title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA supports marksmanship training as well as hosting the National Rifle and Pistol Matches at Camp Perry, events which are described by the El Paso Times as the "world series of competitive shooting".


title: National Rifle Association

text: The National Rifle Association maintains ties with other organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America and 4-H and contributes to youth shooting programs.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA hosts annual meetings. The 2018 meeting was held on May 3 in Dallas, Texas. More than 800 exhibitors and 80,000 people attended the event, making it the largest in NRA history. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence addressed attendees.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Since 1991, Wayne LaPierre has been the organization's executive vice president, and functions as the chief executive officer. LaPierre's compensation averages $1 million per year and including a nearly $4 million retirement payout in 2015. Previous notable holders of that office include: Milton Reckord, Floyd Lavinius Parks, Franklin Orth, Maxwell Rich, Harlon Carter, J. Warren Cassidy, and Gary Anderson.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Chris W. Cox was the executive director of the NRA's lobbying branch, the Institute for Legislative Action. He received more than $1.3 million in compensation in 2015. Kyle Weaver is executive director of general operations. Kayne B. Robinson is executive director of the General Operations Division and chairman of the Whittington Center.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 2017, political commentator Dana Loesch was appointed as the NRA's national spokesperson, with the formal title of "Special Assistant to the Executive Vice President for Public Communication." Loesch hosts "The DL" on NRATV and has featured prominently in other NRA-produced videos.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Actor Chuck Norris serves as the honorary chairman for the association's voter registration campaign. Colion Noir hosts a video program on the NRA's online video channel.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In May 2018, the NRA announced that Oliver North would become president of the organization. North served one tumultuous term, marked by multiple legal battles and a power struggle with LaPierre; he was replaced by Carolyn D. Meadows on April 29, 2019.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA is governed by a board of 76 elected directors, 75 of whom serve three-year terms and one who is elected to serve as a cross-over director. The directors choose a president and other officers from among the membership, as well as the executive director of the NRA General Operations and the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). In 2015, 71 members were white and 65 were male. More came from Texas than any other state. Only 7 percent of eligible members vote. Most board nominations are vetted by an appointed nine-member Nominating Committee. One member is George Kollitides of the Freedom Group. The nomination committee has been called "kingmakers" by MSNBC and Jeff Knox says "the process is front-loaded to give incumbents and Nominating Committee candidates a significant advantage".


title: National Rifle Association

text: According to the NRA, their membership reached 5.5 million total members in 2018, a record high, and membership dues went from $128,209,303 in 2017 to $170,391,374 in 2018; an increase of $42,182,071, or 33 percent.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A 2017 Pew Research Center study found that 19% of US gun owners consider themselves NRA members. Journalist Megan Wilson stated that the Pew study places membership at 14 million, far higher than the NRA's own report of 5 million. According to the NRA, some non-members typically claim to be members when surveyed, as a show of support.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Nine US presidents have been NRA members. In addition to Grant, they are: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (who resigned in 1995), and Donald Trump. Three US vice presidents, two chief justices of the US Supreme Court, and several US congressmen, as well as legislators and officials of state governments are or have been members.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Current or past members also include journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, documentarian Michael Moore (who joined with the intent of dismantling the organization), actor Rick Schroder, and singer James Hetfield.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The National Rifle Association is composed of several financially interconnected organizations under common leadership, including the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) which manages the NRA's political action committee and the NRA Civil Defense Fund which does "pro bono" legal work for people with cases involving Second Amendment rights. The NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund was established in 1978. Harlon Carter and Neal Knox were responsible for its founding.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 1994, the Fund spent over $500,000 on legal fees to support legal cases involving guns and gun control measures. It donated $20,000 in 1996 for the defense of New York City resident Bernhard Goetz when he was sued by a man he shot and left paralyzed. It paid the legal bills in the case of Brian Aitken, a New Jersey resident sentenced to seven years in state prison for transporting guns without a carry permit. On December 20, 2010, Governor Chris Christie granted Aitken clemency and ordered Aitken's immediate release from prison.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that raises and donates money to outdoors groups and others such as ROTC programs, 4-H and Boy Scouts. In 2010, the NRA Foundation distributed $21.2 million in grants for gun-related training and education programs: $12.6 million to the NRA itself, and the rest to community programs for hunters, competitive shooters, gun collectors, and law enforcement, and to women and youth groups. The foundation has no staff and pays no salaries.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Friends of NRA is a program that raises money for the NRA Foundation. Since its inception in 1992, Friends of NRA has held over 17,600 events, reached over 3.2 million attendees and raised over $600 million for The NRA Foundation.


title: National Rifle Association

text: By 1976, as the NRA became more politically oriented, the Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), a PAC, was established as a subsidiary to the NRA, to support NRA-friendly politicians. Chris W. Cox, who is the NRA's chief lobbyist and principal political strategist, is also the NRA-PVF chairman. Through the NRA-PVF, the NRA began to rate political candidates on their positions on gun rights. An NRA "A+" candidate is one who has "not only an excellent voting record on all critical NRA issues, but who has also made a vigorous effort to promote and defend the Second Amendment", whereas an NRA "F" candidate is deemed a "true enemy of gun owners' rights".


title: National Rifle Association

text: In the 2008 elections, the PVF spent millions on "direct campaign donations" and "grassroots operation". In 2012, NRA-PVF income was $14.4 million and expenses were $16.1 million. By 2014, the NRA-PVF income rose to 21.9 million with expenses of 20.7 million.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 2010, the NRA reported revenue of $227.8 million and expenses of $243.5 million, with revenue including roughly $115 million generated from fundraising, sales, advertising and royalties, and most of the rest from membership dues. Less than half of the NRA's income comes from membership dues and program fees; the majority is from contributions, grants, royalties, and advertising.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Corporate donors include a variety of companies such as outdoors-supply and sporting-goods companies, and firearm manufacturers. From 2005 through 2011, the NRA received at least $14.8 million from more than 50 firearms-related firms. An April 2011 Violence Policy Center presentation stated that the NRA had received between $14.7 million and $38.9 million from the firearms industry since 2005. In 2008, Beretta exceeded $2 million in donations to the NRA, and in 2012 Smith & Wesson gave more than $1 million. Sturm, Ruger & Company raised $1.25 million through a program in which it donated $1 to the NRA-ILA for each gun it sold from May 2011 to May 2012. In a similar program, gun buyers and participating stores are invited to "round up" the purchase price to the nearest dollar as a voluntary contribution. According to the NRA's 2010 tax forms, the "round-up" funds have been allocated both to public-interest programs and to lobbying.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 2018, the NRA alleged in an official Court document that it suffered tens of millions of dollars in damage from actions of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State's financial regulator. The state's Department of Financial Services was directed by the Cuomo administration to encourage institutions it oversees, insurance companies, banks and other financial services companies licensed in New York state, to review their business interactions with the NRA and "other similar organizations" and assess if they would pose "reputational risk." The NRA's suit states that Cuomo's actions violate the organization's first-amendment rights and the NRA had suffered tens of millions of dollars in financial losses. The ACLU has filed a brief with the Northern District of New York court supporting the NRA's case. The brief noted that if proven true, the allegations disclose an abuse of government regulatory authority to retaliate against a disfavored advocacy organization by imposing a burden on the NRA's ability to conduct lawful business.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In August 2020, on behalf of the State of New York, Attorney General Letitia James sued the NRA and four individuals involved with the organization: CEO Wayne LaPierre; former chief of staff and the executive director of general operations Joshua Powell; former treasurer and CFO Wilson "Woody" Phillips; and corporate secretary and general counsel John Frazer. James charged the organization with illegal conduct, stating that the NRA mismanaged funds and assets and failed to follow state and federal laws. The suit claims that money was diverted away from its charitable mission, and instead used to fund personal expenses for senior leadership, resulting in a loss to the NPO of $64 million over three years. While the NRA sought to dismiss the lawsuit, in June 2022, Manhattan Judge Joel M. Cohen ruled that the lawsuit could move forward.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A Reuters/Ipsos poll in April 2012 found that 82% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats saw the NRA "in a positive light". In seven of eight Gallup polls between 1993 and 2015, a majority of Americans reported holding a favorable opinion of the NRA. Its highest rating was at 60% favorability in 2005 (with 34% unfavorable), while its lowest rating was at 42% favorability in 1995 (with 51% unfavorable). In October 2015, 58% of Americans held a favorable opinion of the NRA, though there was a wide spread among political affiliations: 77% of conservatives, 56% of moderates and 30% of liberals held this view.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A "Washington Post"/ABC News poll in January 2013 showed that only 36% of Americans had a favorable opinion of the NRA leadership.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A 2017 poll conducted by the political action committee Americans for Responsible Solutions, which supports gun control, exclusively questioned 661 gun owners. 26% of the respondents stated they were a member of the NRA. The ARS reported that less than 50% of gun owners polled believed the NRA represented their interests, while 67% of them somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement that it had been "overtaken by lobbyists and the interests of gun manufacturers and lost its original purpose and mission." The NRA disputed the poll's veracity in an e-mail sent to "Politico", which had published the story.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Polling trends since 2018 show a significant decline in NRA favorability. A 2018 NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll found that "for the first time since at least 2000, Americans hold a net unfavorable view of the NRA"—the poll showed respondents view of the NRA was 40% negative and 37% positive. The poll showed that compared to the same question in 2017, the favorability rating of the NRA overall dropped 5%, noting that the shift was largely due to favorability declines among certain demographics: married white women, urban residents, white women (overall), and moderate Republicans.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A February 2018 Quinnipiac poll found that 51% of Americans believe that the policies supported by the NRA are bad for the U.S., a 4% increase since October 2017.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA calls itself "the oldest continuously operating civil liberties organization" and is "one of the largest and best-funded lobbying organizations" in the United States. Its claim that it is one of the oldest civil rights organizations is disputed. While the NRA was founded in 1871, it did not pursue a gun rights agenda until 1934. The National Association for the Deaf (NAD, founded in 1880) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, founded in 1909) both originated as civil rights organizations according to other sources.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The National Rifle Association has been criticized by newspaper editorial boards, gun control and gun rights advocacy groups, political commentators, and politicians. Democrats and liberals frequently criticize the organization. The NRA's oldest organized critics include the gun control advocacy groups the Brady Campaign, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), and the Violence Policy Center (VPC). Twenty-first century groups include Everytown for Gun Safety (formerly Mayors Against Illegal Guns), Moms Demand Action, and Giffords.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 1995, former US President George H. W. Bush resigned his life membership to the organization after receiving a National Rifle Association Institute of Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) fund-raising letter, signed by executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, that referred to ATF agents as "jack-booted government thugs". The NRA later apologized for the letter's language.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In December 2008, "The New York Times" editorial board criticized the NRA's attacks, which it called false and misleading, on Barack Obama's presidential campaign.


