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In 2019, @propublica and @postandcourier ran blockbuster investigations into SC's magistrate judges: inexperienced political appointees with no training who held South Carolinians' lives in their hands - and who use the bench to extract bribes, deal in overt racism and worse.

1/

 The first revealed that SC's magistrates got less training than its barbers, and their appointments, though subject to reapproval, were practically speaking lifelong and irrevocable, regardless of misconduct, bumbling, or actual criminal behavior.

https://t.co/jk4Ne2QQM6

2/
The qualifications process is bizarre. SC magistrates need to pass a one-hour exam, but they can (and do) re-take it many times without penalty. That test includes questions like "Which of the following numbers is larger?" And magistrates fail that test. Repeatedly.

3/
Magistrates are so ill-qualified that the rare, decent appointee can end up repeatedly breaking the law without knowing it, as construction worker (and local GOP chairman) Arthur Bryngelson did, leading to him resigning in horror and reporting himself for breaches.

4/
Not all of the unqualified magistrates have Bryngelson's moral fiber: BBQ chef/magistrate Clemon Stocker got his relative Willie Earl Reese released on bail after he pistol-whipped a man. Reese murdered his wife five days later.

5/
But the QUALIFIED magistrates are, if anything, even worse. Typical of the lawyers who get appointed to the post is George K Lyall, who pleaded guilty to multiple counts of stealing from his clients.

6/
Days later, @joey_cranney followed up his piece with a profile of magistrate Mike Pitts, a former GOP state rep, an overt racist pig who called Cory Booker a crackhead, advocated expelling Muslims, and derided trans people.

https://t.co/Af5S8joHha

7/
Pitts had advocated SC's secession from the USA, argued against removing the Confederate flag after the Emanuel AME Church mass-murder, and worse. His record in the state house was so abysmal that after he lost an election, no one would give him a job.

8/
No one, that is, except for his crony, state senator Danny Verdin, who got him a job for life dealing out justice in the state's courtrooms.

Verdin isn't exceptionally racist by SC magistrate standards.

9/
His colleague James Gosnell used racial slurs to refer to defendants. And a former SC magistrate, Peter Lamb, was forced to resign after calling crack "a Black man's disease" (Lamb quit in exchange for not being prosecuted for illegal discrimination from the bench).

10/
Next, a report on the reaction to the earlier pieces, in which state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle proposed reforms to the magistrate system, with some state senators withdrawing their historic opposition to such a move.

https://t.co/l9ZomkCTOk

11/
The commonsense, modest reforms are mostly remarkable for what they reveal about the system: judges could no longer be appointed on the say-so of a single senator and judges can't claim "holdover" status to serve indefinitely after their terms are up.

12/
More: judges would be required to get some modest additional training. Senators would be banned from appointing relatives or former colleagues from the state house, and anyone convicted by a magistrate without a law license would get an automatic appeal before a real judge.

13/
One more proposal from last year: prospective judges would be legally required to disclose their prior disciplinary offenses - at the time, state senators like Marlon Kimpson vigorously opposed this, because it was a "bureaucratic process."

14/
None of that came to pass in 2019. Now it's been more than a year, and finally there's some progress on reforming SC's idiotic Klown Kar of a justice system. The legislature is about to reconvene, and magistrate reform is top of their agenda.

https://t.co/yo5SGwbUTO

15/
GOP state senator Tom Davis is spearheading the effort, with several bills that track the 2019 reform proposal. He'll have an uphill battle, though, with colleagues like state rep Murrell Smith stating "A law degree is not a prerequisite to being a good judge."

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Inequality requires narrative stabilizers. When you have too little and someone else has more than they can possibly use, simple logic dictates that you should take what they have.

1/


The forbearance exercised by the many when it comes to the wealth of the few isn't down to guards or laws - rather, the laws and the guards are effective because of the STORY, the story of why this is fair, even inevitable.

2/

Think of the story of monarchy and its relationship to the Church: the Church affirms that the monarch (and the aristocracy) was chosen by God ("dieu et mon droit") and the monarchy reciprocates by giving the Church moral and economic power within the kingdom.

3/

Capitalism replaced the story of divine will with a story of a self-correcting complex system: humans are born and raised with a variety of aptitudes and tastes, and at any moment, historical exigencies dictate that some individuals are better suited than others to do well.

