BC POLITICS
Saved by @jay_millerjay

The Republican Party is an authoritarian power structure.

For decades, it embraced greedy nihilists in order to win elections.

In the last 10+ years, a well-funded insurgency has infiltrated and captured it.

They are now threatening & purging any remaining opposition.

 We can’t address the threat they pose to democracy without addressing the methods by which they maintain popular support.

This requires action across multiple fronts.
In terms of public policy, we are working on the right things:

-Bills to eliminate the GOP’s counter-majorian control (voting security, eliminating vote suppression)

-Exposing dark money networks who are funding them (forcing transparency for anonymous shell companies)
-Addressing the immediate socio-economic pain that places people in anxiety-laden debt traps, makes them feel isolated, and makes them ripe targets for disinformation/authoritarian messaging appeals (fighting Covid with a plan, financial relief, genuinely empathetic leadership)
Biden and the Dem Congress are working on all of these things already.

This is moving us in the right direction, and shows that they get what needs to be done here. This is good.

There are three areas that still concern me, that I have been trying to call attention to...
1) Republican capture of the courts.

Many changes that we need to enact may be thwarted by a judicial branch that is controlled by private interests and authoritarian elements.

Example - what happens if they use the courts to enshrine *rights* for anonymous shell companies? https://t.co/qWVm061TQ6
Biden is working on this already as well, with a commission to review options to balance the court.

This may be the solution, and it may be enough.

But it still concerns me, as I am not sure if it is aggressive enough.

IMO, we also need to review impeachable activities.
The FBI background investigation into Kavanaugh was controlled and limited by the White House, and dozens of ethical issues were dropped when he was confirmed.

These need to be investigated, along with Ginni Thomas’ involvement in efforts against the US government.

Impeachable?
Which necessarily leads to the fact that impeachment can’t occur without a 2/3 Senate vote.

The GOP insurgents are emboldened by the power they have now.

If we can expel Senators who had roles in the insurrection (via 14th amendment), this may allow decent GOP to act & vote.
This is not, and cannot be, a witch hunt.

This is about finding the truth, determining whether specific people acted in support of an insurrection against the United States, and enforcing the law and the constitution without fear or favor. Period.

Unsure how likely this is.
As I said, Biden’s commission on rebalancing the courts may prove to be enough to address this.

Even so:

A) We should still hold officials accountable, and

B) We should be working on multiple fronts (plan Bs), and not placing all our eggs in one basket (our opponents don’t).
2) Right wing media

This is a harder issue to tackle, without trampling 1A protections, but we have seen that lawsuits work very well (e.g. Dominion).

We need more of that.

There is also no easy way for public officials to sue media outlets.

Can we do that? I don’t know. https://t.co/zTh8iPaI9B
3) This is the most difficult problem we face: Too many Americans hate and fear each other based on false narratives that have poisoned our politics - and it has crept into our every day lives.

Authoritarian support depends on having enemies.

What is acceptable in our politics? https://t.co/h05ZQgM7QI
Electing Joe Biden was a big part of the antidote to this.

His moderate & unifying approach to politics, while still enacting progressive policies that help working class Americans, completely short circuits right wing fear mongering about ‘evil socialist plots.’

Between that,
and lawsuits that hold media outlets accountable for spreading false/defamatory information (plus exposing their dark funding), we may well be on the way to turning back the tide.

But we have to be helpers here also.

We have to show our friends and neighbors who we are.
In order to do this we have to find a way to stop arguing about facts and details so much, and connect with each other on a human level first.

Some may be too far gone to ever turn back, but you may be surprised.

We need to connect with the elephant before addressing the rider. https://t.co/asioXZFKYT
These are what I see as our major challenges, along with some potential solutions to address them.

It isn’t comprehensive - we also have very real problems like climate change to address - but these seem like our primary log jams and limiting factors (plus campaign finance).
Apologies for the long thread, but I feel that we are at a real inflection point for western democracy, and these are the things that keep me up at night.

I am incredibly happy with the Biden admin’s approach; it shows that they get it.

I am not criticizing; I am pushing. 🇺🇸

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The Democrats are at least two parties. The progressive wing of the party (which is by no means unified) and the finance wing of the party, which is also the party leadership.

1/

During the leadership race, the progressive wing was represented by @SenSanders and @SenWarren; the former wants to minimize the role of markets in our lives, the latter wants to redeem markets by regulating them. It's a distinction with a difference, but I donated to both.