title: National Rifle Association

text: After US President Donald Trump's election, the NRA closely aligned with him. At an event in February 2018, Trump said that he was a "big fan of the NRA" but said that "doesn't mean we have to agree on everything."


title: National Rifle Association

text: Although the NRA has previously donated to and endorsed Democratic candidates, it has become more closely affiliated with the Republican party since the 1990s. In 2016, only two Democratic House candidates received donations from the NRA, compared to 115 in the 1992 elections, in a reflection of decreasing Democratic support for the NRA and its mission. Self-identified Republicans are far more likely to hold a positive view of the NRA than are Democrats.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In February 2013, "USA Today" editors criticized the NRA for flip-flopping on expansion of universal background checks to private and gun show sales, which the NRA now opposes.


title: National Rifle Association

text: "As early as March 23 (2013), POLITICO had reported on rumors that the NRA and (WV Sen. Joe) Manchin were engaged in secret talks over background checks. Two days later, the National Association for Gun Rights sent out a bulletin to its members: "I've warned you from the beginning that our gravest danger was an inside-Washington driven deal," wrote NAGR executive Dudley Brown. He added that the deal was a "Manchin-NRA compromise bill." The Gun Owners of America followed suit a week later, urging its members to contact the NRA to voice their opinion. Neither of these groups had even a tenth of the NRA's membership, or its political power, but they threatened to chip away at the group's reputation. Whatever NRA HQ's position on the bill may have been, it was fast getting outflanked by ideologues on the right."


title: National Rifle Association

text: In March 2014, "The Washington Post" criticized the NRA's interference in government research on gun violence, and both "Post" and "Los Angeles Times" editors criticized its opposition of Vivek Murthy for US Surgeon General. In November 2018, a social media dispute was seen, after a paper was published by the American College of Physicians that stated that medical professionals had a special responsibility to speak out on prevention of gun-related injuries and that they should support appropriate regulation of the purchase of legal weapons. In response to the paper the NRA tweeted against the paper and "anti-gun doctors" and claimed that "half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control", and medical professional began posting their experiences of caring for gun violence victims.


title: National Rifle Association

text: A survey of NRA members found that the majority support certain gun control policies, such as a universal background check:


title: National Rifle Association

text: Critics have charged that the NRA represents the interests of gun manufacturers rather than gun owners.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Following the high-profile 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, the organization began to become the focus of intense criticism, due to its continued refusal to endorse any new restrictions on assault-style gun ownership, or to endorse any other types of new restrictions on gun ownership.


title: National Rifle Association

text: While supporters say the organization advances their rights to buy and own guns according to the constitution's Second Amendment, some critics have described it as a "terrorist organization" for advocating policies that enable and permit the widespread distribution and sale of assault-style weapons, and for its opposition to any other types of restrictions on gun sales or use.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In December 2012, following the shooting, NRA broke its social media silence and media blackout to announce a press conference. At the event, LaPierre announced an NRA-backed effort to assess the feasibility of placing armed security officers in the nation's 135,000 public and private schools under a "National School Shield Program". He called on Congress "to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary". The announcement came in the same week after President Obama had stated his support for a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA has been criticized for their media strategy following mass shootings in the United States. Following the Sandy Hook shooting, the NRA released an online video which attacked Obama and mentioned Obama's daughters; New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called it "reprehensible" and said that it demeaned the organization. A senior lobbyist for the organization later characterized the video as "ill-advised".


title: National Rifle Association

text: After the October 2017 shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, which left 58 people dead and 851 injured, the NRA was initially criticized for their silence. After four days they issued a statement opposing additional gun control laws, which they said would not stop further attacks, and called for a federal law allowing people who have a concealed carry permit in one state to carry concealed weapons in all other states. The organization also suggested additional regulations on so-called bump fire stocks, which allow a semi-automatic weapon to function like a machine gun; the Las Vegas shooter had used such a device.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In February 2018 a school shooting at a high school in Florida left 17 dead and another 17 injured, and student survivors organized a movement called Never Again MSD to demand passage of certain gun control measures. Many of the students blamed the NRA, and the politicians who accept money from the organization, for preventing enactment of any gun control proposals after previous high-profile shootings. An NRA spokesman responded by blaming the shooting on the FBI and the media. The NRA also issued a statement that the incident was proof that more guns were immediately required in schools in the hands of a bolstered force of armed security personnel in order to "harden" them against any further similar assaults. A Florida law passed in the wake of the shooting, which includes a provision to ban the sale of firearms to people under 21, was immediately challenged in federal court by the NRA on the grounds that it is "violating the constitutional rights of 18- to 21-year-olds."


title: National Rifle Association

text: In May 2018, Cameron Kasky's father and other Parkland parents formed a super PAC, Families vs Assault Rifles PAC (FAMSVARPAC), with a stated goal of going "up against NRA candidates in every meaningful race in the country". The organization seeks federal legislation to ban "the most dangerous firearms", while not affecting the Second Amendment.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA offers corporate discounts to its members at various businesses through its corporate affiliate programs. For several years, and increasingly in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, "affiliate companies" have been targeted in social media as part of a boycott effort to terminate their business relationships with the NRA. As a result of this boycott movement, several major corporations such as Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Hertz, Symantec, and MetLife have disaffiliated from the NRA, while others, such as FedEx have refused to disaffiliate.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In 2017, Zack Beauchamp of "Vox" and Mark Sumner of "Daily Kos" criticized a video advertisement from the NRA. In the video, Dana Loesch runs through a list of wrongs committed by an unspecified "they":


title: National Rifle Association

text: They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that the president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars, and singers, and comedy shows, and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance. All to make them march. Make them protest. Make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia. To smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding. Until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they'll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this. The only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Sumner alleged the NRA was trying to boost gun sales by "convincing half of America to declare war on the other half." Beauchamp wrote, "It's a paranoid vision of American life that encourages the NRA's fans to see liberals not as political opponents, but as monsters."


title: National Rifle Association

text: In May 2018, the NRA ran an advertisement which criticized the media for giving too much coverage to school shooters by showing their faces and revealing their names, in effect causing a "glorification of carnage in pursuit of ratings", and satirically suggested that Congress pass legislation to limit such coverage in order to make provocative point about gun control. In response, critics suggested that this would violate the First Amendment right of free speech.


title: National Rifle Association

text: Pro-gun rights critics include Gun Owners of America (GOA), founded in the 1970s because some gun rights advocates believed the NRA was too flexible on gun issues. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) has also disagreed with NRA for what it perceives as a willingness to compromise on gun control. The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) has been an outspoken critic of the NRA for a number of years. According to the Huffington Post, "NAGR is the much leaner, more pugnacious version of the NRA. Where the NRA has looked to find some common ground with gun reform advocates and at least appear to be reasonable, NAGR has been the unapologetic champion of opening up gun laws even more." In June 2014, an open carry group in Texas threatened to withdraw its support of the NRA if it did not retract its statements critical of the practice. The NRA–ILA's Chris Cox said the statements were a staffer's personal opinion and a mistake.


title: National Rifle Association

text: The NRA has been accused of insufficiently defending African-American gun rights and of providing muted and delayed responses in gun rights cases involving black gun owners. Others argue that the NRA's inaction in prominent gun rights cases involving black gun owners is a consequence of their reluctance to criticize law enforcement, noting NRA support for Otis McDonald and Shaneen Allen.


title: National Rifle Association

text: In a well-publicized 2016 case, Philando Castile, an African-American and legal gun owner, was fatally shot by a police officer during a traffic stop while reaching for his wallet. Castile had a valid firearm permit and informed the police officer of his gun prior to the shooting. According to "The Washington Post", the NRA had typically "been quick to defend other gun owners who made national news", but stayed silent on the Castile shooting. Other gun rights advocates as well as some NRA members voiced similar criticisms. In a delayed response to the shooting the NRA stated, the death was "a terrible tragedy that could have been avoided."