4/

When it's railroad time, there are people who were born to oversee the laying of track and the coordination of rail networks: markets find those people, allocate capital to them, and allow them to mobilize that capital to produce shared prosperity for all of us.

5/
CULTURE
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
As the Qanon prophecies fail and the cult-members struggle to resolve their cognitive dissonance, it's a good time to revisit the history of paranoid, conspiratorial political movements in American history - the "paranoid style" that has dominated since the Revolution.

1/


After all, the very first skirmishes of the US war of independence were based on a conspiracy theory: that the levy on tea was a prelude to a sellout of the colonists to transnational mercantalist interests. US politics have always been conspiratorial.

2/

I found @zacharykarabell's @politico history of the Know Nothing party especially useful, as it tells the story of what happens when surging, paranoid, fractious political movements

The American Party was a secret 19th century organization founded on a conspiracy theory: that Irish immigrants were secretly planning a takeover of the US on behalf of the Pope.

4/
HISTORY
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Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
@doctorow
It's been eight years since @aaronsw took his own life. Aaron had been charged with 13 felonies under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (#CFAA) for violating the terms of service on the @JSTOR database of scholarly articles.

1/


Prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz didn't dispute that Aaron was allowed to access the articles he retrieved. Rather, they said that the WAY he accessed them (using a script instead of clicking on links) was a terms-of-service violation and hence a crime.

2/

In other words: any business could conjure a felony out of thin air by making you click through an unreadable garbage-novella of legalese proscribing the use of a service they granted you access to. Violate any of those terms and you face a prison sentence.

3/

This isn't law as we know it, it's Felony Contempt of Business Model, and the most alarming thing was that this interpretation of the CFAA wasn't completely ridiculous, given how badly drafted that law is.

4/

Ronald Reagan signed CFAA into law. Fed prosecutors had been seeking broad authority to punish "hacking" and had drawn up an absurdly broad definition of cybercrime that would give them latitude to go after anyone they didn't like.

5/
ALL
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
2018 was almost the year we won the #RightToRepair.

Instead, 2018 turned out to be the year we lost #R2R: 20 bills defeated in 20 state houses, and it was mostly @apple's fault.

1/


Apple has a problem. As CEO Tim Cook warned his investors at the conclusion of his company's repair-killing lobbying spree, Apple's profits depend on people throwing away their devices, not fixing them.

By monopolizing repairs, Apple doesn't just get to gouge you on parts and service - the real action is in pronouncing your device DOA, beyond repair. Then you have to buy another one.

3/

Other companies lobbied hard against R2R: John Deere, GM, and other monopolists backed Apple's play. But Apple wrote the playbook, coming up with risible bullshit like claims that blocking independent repair is essential to protecting

Apple's anti-repair FUD got picked up and amplified by Big Car in 2020, when they spent millions fighting an automotive R2R ballot initiative in Massachusetts, claiming that letting independent mechanics at your car would lead to your actual MURDER.
BUSINESS
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Mexican indigenous telco wins spectrum fight; How apps steal your location; Understanding /r/wallstreetbets; Knowledge is why you build your own apps; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/6BOyhL3tEj

#Pluralistic

1/


Join me this afternoon for the launch of the print edition of my 2020 book HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM!

https://t.co/8Op6IEocPB

2/


Mexican indigenous telco wins spectrum fight: First Nations treaties do not sign away electromagnetic franchises.

https://t.co/BBsxXuGQe3

3/


How apps steal your location: A deep dive into the murky depths of surveillance markets.

https://t.co/mV7u2FYylT

4/


Understanding /r/wallstreetbets: More than a bull run, a symbiosis of a market maker and market destroyers.

https://t.co/7zr1N4vkjV

5/
TRADING

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Emily\u2661
Emily♡
@ItsEmilyKaty
To the person who thinks that they might be autistic. - a thread. /1

I imagine you have gone your entire life wondering why you are different, why you can't seem to understand things the way that others can and why everything just seems so hard. I'm proud of you for getting this far. /2

Part of you might be thinking:
"But if I was autistic, surely it would've been noticed when I was a kid? So maybe I'm making this up."
So many autistic people aren't diagnosed until they are adults, if diagnosed at all. You would not be the first and you won't be the last. /3

"My family and friends don't think that I could be autistic."
People's understandings of autism tend to be based off of the media, which doesn't show every possible presentation of autism, or based off of someone they know, and all autistic people present differently. /4

