. Look at the golf courses. They hired a lobbyist and fore! Or you can sue look at the gun shops, and the churches. But courts are unpredictable, so its easier to, uh, retain the right person and somehow you are Open for Business.

Just do the right thing, as we say in the hackerama, and let the good times roll. Who did the marijuana shops use as their lobbyist?

Now more than ever, the three rules of life at the State House will apply: Nothing on the level, everything is a deal, no deal too small.

Do you remember how King George IIIs government was described in the Declaration of Independence?

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

If that doesnt describe the m.o. of these power-mad little petty tyrants, what does?

Lets face it, New England is now the modern Warsaw Pact. All six states are behind an Iron Curtain. In the old Eastern bloc, some dictatorships were less onerous than others. After all, theres only so far you can take this gag when you have only 53 fatalities (Vermont) or 70 (Maine). Not that they dont try.

But I think that after Mondays press conference, its pretty clear which Warsaw Pact nation Tall Deval and Pay to Play are aiming to turn Massachusetts into East Germany, the most oppressive of em all.

Thats why they keep talking about sectors just like in Cold War Berlin. And theres only one way out of Massachusetts now. You have to get through Checkpoint Charlie.

Continue reading here:
Howie Carr: Welcome to the commonwealth of micro-managing - Boston Herald

The U.S. Senate confirmed U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, as director of national intelligence Thursday, elevating him to a cabinet-level position in the Trump administration and creating a vacancy for a congressional seat in Texas.

The confirmation vote was 49-44 and brought a relatively smooth conclusion to a nomination process that started off rocky. President Donald Trump first tapped Ratcliffe for the position, which oversees the nation's 17 intelligence agencies, in July. But his path to becoming director of national intelligence initially hit a snag when the The Washington Post reported that a claim on Ratcliffe's website that he arrested "over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day" as a federal prosecuting attorney was an exaggeration. He also faced questions over whether he overstated his role as a federal prosecutor in a terrorism financing case.

Ratcliffe withdrew from consideration within a week as questions were raised about his credentials and whether he inflated parts of his biography. But Trump nominated him six months later, calling him an "outstanding man of great talent." Ratcliffe has been a vocal ally for Trump, defending the president during impeachment hearings in 2019. He was reportedly considered as a potential replacement for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

His nomination has received strong support among Republicans. At Ratcliffe's confirmation hearing, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the nominee a man of character who understood the difference between being a politician and being an appointed official. Retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, a former CIA undercover agent, also endorsed Ratcliffe, citing his professional experience, "capacity to selflessly lead," and understanding of "threats to our security and way of life."

All of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee voted against advancing his nomination. But the minority party allowed the chamber to move quickly on a full vote on the nomination this week in order to get a Senate-confirmed nominee into the job in place of controversial acting Director Richard Grenell.

In his confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe expressed a need for the intelligence community to remain apolitical.

I will deliver the unvarnished truth," Ratcliffe said. "It wont be shaded for anyone. What anyone wants the intelligence to reflect wont impact the intelligence I deliver.

Meanwhile, the race to replace Ratcliffe has already begun in his northeast Texas district. Ratcliffe already won the Republican primary for the seat, meaning a group of activists that make up what is called the Congressional District Executive Committee will select his replacement on the November ballot. The committee will meet Aug. 8 to select a nominee.

Gov. Greg Abbott will not call a special election to finish Ratcliffe's term this year, according to an Abbott spokesman, John Wittman.

Ratcliffe's initial election to the seat in 2014 came as a surprise to many and was hailed as a sign of the power of the Tea Party movement. That year, he unseated the late Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall. Hall was a 91-year-old, 17-term congressman.

Abby Livingston and Patrick Svitek contributed reporting.

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John Ratcliffe confirmed as director of national intelligence - The Texas Tribune

It remains unlikely, but hardly unthinkable, that President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could simultaneously come down with serious cases of COVID-19 especially after two prominent White House aides recently tested positive for the coronavirus. We have already seen one head of government, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, incapacitated by COVID-19 and sent to an intensive care unit.

Both men are in high-risk groups: Trump is 73 and overweight; Pence is 60. (Johnson, in contrast, is a comparatively youthful 55.) If they were ordinary people, the protocol would be for the two men to place themselves in self-quarantine for two weeks, yet they have not done so.

