The NYSBA strongly condemned the violent uprising that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, orchestrated by individuals bent on subverting the will of the voters by disrupting the certification of the 2020 presidential election

Thankfully, Congress overcame this assault and fulfilled its constitutional responsibility in certifying the Biden-Harris victory. However, we must address the root cause of this abhorrent incident, the blame for which lies first and foremost with President Donald Trump.

But the president did not act alone.

Hours before the angry mob stormed the Capitol walls, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, addressed a crowd of thousands at the White House, reiterating baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the presidential election and the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.

“If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Let's have trial by combat.”

1/ Moderate Republicans are the most important people in the world right now. More comments on the #ElectoralCollegelRiot from a political sociologist.

2/ Right now, we have a severe problem: as long as you can gather up a critical number of primary voters, you can do some very horrible things, like incite a riot that gets 2 police officers killed.

3/ So what can be done? Part of the solution is relatively easy: criminal charges. We need a bright line. Free speech is ok, riots should be met with prison sentences every time.

4/ But part of the solution is much harder. Getting moderate Republican politicians and voters to punish people. They have more power to fix the situation than any other group right now.

5/ We've seen some honorable exceptions, like Corker and Schwarzenegger, and that is promising. But we've seen a suprising level of silence from the groups that are important moderate parts of the GOP coalition.

Thread-
What do the Dems need to do on a policy front?
cc @speakerpelosi, @joebiden, @senschumer

1. Do or Do not. There is no try. - Yoda

For starters they need to get shit done. No more talking. Make people's lives better immediately.

Some claim there's no difference
1/

between R's and D's. And for some people, it's kinda true. Dems TRY and make the average person's life better and R's stop them, but the net effect is - no difference.

So, for starters Dems must actually do some good things: $2,000 stimulus checks, vaccine deployment,

2/

student loan forgiveness, health care expansion, more $ for education, LGBT protections, environmental reforms etc...

But HOW you might ask?

2. Think like the Turtle.

Dems get all caught up in process and policy and procedure. They think every legislative change needs 3
3/

months of hearing and testimony. Don't get me wrong. That is a good way of coming up with fair and effective public policy. But, it's time to get shit done fast.

McConnell has lobbyists write bills at 3 am and moves them through committee by noon. He can push dozens of

4/

judicial nominees through in an afternoon. Why? Cause he knows it's about just delivering for his constituents. Dems worry about losing marginal seats in the next election...

5/

Weeks before the election, a bombshell story broke with the release of Hunter Biden's laptop. The contents contained two scandals; one salacious and disturbing, one a clear outline of foreign corruption involving his father. The stories were spiked and censored to protect Biden.

Hello folks, Today I got a map of the Milwaukee Metropolitan area. We are going to be looking at Scott Walker's 3rd and 4th Election.

Walker has always been a polarizing figure in Wisconsin politics. He's been pretty much hated by Liberals and loved by Conservatives ever since he ending collective bargaining for public employees. He managed survive 2 very close re-elections (2012 recall, 2014 General)

However, his luck ran out in the 2018 Blue wave. Support for Walker fell pretty much everywhere. He did worse in pretty everywhere with a sizable population . The only place ,he really gained from 2014, was the small towns in Northern Wisconsin.

Walker went from winning the Milwaukee metro by 6 to losing it by 2.4 . Him doing worse in the Metro can be attributed by losing support virtually everywhere.

Ironically, the only place where Walker did slightly better was in the heavily African American wards of Milwaukee. Turnout went down pretty badly in this area, so most of his gains were likely due to population loss .

I've probably spent 10 hours reconstructing what happened at the Capitol. Censorship has made this process more difficult, but I think I've gotten about as far as I'll get at this point. Unpreparedness and Chaos are both good words to describe what happened inside the Capitol. 1

THREAD: Nevada GOP local party chair spreads conspiracy that President Trump is taking over the country starting January 20th - saying "It's 1776 all over again!"

The Nye County, NV, GOP Chairman has released a letter declaring that President Trump will be president for another four years, and President-elect Joe Biden will not be president.

The letter is not signed, with the message explaining that the “intended audience was our rural membership and they all know me” – however the local party website where the letter is published states that the party chair is Chris Zimmerman.

Zimmerman declares that President Trump is about to govern a newly independent nation – he states the following:

- Zimmerman notes that President Trump never mention Biden’s name in his speech about a new administration coming to power, and does not formally concede. He says the new admin under Trump will include a new VP/new cabinet as “current ones have all made their treason complete.”

Get ready to shift how you think about congress. (quick thread bc Zeke’s asleep)...

For 10 years, it was a safe bet that congress would accomplish nothing. Congress was defined by dysfunction, gridlock, or outright white plutocracy under Trump.

But there’s a Dem trifecta for the first time in a decade now, so it's time to make new bets- and make them fast.