title: National Rifle Association

text: Adam Winkler, professor of constitutional law at the UCLA School of Law, has argued that there are historical precedents to the NRA's lack of advocacy for black gun owners, stating that the NRA promoted gun control legislation in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1960s with the intent to reduce gun ownership by immigrants and racial minorities.


title: Rocky II

text: Rocky II is a 1979 American sports drama film written, directed by, and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the sequel to "Rocky" (1976) and is the second installment in the "Rocky" franchise. It also stars Talia Shire, Burt Young, Carl Weathers, and Burgess Meredith. In the film, Rocky Balboa (Stallone), struggling to adjust to family life, finds himself in a rematch fiercely demanded by Apollo Creed (Weathers).


title: Rocky II

text: Development of "Rocky II" began in 1977, after Stallone completed the screenplay. United Artists were reluctant to allow Stallone to direct after John G. Avildsen, the director of the first film, was unable to return. Stallone was eventually hired after disallowing the film to be made without him as director, and the returns of the rest of the cast was secured soon thereafter. Principal photography commenced in 1978, with filming held primarily on location in Philadelphia, during which, Stallone sustained several injuries.


title: Rocky II

text: "Rocky II" was theatrically released in the United States by United Artists on June 15, 1979. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its characterization, finale, and Stallone's performance. It grossed $200 million worldwide and $85 million in North America, making it the third highest-grossing film of 1979 domestically. The sequel, "Rocky III", was released in 1982.


title: Rocky II

text: On New Year's Day in 1976, world heavyweight boxing champion Apollo Creed has successfully defended his title in a split decision against challenger Rocky Balboa. He and Rocky are taken to the same hospital. Despite their mutual agreement not to seek a rematch, Apollo challenges Rocky again to prove that Rocky going the distance with him was a fluke, but Rocky declines and retires from professional boxing. Balboa's girlfriend, Adrian, supports his choice as do his doctors who go on to reveal that Rocky will require surgery for a detached retina, a condition that could lead to permanent blindness. In a private moment, Rocky goes to see a recuperating Apollo, and wants a truthful response to his question of whether Apollo gave his all in the fight; Creed confirms that he did. After Rocky is released from the hospital, he enjoys the benefits of his newfound celebrity status. An agent sees Rocky as a potential endorsement and sponsorship goldmine and his sudden wealth encourages him to propose to Adrian. She happily accepts and they marry in a small ceremony. Soon after Adrian reveals that she is pregnant.


title: Rocky II

text: Meanwhile, fuelled by hate mail claiming he fixed the fight in order to protect his reign as champ, Apollo becomes obsessed with the idea that a rematch is the only way to prove that Rocky's performance was simply a fluke. Determined to rectify his boxing career's only blemish Apollo demands his team do whatever necessary to goad Rocky out of retirement, despite the pleas of his friends and family that Rocky's ability to absorb punishment is too dangerous for his chances to successfully defend the title a second time.


title: Rocky II

text: Rocky at first seems unaffected by Apollo's smear campaign, but his inexperience with money causes him to run into financial problems. After several unsuccessful attempts to find employment, Rocky visits Mickey Goldmill, his trainer and manager, at his gym to talk about the possibility of fighting again. Mickey declines out of concern for Rocky's health, but he changes his mind after Apollo publicly insults Rocky. Adrian confronts Rocky about the danger of returning to boxing and reminds him of the risk to his eyesight. Rocky insists that he knows nothing else so this is the only way he can provide for them. Adrian, disappointed at the fact that Rocky broke his promise, refuses to support him.


title: Rocky II

text: Rocky and Mickey begin training but Rocky is unfocused due to Adrian's disapproval. Adrian's brother, Paulie, confronts his sister about not supporting her husband. Adrian faints during the confrontation and is rushed to the hospital where she goes into labor. Despite being born premature the baby is healthy, but Adrian falls into a coma. Rocky blames himself for what happened and refuses to leave her bedside until she wakes up, and will not go to see his new baby until the baby can be together with his mother. When Adrian comes out of her coma she finds Rocky by her bedside, and the couple are soon shown their new baby, a boy, which they name Robert "Rocky Jr". Adrian gives her blessing to the rematch and Rocky quickly gets into shape for the fight.


title: Rocky II

text: On Thanksgiving, the night of the match, Apollo makes a public goal of beating Rocky in no more than two rounds to prove the first match going the distance was a fluke. In order to protect his vulnerable eye Rocky opts to fight right-handed rather than his natural southpaw. The change leaves him at a major disadvantage, and as a result he is knocked down twice by Creed and outclassed for much of the fight. Going into the fifteenth and final round Creed is well ahead on points and only needs to stay away from Balboa to win the fight by decision. However Creed wants to win by knock-out in order to erase any doubts about his superiority and ignores his trainer's pleas to stay back. In the final round Rocky switches back to his natural stance and, in dramatic fashion, unleashes a series of counter punches on Creed, and begins to turn the tide. Both men, exhausted, trade punches until Rocky is able to gain the upper hand and knocks Creed down. The blow causes Rocky to also lose his balance and fall at the same time. As both men struggle to regain their feet, Rocky is able to will himself up at the count of 9 while Apollo collapses from exhaustion, giving Rocky the win by knockout and making him the new heavyweight champion. Rocky then gives an impassioned speech to the crowd and holds the belt over his head with a message for his wife, who is watching the fight on TV: "Yo, Adrian, I did it!"


title: Rocky II

text: Jeff Temkin portrays the ring announcer. Appearing as themselves are referee Lou Filippo and commentators Brent Musburger, Stu Nahan and Bill Baldwin. LeRoy Neiman makes an uncredited non-speaking cameo appearance during the training scenes in the film; he is shown drawing a picture of Apollo while he is training.


title: Rocky II

text: After the enormous success of the first "Rocky", the producers were anxious to make a sequel. Stallone again wrote the script, originally titled "Rocky II: Redemption", but John G. Avildsen declined to direct again because he was busy with pre-production on "Saturday Night Fever". Stallone wanted the job and waged as big a campaign as he had for the lead role in the previous film. United Artists executives were reluctant to give the actor the directing reins because, while he had previously directed the drama "Paradise Alley", it was not a success. However, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff understood how much of the success of the first "Rocky" had come from Stallone's enormous input and lobbied hard to get him the job.


title: Rocky II

text: The story development of involving Rocky surprising Creed by switching to fighting right-handed was not in the original script and only came about because of an accident onset. While getting in shape for the film, Stallone experienced an almost complete tear on his right pectoralis major muscle while trying to bench press 100 kg with bodybuilder Franco Columbu and underwent a partially successful surgery in order to try to reattach the muscle. Therefore, he could not fight with his right hand.


title: Rocky II

text: The film's ending fight sequence also posed a challenge because at the time Talia Shire was busy making the drama "Old Boyfriends" and couldn't be on the set. So Stallone came up with the idea of having her watch the fight from home because of the new baby. Adrian's scenes were actually filmed some months later, toward the end of the shoot.


title: Rocky II

text: An estimated 800 school children were used as extras in the scene in which Rocky runs through Philadelphia and climbs the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


title: Rocky II

text: Just as in the previous installment, Bill Conti composed the film's music. A soundtrack album containing Conti's score was released on August 25, 1979, and charted on the "Billboard" 200 for five consecutive weeks.


title: Rocky II

text: "Rocky II" opened in 805 theatres and grossed $11 million in its first week. It finished in the top three highest-grossing films of 1979, in both the North American market and worldwide. In the United States and Canada, the film grossed $6,390,537 during its opening weekend, and in four days. It went on to gross $85,182,160 at the North American box office, and $200,182,160 worldwide.


title: Rocky II

text: "Rocky II" returned to UA 75% of "Rocky"'s rentals in the United States and Canada ($42 million vs. $56 million) when the rule of thumb at the time was that a sequel would only do 30% to 40% of the business of its predecessor.


title: Rocky II

text: "Rocky II" holds a 72% approval rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes; out of 32 reviews, the average rating is 6.8/10. The site's consensus reads: ""Rocky II" is a movie that dares you to root again for the ultimate underdog – and succeeds due to an infectiously powerful climax."


title: Rocky II

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that the film "has a waxy feeling, and it never comes to life the way its predecessor did." "Variety" wrote, "In its boxing and training scenes "Rocky II" packs much of the punch the original did, complete with an exciting pugilistic finale that's even better than its predecessor. However, in an attempt to tell the new story—that of Rocky's adjustment to near-success and an attempt to live a non-boxing life—the plot tends to drag and the picture takes on a murky quality." Gene Siskel gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "What is most remarkable about "Rocky II" is that it recalls so many scenes from the original film, which is only three years old and was shown on national television last fall, and yet—amazingly—it all works. Almost every bit of it." Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that ""Rocky II" does not merely exploit the original, it extends it logically and grippingly, preserving all the traits of character (and of movie character) that made "Rocky I" work so well—those notions that ordinary people are worth knowing about, that love is the surpassing emotion in our lives and that some things are worth struggling hard for, even if there may only be the honor of the struggle to show in the end." Gary Arnold of "The Washington Post" wrote that the film "slavishly repeats the plot of "Rocky", achieving differentiation only in dubious forms: soap opera detours, delaying tactics and an ugly new mood of viciousness surrounding a rematch between the boxers."


title: Rocky II

text: The film won Best Picture at the American Movie Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture. Dre Rivas of Film.com included it in his list of top ten films of 1979.


title: Rocky II

text: A novelization was published by Ballantine Books in 1979. Sylvester Stallone was credited as the author. The book is a first-person narrative told by Rocky himself.