2/

Both wings of the party have prominent representatives in Congress; Sandersism are most visibly associated with @AOC (whom I donated to) and Warrenism is embodied by @RepKatiePorter (likewise), who was also one of Warren's law school proteges.

3/

Porter is a force of nature. She is infamous - and celebrated - for her brutal, no-holds-barred questioning of both corporate and administration witnesses, using a white-board to pin them down and eviscerating any attempts at bullshittery.

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This isn't just about getting facts into the record (though, she is SO GOOD at getting facts into the record!), it's also about effecting change, like when she single-handedly cornered the CDC's chief into guaranteeing universal, free covid
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gwen frisbie-fulton
@gwen_fulton
Today in #GRAHAMNC I went to a permitted March to the Polls lead by Rev Drumwright and others. Starting at a Black AME church, Rev Drumwright started the march by asking folks what our intentions were. TO VOTE the crowd chanted. Its the last day of Early Voting in #NC.


We then marched, escorted by police, about half a mile towards the center of Graham, chanting and singing. We moved slowly, because of the many elderly folks and families with small children. Graham is a small town in #AlamanceCounty.


Alamance County is known as "No Chance Alamance" because of rampant inequality and a judicial system generally known to be hostile to Black and Brown folks, and poor white folks. We believe that we can change that at the polls this year.

As the march approached the center of Graham where a large Confederate statue is, we kneeled in rememberance of George Floyd. His neice and nephew were in the crowd.


Moments after we were done kneeling a police officer started to yell that we had to be off the street. Folks were confused because we had been escorted there and had a permit. I moved my child up onto the sidewalk. They started pepper spraying us. My child couldn't run because
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Larry Schweikart
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@LarrySchweikart
1) FL absentees, early voting:

*Dems as expected ("souls to the polls Sunday") had a good day and FINALLY take the early walk-in vote lead by 6,100 votes.

Rs total: 1,151,593
Ds total: 1,092,547

Rs +59,046 combined lead. This is very good for this point in the campaign.

2) At this point in 2016, Rs only led by 40,000. I could be mistaken but I think yesterday was the last day polls were open on Sunday, so the final "souls to the polls" Sunday.

3) As of yesterday, four red counties were yet to report. That would likely boost the lead back to 70k

4) I don't think the FL Rs in their wildest dreams expected to lead this late in the campaign.

5) Likewise in NV:
Clark (with its union "encouragement" for members turned out big yesterday and added net 6,000 voters.

However---big however---neither Washoe nor the rurals . . .

(5) contd. . . were open yesterday. My guesstimate is that would slice that number in half.

While this helped, the NV Ds are still looking at a significant--to potentially massive--shortfall from their 2016 numbers coming out of early voting.

6) Gotta make sure you compare days to days. Calendars and voting days differ.
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Jean-Michel Connard
Jean-Michel Connard
@torriangray
so my eldest brother, who is a moron, has been playing soldier with his moron friends in the deserts of texas for the last year preparing for the collapse of civilization if biden won (lol). they were burying food and ammo stashes out in the desert, running drills, crazy stuff

this included getting a cb license so he could be their lifeline to other groups of white idiots when the cell towers all went offline. wouldn't want to violate federal law while communicating with your resistance groups after the fall of the federal government i guess.

anyways, you would assume given that they've been prepping for the end of the world for at least a year they're well situated to ride out the rolling blackouts right?

wellll

their plan for cooking and heating during an extended power outage was natural gas, but like a lot of homes their gas service is out. the food in their freezer and fridge is already toast due to the power outrages, so they're down to canned stuff, but there's a catch.

they can get into the pull top cans just fine, but the ones that require an opener? their only can opener is electric. so a good 3/4 of his canned food store is inaccessible to him unless he goes after it with a knife, which i sincerely hope he does.
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Ana Mardoll
Ana Mardoll
@AnaMardoll
Alright, I'm going to explain this one more time because I keep getting tweets like "people who vote for politicians who let them die of hypothermia deserve to die of hypothermia."

The people who voted red in Texas are, by and large, relatively fine right now. Yes, the storm has hurt them but the storm was going to hurt everyone.

But. They're either rich enough that *their* power wasn't cut off or rural enough that they have fireplaces and wood and wells.

Those millions without power are in places like Dallas county and Tarrant county and Harris county, I.e., the urban places that have the highest concentration of blue voters.

So it's not "(all/most) people voted for hypothermia and now they will fittingly die of hypothermia".

