"As MAGA World’s hopes for an election redo have slipped away, an equally improbable idea has begun to percolate among Donald Trump’s most bitterly disappointed followers: secession." 12/21/20 h/t @AlexandraChalup 1/
More from Jennifer Cohn ✍🏻 📢
2/ “CNBC captured a screenshot of tweet before it was deleted.
Kirk recently said on his podcast that those from Turning Point got back on their buses & left following the conclusion of the rally.”
3/ Thread
Here are some of the mainstream donor advised funds who contributed to Turning Point USA, a cosponsor of the protest that preceded the deadly attack on the Capitol.
— Eli Clifton (@EliClifton) January 11, 2021
They helped anonymize contributions for donors.
These numbers are just from each group's most recent tax filing.
4/ 😳
when you brought 80 buses of people to an insurrection and want your audience of republican millionaires to forget it pic.twitter.com/phnvCVzJw9
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) January 11, 2021
5/
How did 26-year-old Charlie Kirk go from living with his parents to a waterfront condo? Over a short period of time, his pay from the pro-Trump charity he co-founded rose to 300k. https://t.co/k9UO83awsi
— ProPublica (@propublica) January 13, 2021
In 2004, election truthers trotted out supposed statistical anomolies to try and "prove" Kerry won Ohio. It was bunk. Now some GOP folks are making similar arguments to claim Trump won the election. This is bunk too.
— Jonathan H. Adler (@jadler1969) November 28, 2020
2/ US State Dept commentary re the 2004 election in Ukraine and the discrepancy between the exit polls (which suggested a pro-West Yuschenko victory) and official results (which suggested a pro-Russia Yanukovych victory).
3/ The 2004 election in Ukraine was re-done and produced the opposite result, consistent with the exit polls.
4/ Exit polls in the US around the same time as Ukraine’s 2004 election suggested a solid Kerry victory. Voters had every reason to question why the Bush administration considered exit polls reliable in Ukraine but not in the US at the same time. https://t.co/SwUPeRnGtf
Discussion of Ohio 2004. 5/
It\u2019s official. The @NYSBOE rejected the certification of the ExpressVote XL.
— Common Cause NY (@commoncauseny) January 28, 2021
Now lawmakers should pass legislation that bans hybrid machines like the ExpressVote XL for good. https://t.co/hE83CTdgiJ
I’m still trying to find out @NYSBOE’s reasoning, but I know one problem was that the ExpressVote XL runs on Windows 7 and can only mark ballots in English. If the XL were a person, it would be a MAGA. 2/
The XL has other problems. It runs the barcode “paper ballot” back under the printout AFTER the voter reviews it, which experts say means it could be maliciously programmed to eff with the barcode that is the only part of the “paper ballot” counted as your vote. 3/
Unfortunately, Philadelphia did choose the ES&S ExpressVote XL all-in-one ballot marking device (BMD), ignoring expert advice. I wrote about that unfortunate decision here in 2019. 4/
Here, for @NYRBooks, I also discuss problems involving the ES&S ExpressVote XL in PA in 2019. ES&S lobbyists had secretly donated to the two decision makers who then chose this system in Philly in lieu of #HandMarkedPaperBallots (pen & paper). 5/
More from Government
A thread.
The Government's strategy at the beginning of the pandemic was to 'cocoon' the vulnerable (e.g. those in care homes). This was a 'herd immunity' strategy. This interview is from
Government #coronavirus science advisor Dr David Halpern tells me of plans to \u2018cocoon\u2019 vulnerable groups. pic.twitter.com/dhECJNbmnI
— Mark Easton (@BBCMarkEaston) March 11, 2020
This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.
We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second
Here are the heatmaps for Covid detected cases, positivity, hospitalizations, and ICU admissions. This is for the week to 3 January 2021.
— Dr Duncan Robertson (@Dr_D_Robertson) January 7, 2021
I have marked a line on 21 September, when SAGE recommended a circuit breaker, so you can see how the situation has deteriorated since then. pic.twitter.com/SEEVgUVK4j
The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.
This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.
https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm
The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter
One thing civil servants learn is to write things down. Here is @acadmedsci's 14 July report commissioned by @uksciencechief. For the record.
— Dr Duncan Robertson (@Dr_D_Robertson) September 17, 2020
"Voters don\u2019t care about how the D\u2019Hondt system works or about how you\u2019d geographically carve up a regional assembly... They want results.\u2070"@spellar on why Labour should stop obsessing over constitutional issues: https://t.co/W0zsire5xI
— LabourList (@LabourList) February 11, 2021
The state of our constitution is a bit like the state of the neglected electric wiring in an old house. If you are moving into the house, sorting it out is a bit tedious. Couldn’t you spend the time and money on a new sound system?
But if you ignore the wiring, you’ll find that you can’t safely install the new sound system. And your house may well catch fire.
Any programme for social democratic government requires a state with capacity, and a state that has clear mechanisms of accountability, for all the big and all the small decisions that in takes, in which people have confidence.
That is not a description of the modern UK state.
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Beautifully read: why bookselfies are all over Instagram https://t.co/pBQA3JY0xm
— Guardian Books (@GuardianBooks) October 30, 2018
THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN
If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.
In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)