title: Rocky II

text: In 1987, "Rocky" was released, based on the first four "Rocky" films. In 2002, another "Rocky" was released, based on the first five "Rocky" films. In 2004, "Rocky Legends" was released, based on the first four "Rocky" films.


title: John Bercow

text: John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior to becoming Speaker, he was the first MP since Selwyn Lloyd in 1971 to be elected Speaker without having been a Deputy Speaker. After resigning as Speaker in 2019 and opting not to seek re-election as MP for Buckingham in the 2019 general election, Bercow left Parliament. In 2021, he joined the Labour Party but was suspended in 2022.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was a councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth from 1986 to 1990 and unsuccessfully contested Parliamentary seats in the 1987 and 1992 general elections, before being elected for Buckingham in 1997. Promoted to the Shadow Cabinet in 2001, he held posts under Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. In November 2002, Bercow resigned over a dispute concerning his support for the Adoption and Children Act 2002, but returned a year later, only to be dismissed from the Shadow Cabinet in 2004. Having initially been strongly associated with the right-wing faction of his party, his views shifted; by 2009, there were rumours that he would defect to the Labour Party.


title: John Bercow

text: On the resignation of Michael Martin in June 2009, Bercow stood successfully in the election to replace him as Speaker. As Speaker, he was obliged to leave the Conservative Party and remain as an independent for the duration of his tenure. He was re-elected unopposed at the commencements of the Parliaments in 2010, 2015 and 2017. This made him the first Speaker since the Second World War to have been elected four times, as well as the first since then to have served alongside four Prime Ministers. In September 2019, Bercow declared that he would stand down as Commons Speaker and MP on 31 October; he remained Speaker until being appointed to the Manor of Northstead on 4 November 2019.


title: John Bercow

text: In 2014, Bercow was appointed Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire. In July 2017, he was appointed Chancellor of the University of Essex, stepping down from this role in November 2021. In January 2020, he became part-time professor of politics at Royal Holloway, University of London.


title: John Bercow

text: In 2022, an independent Commons complaints body found Bercow to have persistently bullied staff, sworn at them over the course of more than a decade, and at one time made an undisclosed discriminatory remark. The body concluded that it would have recommended Bercow's expulsion had he still been an MP, and that he should never be permitted a pass to the Parliamentary estate. The Labour Party subsequently suspended him.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was born in Edgware, Middlesex, the son of Brenda (Bailey) and Charles Bercow, a taxi driver. His father was born to a Jewish family and his mother converted to Judaism. His paternal grandparents were Jews who arrived in Britain from Romania in the early 20th century. Having settled in the UK, the family anglicised its surname from Berkowitz to Bercow. Bercow attended Frith Manor Primary School in Woodside Park, and Finchley Manorhill, a large comprehensive school in North Finchley. In his youth, Bercow had been a successful junior tennis player, but was too short to go professional. In 1975 he appeared on the UK children's television series "Crackerjack!".


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow graduated with a first-class honours degree in Government from the University of Essex in 1985. Anthony King, a professor at the university, has said about Bercow that "When he was a student here, he was very right-wing, pretty stroppy, and very good. He was an outstanding student." As a young activist, Bercow was a member of the right-wing Conservative Monday Club. He stood as a candidate for the club's national executive in 1981 with a manifesto calling for a programme of "assisted repatriation" of immigrants, and became secretary of its immigration and repatriation committee. However, at the age of 20 he left the club, citing the views of many of the club's members as his reason, and has since then called his participation in the club "utter madness" and dismissed his views from that period as "bone headed".


title: John Bercow

text: After graduating from the University of Essex, Bercow was elected as the last national chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS), 1986–87. The FCS was then broken up by the chairman of the Conservative Party, Norman Tebbit, after one of its members had accused previous Tory PM Harold Macmillan of war crimes in extraditing Cossacks to the Soviet Union. Bercow attracted the attention of the Conservative leadership, and in 1987 he was appointed by Tebbit as vice-chairman of the Conservative Collegiate Forum (the successor organisation of the FCS) to head the campaign for student support in the run-up to the 1987 general election.


title: John Bercow

text: After a spell in merchant banking, Bercow joined the lobbying firm Rowland Sallingbury Casey (part of Saatchi & Saatchi) in 1988, becoming a board director within five years. With fellow Conservative Julian Lewis, Bercow ran an advanced speaking and campaigning course for over 10 years, which trained over 600 Conservatives (including several current MPs) in campaigning and communication techniques. He has also lectured in the United States to students of the Leadership Institute.


title: John Bercow

text: In 1986, Bercow was elected as a Conservative councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth, and served for four years representing the Streatham, St Leonard's ward. In 1987, he was appointed the youngest deputy group leader in the United Kingdom.


title: John Bercow

text: In 1995, Bercow was appointed as a special adviser to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Jonathan Aitken. After Aitken's resignation to fight a libel action, Bercow served as a special adviser to the Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was an unsuccessful Conservative candidate in the 1987 general election in Motherwell South, and again at the 1992 general election in Bristol South. In 1996 he paid £1,000 to charter a helicopter so that he could attend the selection meetings for two safe Conservative parliamentary seats on the same day – Buckingham and Surrey Heath – and was selected as the candidate for Buckingham. He has referred to the hiring of the helicopter as "the best £1,000 I have ever spent".


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was first elected to parliament in the 1997 general election as the MP for Buckingham with a majority of 12,386. He then increased his majority at the 2001 general election being elected by a margin of 13,325 votes. He was re-elected at the 2005 general election with an again increased majority of 18,129.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow devoted a notable portion of his maiden speech to praising former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher whom he called "the world's greatest living statesman." In 1999, the "Almanac of British Politics" described him as an "articulate, abrasive and waspish Commons performer" who Tony Blair had labelled as "nasty and ineffectual in equal quantity" for an attack he had made on Robin Cook.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow rose quickly through the opposition's junior offices. He was appointed a frontbench spokesman for Education and Employment in June 1999, and then a frontbench spokesman for Home Affairs in July 2000, before being brought into the shadow cabinet in 2001 by the Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. He served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from September 2001 to July 2002, and as Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions from July to November 2002. During this first spell on the front benches, Bercow publicly said that he did not think he was ruthless enough to reach the top of politics. In November 2002, when the Labour government introduced the Adoption and Children Act, which would allow unmarried gay and heterosexual couples to adopt children, Duncan Smith imposed a three-line whip requiring Conservative MPs to vote against the bill, rather than allowing a free vote. Arguing that it should be a free vote, Bercow defied the whips and voted with Labour, then resigned from the front bench. As a backbencher he was openly critical of Duncan Smith's leadership.


title: John Bercow

text: In November 2003, the new Conservative leader Michael Howard appointed Bercow as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development. However, he went on to clash with Howard over taxes, immigration and Iraq, and was sacked from the front bench in September 2004 after telling Howard that Ann Widdecombe was right to have said that there was "something of the night about him". Bercow has a long-standing interest in Burma and frequently raised issues of democracy and genocide in the country. In 2006, he was a patron of the Tory Reform Group. In 2001, he supported the ban on MPs becoming members of the Monday Club.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was formerly the treasurer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tribal Peoples, an APPG composed of over 30 cross-party MPs which aims to raise parliamentary and public awareness of tribal peoples.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow won the Stonewall award for Politician of the Year in 2010 for his work to support equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Stonewall gave him a score of 100% for always voting for its position on gay equality issues in parliament between 2007 and 2009.


title: John Bercow

text: In 2005, Bercow won the Channel Four/Hansard Society Political Award for 'Opposition MP of the Year'. He said:


title: John Bercow

text: In addition to pursuing a wide variety of local issues, I have attempted to question, probe and scrutinise the Government in the House of Commons on important national and international topics which concern people. Over the last 12 months, I have constantly pressed the case for reform of world trade rules to give the poorest people on the planet a chance to sell their products and improve their quality of life. The plight of the people of Darfur, Western Sudan, has also been a regular theme. They have suffered too much for too long with too little done about the situation. I shall go on arguing for Britain to take the lead in the international community in seeking decisive action for peace and justice.


title: John Bercow

text: Following the defection of Conservative MP Quentin Davies to the Labour Party in June 2007, there were persistent rumours that Bercow was likely to be the next Conservative MP to leave the party.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow did not at that time defect to Labour, but in September 2007, accepted an advisory post on Gordon Brown's government's review of support for children with speech, language and communication special needs. The Conservative Party chairman, Caroline Spelman, confirmed that this appointment was with the consent of the Conservative Party. Bercow had a long-term interest in this topic, as his son Oliver has been diagnosed with autism.


title: John Bercow

text: In 2008, Bercow was asked by Labour cabinet members Ed Balls and Alan Johnson to produce a substantial review of children and families affected by speech, language and communication needs (SLCN). After the report, the government pledged £52 million to raise the profile of SLCN within the education field.


title: John Bercow

text: The review looks at the extreme consequences to which communication problems can lead; from initial frustration at not being able to express oneself, to bullying or being bullied at school, fewer job prospects and even a descent into criminality.


title: John Bercow

text: The interim report highlighted a number of core issues: that speech, language and communication are not only essential life skills but fundamental human rights; that early identification of problems and intervention is important to avoid social problems later on; and that the current system of treatment was patchy, i.e. there was a need for services to be continually provided for children and families from an early age.


title: John Bercow

text: During the 2009 expenses scandal, it was revealed that Bercow changed the designation of his second home on more than one occasion – meaning that he avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of two properties. He also claimed just under £1,000 to hire an accountant to fill in his tax returns. Bercow denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to pay £6,508 plus VAT to cover any tax that he may have had to pay to HM Revenue and Customs.


title: John Bercow

text: It was revealed in 2014 that the House of Commons authorities had destroyed all evidence of MPs' expenses claims prior to 2010. Bercow faced accusations that he had presided over what had been dubbed a "fresh cover-up" of the expenses scandal.


title: John Bercow

text: In July 2015, Bercow was again criticised for the amount of his expenses, including a claim of £172 for a chauffeur-driven journey. Andy Silvester, campaign director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is an obscene waste of money and shows appalling judgment from whoever made the arrangements."


