BREXIT DEAL- THREAD:

I shall vote for the agreement reached with the European Union. I shall do so not because it is perfect - far from it - but because it is the least worst of the options available. 1/24

To have ended the transition period with no deal at all would, I believe, have resulted in an economic stress and uncertainty that, on top of the damage caused to our economy by coronavirus, that would be quite simply unsustainable. 2/24

It appears to me, however, that we have spent the last four years and huge amounts of time, money and political capital reinventing the wheel. 3/24

The suggestion that we have “achieved a trade deal worth six hundred and fifty billion pounds “with the European Union has all the hallmarks of a “side- of- the-campaign- bus” slogan about it that is, to say the least, disingenuous. 4/24

What we are now presented with is an agreement that delivers most but not all of the trade arrangements that we previously enjoyed with the remaining twenty-seven countries of the European Union with strings attached and no further say in policy or regulation. 5/24

January 6th. I told u its the only date which will determine the 2020 election winner. If Biden cannot confirm his electoral votes in United States Congress w/o objection he wont be President. Its that simple. Its the law.
Read the law. 3 USC section

Election Fraud, Insurrection Act, Martial Law, the Only Way: https://t.co/pazgpy9bbY

1. The military is the only way. Why not just invoke the Insurrection Act and take down these traitors? – because the people won't accept it. They must first see it for themselves.

2. Before Nov 3rd, most people still believed the elections were mostly fair and honest. Minor attempts at fraud existed, sure, but nothing like widespread national vote rigging. That fairytale has since been thoroughly and completely shattered these last several weeks.

2a. We all know there is corruption in D.C., but we also had to see the corruption at the state and local levels too. Even Republicans were in on it.

3. Evidence was collected and lawsuits were filed, only for us to run into yet another level of corruption: the courts. Here and there a normal judge appears, but they are almost always overruled by corrupted higher courts.

4. Another level of corruption: the mainstream media (MSM). The full on suppression and refusal to cover any of these lawsuits fairly and accurately to keep the info from the people is criminal. Even Fox News has thrown in.

Results of elections over the last five years signal to Progressives that we cannot simply continue thinking in traditional ways, proposing the usual, conventional solutions & hoping the pendulum could shift in their favour.

We need to wake the fuck

As a result of growing socio-economic inequality; the acceleration of economic, social & technological changes; changes in the voter base of social democratic parties; as well as numerous other global trends, many liberal democracies are led by populist politicians.

What to do?

In the EU, roughly a quarter of likely voters vote for populist politicians, whose actions centre on fighting against some outside enemy, the rejection of political pluralism & the irreconcilable conflict between the “people” & the elites - all very reminiscent of 1930s Germany.

Based on a “radical” understanding & interpretation of democracy, populists seek to implement a form of govt that demands uncontrolled authority on the basis of a popular mandate which is used to systemically weaken the institutional guarantees meant to safeguard minorities.

Populists portray human rights as instruments to thwart certain majority positions & as “antidemocratic”: organisations that invoke these rights are labelled “agents of foreign powers”. We are witnessing a widespread & far-reaching retrenchment in the area of progressive values.

A lot for Democrats to like in the early voting data over the last few days, as they are now running ahead of where they stood at a similar point of the general election--thanks to a stronger Black turnout

The Black share of in-person early voters was basically identical to the general election over the first few days of voting, but that began to diverge late last week--and even more so over the weekend, which is typically a strong period for Black turnout in Georgia

As most of you know, the Black turnout in Georgia (and nationwide) was relatively weak v. other groups in the general election. That's been a matter of some consternation for progressives who wish it weren't so, but it's also the big source of upside for Democrats in this runoff

At the moment, the higher Black share of in person early voting is enough to cancel out the smaller share of mail-in absentee voters, who were overwhelmingly Democratic in the general--giving Democrats, in my view, a slightly more favorable electorate at this stage of voting

Looking ahead, we're about to lose a certain amount of clarity in our day-by-day comparison, since the holidays will dampen (and outright eliminate) turnout on GOP-friendly days. We'll probably watch the Dems expand their lead v. the general, and then the GOP try and claw it back

*** THREAD ***

Don't fall for the Disinformation about Voter Fraud

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I think we can all agree that the Trump administration has taken extraordinary steps to delay the inevitable conclusion that Trump lost the elections, period, end of story.