People's perceptions of autism can also be based off stereotypes, for example, "autistic people can't make eye contact, so you can't be autistic." While this is true for some, it isn't for all, so you can begin to see how one presentation of autism can't possibly fit everyone. /5
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Johnny Silverhand
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@SparesofWar
@ImPranav_M @GunduHuDuGa That's a good qsn, if not a bit nuanced. Avataras are of many varieties and frankly, most of the classification is only for our understanding and not really binding on Paramatma Himself. We can take several approaches to understanding this. If you go by a Vedantic approach,+

@GunduHuDuGa Avatara means that which descends from an exalted state (Taara). Going by Upanishadic observaton of Purnam adham purnam idham, every manifestation of Bhagavan is indeed wholesome. In fact, Avataras usually happen when Iswara is propitiated with certain qualities already+

@GunduHuDuGa described in the Vedas by other Devatas. So, in order to please them, He assumes the form that best envisages the said Vaidika tatvam. For example, Varaha and Nrusimha avatars, though they have sthoola prayojanas, also exemplify the Tejovanna tatvam propounded by Upanishads.+

@GunduHuDuGa All these tatvams ultimately emanate from Him so whatever form He takes is indeed Purna. Now, one may ask then if that's the case, why such a distinction had to be made in the first place. That is because of upasana vidhis and understanding of how Bhagavad tatvam shines+

@GunduHuDuGa with each Leela being performed. Let's take Nrusimha avatar. The purpose of the avatar is neither to save Hiranyakasipu nor rescue Prahlada. For that He need not descend down as H's boons are applicable only for Brahman's creation and not Paramatma Himself.+
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Shreyas Doshi
Shreyas Doshi
@shreyas
Why does Your Manager’s Manager (YMM) request a deck/doc during a meeting, says it’s urgent, and then doesn’t respond for days after you create & send it?

Or, why does YMM often respond with trivial feedback (e.g. formatting) & not substantive feedback?

Answers in this thread👇🏾

Have you set an entirely new password on a site & said to yourself: “surely, I’ll remember it becos this site is so important for me”. Have you then gone on to forget that password the very next week?

Me too.

The reason for YMM’s odd behavior & my password optimism is the same.

That reason is the Focusing Illusion, first described by Daniel Kahneman.

The Focusing Illusion:
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.

When YMM asked you to create that doc as one of the follow up actions during the Product Review, YMM fell prey to the Focusing Illusion.

Trust me, YMM had no intention of making you do busywork.

YMM truly believed that it was very impt & urgent to create that doc & review it.

This was YMM’s conception of how much of their future time was appropriate to spend on the item for which they requested that doc (Item A):
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Lauren Thoman
Lauren Thoman
@LaurenThoman
I should mention, this is why I keep talking about this. Because I know so many people who legally CAN'T.

How do I know they have NDAs, if they can't talk legally about them? Because they trusted me with their secrets... after I said something. That's how they knew I was safe.


Some of the people who have reached out to me privately have been sitting with the pain of what happened to them and the regret that they signed for YEARS. But at the time, it didn't seem like they had any other option BUT to sign.

I do not blame *anyone* for signing an NDA, especially when it's attached to a financial lifeline. When you feel like your family's wellbeing is at stake, you'll do anything -- even sign away your own voice -- to provide for them. That's not a "choice"; that's survival.

And yes, many of the people whose stories I now know were pressured into signing an NDA by my husband's ex-employer. Some of whom I *never* would have guessed. People I thought "left well." Turns out, they've just been *very* good at abiding by the terms of their NDA.

(And others who have reached out had similar experiences with other Christian orgs. Turns out abuse, and the use of NDAs to cover up that abuse, is rampant in a LOT of places.)
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Holly | Alem
Holly | Alem
@alemiye_
I’ve been frustrated by the tweets I’ve seen of this as a Canadian. Because the facts are being misrepresented.

We’re not under some sort of major persecution. That’s not what this is. A thread. 1/8


This church was fined for breaking health orders in Dec. They continued to break them. So the pastor was arrested and released on conditions of... you guessed it, not breaking health orders. And then they broke the health orders. 2/8

So then he was arrested and told he couldn’t hold church services in person if he was to be released. He refused. He’s still in custody.