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow has supported a number of charities. He has been a Patron of the ME Association, Brain Tumour Research and a Patron of the Patchwork Foundation founded by Harris Bokhari. He also spoken at a fundraising event for the mental health charity Jami. In 2018, Bercow supported a fundraiser for Children in Need.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow had long campaigned quietly to become Speaker and was touted as a successor to Michael Martin. On 20 May 2009, he officially declared to stand in the Speakership election, which had been triggered by Martin's resignation, and launched his manifesto for the job. In reference to his decision to stand, Bercow said: "I wanted it because I felt that there was a task to be undertaken and that's about strengthening backbench involvement and opportunity in parliament, and helping parliament get off its knees and recognise that it isn't just there as a rubber-stamping operation for the government of the day, and as necessary and appropriate to contradict and expose the government of the day."


title: John Bercow

text: In the first round of the election on 22 June, Bercow received 179 votes – more than any other candidate, but short of the majority required for victory. In the third and final round of voting later that day, he defeated George Young by 322 votes to 271, and was approved by the Queen at 10 pm that night as the 157th Speaker. In accordance with convention, he rescinded his Conservative party membership.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was elected by a large number of Labour votes, many MPs being driven by the perception that Michael Martin had been hounded out of the job and wanting his replacement to be someone who was not a Conservative Party favourite.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was the first Speaker to be Jewish, the first one to have been elected by an exhaustive ballot, and the first not to wear traditional court robes while presiding over the House of Commons. However, in accordance with tradition, Bercow did display his coat of arms at Speaker's House.


title: John Bercow

text: Within weeks of taking office as Speaker, Bercow ordered a redecoration and refurbishment of the Speaker's grace and favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster, partly with the objective of making it child-friendly; the work cost £20,659 and was paid for by Parliament. It followed extensive work on the apartment under the previous Speaker.


title: John Bercow

text: In October 2009, Bercow chaired the United Kingdom Youth Parliament's first annual sitting in the House of Commons, making them the only group except members of parliament to sit in the chamber. He chaired every subsequent sitting and attended every annual conference until his resignation in 2019, addressing and supporting Members of Youth Parliament from across the UK.


title: John Bercow

text: The Speaker of the House of Commons is traditionally seen as outside party politics, and is often not challenged by the main parties at general elections, including the 2010 general election. In September 2009, Nigel Farage resigned his leadership of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) to stand for Bercow's Buckingham seat, asserting, "This man represents all that is wrong with British politics today. He was embroiled in the expenses saga and he presides over a Parliament that virtually does nothing." John Stevens, another candidate, found support for his campaign from the former Independent MP Martin Bell. Bercow also faced opposition from the British National Party and the Christian Party.


title: John Bercow

text: As Bercow lacked a party endorsement and therefore a campaign team, he sought to build one. A group of his supporters known as 'Friends of Speaker Bercow' solicited donations for the campaign, aiming to raise £40,000. When one of their letters was received by a member of UKIP, the recipient referred it to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, complaining that it appeared that Bercow's fundraising campaign was operating from the Speaker's Office, which is required to remain politically neutral. The Commissioner declined to launch an investigation because of the lack of evidence.


title: John Bercow

text: To mark the centenary of the Parliament Act 1911, Bercow commissioned a series of lectures about the main political figures of the century. The Speaker's Lectures continue with a variety of topics such as historic parliamentarians and current affairs.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow was returned as an MP in the 2015 general election. The election was notable for the 1,289 spoilt ballot papers, an issue he addressed in his victory speech.


title: John Bercow

text: On 26 March 2015, the House of Commons defeated a government motion (introduced by former Conservative party leader and then leader of the House of Commons William Hague) to require there to be a secret ballot vote on whether Bercow remain speaker after the 2015 general election. A number of MPs described it as an underhand plot to oust Bercow, largely based on the timing of the motion just before the dissolution of Parliament, when some Labour MPs expected to oppose it had already returned to their constituencies. In the event, Bercow was re-elected unopposed as Speaker following the general election.


title: John Bercow

text: In February 2017, Bercow said he had supported continued membership of the European Union in the 2016 referendum.


title: John Bercow

text: On 6 February 2017, Bercow said in the house that he would be "strongly opposed" to US President Donald Trump addressing the Houses of Parliament during his planned state visit to the UK, and told MPs that "opposition to racism and sexism" were "hugely important considerations". The comments proved controversial and made the headlines in many UK newspapers the following day, with some such as "Guardian" columnist Owen Jones, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP Dennis Skinner and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron supporting this intervention. His comments were criticised even by some opponents of Trump (such as Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi), however, for being hypocritical and undermining the Speaker's neutrality, and some in the government reportedly felt that Bercow had overstepped his role. John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP for Maldon and a former Culture Secretary, dismissed Bercow's remarks as "playing to the gallery for as much publicity as possible", and Bercow himself apologised to the Lord Speaker Lord Fowler over a lack of consultation over his remarks.


title: John Bercow

text: Following the 2017 general election, Bercow was re-elected unopposed as Speaker of the House by members of parliament on 13 June 2017.


title: John Bercow

text: In January 2019, Bercow broke with convention, allowing a vote on an amendment to a government business motion. The amendment, tabled by Dominic Grieve MP, required the Prime Minister (Theresa May) to table a motion within three days on proposed alternative plans if her Brexit deal was rejected by Parliament.


title: John Bercow

text: On 18 March 2019, Bercow, in a statement to the House, pre-empted a move by the Government to bring the UK/EU Withdrawal Agreement for a third vote. Citing a convention which dates back to 1604, Bercow stated that he would not allow a vote on a motion which was "substantially the same" as a previously rejected motion.


title: John Bercow

text: Having served 10 years as Speaker, Bercow became the longest-serving Speaker since Edward FitzRoy, who served nearly 15 years in post between 1928 and 1943.


title: John Bercow

text: In October 2018, it was reported that Bercow intended to step down as Speaker in the summer of 2019, but in January 2019 it was reported that he planned to stay as Speaker until the end of the parliament, in 2022. On 9 September 2019, amid debates about Brexit and parliament being prorogued, Bercow declared to the House of Commons that he would stand down on 31 October, or at the next general election, whichever was sooner; the former applied.


title: John Bercow

text: Despite the convention that former Speakers of the House of Commons are elevated to membership of the House of Lords when they resign, the Prime Minister denied Bercow a peerage. Sources in the Cabinet had suggested beforehand that this would be due to his rulings during the Parliamentary votes on Brexit, which the Government saw as biased against them. Bercow became the first ex-Speaker since the retirement of Arthur Onslow in 1761 to have been eligible for, but not have been made the offer of, a peerage. Overall, he is the tenth Speaker not to receive a Peerage since the 1707 Act of Union, and the fifth since Onslow's retirement not to be immediately elevated to the House of Lords: Charles Wolfran Cornwall died in office with no peerage offer to his surviving family, John Henry Whitley was offered but declined, and following the deaths of Edward Fitzroy and Sir Harry Hylton-Foster in office, their widows were ennobled instead. With no prospect of a government-sponsored peerage, Bercow lobbied the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in the hope that the opposition might give him preferment.


title: John Bercow

text: In November 2019, Bercow was appointed by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid as Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead; since members of the House of Commons are prohibited from resigning, the legal device of appointment to an "office of profit under The Crown" is used to permit members to leave their legislative offices.


title: John Bercow

text: In the same month, Bercow stated that he "think[s] that Brexit is the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post-war period, and that is my honest view." This led to further questions about Bercow's impartiality during the Brexit parliamentary debates. He maintained that he was impartial during the debates, and only made his views clear after leaving office.


title: John Bercow

text: His autobiography, "", was published in 2020. In his memoirs, he was highly critical of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom. Bercow has since identified himself as a 'soft leftist' and declared that he voted for Sadiq Khan to be Mayor of London. He was also nominated for a peerage by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but this was refused by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Bercow has also been very critical of the Conservative government's handling of COVID-19 since leaving Parliament.


title: John Bercow

text: On 19 June 2021, Bercow said that he had joined the Labour Party "a few weeks ago". He said Boris Johnson's Conservative Party was "reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic." He said his move to Labour was motivated by his "support for equality, social justice and internationalism. That is the Labour brand."


title: John Bercow

text: It was revealed that Bercow broke the pledge he made in 2012 not to take his speaker's pension until he is 65 years old. While Bercow originally "proposed before he leaves office to waive his entitlement to the Speaker's pension until he reaches the age of 65", in 2021 he revealed he started taking the pension when he left the office, after speaking with his wife.