Attempted legal action and a whole host of other parlor tricks are great media fodder.

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But, ultimately, Trump will not prevail.

He just clearly didn't win.

But I want to talk to you about the ongoing Russian intelligence op to convince Americans that there's widespread voter fraud.

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Voter fraud in America is rare. Not just a little rare. EXCEEDINGLY rare.

Earlier this year, MIT election expert Charles Stewart III completed a 20 year study on election fraud.

Not only is it exceedingly rare, it is also HIGHLY prosecuted, because federal law

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enforcement AS WELL AS the intelligence community monitor elections very closely.

To quote The Hill's article, "There have been just over 1,200 cases of vote fraud of all forms, resulting in 1,100 criminal convictions, over the past 20 years.

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A THREAD
This week, there has been talk about the bush war and what those involved in it fought for. Even the suggestion that the war wasn't fought for particular leaders to be presidents. Of course everyone has a right to their opinion, no matter how misguided. Here is mine.

Even in the early stages of the war, two ideologies had emerged. The first was that the war was a means to personal gain. As it became clearer that we would win, there were some that started talking about which houses in Kololo they would take and lives they would live...

The second was that power is a means to an end. That we were fighting for things much bigger than ourselves; freedom from oppression, the just application of the law and a Uganda that works for everyone. For those who subscribed to the first, the second was simply a PR front...

Once in power, these differences in ideology were not immediately obvious. The good will of Ugandans and their willingness to give the new government the benefit of doubt meant that corruption and personalisation of government didn't get called out as much as they should have...

Slowly but surely, those who thought of power and personal wealth as an end in itself started consolidating it, maligning those who disagreed and using the public support for change to secure their personal future at the expense of the very people they claimed to work for...

In defense of pollsters.https://t.co/9Lp6eEp8i0 information trending topic

Online media is ablaze with criticism—even denunciation—of the polling industry, with Trump having more success in the 2020 election than most pollsters predicted.

Georgia early voting took a few days off over the holidays, like most everything else, but it was back near general election levels on Monday

As we've expected from the start, this creates a challenge for comparing where we stand now v. the general election.
Day 11-13 were fairly good days for the GOP in Oct.; they run farther behind without those days, but we have no reason to think that's for a meaningful reason

I'll offer two ways of trying to account for this. It's not perfect, but there are many circumstances in which it still permits useful analysis. 1) Remove those same days of in-person voting (not mail) from the advanced vote in October; 2) A direct day-to-day comparison

That first comparison--removing ipev from GE holiday-equiv. --will be represented with a dotted line, shown here.
This isn't perfect: one could imagine, for ex., that someone who would have voted on day 12 will now vote on day 18, boosting later tallies. But still useful context

With that in mind, it still seems Democrats continue to show a lot of strength. Yesterday, they continued to run well ahead of the general election, including excluding holiday equiv. days

Hillary and Bill Clinton became AGENTS OF THE CCP in the 90's when they began accepting FOREIGN DOLLARS via the #CHINAGATE scandal. Since then, all Democrats have become either willing or unwilling participants in this MONEY LAUNDERING RICO FRAUD including Joe Biden & RINOs.

Why is going to Washington DC the 6th of January bigger than many realize?

The answer is multi faceted like a precision cut gemstone.

Curious?

I was too. So I asked God. He's soooo good!

Wanna hear what he revealed?

Check this out.

1.

1/14🚨Dissecting SCOTUS decision for answers to the 3 judges to decide that way on procedural grounds and not merit/evidence. Perhaps builds credibility for a future decision that more people would accept and more time to present the intelligence and evidence to American people

2/14 (either through continued hearings, EO or both). You can now have multiple suits from work their way through lower courts for a look again when it's undeniable to even the staunchest wide eyed liberal. The TX one was nice because states bs states go straight to top.

3/14 That's the courts. Either way, the Texas suit was like a bonus or winning the 2nd showcase. Would have been nice to have, but you can still be a winner.