It's "(certain) people voted for the folks in cities to die of hypothermia, and they are, while the aforementioned voters are safe and dry and relatively comfortable."

Well, gosh, why don't those voters *do something* rather than passively being killed??

Do you know how many people live in Harris county? 4 million. Do you know how many ballot drop-off boxes they were allocated last election? 1.

1 box for 4 million people.
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A #story from #Thiruvilayadal puranam-one of divine leelas of Bhagwan Shiva

#threadseries #Madurai

Story 16- it is about how Bhagwan Shiva explained the meaning of Vedas to the Rishis.

வேதத்துக்குப் பொருள் அருளிச் செய்த படலம்


Once there was a great deluge,everything in the world was destroyed.All lifeforms that existed got perished.Afterwards ,due to Bhagwan Shiva creation started.Then from Bhagwan Shiv ji's mouth-birth of 🕉 OM- Pranavam happened.From Pranavam,4 vedas appeared. Rishis learned them.

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Students of JNU and overall all the student community. He says Lala Lajpat Rai & all the nationalist politicians of that time were casteist including former President of India Mr Rajendra Prasad.

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a long time. Now what should I do ? Should I stand against them. Should I oppose them ? My inner Hindu does not allow me to tolerate anymore.
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🌺कैसे बने गरुड़ भगवान विष्णु के वाहन और क्यों दो भागों में फटी होती है नागों की जिह्वा🌺

महर्षि कश्यप की तेरह पत्नियां थीं।लेकिन विनता व कद्रु नामक अपनी दो पत्नियों से उन्हे विशेष लगाव था।एक दिन महर्षि आनन्दभाव में बैठे थे कि तभी वे दोनों उनके समीप आकर उनके पैर दबाने लगी।


प्रसन्न होकर महर्षि कश्यप बोले,"मुझे तुम दोनों से विशेष लगाव है, इसलिए यदि तुम्हारी कोई विशेष इच्छा हो तो मुझे बताओ। मैं उसे अवश्य पूरा करूंगा ।"

कद्रू बोली,"स्वामी! मेरी इच्छा है कि मैं हज़ार पुत्रों की मां बनूंगी।"
विनता बोली,"स्वामी! मुझे केवल एक पुत्र की मां बनना है जो इतना बलवान हो की कद्रू के हज़ार पुत्रों पर भारी पड़े।"
महर्षि बोले,"शीघ्र ही मैं यज्ञ करूंगा और यज्ञ के उपरांत तुम दोनो की इच्छाएं अवश्य पूर्ण होंगी"।


महर्षि ने यज्ञ किया,विनता व कद्रू को आशीर्वाद देकर तपस्या करने चले गए। कुछ काल पश्चात कद्रू ने हज़ार अंडों से काले सर्पों को जन्म दिया व विनता ने एक अंडे से तेजस्वी बालक को जन्म दिया जिसका नाम गरूड़ रखा।जैसे जैसे समय बीता गरुड़ बलवान होता गया और कद्रू के पुत्रों पर भारी पड़ने लगा


परिणामस्वरूप दिन प्रतिदिन कद्रू व विनता के सम्बंधों में कटुता बढ़ती गयी।एकदिन जब दोनो भ्रमण कर रहीं थी तब कद्रू ने दूर खड़े सफेद घोड़े को देख कर कहा,"बता सकती हो विनता!दूर खड़ा वो घोड़ा किस रंग का है?"
विनता बोली,"सफेद रंग का"।
तो कद्रू बोली,"शर्त लगाती हो? इसकी पूँछ तो काली है"।
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SRI BANASHANKARI AMMAN, BANGALORE
#bharatmandir

Located in Southern Bangalore, this is one of the most popular places of worship in Bangalore City.
Devoted to Devi Banashankari, this shrine is visited specially during Rahukala which is believed to be an unfavorable time.


Somanna Shetty, a great devotee of Devi, brought this murti from Badami’s Banshankari Amma Kshetram.
It is said that many years ago, three ladies visited this shrine and requested the pujari to conduct puja for them. Since it was the inauspicious rahu kaal, the pujari refused.


However, upon their insistence, he conducted the puja. When he returned with prasadam, the ladies vanished. This made the people believe that they were none other than the Devi herself. Since then, the people perform poojas here during the Rahukaal.
@GunduHuDuGa


People use lemons as a diya. Lemons are cut from the centre and their pulps are removed, for pouring oil in them.
It is strongly believed that Devi removes all the troubles from the life of her devotees during the Rahukala although it is considered inauspicious for any pooja.
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