title: John Bercow

text: In May 2018, Bercow's former private secretary Angus Sinclair alleged on the BBC's "Newsnight" programme that Bercow had repeatedly bullied him while at work. Sinclair said that he was told to sign a non-disclosure agreement when he left his post, to prevent him revealing Bercow's bullying. Bercow denied the claims. Sinclair's allegations came not long after the BBC reported that his successor as Bercow's private secretary, Kate Emms, had been signed off work and then moved to another role. Unnamed colleagues of Emms had told the BBC's "Newsnight" programme that her sickness and change of role were because of bullying by Bercow.


title: John Bercow

text: In October 2018, Bercow had called for an independent body to be set up to investigate allegations of harassment and bullying in Parliament. He faced calls to quit after an independent report by Dame Laura Cox found that harassment and bullying had been tolerated and concealed for years, which Bercow denies. On 23 October 2018, three Conservative MPs, Will Quince, Mims Davies and Anne Milton, resigned from the Commons Reference Group on Representation and Inclusion, which is chaired by Bercow, and cited Bercow's handling of bullying and sexual harassment allegations in Parliament as the reason for doing so.


title: John Bercow

text: In January 2020, Lord Lisvane, who served as Clerk of the House of Commons under Bercow, submitted a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. In the same month Lisvane's complaint was followed up by a further accusation of bullying, made by the former Black Rod, Lieutenant-General David Leakey.


title: John Bercow

text: In January 2022, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, upheld 21 allegations out of 35 brought by Lord Lisvane and private secretaries Kate Emms and Angus Sinclair against Bercow, who appealed to the Independent Expert Panel.


title: John Bercow

text: In March 2022, the Independent Expert Panel upheld the findings of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, concluding that Bercow had “been widely unreliable and repeatedly dishonest in his evidence", a "serial liar" and a "serial bully". Formally reprimanding Bercow, the Panel recommended that, as he was no longer a Member of Parliament and could not, therefore, be expelled from the House of Commons, “he should never be permitted a pass to the Parliamentary estate". The Labour Party subsequently suspended him from the party. Bercow rejected the Panel's findings and declared the body—which included a former Lord Justice of Appeal and a former Chief Coroner—to be a "kangaroo court" lacking in legal expertise. Lisvane dismissed Bercow's rejection as "hysterical petulance from someone caught bang to rights".


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow married Sally Illman in 2002 after 13 years of an "on-off" relationship, and they have three children. Their elder son, Oliver, is autistic. Sally had an affair with Bercow's cousin in 2015 but Sally later returned to the marriage; Bercow said he bore some responsibility for the affair by not providing enough time for his wife. His wife, who used to be a Conservative, switched to supporting the Labour Party, campaigning for both her husband individually and Labour in the wider election in 1997. Bercow and those close to him reject the view that she was especially influential in changing his political views. Both he and his wife are teetotallers.


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow is a humanist, and before taking the role of Speaker was a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group. When discussing the role of clergy in Parliament, he described himself in a Commons debate as "an irreligious person taking a secular interest in an important subject".


title: John Bercow

text: Bercow has been a fan of Arsenal F.C. since January 1971 and is a season ticket holder. He always attends games with his son, and has appeared on AFTV. In 2014 his book "Tennis Maestros: The Twenty Greatest Male Tennis Players of All Time" was published by Biteback Publishing.


title: John Bercow

text: In January 2022, Bercow was a contestant on the eleventh episode of the revival of the BBC quiz show "The Weakest Link" where he was voted out in round 2.


title: Fred Tatasciore

text: Fred Tatasciore (; ) is an American voice actor who has provided voices in animated and live-action films, television shows, and video games. He is known for voicing the Hulk and Beast in various Marvel media and Solomon Grundy in various DC media. Other characters he has voiced include Yosemite Sam, Taz, , Shao Kahn and Kakuzu.


title: Fred Tatasciore

text: He is known for portraying characters with deep and powerful voices, though in recent years has expanded his range.


title: Fred Tatasciore

text: His best known video game roles include Damon Baird in the "Gears of War" series, Saren Arterius in the "Mass Effect" series, Zeratul in "StarCraft II" and "Heroes of the Storm", in Blizzard's first-person shooter "Overwatch" and Xür in Bungie's first-person shooter, "Destiny".


title: Fred Tatasciore

text: He voiced the character "8" in the Tim Burton-produced film "9". He has also voiced Neftin Prog in "", Nikolai Belinski in the "Call of Duty" franchise, Megatron in "", "", "" and "", Tookit in "ThunderCats" and the Business Cat in the Cartoon Hangover web series "Our New Electrical Morals" administered by Frederator Studios.


title: Fred Tatasciore

text: In the "Skylanders" franchise, he voices Snap Shot, Slam Bam, Warnado, Strykore, Zook and Cuckoo Clocker.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Epidural hematoma is when bleeding occurs between the tough outer membrane covering the brain (dura mater) and the skull. Often there is loss of consciousness following a head injury, a brief regaining of consciousness, and then loss of consciousness again. Other symptoms may include headache, confusion, vomiting, and an inability to move parts of the body. Complications may include seizures.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: The cause is typically head injury that results in a break of the temporal bone and bleeding from the middle meningeal artery. Occasionally it can occur as a result of a bleeding disorder or blood vessel malformation. Diagnosis is typically by a CT scan or MRI. When this condition occurs in the spine it is known as a spinal epidural hematoma.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Treatment is generally by urgent surgery in the form of a craniotomy or burr hole. Without treatment, death typically results. The condition occurs in one to four percent of head injuries. Typically it occurs in young adults. Males are more often affected than females.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Many people with epidural hematomas experience a lucid period immediately following the injury, with a delay before symptoms become evident. Because of this initial period of lucidity, it has been called "Talk and Die" syndrome. As blood accumulates, it starts to compress intracranial structures, which may impinge on the third cranial nerve, causing a fixed and dilated pupil on the side of the injury. The eye will be positioned down and out due to unopposed innervation of the fourth and sixth cranial nerves.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Other symptoms include severe headache; weakness of the extremities on the opposite side from the lesion due to compression of the crossed pyramid pathways; and vision loss, also on the opposite side, due to compression of the posterior cerebral artery. In rare cases, small hematomas may be asymptomatic.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: If not treated promptly, epidural hematomas can cause tonsillar herniation, resulting in respiratory arrest. The trigeminal nerve may be involved late in the process as the pons is compressed, but this is not an important presentation, because the person may already be dead by the time it occurs. In the case of epidural hematoma in the posterior cranial fossa, tonsillar herniation causes Cushing's triad: hypertension, bradycardia, and irregular breathing.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: The most common cause of intracranial epidural hematoma is head injury, although spontaneous hemorrhages have been known to occur. Epidural hematomas occur in about 10% of traumatic brain injuries, mostly due to car accidents, assaults, or falls. They are often caused by acceleration-deceleration trauma and transverse forces.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Epidural hematoma commonly results from a blow to the side (temporal bone) of the head. The pterion region, which overlies the middle meningeal artery, is relatively weak and prone to injury. Only 20 to 30% of epidural hematomas occur outside the region of the temporal bone. The brain may be injured by prominences on the inside of the skull as it scrapes past them. Epidural hematoma is usually found on the same side of the brain which was impacted by the blow, but on very rare occasions it can be due to a contrecoup injury.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: A "heat hematoma" is an epidural hematoma caused by severe thermal burn, causing contraction and exfoliation of the dura mater and exfoliate from the skull, in turn causing exudation of blood from the venous sinuses. The hematoma can be seen on autopsy as brick red, or as radiolucent on CT scan, because of heat-induced coagulation of the hematoma.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: The break of the temporal bone causes bleeding from the middle meningeal artery, hence epidural bleeding is often rapid as arteries are high-pressure flow. In 10% of cases, however, it comes from veins and can progress more slowly. A venous hematoma may be acute (occurring within a day of the injury and appearing as a swirling mass of blood without a clot), subacute (occurring in 2–4 days and appearing solid), or chronic (occurring in 7–20 days and appearing mixed or lucent).