Usually congress moves slowly or not at all. Historically though, when a Dem trifecta comes, there is a brief window of opportunity - usually measured in months, not years - where legislative progress suddenly speeds up.

A quick trip through the last 100 years of this:

Wilson takes office with his Democratic trifecta in early 1913, and by the end of the year we get a progressive federal income tax and the creation of the Federal Reserve.

FDR takes office with his Democratic trifecta in early 1933, and that year we get the Public Works Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, banking reform, and massive economic recovery legislation.

THREAD ✔
what @M_McCormackMP voted for

A citizenship test

A combined Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia

A plebiscite on the carbon pricing mechanism

A same-sex marriage plebiscite

An Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)

✔
Emissions reduction fund

Banning mobiles and other devices in immigration detention

Charging postgraduate research students fees

Civil celebrants having the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples

Compensating victims of overseas terrorism since the September 11 attack

✔
Decreasing ABC and SBS funding

Decreasing availability of welfare payments

Deregulating undergraduate university fees

Drug testing welfare recipients

Getting rid of Sunday and public holiday penalty rates

Government administered paid parental leave

✔
Greater control over items brought into immigration detention centres

Increasing eligibility requirements for Australian citizenship

Increasing funding for road infrastructure

Increasing indexation of HECS-HELP debts

Increasing or removing the Government debt limit

✔
Increasing scrutiny of unions

Increasing state and territory environmental approval powers

Increasing cost of humanities

Increasing the initial tax rate for working holiday makers to 19%

Increasing the Medicare Levy to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme

“Unity” cannot mean that Democrats agree not to hold anyone responsible for what happened last week and over the last four years and Republicans agree to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing.

I mean it can and Republicans would certainly prefer that it did, but that path just brings us right back here.

Pretty cynical effort by Trumpists to turn criticism of Trump and other Republican leaders whose lies incited the crowd into an attack on all 75 million who voted for him.

Good plan for avoiding accountability; bad plan for avoiding more violence from their supporters.

In my head I've been breaking down the people involved with Wednesday's events into sevenish groups. Each group had a different level of engagement, perhaps understood what was happening differently, and requires a different level of social and legal sanction.

1. Protesters

They were lied to, they came, they protested, they never got near the Capitol, they left.

Protected First Amendment activity, they shouldn't feel proud that they participated but not much to be done here.

"Feel free to copy/paste, I did." ~ @lex31555

Here it is, abridged, and with pictures:

"I have listened to everyone else’s hatred, rhetoric and outright lies for the last four years, so now I am having my say.

Voting for @Dynconference sessions closes next Friday 22. @juanan169 and I have submitted a session in Spanish about using Azure DevTest Labs to create build VMs! You can vote it now! https://t.co/vT9ZTypBom

#XppGroupies #DynamicsCon #MSDyn365FO #MVPBuzz

But if you don't speak Spanish I've selected 17 other sessions in English that I've found interesting. Let's start with @FaisalFareed's "D365 FO Environments

"Quality Development Practices with Finance and Operations"

Tanya Regna with "Eliminate Legacy Batch Interfaces and Move to Dual Write"

with some AI "Dynamics 365 Finance

@NC_Governor let me tell you something you son of a bitch. I’m not even going to get into a “political discussion” here because that is a whole issue which I’m not going to waste time on right now but where do you get the fuckin balls to use an Incident that the “Radical Left...

How many more Temples (oops sorry Capitols and Court Houses) are going to be fenced off in the US ?
Asking for a fren . 😎

In the NY Times today, I argue w/ @brianbeutler that a Civil War amendment to the Constitution--barring those who've "engaged in insurrection" from holding office--authorizes a broader response, one that goes beyond impeachment and beyond Trump

Congress should use its power under the 14th Amendment to pass a law blocking the instigators and perpetrators of last week’s siege of the Capitol--including but not limited to Trump--from holding office ever again.

This would be a complement, not a substitute, for impeachment.

Even during the Civil War, the traitors never breached our Capitol. On Wednesday, they did. They paraded the Confederate battle flag through its halls, halted the electoral vote count, and upended the peaceful transfer of power with

As we respond, we should draw from the lessons of preceding generations--including those who drafted the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment during what Reconstruction historian Eric Foner calls America's "Second

The Framers of the 14th Amendment arrived at a consensus that we sadly find ourselves needing to enforce again: Those who swear an oath to defend our Constitution but then betray that sacred oath by participating in an insurrection cannot be permitted to hold public office again.

1/10. The claim that Trump won the election is a Big Lie.

2/10. A Big Lie changes reality. To believe it, people must disbelieve their senses, distrust their fellow citizens, and live in a world of faith.

3/10. A Big Lie demands conspiracy thinking, since all who doubt it are seen as traitors.

4/10. A Big Lie undoes a society, since it divides citizens into believers and unbelievers.

5/10. A Big Lie destroys democracy, since people who are convinced that nothing is true but the utterances of their leader ignore voting and its results.