Democrats have a lot of good ideas to help people fast, and visibly. They have good ideas for deepening democracy, like the "For The People Act." But if they let Senate Republicans filibuster everything, they will lose in 2022, and they will deserve it.

A lot of them understand this. “I’m going to do everything I can to bring people together,” Senator @RonWyden, who will chair the powerful Senate Finance Committee, told me. “but I’m not just going to stand around and do nothing while Mitch McConnell ties everyone up in knots.”

“This is a fight not just for the future of the Democratic Party or good policy,” Senator @BernieSanders told me. “It is literally a fight to restore faith in small-d democratic government.”

“I’ve said to the president-elect, ‘reach out across the aisle...But don’t let them stymie your program,’” @WhipClyburn told me. “You can’t allow the search for bipartisanship to ruin the mandate the American people gave you.’”

“It’s not a question of if the filibuster will be gone, but when it’ll be gone,” former Majority Leader Harry Reid said. “You cannot have a democratic body where it takes 60 percent of the vote to get anything done.”

The public supports less policing and prisons but Harper invested in social discord.

Policing, Prison and construction were linked under the Harper Government.

Richard Bird was VP of Enbridge and he also served as a member of the Canada's Federal Minister of Finance's Advisory Committee on Financing and currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of the Alberta Investment Management

Richard Bird, a former VP of Enbridge is linked to Ecopatrol, missing money and a massive sex scandal in Colombia and Prison Schemes with bid rigging, corruption and collusion.

There was bid rigging corruption and collusion during Prime Minister Harper's term as they invested in private prisons across Canada. Read here. This mentions Bird Construction Inc. Richard Bird was VP of Enbridge Pipeline Inc.

Can young trans activists please remember that most of the trans rights attributed to the Equality Act 2010 (specifically employment and vocational eduction) have been in British law far longer than those mere 11 years. These rights stem form a ruling 25 years ago in 1996.

This is IMPORTANT. I’m not just being picky. The narrative against our rights hinges on the suggestion that they are ‘new’ or radical, rather than having been largely settled since before some of the detractors were born. Non-discrimination was formally written into the..

..Sex Discrimination Act by regulations in 1999. The only thing not covered at that time was discrimination in the supply of goods and services, owing to a loophole which Labour decided to rely on. Never these, the 1999 regulations covered almost everything lately in contention..

..because reliably protecting employment rights had to include dealing with issues in sex-specific care and in shared sleeping and changing accommodation for staff who sleep in or change at work. The Equality Act 2010 merely burnished protections that had already existed..

..without issue for 12 years in 2010 by carrying forward everything contained in the amended Sex Discrimination Act and other prime non-discrimination acts. Challenges against trans protection in EA2010 — literally pretending they’re something new — are based on a lie.

Improving Remote Education - A Thread.

Over the last couple of weeks, the discussion has been about what primary schools are offering to their communities and how we can improve on it.

I'm relistening to the sessions, so points may not be in order as I add them... 1/

1. Non-teaching SLT are not experts on remote learning, what can they base any judgement on?

2. Facilitating staff discussion and sharing is likely to be far more effective to develop practice within your school. /2

3. Increasing access to devices/internet is a step towards making offers more equitable, but it is only part of the process.

4. Entertainment and engagement are different things.

5. Pre-recording should not be perfection, perfection wastes time and energy.

6. It is scary being beamed into someone's home, but having your home on show is also stressful. (perhaps something for Ofsted to consider, we are guests in other people's homes)

7. Giving over staff meetings to staff discussion and sharing is probably a better use of the time than other stuff you have planned.

That trending National Review piece highlights a major problem for the GOP: old school white Republicans spent 50 years courting the "Cletus" vote, welcoming them to the GOP fold with a handshake over shared white supremacist goals, while sneering at them behind their backs.

Just look at how Williamson talks about the folks who comprise the base of the GOP: "Cletus", "studio audience from Hee-Haw", "midnight drunks karaoke-warbling that old Chumbawumba song", "stupid".

The contempt is palpable, and it always has been.

And while a lot of the old school GOP folks thought Cletus was not smart enough to understand the contempt the party leadership held for them, they really AREN'T that stupid.

Enter Trump, wearing a trucker hat and eager to pander to the Cletus vote.

Instead of cloaking the white supremacy which holds the GOP's base together like paperclips and chewing gum in dog whistles and euphemisms with plausible deniability, Trump said what Cletus has been saying to his friends over beers for years.

If the Republican elite come out swinging for the Cletus vote, as Williamson does here, it might feel good to aptly label their party's problem--and this violent, militantly ignorant faction that comprises the GOP's current base IS a problem--it's going to reduce their votership.