When Johnson was hospitalized, he deputized his foreign minister to act as prime minister in his absence. Should only the president become ill, then the vice president can take over, following the protocol laid out in the 25th Amendment. But if the vice president becomes incapacitated as well, then we could face a constitutional crisis. It would be triggered by the inadequacies of the Presidential Succession Act passed in 1947 (when there was no vice president, because Harry Truman had succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Article II of the Constitution grants Congress the right to provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President and the 1947 act is the current result. Under its rules, the speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate would be next in the line of succession, followed by the members of the Cabinet, beginning with the secretary of state.

Until 1947, succession had passed through the Cabinet. Congress added the speaker and president pro tem on the grounds that the president should desirably be an elected official, even if not part of the executive branch. This might make sense in theory, but it could be truly terrible in practice. Should both Pence and Trump be unable to serve, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., would become president under the act handing the White House to a different party without an election. Should she be unable or unwilling to serve, then the office would go to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

Any effort to transfer power from Trump and Pence to Pelosi would surely inspire legal and political challenges, adding to chaos at precisely the moment the nation desperately needed stability.

To be sure, COVID-19 in the White House could precipitate a crisis well before the Succession Act came into play. It is not difficult to imagine that Trump would deny and denounce as fake news any suggestion that he lacks the ability, in the words of Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, to discharge the Powers and Duties of the presidency. The vice president and Cabinet can, in theory, overrule him and pronounce him unable to serve, invoking the 25th Amendment. But would they? Even if Pence and the Cabinet displayed independence, would Trump simply fire those who betrayed him? He couldnt fire the vice president, but the vice president cannot displace a president on his own; he needs the support of the majority of Cabinet officials and then Congress.

But even if the headstrong president bowed to reality, perhaps as he was about to go on a ventilator, the system would be stretched to the breaking point if Pence faced his own health crisis. If Pence, too, acknowledged his constitutional inability, then the Succession Act would apply and its flaws would become apparent.

The act, first of all, bespeaks a simplistic theory of democratic legitimacy that ignores the prominent role that political parties which have grown far more polarized since 1947 play in the American system. And it raises vexing legal and practical questions. Most lawyers believe that the speaker would have to resign from the House to serve as president, as a result of the Constitutions obscure incompatibility clause, which says that no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office. Perhaps, then, Pelosi would waive her right of succession (since, after all, her term would probably last only several weeks at most). So then the 86-year-old Grassley could take on the awesome role of president should he be willing to resign from the Senate.

There is also a serious argument, first laid out by Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar and his brother, Vikram Amar, now dean of the University of Illinois College of Law, in a 1995 essay in the Stanford Law Review, that the Succession Act is unconstitutional. Article II specifically says that Congress in setting rules of succession must select an officer as a replacement for the president and vice president. Members of Congress, the argument goes, are not officers, because they are elected officials and not presidential appointees. (Another legal argument holds that the incompatibility clause does not apply if a member of Congress were to serve as president or vice president, because officers refers to people appointed by the president, not to the chief executive position itself. Under that interpretation, Pelosi could retain her legislative office, if the act were upheld as constitutional.)

To put it mildly, it is hard to imagine these questions being litigated in real time should Republicans try to prevent Pelosi from taking office, or should she try to serve as president and speaker simultaneously. This month, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh evoked the possibility of chaos in a Supreme Court argument about unfaithful electors members of the electoral college who opt for candidates besides the ones they pledged to support. The problem of unfaithful electors is trivial compared with the true chaos possible under the Succession Act.

Constitutionality aside, the Succession Act makes little sense as policy: No one seriously believes that the worthies who serve as speaker of the House and president pro tem of the Senate do so because of a belief by the House or Senate that they have the skill set needed to serve as president. Indeed, Grassley occupies his office exclusively because he is the senior member of the majority.

Just as the United States turns out to have been woefully unprepared to confront the coronavirus, so are we unprepared to confront simultaneous presidential and vice-presidential disability. Returning to the pre-1947 rules, under which the secretary of state would follow the vice president in the line of succession, would make far more sense. The Constitution authorizes is it too much to suggest that it even places a duty on? Congress to address the possibility that the president and vice president could both become incapacitated. It should face up to its responsibility, before the grim scenario becomes reality.

Sanford V. Levinson is a professor of law and government at the University of Texas at Austin. He wrote this article for the Washington Post.

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OPINION EXCHANGE | If Trump and Pence both get very sick, it's unclear who would be president - Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Senate Intelligence Committee moved in a party-line vote Tuesday to advance the nomination of U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, for director of national intelligence. The move sends the nomination to the full Senate, which is expected to confirm Ratcliffe in the coming weeks.