Here is my frustration as a Christian in Canada:

1. They were able to gather, with some conditions. They didn’t like those. 3/8

2. He is not actually unable to preach. He is just unable to hold church services because they broke the conditions given by the public health office in Alberta. He says he can’t in good conscience do that, so they are keeping him in jail (because he will break the law). 4/8

3. This is the 1st article of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” 5/8
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My course is now available for FREE on youtube.

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1. The major problem most startups face is marketing and the ability to carve out a niche, find and retain paying customers.

Even with a stellar developer team and a stellar product, your startup may not grow or survive without a great marketing and sales teams.

2. Start growing your audience before you’ve a product or an idea.

You should start promoting yourself and building your audience before you have a finished product or even before you have a great idea that you want to build.

3. Don’t wait to start building your audience after you’ve launched a product.

Most first-time developers actually ignore marketing.

They’re oblivious to the challenge of attracting people to take a look at something they’ve created.

4. At least until they see their first project crash and burn within hours of the launch.

There are so many times that I have seen developers spend countless hours building something, releasing it with no fanfare...

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*Heads-up that this thread will feature some extreme examples of homophobia and transphobia.*

Hey folks, have you ever wondered why trans people face constant accusations of fetishism, sexual predation and child abuse/grooming? Well, today let's talk about stochastic terrorism.

So, first we have to talk about what stochastic terrorism actually is. Remember when there was a conspiracy that there was a pedophile ring operating out of a pizza parlour basement, and a crazed gunman showed up? It's that sort of incitement that stochastic terrorism describes.

It's the demonisation or incitement against a group of people or individuals with the intent that other, unaffiliated parties will act upon it; it's the releasing doctored footage and a shooter show up at Planned Parenthood as a direct result of what he's been led to believe.

So with that in mind, let's talk about Russia's extreme anti-LGBT laws that banned the "promotion" of LGBT lifestyles to children. A move that specifically marked LGBT people as a threat to children, and resulted in neo-nazis meting out vigilante "justice" against gay men.


Groups such as this would lure unsuspecting gay men via dating sites, and brutalise and humiliate them on camera. They did so under the guise of combating child abusers, one group calling themselves "Occupy
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Rudy Havenstein, listening to Nas all day.
Rudy Havenstein, liste...
@RudyHavenstein
I hate when I learn something new (to me) & stunning about the Jeff Epstein network (h/t MoodyKnowsNada.)

Where to begin?

So our new Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's stepfather, Samuel Pisar, was "longtime lawyer and confidant of...Robert Maxwell," Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad.


"Pisar was one of the last people to speak to Maxwell, by phone, probably an hour before the chairman of Mirror Group Newspapers fell off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine on 5 November, 1991." https://t.co/DAEgchNyTP


OK, so that's just a coincidence. Moving on, Anthony Blinken "attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York City"...wait, what? https://t.co/DnE6AvHmJg

Dalton School...Dalton School...rings a

Oh that's right.

The dad of the U.S. Attorney General under both George W. Bush & Donald Trump, William Barr, was headmaster of the Dalton School.

Donald Barr was also quite a


I'm not going to even mention that Blinken's stepdad Sam Pisar's name was in Epstein's "black book."

Lots of names in that book. I mean, for example, Cuomo, Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen - all in that book, and their reputations are spotless.
EPSTEIN NETWORK
Sara Benincasa
Sara Benincasa
@SaraJBenincasa
Spent a quaint half hour in a cafe listening to a guy yell at his dad after his dad said that the women Trump molested wanted it: "Dad, that's like saying the Jews who died in the Holocaust were asking for it!" ENJOY YOUR TERRIBLE FAMILIES THIS WEEK!

"Mom, has a man ever touched you without your consent?"
"Of course."
"Did you report it?"
"No."
"Dad, your WIFE has been through this!"

Dad was unmoved and told the guy to stop arguing with him.

At this point we learned the boy child has allergies.

I forgot to remark upon the presence of the very cute grandson, who was very small and gave not one shit about the yelling. I believe a sister or aunt was present and feeling very stressed. I wanted to hand her a Xanax or seven.

It was really hard to not jump in and say, "Sounds like you guys are going to have a fun meal tomorrow!" so they could unite in hatred against me, the outsider, and stop squabbling. Instead I exchanged glances with a nearby fellow lady patron, who also emotionally ate a cookie.

Anyway, I want to thank the random family for yelling about rape and the Holocaust in an Israeli cafe in the US of A today because it reminded me that while this country isn't the greatest, it is inevitably my stupid favorite and I am never, ever bored.
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