Audience Building 101

Every company in the world is an audience company.

Whether it's a Media, VC, or DTC business, if you're not building audience Day 1, you're not prioritizing the right things.

Here's my framework for thinking about & building a killer audience 👇

I call it the Audience Funnel.

The concept is simple, but it allows you to...

1) Think strategically about building your own audience

2) Analyze the relative strength of other companies' audiences

3) Understand the similarities & differences of different audience channels

The Audience Funnel is divided into three tiers, which include:

1) Rented Audience

2) Owned Audience

3) Monetized Audience

Tier 1: Rented Audience

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁: This is your top of funnel. It allows you to build mass awareness & is key for developing a relationship with your audience.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀: High shareability, high discoverability

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀: You don't own your audience

Examples of Rented Audiences

- Social networks (IG, FB, Twitter, TikTok)
- Video platforms (Twitch, YouTube)
- Search engines (Web content)

Examples of Businesses with Big Rented Audiences

- @BuzzFeed (Instagram)
- @GoPro (YouTube)
- @charlidamelio (TikTok)

The UK refusing to give full diplomatic status the EU's mission in London is baffling at at time when @BorisJohnson is trying to connect with @JoeBiden - because it recalls what Trump administration did to the EU ambassador back in 2019. Stay with

@JoeBiden The spat has been going for a while - we reported it in May, when the #Brexit trade talks were getting testy and - I assumed - it was the UK seeking a bit of leverage as the talks progressed. But we have a deal...and still no deal on the EU

@JoeBiden Essentially the UK government wants to treat the @EUdelegationUK as a "international organisation based in London" - and not accord it full diplomatic status, as almost every other country in the world does, including the United States /3

@JoeBiden @EUdelegationUK Indeed when EU formed it's External Action Service (EEAS) the UK supported the idea that EU representatives should be full ambassadors - a fact reflected in the Treaty of Lisbon which we signed - and which reflected on fact EU had a currency, made laws etc. /4

@JoeBiden @EUdelegationUK It took some time for everyone to recognise this, but after @BarackObama came to power in 2016 even the USA did the same....then along came Donald Trump and in 2019 surreptitiously downgraded the status of the EU ambassador @D0Sullivan /4

Complaint submitted to @IPSOnews : Breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy). Misleading reporting of sex.

The use of 'Her phone' in the headline straight away implies to readers this is an unusual case of a female teenager who has committed the crime of accessing child pornography - a crime more commonly committed by members of the male sex /2

This is further substantiated by the word 'woman' in the first sentence of the text. This is a breach of the Editors Code on Accuracy because this is misleading. The individual involved was not born female and is in fact someone who was born male and now identifies as a woman /3

This will have been known to the court reporter or easily checked because the defendant was listed as STEVEN (see copy of court listing below). /4

It is now common practice for court officials to use feminine pronouns if a male person identifies as a woman. This means feminine pronouns should no longer be considered an accurate reflection of an individual's sex. Court reporters will be aware of this practice now /5

So someone on IRC mentioned the ending(s) to Zero Wing and I found out there's a cheat code to skip to it. I thought it might have some more "All your base" style dialogue I could put in the generator, but I really wasn't prepared for what ending #1 looked like

ending #2 is some very thin credits

ending #3 is reportedly the "true ending", at least on the European release. The Japanese version has 35 endings.

This one is... more serious? a little?

The other 32 endings are translated here, by

functionally all the japanese endings work like this. you get CONGRATULATIONS and then CATS says something to you.
usually something silly, or possibly the debug menu cheat code

We made a thread of Biden's first executive actions.

Categories include:
• Coronavirus
• Financial Relief
• Environment
• Human rights
• Immigration
• Regulation
• Ethics

😷Coronavirus:
- Start of his "100 Days Masking Challenge" with Dr. Fauci
- Restructuring the federal government coordination to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Rejoining the WHO

💰Financial Relief:
- Extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums
- Continue "pause" on student loan payments until September 30

🌳Environment:
- Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
- End Keystone XL pipeline and revoke oil and gas development at national wildlife monuments

☮ Human rights:
- Undoing Trump's efforts for a "Patriotic Education"
- Count non-citizens in U.S. Census again
- Strengthen workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity

Thought I was going to finish 2020 empty handed, tough real estate market out here.

Managed to snag a great deal at the last minute and wanted to share the details.

Here’s how I analyze multifamily real estate investment opportunities 👇

The property was a vacant 4plex, listed for $990k & after a few back and forths, the sellers accepted $950k with no finance condition.

