Pat Tillman's mother is amongst a growing number of individuals questioning whether “controversial” Prince Harry deserves an award named in honor of the San Jose-raised NFL star and war hero who was killed in Afghanistan.

Mary Tillman said in an announcement that she was not consulted by ESPN in the choice to present the estranged son of King Charles III with the 2024 Pat Tillman Award for Merit at this 12 months's ESPY Awards. Harry is scheduled to simply accept the award at a televised ceremony on July 11 hosted by former tennis player Serena Williams – who happens to be good friends with Harry's equally controversial wife, Meghan Markle.

“I am shocked why they chose such a controversial and polarizing person as the winner,” Mary Tillman said of Harry in an announcement to the Daily Mail.

Mary Tillman said organizers must have chosen a less famous honoree, as they’ve done for the reason that award was created in 2004 as a tribute to her son, the 27-year-old Leland High School graduate who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004. The Fremont native was a star football player at Arizona State University and, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, walked away from a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to affix the Army Rangers.

Mary Tillman said there are people who find themselves “far more suited” to the award, individuals who “don't have the money, the means, the connections or the privilege that Prince Harry has.” She said: “I think those kinds of people deserve recognition.”

Harry didn’t reply to a request for comment from People Magazine about Mary Tillman's testimony.

ESPN said the Tillman Award is given to “an individual with a strong connection to the sport who has served others in a way that reflects the legacy of the former NFL player and U.S. Army Ranger.”

Yet, as Mary Tillman said, Harry has turn out to be a polarizing figure in popular culture. Many people all over the world love him for his decision to step away from royal life and take a look at to construct a life in California as a media mogul, philanthropist and mental health advocate. ESPN said Harry is receiving the Pat Tillman Award due to his service within the British armed forces, which included two tours in Afghanistan, and his work in founding the Invictus Games, a world sporting event for wounded, injured and sick lively duty soldiers and veterans.

Harry's decision to simply accept the Pat Tillman Award was also met with disdain by Pat McAfee, ESPN's star sports analyst, and Organizers of a petition, which have up to now collected greater than 28,000 signatures calling on ESPN to reconsider awarding the prize to Harry.

In his show on Friday, McAfee asked: “Why are the ESPYs doing this (curse word)?” He criticized the ESPYs for appearing to pander to Harry, “who I don't even think is a prince anymore.”

“Did (Prince Harry's) people know that you simply publicly nominated me for this award? You ask principally anybody who considers themselves an American and say, 'That's nonsense…' Especially at a sports awards ceremony. I assume Harry knew that, right?” McAfee continued.

Grocery retailer Iceland has pledged to present its customers a voice within the upcoming UK election. If that seems like a great idea, our democracy could be in trouble.

There are prone to be general elections within the United Kingdom second half of 2024 if greater than 45 million Registered voters have their say. There will even be countless opinion polls on voting intentions and the parties and their policies.

Some voters may additionally express their views through one other platform. Iceland recently announced it could be launching one “Customer Choice Manifesto”.

The idea is that a bunch of seven customers meet monthly and present their views on political issues within the run-up to the election. These will then be combined with surveys of 6,000 regular customers, which the retailer will publish as a “manifesto” over the summer and share with political parties.

At first glance, Iceland's customer manifesto seems like a fairly good idea. UK polls and elsewhere recurrently reveal that individuals don’t trust politicians to make decisions that improve their lives.

With Iceland's support, customers are rather more prone to bring their views to politicians and maybe even take motion. As Icelandic CEO Richard Walker said on the time of the announcement: “Customers have told me they are tired of being told what is important to them and want to take their chance to be the voice of the high street.” The Island Manifesto is their probability , to do exactly that.”

Iceland's reinforcing potential is especially great because Walker himself could be very politically energetic. He has been a vocal activist on social and environmental issues and in 2022 he’s introduced himself to run as a Conservative MP. More recently he has switched allegiances and now publicly supports Labor.

Such politically engaged executives are more likely than most to bring their customers' views to politicians.

However, the Icelandic manifesto also raises some troubling questions on what the corporate wants to attain. While corporate involvement in politics all the time raises eyebrows, Walker has long maintained “Iceland is apolitical”.

How he reconciles this claim with the proven fact that the corporate becomes a political platform for its customers requires further examination. One explanation could possibly be that Iceland sees itself as an impartial translator of its customers' political preferences to politicians. Ultimately, this will not be the dealer’s opinion; they’re simply those of his customers.

However, the concept each company stays neutral in all of this and plays no role in deciding what issues to boost with its customers and prioritize within the manifesto is difficult to sustain.

It seems not possible that positions which are contrary to the corporate's interests shall be prioritized in customer discussions or in the ultimate manifesto. Iceland tells us that that is the voice of the shopper, but it surely is the corporate that decides exactly what that voice should say and the way it should say it.

Basic problems

There are two big problems behind this. The first reason is the shortage of any external transparency of the method. Political participation, for instance Lobbyingis usually viewed as more democratic when it’s transparent.

However, Iceland has not committed to releasing the transcripts of its conversations with customers or politicians, nor the polls the country will use to form opinions. We simply must depend on the opinions of corporations and communicate them to politicians.

A second major problem concerns the methodology. Political surveys and focus group approaches have well-established methods to make sure their accuracy and validity. However, official polling institutes often make mistakes.