4/14 DONT think Trump's plan and for him to say he will absolutely not concede, was all hinging in the hope that an AG in another state files a lawsuit on the swing states where fraud is most rampant.

5/14 IMPORTANT 🚨 January 20th is the only Date in Constitution and only ultimate date. So here's where you see a few paths. Most paths rely on people in state and national congresses to do the right thing, which they've consistently proven they cannot do (see republicans in GA)

Thread of my short #SNP20 speech - The British Government are pressing ahead with their constitutional priorities regardless of the current pandemic. Brexit has happened and our parliament is under attack.

Whilst our Scottish Government is rightly focused on Covid, we must act quickly to protect our democracy.

To those who say that a referendum can happen only once in a generation I say there is nowhere that is written in stone. Not in the Edinburgh Agreement. Not in the Smith Commission.

The Northern Ireland Act provides that there need only be 7 years between border polls on the question of Irish reunification. 
 
Even allowing for the very different context, why should it be any different for Scotland?

With respect to devolution 18 years passed between the 1979 and 1997 referendums. During that time a majority in favour of devo was ignored by the Tories for more than a decade. That alone should give pause for thought to those who say we don’t need a Plan B

LDF-UDF:

Why did Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan (PV) say what he did about IUML?

Even in 2016 when LDF won, @iumlofficial /UDF won 18 seats from Malabar/North Kerala area. Note that LDF has only 9 Muslim names within its list of MLAs.

PV has always been attempting to break the UDF-IUML unity and influence in North Kerala region.

As the CPM secretary, he attempted to split the votes by supporting Madani, Indian National League (a breakaway faction of IUML), KT Jaleel (an ind).

Madani is now in jail.

Don’t believe? In 2009, the LDF candidate in Ponnani was Madani nominee – Hussian Randathani. He lost to ET Muhammed Basheer.

A group of people within IUML had the party for not being angry and fierce enough in the aftermath of the Babri incident. They wanted IUML to breakaway from the Congress. When IUML did not, they broke away and formed INL. It was led by Ibrahim Sulaiman Sait.

INL has 1 MLA – PTA Rahim - in Assembly & they are part of LDF. PTA Rahim was with IUML. Left it. Joined hands with the Left in 2005 to win Panchayat polls. Defeated K Muraleedharan in Koduvally with help of LDF. Formed his own Party – National Secular Conference. Then joined INL

Major leak 'exposes' members and 'lifts the lid' on the Chinese Communist Party

(1/3)

Another day of strong early voting in Georgia, with another 154k voters turning out in person yesterday. That's similar to but slightly behind the fourth day of early voting in the general, which was at 164k

Cumulatively, we're still running ahead of the general election on in-person early voting, but I don't think anyone expects that to last--and there's a very long time left for that flip to happen

As I've said, the big takeaway is that the turnout looks like it will be healthy and high, and it's not obvious who it will help v. the general. As I've mentioned, there are crosscutting patterns at play that make it difficult to sort out where we'll end up. Let's look at a few

One is that there are fewer absentee votes--and those are heavily Democratic.
This is expected: far fewer realistic opportunities for voters to request a ballot for this special than the general. And some counties may be behind

Now, of course, if in-person and election day voting drop just as much (or more), then this isn't actually an issue for Democrats at all. That would have been a very reasonable assumption before early voting. Now I'm not totally sure! We'll have to wait and see

🔴STARTING NOW!!!

Join the #VIADUCT_EU Guest Lecture on the results of the December European Council, with @UniCologne's Wolfgang Wessels and @SenemAydnDzgit from
@sabanciu 💪

Join in on #Zoom now or otherwise follow along here for some highlights!

/THREAD

On Dec. 10-11, the European Council met, discussing among other topic, EU-Turkey relations in light of recent developments and the October conclusions.

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In October, the Council concluded that they would pursue better EU-Turkey relations

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Since then, the international community has been outraged by Turkish actions in Cyprus, France has withdrawn its diplomatic actors from Turkey, and #Erdogan has signalled opposition to "overt attacks on our nation"

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The scene has been set, now meet our speakers: @SenemAydnDzgit from @sabanciu and @ipc_ipm, and Wolfgang Wessels from @UniCologne, who is Project Coordinator of #VIADUCT_EU

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