title: Epidural hematoma

text: In adults, the temporal region accounts for 75% of cases. In children, however, they occur with similar frequency in the occipital, frontal, and posterior fossa regions. Epidural bleeds from arteries can grow until they reach their peak size 6–8 hours post-injury, spilling 25–75 cubic centimeters of blood into the intracranial space. As the hematoma expands, it strips the dura from the inside of the skull, causing an intense headache. It also increases intracranial pressure, causing the brain to shift, lose blood supply, be crushed against the skull, or herniate. Larger hematomas cause more damage. Epidural bleeds can quickly compress the brainstem, causing unconsciousness, abnormal posturing, and abnormal pupil responses to light.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Diagnosis is typically by CT scan or MRI. MRIs have greater sensitivity and should be used if there is a high suspicion of epidural hematoma and a negative CT scan. Differential diagnoses include a transient ischemic attack, intracranial mass, or brain abscess.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Epidural hematomas usually appear convex in shape because their expansion stops at the skull's sutures, where the dura mater is tightly attached to the skull. Thus, they expand inward toward the brain rather than along the inside of the skull, as occurs in subdural hematomas. Most people also have a skull fracture.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Epidural hematomas may occur in combination with subdural hematomas, or either may occur alone. CT scans reveal subdural or epidural hematomas in 20% of unconscious people. In the hallmark of epidural hematoma, people may regain consciousness and appear completely normal during what is called a lucid interval, only to descend suddenly and rapidly into unconsciousness later. This lucid interval, which depends on the extent of the injury, is a key to diagnosing an epidural hematoma.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Epidural hematoma is a surgical emergency. Delayed surgery can result in permanent brain damage or death. Without surgery, death usually follows, due to enlargement of the hematoma, causing a brain herniation. As with other types of intracranial hematomas, the blood almost always must be removed surgically to reduce the pressure on the brain. The hematoma is evacuated through a burr hole or craniotomy. If transfer to a facility with neurosurgery is unavailable, prolonged trephination (drilling a hole into the skull) may be performed in the emergency department. Large hematomas and blood clots may require an open craniotomy.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Medications may be given after surgery. They may include antiseizure medications and hyperosmotic agents to reduce brain swelling and intracranial pressure.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: It is extremely rare to not require surgery. If the volume of the epidural hematoma is less than 30 mL, the clot diameter less than 15 mm, a Glasgow Coma Score above 8, and no visible neurological symptoms, then it may be possible to treat it conservatively. A CT scan should be performed, and watchful waiting should be done, as the hematoma may suddenly expand.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: The prognosis is better if there was a lucid interval than if the person was comatose from the time of injury. Arterial epidural hematomas usually progress rapidly. However, venous epidural hematomas, caused by a dural sinus tear, are slower.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: Outcomes are worse if there is more than 50 mL of blood in the hematoma before surgery. Age, pupil abnormalities, and Glasgow Coma Scale score on arrival to the emergency department also influence the prognosis. In contrast to most forms of traumatic brain injury, people with epidural hematoma and a Glasgow Coma Score of 15 (the highest score, indicating the best prognosis) usually have a good outcome if they receive surgery quickly.


title: Epidural hematoma

text: About 2 percent of head injuries and 15 percent of fatal head injuries involve an epidural hematoma. The condition is more common in teenagers and young adults than in older people, because the dura mater sticks more to the skull as a person ages, reducing the probability of a hematoma forming. Males are affected more than females.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (First Folio title: The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar) is a history play and tragedy by William Shakespeare first performed in 1599.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: In the play, Brutus joins a conspiracy led by Cassius to assassinate Julius Caesar, to prevent him from becoming a tyrant. Caesar's right-hand man Antony stirs up hostility against the conspirators and Rome becomes embroiled in a dramatic civil war.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The play opens with two tribunes discovering the commoners of Rome celebrating Julius Caesar's triumphant return from defeating the sons of his military rival, Pompey. The tribunes, insulting the crowd for their change in loyalty from Pompey to Caesar, attempt to end the festivities and break up the commoners, who return the insults. During the feast of Lupercal, Caesar holds a victory parade and a soothsayer warns him to "Beware the ides of March," which he ignores. Meanwhile, Cassius attempts to convince Brutus to join his conspiracy to kill Caesar. Although Brutus, friendly towards Caesar, is hesitant to kill him, he agrees that Caesar may be abusing his power. They then hear from Casca that Mark Antony has offered Caesar the crown of Rome three times. Casca tells them that each time Caesar refused it with increasing reluctance, hoping that the crowd watching would insist that he accept the crown. He describes how the crowd applauded Caesar for denying the crown, and how this upset Caesar. On the eve of the ides of March, the conspirators meet and reveal that they have forged letters of support from the Roman people to tempt Brutus into joining. Brutus reads the letters and, after much moral debate, decides to join the conspiracy, thinking that Caesar should be killed to "prevent" him from doing anything against the people of Rome if he were ever to be crowned.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: After ignoring the soothsayer, as well as his wife Calpurnia's own premonitions, Caesar goes to the Senate. The conspirators approach him with a fake petition pleading on behalf of Metellus Cimber's banished brother. As Caesar predictably rejects the petition, Casca and the others suddenly stab him; Brutus is last. At this point, Caesar utters the famous line "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?", "i.e." "You too, Brutus?"), concluding with "Then fall, Caesar!"


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The conspirators make clear that they committed this killing for the good of Rome, in order to prevent an autocrat. They prove this by not attempting to flee the scene. Brutus delivers an oration defending his own actions, and for the moment, the crowd is on his side. However, Antony makes a subtle and eloquent speech over Caesar's corpse, beginning with the much-quoted "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" In this way, he deftly turns public opinion against the assassins by manipulating the emotions of the common people, in contrast to the rational tone of Brutus's speech, yet there is method in his rhetorical speech and gestures: he reminds them of the good Caesar had done for Rome, his sympathy with the poor, and his refusal of the crown at the Lupercal, thus questioning Brutus's claim of Caesar's ambition; he shows Caesar's bloody, lifeless body to the crowd to have them shed tears and gain sympathy for their fallen hero; and he reads Caesar's will, in which every Roman citizen would receive 75 drachmas. Antony, even as he states his intentions against it, rouses the mob to drive the conspirators from Rome. Amid the violence, an innocent poet, Cinna, is confused with the conspirator Lucius Cinna and is taken by the mob, which kills him for such "offenses" as his bad verses.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Brutus next attacks Cassius for supposedly soiling the noble act of regicide by having accepted bribes. ("Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? / What villain touch'd his body, that did stab, / And not for justice?") The two are reconciled, especially after Brutus reveals that his beloved wife committed suicide under the stress of his absence from Rome; they prepare for a civil war against Antony and Caesar's adopted son, Octavius, who have formed a triumvirate in Rome with Lepidus. That night, Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus with a warning of defeat. (He informs Brutus, "Thou shalt see me at Philippi.")


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: At the battle, Cassius and Brutus, knowing that they will probably both die, smile their last smiles to each other and hold hands. During the battle, Cassius has his servant kill him after hearing of the capture of his best friend, Titinius. After Titinius, who was not really captured, sees Cassius's corpse, he commits suicide. However, Brutus wins that stage of the battle, but his victory is not conclusive. With a heavy heart, Brutus battles again the next day. He asks his friends to kill him, but the friends refuse. He loses and commits suicide by running on his own sword, held for him by a loyal soldier.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The play ends with a tribute to Brutus by Antony, who proclaims that Brutus has remained "the noblest Roman of them all" because he was the only conspirator who acted, in his mind, for the good of Rome. There is then a small hint at the friction between Antony and Octavius which characterises another of Shakespeare's Roman plays, "Antony and Cleopatra."


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Shakespeare deviated from these historical facts to curtail time and compress the facts so that the play could be staged more easily. The tragic force is condensed into a few scenes for heightened effect.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: "Julius Caesar" was originally published in the First Folio of 1623, but a performance was mentioned by Thomas Platter the Younger in his diary in September 1599. The play is not mentioned in the list of Shakespeare's plays published by Francis Meres in 1598. Based on these two points, as well as a number of contemporary allusions, and the belief that the play is similar to "Hamlet" in vocabulary, and to "Henry V" and "As You Like It" in metre, scholars have suggested 1599 as a probable date.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The text of "Julius Caesar" in the First Folio is the only authoritative text for the play. The Folio text is notable for its quality and consistency; scholars judge it to have been set into type from a theatrical prompt-book.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The play contains many anachronistic elements from the Elizabethan era. The characters mention objects such as doublets (large, heavy jackets) – which did not exist in ancient Rome. Caesar is mentioned to be wearing an Elizabethan doublet instead of a Roman toga. At one point a clock is heard to strike and Brutus notes it with "Count the clock".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Maria Wyke has written that the play reflects the general anxiety of Elizabethan England over succession of leadership. At the time of its creation and first performance, Queen Elizabeth, a strong ruler, was elderly and had refused to name a successor, leading to worries that a civil war similar to that of Rome might break out after her death.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Critics of Shakespeare's play "Julius Caesar" differ greatly on their views of Caesar and Brutus. Many have debated whether Caesar or Brutus is the protagonist of the play, because of the title character's death in Act Three, Scene One. But Caesar compares himself to the Northern Star, and perhaps it would be foolish not to consider him as the axial character of the play, around whom the entire story turns. Intertwined in this debate is a smattering of philosophical and psychological ideologies on republicanism and monarchism. One author, Robert C. Reynolds, devotes attention to the names or epithets given to both Brutus and Caesar in his essay "Ironic Epithet in "Julius Caesar"". He points out that Casca praises Brutus at face value, but then inadvertently compares him to a disreputable joke of a man by calling him an alchemist, "Oh, he sits high in all the people's hearts,/And that which would appear offence in us/ His countenance, like richest alchemy,/ Will change to virtue and to worthiness" (I.iii.158–160). Reynolds also talks about Caesar and his "Colossus" epithet, which he points out has its obvious connotations of power and manliness, but also lesser known connotations of an outward glorious front and inward chaos.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Myron Taylor, in his essay "Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and the Irony of History", compares the logic and philosophies of Caesar and Brutus. Caesar is deemed an intuitive philosopher who is always right when he goes with his instinct; for instance, when he says he fears Cassius as a threat to him before he is killed, his intuition is correct. Brutus is portrayed as a man similar to Caesar, but whose passions lead him to the wrong reasoning, which he realises in the end when he says in V.v.50–51, "Caesar, now be still:/ I kill'd not thee with half so good a will".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Joseph W. Houppert acknowledges that some critics have tried to cast Caesar as the protagonist, but that ultimately Brutus is the driving force in the play and is therefore the tragic hero. Brutus attempts to put the republic over his personal relationship with Caesar and kills him. Brutus makes the political mistakes that bring down the republic that his ancestors created. He acts on his passions, does not gather enough evidence to make reasonable decisions and is manipulated by Cassius and the other conspirators.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Traditional readings of the play may maintain that Cassius and the other conspirators are motivated largely by envy and ambition, whereas Brutus is motivated by the demands of honour and patriotism. Certainly, this is the view that Antony expresses in the final scene. But one of the central strengths of the play is that it resists categorising its characters as either simple heroes or villains. The political journalist and classicist Garry Wills maintains that "This play is distinctive because it has no villains". It is a drama famous for the difficulty of deciding which role to emphasise. The characters rotate around each other like the plates of a Calder mobile. Touch one and it affects the position of all the others. Raise one, another sinks. But they keep coming back into a precarious balance.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The play was probably one of Shakespeare's first to be performed at the Globe Theatre. Thomas Platter the Younger, a Swiss traveller, saw a tragedy about Julius Caesar at a Bankside theatre on 21 September 1599, and this was most likely Shakespeare's play, as there is no obvious alternative candidate. (While the story of Julius Caesar was dramatised repeatedly in the Elizabethan/Jacobean period, none of the other plays known are as good a match with Platter's description as Shakespeare's play.)