However, within the case of the Iceland Manifesto, there may be little evidence of any try to use robust research approaches. Relying on a core group of just seven panel members is already a red flag, especially when there is no such thing as a details about how representative they’re of the broader population of Icelandic customers.

And if the initial Reports If the primary panel meeting is anything to go by, statements like “100% claimed” and “83% said” are essentially meaningless from a statistical perspective, as they really mean “seven out of seven claimed” and “six didn't say out of seven said”.

Giving percentages from a sample of seven people is just bad practice and doesn’t bode well for sound scientific research into political views.

So should we welcome the Iceland Manifesto? Given these problems, the manifesto appears to be a case of great idea and poor execution. Finding latest and higher ways to hearken to residents is vital to revitalizing our democracy. In principle, there is no such thing as a reason why a dealer shouldn’t play a task on this.

However, retailers are private entities with primarily business objectives, and their role in collecting and reporting political views have to be rigorously planned to be sure that it’s legitimate. Why do you have to consider me? Because 100% of the individuals who wrote this text agree.

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An Icelandic spokesperson told The Conversation:

In Donald Trump's long list legal problemsThe Müller report – which was published in redacted form on April 18, 2019 – seems all but forgotten.

But the nearly two-year-long investigation into Russia's alleged interference within the 2016 U.S. presidential election dominated the headlines – and exposed what has change into Trump's trademark: denial of any wrongdoing. For Trump, the Russia investigation was the primary “ridiculous fraud” And “Witch hunt.”

Mueller didn't help matters. “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report said Special prosecutor explains.

With such ambiguous language, it's easy to see how Democrats and Republicans – and the American public – reacted completely otherwise to the report. While progressive Democrats called for Trump's impeachment, some GOP leaders called for an investigation into the origins of the investigation itself.

Over the past five years, Conversation US has published the work of several scholars who followed the Mueller investigation and what it revealed about Trump. Here we present 4 examples of the work of those scientists.

1. Obstruction of justice

As a law professor and former elected official David Orentlicher identified that Trump did many things that influenced the federal investigation against him and his associates. That includes firing FBI Director James Comey, publicly attacking the special counsel's work and pressuring then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from overseeing Mueller's investigation.

Some accused Trump of obstructing justice with these actions. However, Orentlicher wrote that obstruction of justice is “a complicated matter.”

Under federal law, obstruction occurs when an individual attempts to impede or influence a trial, investigation, or other official proceeding through threats or corrupt intent. The law also requires a “corrupt” intent to obstruct justice.

But in a letter dated March 24, 2019 As he summarized Mueller's findings, then-Attorney General William Barr told Congress he didn't see enough evidence that Trump had obstructed justice.

So it was as much as Congress to maneuver forward with an obstruction case against Trump, but against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejectedargue that it can be too divisive for the nation and Trump “just wasn’t worth it.”

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Read more: Trump and Obstruction of Justice: An Explanation

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2. Why was the total report not published?

Charles Tiefer, a law professor on the University of Baltimore, expected that Trump and Barr would “do everything in their power to keep the full report and, just as importantly, the materials underlying the report, secret.”

Deeper was right. To keep Mueller's report secret, Barr invoked grand jury secrecy — the rule that attorneys, jurors and others “may not disclose a matter pending before the grand jury.”

Trump and Barr also claimed executive privilege to further block the report's release. While it may well't be used to shield evidence of a criminal offense, Tiefer explained, “This is where Barr's exoneration of Trump really helped the White House.”

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Read more: How Trump and Barr could expand their claims to executive privileges and grand jury secrecy

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3. Alternative facts

political scientist David C Barker And Morgan Marietta asked a very important query: Why didn't the report help the nation reach consensus on what happened within the 2016 presidential election after nearly two years of waiting?

In her bookEntitled “One Nation, Two Realities,” they found that voters see the world in a way that reinforces their values ​​and identities, no matter whether or not they have ever watched Fox News or MSNBC.

“The contradictory factual claims that have emerged since the report's release demonstrate how easy it is for citizens to believe whatever they want, regardless of what Robert Mueller, William Barr, or anyone else has to say about it,” they wrote .

Perhaps essentially the most disappointing finding, they argued, is that there aren’t any known solutions to this problem. They found that fact-checking has little impact on changing individual beliefs and that more education only exacerbates divisions.

And with that, they wrote, “the United States is moving ever closer to a public square where consensus perceptions are impossible and facts are irrelevant.”

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Read more: From “Total exoneration!” to “Impeach now!” – the Mueller report and dueling factual perceptions

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4. Trump's demand for loyalty

Yu Ouyang, a professor of political science, studies loyalty and politics at Purdue University Northwest. He explained that it’s normal for presidents to favor loyalists.

What sets Trump apart, Ouyang wrote, is his “extraordinary emphasis on loyalty.”

Trump expects personal loyalty from his employees – especially his attorney general.

When his first attorney general, Sessions, withdrew from overseeing the FBI's Russia interference investigation, Trump considered it an act of treason and fired him in November 2017. Sessions' removal allowed Trump to rent Barr.

“Trump values ​​loyalty over other crucial qualities like competence and honesty. … And he appoints his staff accordingly,” Ouyang wrote.

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Read more: Why does a president demand loyalty from his employees?

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