Sellers were an elderly couple who neglected the property, it needed a lot of work. It was in a great neighbourhood/location.

(more pics later)

I first calculated my total equity investment required to acquire and stabilize the property.

During the inspection, did a full walk through with a trusted contractor (worked with for years), receiving quotes unit-by-unit.

Estimated time to complete = 4-6 months.

Next is the stabilized P&L.

Since I know the area very well, I can estimate rents and opex with great accuracy (I have another property within 15 mins walking distance).

Tenants are responsible for hydro/gas.

Finally, I put together the key metrics in evaluating the deal.

I look for yield above 15%, cash on cash above 7% and debt service above 1.5.

As you can see, the numbers check out.

Pete Buttigieg testifies today on his nomination to run the Dept. of Transportation.

I spent almost a year covering Buttigieg. He refused to speak with me, so I’m going to thread some of the things senators could ask him about today.

In 2011, Jiha’d Vasquez, 16, was found dead, hanged, on a utility tower.

In 2012, Buttigieg became mayor and Jiha’d’s mother asked him for help with the case. Common Council records show Buttigieg was at the meetings where she spoke about her son.

Jones and a local NAACP official wanted help because her son’s death had been ruled a suicide…with no autopsy and no investigation.

Items were missing from his backpack.

Jones told reporter @jharrell6468 that she asked Buttigieg to help get the case re-opened. She says he gave her his card and told her to call.

But when she did, she never got through to him, and no one ever returned her

When we looked into it in 2019, the county coroner told me it would be “prudent” to reopen the case. And also told us the file on the case was missing.

Buttigieg never responded to Jones or to our questions about the case. It remains closed

There needs to be a mass movement of political maturation. People are obviously encouraged to move at the pace which best suits them, but it is concerning, to say the least, that people closer to 40 are still impressed by political pageantry over policy.

Now what pace is that? Progress is all but stalled when you’re more agitated by the truth than the lies you’ve been led to believe and repeat about misleadership in this country.

Perhaps you aren’t interested or invested in an equitable society where the poor and working class represent themselves. But it truly should eat away at you that you’re fine being corralled into repression and subjugation by “your” government.

The emphasis we place on political education is not symbolic or even an attempt to rewrite history. It allows us to see what methods Black revolutionaries used, but also to see how the government subverted and destroyed their movements.

They saying is “history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes”. Many people were exhibiting their first term Obama jubilation. What we know happened next is the justification for why those pipes in Flint were never fixed, why so many extrajudicial killings of Black people happened etc.

1. On Wed. 20 Jan.Military Intel Contact said that by Sun 24 Jan things should become clearer. The illegal presidency of pedo-Sat*anist Joe B*iden should begin to be disclosed, along with the disclosure of the crimes of many other traitors / criminals in DC.

I've done many programs over the last 2 weeks about the push for and dangers of a New War on Terror & how to stop it: talked to @briebriejoy, @virgiltexas, @OwenJones, @RaniaKhalek, @megynkelly.

Here's my segment on it last night with

Two key points I want to flag about these interviews on the threatened Domestic War on Terror. But first: please watch this short clip of Obama's former CIA Director and drone-killer guru describing with great glee how he envisions this war and who is targeted (via @tomselliott):

The first key point: none of this requires speculation. Those who now wield power -- establishment Dems, neocons, security state ghouls and their media allies in you-know-which-outlets -- are explicitly saying they want the New War on Terror to copy the first one, but in the US:

The 2nd point: if your primary prism for understanding what happens in DC is Dem v. GOP, you will understand nothing, and will ensure your own impotence.

Much of what Dems will do will be in alliance with people like Liz Cheney, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney. It's not how it works:

One of the best explanations came from Obama. He said that most of the supposedly "vicious fighting" between the establishment wings of the 2 parties is just theater, for public consumption.

Those factions play with each other "within the 40 yard

A thread…

Thank you to @rmneiss for letting us play with the “Official Statement”generator yesterday. His @realpresssecbot was one of the primary inspirations for this account, so this is kind of a perfect bookend.

I started @TrumpEmail because I couldn't believe the tenor of the vitriol and the brazenness of the lies when Trump emails unexpectedly started showing up in my inbox. I was surprised nobody else was already putting these into the public record and took it on as a pet project.

3️⃣,6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣ emails later, it is safe to say I did NOT know what I was getting myself into.

But I’m glad I stuck with it. This felt important; a sitting president raising money in this fashion with these tactics needed a light shined on it.

1. This is how our country was being operated prior to the bankruptcy of the Corporation of the United States, and our being returned as a Constitutional Republic under DJT. Biden was fraudulently elected to the defunct Corporation.