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: After the theatres re-opened at the start of the Restoration era, the play was revived by Thomas Killigrew's King's Company in 1672. Charles Hart initially played Brutus, as did Thomas Betterton in later productions. "Julius Caesar" was one of the very few Shakespeare plays that was not adapted during the Restoration period or the eighteenth century.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: One of the earliest cultural references to the play came in Shakespeare's own "Hamlet". Prince Hamlet asks Polonius about his career as a thespian at university, and Polonius replies: "I did enact Julius Caesar. I was killed i' th' Capitol. Brutus killed me." This is a likely meta-reference, as Richard Burbage is generally accepted to have played leading men Brutus and Hamlet, and the older John Heminges to have played Caesar and Polonius.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: In 1851, the German composer Robert Schumann wrote a concert overture "Julius Caesar", inspired by Shakespeare's play. Other musical settings include those by Giovanni Bononcini, Hans von Bülow, Felix Draeseke, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, John Ireland, John Foulds, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Manfred Gurlitt, Darius Milhaud, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The Canadian comedy duo Wayne and Shuster parodied "Julius Caesar" in their 1958 sketch "Rinse the Blood off My Toga". Flavius Maximus, Private Roman Eye, is hired by Brutus to investigate the death of Caesar. The police procedural combines Shakespeare, "Dragnet", and vaudeville jokes and was first broadcast on "The Ed Sullivan Show".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: In 1984, the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City produced a modern dress "Julius Caesar" set in contemporary Washington, called simply "CAESAR!", starring Harold Scott as Brutus, Herman Petras as Caesar, Marya Lowry as Portia, Robert Walsh as Antony, and Michael Cook as Cassius, directed by W. Stuart McDowell at The Shakespeare Center.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: In 2006, Chris Taylor from the Australian comedy team The Chaser wrote a comedy musical called "Dead Caesar" which was shown at the Sydney Theatre Company in Sydney.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The line "The Evil That Men Do", from the speech made by Mark Antony following Caesar's death ("The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.") has had many references in media, including the titles of:


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The 2008 movie "Me and Orson Welles", based on a book of the same name by Robert Kaplow, is a fictional story centred around Orson Welles' famous 1937 production of "Julius Caesar" at the Mercury Theatre. British actor Christian McKay is cast as Welles, and co-stars with Zac Efron and Claire Danes.


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The 2012 Italian drama film "Caesar Must Die" (), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, follows convicts in their rehearsals ahead of a prison performance of "Julius Caesar".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: In the Ray Bradbury book "Fahrenheit 451", some of the character Beatty's last words are "There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats, for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass me as an idle wind, which I respect not!"


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The play's line "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves", spoken by Cassius in Act I, scene 2, is often referenced in popular culture. The line gave its name to the J.M. Barrie play "Dear Brutus", and also gave its name to the best selling young adult novel "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green and its film adaptation. The same line was quoted in Edward R. Murrow's epilogue of his famous 1954 "See It Now" documentary broadcast concerning Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. This speech and the line were recreated in the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck". It was also quoted by George Clooney's character in the Coen brothers film "Intolerable Cruelty".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The line "And therefore think him as a serpent's egg / Which hatch'd, would, as his kind grow mischievous; And kill him in the shell" spoken by Brutus in Act II, Scene 1, is referenced in the Dead Kennedys song "California über alles".


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: The titles of Agatha Christie novel "Taken at the Flood", titled "There Is a Tide" in its American edition, refer to an iconic line of Brutus: "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." (Act IV, Scene III).


title: Julius Caesar (play)

text: Modern adaptions of the play have often made contemporary political references, with Caesar depicted as resembling a variety of political leaders, including Huey Long, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair. Professor A. J. Hartley, the Robinson Chair of Shakespeare Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, states that this is a fairly "common trope" of "Julius Caesar" performances: "Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the rule has been to create a recognisable political world within the production. And often people in the title role itself look like or feel like somebody either in recent or current politics." A 2012 production of "Julius Caesar" by the Guthrie Theater and The Acting Company "presented Caesar in the guise of a black actor who was meant to suggest President Obama." This production was not particularly controversial. In 2017, however, a modern adaptation of the play at New York's Shakespeare in the Park (performed by The Public Theater) depicted Caesar with the likeness of then-president Donald Trump and thereby aroused ferocious controversy, drawing criticism by media outlets such as "The Daily Caller" and "Breitbart" and prompting corporate sponsors Bank of America and Delta Airlines to pull their financial support. The Public Theater stated that the message of the play is not pro-assassination and that the point is that "those who attempt to defend democracy by undemocratic means pay a terrible price and destroy the very thing they are fighting to save." Shakespeare scholars Stephen Greenblatt and Peter Holland agreed with this statement. Pallotta stated that "I have never read anyone suggesting that 'Julius Caesar' is a play that recommends assassination. Look what happens: Caesar is assassinated to stop him becoming a dictator. Result: civil war, massive slaughter, creation of an emperor, execution of many who sympathized with the conspiracy. Doesn't look much like a successful result for the conspirators to me." The play was interrupted several times by right-wing protesters, who accused the play of "violence against the right", and actors and members of theatres with Shakespeare in the name were harassed and received death threats, including the wife of the play's director Oskar Eustis. The protests were praised by American Family Association director Sandy Rios who compared the play with the execution of Christians by damnatio ad bestias.


title: Happiest Season

text: Happiest Season is a 2020 American holiday romantic comedy-drama film directed by Clea DuVall, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mary Holland. Starring an ensemble cast consisting of Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Dan Levy, Holland, Victor Garber, and Mary Steenburgen, the film follows a woman who struggles to admit to her conservative parents that she is a lesbian while she and her girlfriend visit them during Christmas. DuVall has said the film is a semi-autobiographical take on her own experiences with her family.


title: Happiest Season

text: Produced by TriStar Pictures, the film was released in the United States on November 25, 2020, by Hulu, and internationally on November 26, by Sony Pictures Releasing and Entertainment One. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise for the cast. The film won a GLAAD Media Award in April 2021 in the "Outstanding Film - Wide Release" category.


title: Happiest Season

text: Abby Holland and Harper Caldwell are a couple who have been dating nearly a year. Abby has disliked Christmas since her parents died, so Harper spontaneously invites her to celebrate the holidays with her family in her hometown. Abby sees this as the perfect opportunity to introduce herself to Harper's parents and propose to her on Christmas morning. However, on their way to the Caldwells', Harper reveals she lied about already coming out to her parents, fearing it would interfere with her father's mayoral campaign. She promises to come out to her family after Christmas, but asks Abby to pretend to be her straight roommate for the holiday, to which Abby reluctantly agrees.


title: Happiest Season

text: At the Caldwells', Abby meets Harper's father, Ted, her perfectionist mother, Tipper, and her wacky artistic sister, Jane. She is welcomed by the family as Harper's "orphan friend" who has nowhere else to go for Christmas. Abby becomes uncomfortable, especially when she meets Harper's exes, Connor and Riley. During the visit, she begins questioning how much she knows about her girlfriend when she sees Ted and Tipper's high expectations and Harper's competitive relationship with her older sister, Sloane.


title: Happiest Season

text: Ted is trying to impress a possible donor from the city council to contribute to his campaign, which Abby unwittingly jeopardizes when Sloane's children slip a necklace into her bag during an outing to the mall. Labeled a shoplifter, Ted and Tipper think it might be better if they keep Abby away from upcoming social events. From this point, Abby feels even more of an outsider. She also learns from Riley that Harper has publicly denied her sexuality since she was a high school freshman, which makes Abby worried about their future.


title: Happiest Season

text: At the Caldwells' annual Christmas Eve party, Abby, having tired of her current situation, is relieved when her friend John arrives to pick her up. Harper privately begs her to stay and as they are about to kiss, they are caught by Sloane who prepares to expose their relationship to the family. However, it turns out, Sloane has her own secret: she and her husband, Eric, are getting a divorce. The sisters get into a public fight, ending with Sloane outing Harper as a lesbian, which Harper tries to deny. Heartbroken, Abby leaves the house, with John following her, and the two talk about their stories of coming out to their respective families: Abby's parents were loving and accepting, while John's father threw him out of the house and didn't talk to him for thirteen years. John reminds Abby that coming out can be terrifying for gay people, but has nothing to do with Harper's love for her.