This is the second time President Donald Trump has tapped Ratcliffe for the cabinet-level position, which oversees 17 intelligence agencies. Last summer, Ratcliffe's nod was derailed quickly due to concerns about his political background and questions over whether he inflated parts of his biography. This time, Ratcliffe appears on track to be confirmed, with little ongoing discussion of the major issues highlighted in the last go around.

Acting appointees have filled the job since Dan Coats resigned last summer.

Ratcliffe has long been a vocal ally for Trump. He was a major defender of the president throughout the 2019 impeachment proceedings, in both private and public hearings. He berated former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, when Mueller appeared before the House in July. Ratcliffe argued that Mueller went beyond his bounds when he said the investigation didn't exonerate the president or determine the president's innocence.

Axios, when it broke the news that Ratcliffe had been selected, said Trump had been pleased by Ratcliffe's public, aggressive questioning of Mueller in the hearing.

Shortly after Trump named Ratcliffe as his choice last year, The Washington Post reported that a claim on Ratcliffe's website that he arrested "over 300 illegal immigrants on a single day" as a federal prosecuting attorney was a significant exaggeration.

The sweep happened at poultry processing plants in 2008, targeting workers suspected of using stolen Social Security numbers. Forty-five workers were charged, and six were dismissed. Two of the cases were dismissed because the defendants were American citizens. One former investigator called the investigation a costly failure. The claim is still on his website.

Ratcliffe, on his congressional website in 2015 and a campaign website in 2016, also stated that he had served as the federal prosecutor in U.S. v. Holy Land, an anti-terrorism financing case that played out over two trials.

A department news release showed Ratcliffe was operating in a supporting role, and people involved with the investigation had no recollection of his involvement with proceedings that led to convictions. A Ratcliffe spokesperson later acknowledged that Ratcliffe had been tasked not with prosecuting defendants, but with investigating the cause of an initial mistrial in the case.

Within a week of his nomination's announcement, Ratcliffe withdrew from consideration, citing a politicization of what would otherwise be a discussion about his professional experience and defending his record. But then in February, Trump formally nominated Ratcliffe to the position. In a tweet at the time, Trump called Ratcliffe "an outstanding man of great talent."

Ratcliffe's supporters have attempted to illustrate his ability to act as an apolitical administrator in response to continuing Democratic concerns. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in Ratcliffe's confirmation hearing that the nominee was a man of character who understood the difference between being a politician and being an appointed official and who would lead competently and transparently.

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft wrote in a letter that Ratcliffe would provide decision makers with "fulsome, transparent intelligence." Retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, a former CIA undercover agent, also endorsed Ratcliffe, citing his professional experience, "capacity to selflessly lead," and his understanding of "threats to our security and way of life."

In his confirmation hearing, Ratcliffe said his initial focus would be COVID-19's geopolitical and economic impacts. He also said he intends to focus on international security issues, like Iranian military capabilities, 5G cellular technology deployment, North Korean nuclear weapon development, and other cybersecurity and supply chain concerns.

He sought during the hearing to allay concerns of politicization of intelligence gathering. When asked about foreign interference in elections, Ratcliffe said Russia used "active measures" to interfere in the 2016 and 2018 elections and was actively working to do so in 2020. He said that Russia failed to change any votes or influence the election in 2016, and he committed to bringing information on foreign election interference to Congress.

"Keeping politics out of the intelligence community is one of my priorities," Ratcliffe said.

When pushed to express his views on issues related to the agencies he would administer, however, Ratcliffe often restated his intention to follow the law, saying that director of national intelligence is not a policymaking position.

Ratcliffe was first elected to the House in 2014, at the time replacing Ralph Hall, R-Rockwall, an elder statesman within the Texas delegation. He was reportedly considered as a replacement for then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions. In 2004, Ratcliffe was appointed as a federal prosecutor and chief of anti-terrorism and national security for the Eastern District of Texas. In the same year, he was elected mayor of Heath.

Ratcliffe's confirmation would open his northeast Texas seat in the House. His name is already set to be on the ballot this November, so a state Republican Party committee would vote Aug. 8 to select Ratcliffe's replacement in the race. Ratcliffe's seat is among the most Republican in the country, meaning the candidate the party selects would be the clear favorite in November.

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John Ratcliffe's nomination for director of national intelligence advances - The Texas Tribune