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Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Based on the latest info I could find, here's why what happened on Jan. 6th was worse than we thought.

It was coordinated. This was not merely a crowd of protestors accidentally incited to storm the Capitol by the intemperance of the President & other speakers at the rally.

 Security experts are combing through the online chatter leading up to the rally and have found extremist groups planning violence. People came w/ malice aforethought, thus armored insurrectionists pushing to the front of the crowd, pipe bombs, & so on.

https://t.co/UOFNJ9JU0N
But it gets worse. The feds seem to be investigating several Republican members of Congress for connections to the organizers of the rally. (The FBI has warned lawmakers in closed door hearings that they may be shocked with what comes out.)
Indeed, at least one member of Congress, Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) alleges that these GOP members gave some of the insurrectionists tours of the Capitol building on January 5th, the day before.

https://t.co/t1RPkvqx1I
The implication is that these GOP congressmen used the walkthroughs to familiarize the insurrectionists with the building layout so that they could push into the building and confront their colleagues who were opposed to overturning the electoral ballot count.
Remember, Trump specifically told the protestors to march on the Capitol to "cheer on our brave senators," but then saying that they are "probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you'll never take back our country with weakness." https://t.co/x0SNgzEXGZ
"You have to show strength, and you have to be strong." He does mention that they should "peacefully and patriotically" confront Congress once, but also throws out a number of inflammatory metaphors like ending the "assault" and "siege," "fighting" and so on.
It is all but certain that Trump coordinated this march beforehand, perhaps w/ the congressmen now under investigation. After all, he spent the first hour or so of the insurrection calling representatives who were in lockdown because of the insurrectionists HE SENT AT THEM.
Indeed, reports have come out about Trump's glee in the early stages of the riot; Ben Sasse (R-NE) used the words "delighted" & "excited." This was a man who was giddy about the success of a plan coming to fruition.

https://t.co/sNYgePVHYh
Now, I think it unlikely that Trump or his minions planned the physical violence. I think they expected the crowd to surround the capitol, that some would push inside to confront members of congress in their chambers, and they'd make a scene that would look good on cable news.
But when you play with matches, don't be surprised when you get burned.

When the President tells the Proud Boys to "stand back, and stand by" last year, but then calls on all his supporters to come fight for him in DC on Jan 6, they might take him seriously *and* literally.

More from Paul Matzko

Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
If a critical mass of people on twitter generate enough Section 230 hot takes, all that energy fuses to create renewed interest in the #FairnessDoctrine.

I wrote a book on the FD so let me walk you through why reviving it would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

First, the Fairness Doctrine was responsible for the most successful episode of government censorship of the past half century. While the Fairness Doctrine was technically created to encourage fair and balanced coverage of “controversial issues of public importance"...

...in the 1960s the Kennedy administration weaponized it to punish conservative radio critics. You see, fairness is in the eye of the beholder--which is the FCC--and the person who appoints the commissioners--the president--gets a say in what looks fair or foul.

(JFK also launched targeted IRS audits of his right-wing radio antagonists; the power to tax is the power to destroy, after all.) Stations responded to the secretly government-organized pressure by dropping conservative broadcasters in order to avoid Fairness Doctrine complaints.

And lest you think this Fairness Doctrine stuff is just conservative bellyaching, bear in mind that the Nixon administration used the threat of Fairness Doctrine enforcement to help bring television network heads to heel.
CULTURE
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
Having spent 2020 telling covid denalists that they were overly optimistic about the pandemic, I now look forward to spending 2021 telling covid maximalists that they are overly pessimistic about the end of the pandemic.

Telling a denialist in May that we shouldn't open bars back up = telling a maximalist in February that we should open schools back up.

Look, folks, the math is straightforward. ~13% of Americans have been vaccinated as of this

And the 7 day average continues to rise; we're approach 2 million vaccine doses per day. Meaning that we'll double that ~13% much faster than the two months it took us to get there.


So it's entirely reasonable that absent any other intervention, we should expect to hit ~30% vaccinated by the end of March.
SOCIETY
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Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
I wrote a book about the Fairness Doctrine and how it was responsible for one of the worst episodes of government censorship in US history.

So I am somewhat alarmed at the calls percolating on Twitter for a new, internet Fairness Doctrine. This is a thread about why that is.

Let's start with what most people think when they hear "Fairness Doctrine." They imagine a time at an indeterminate point in the past when mass media was reasonable, balanced, equitable, and fair. It was a veritable golden age of mass media and the Fairness Doctrine was to thank.

Back then, radio & tv stations couldn't just air their opinions, spreading unchecked misinformation. No, they had to let the other side of any given issue have a say, giving the good guys a chance to check the bad guys when they told bald lies.


However, the problem with this narrative is that it is almost entirely a myth. In actuality, the Fairness Doctrine was a tool wielded by political interests in order to suppress dissident speech & prevent activists (from both Left & Right) from exposing the lies of the powerful.

But telling that story requires going back before the first major test of the Fairness Doctrine in 1963, before the rules were created in 1949, all the way back to the first meaningful attempt at federal regulation of radio in 1927.
CULTURE
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
The New York Times article about SlateStarCodex is finally out and it is...bad. There's a lot I could parse, but let me just walk you through one paragraph that is so misleading as to be

Take the first sentence of this paragraph. Now, technically the clause--"who proposed a link between race and IQ"--could simply modify "Murray" and have nothing to do w/ SSC.


But 99% of readers are going to assume that the clause actually defines SSC's alignment with Murray. In other words, the author is strongly implying that SSC shares Murray's racist beliefs.

And that would be big(!)...if it were at all true. It is not. Indeed, if you go to the hyperlink, you'll find that SSC's purported "alignment" has nothing to do with Murray's "Bell Curve."

What SSC & Murray agree about is that poverty is partly hereditable and thus very sticky, so much so that the proposition job retraining programs will meaningfully address mass economic disruption is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy.
TECH
Paul Matzko
Paul Matzko
@PMatzko
This is a great question from @HeerJeet and it has very old roots. In my book, I discuss a similar period of anxiety in the 1960s about the possibility of Air Force officers being involved in a coup. Thread.


Given the size of the US military in WW2, afterwards there was a spike in concern that some of these demilitarized veterans would be amenable to radicalization and supportive of insurrection. These fears heightened after the coups in France/Algiers in 1958 and 1961.

This was the peak era of the Cold War, so anti-communist anxiety was layered over top. The Right feared that communist infiltrators in the government would subvert the Republic. The Left feared that anti-communist military officers would launch a preemptive, paranoid coup.

Note as well that the foundation for these fears was rooted in a novel concept that journalist Edward Hunter had recently coined, "brainwashing." The idea was that US POWs held by North Korea had been brainwashed into accepting communism & might act as a fifth column back home.

You can see that particular paranoia in cultural artifacts from the time like "The Manchurian Candidate," novel in 1959 and the hit 1962 movie starring Frank Sinatra and the incomparable Angela Lansbury. Those sneaky commies nearly infiltrated the Oval Office itself, oh no!!
GOVERNMENT

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Karl Grubaugh
Karl Grubaugh
@kgrubaugh
A story ...

In 1994, I was teaching U.S. history and American government at Oak Ridge HS in El Dorado Hills, California.

I had three bright students who were my TAs. The 20th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation was a few months away. I decided to have ... 1/


my students -- Sherilyn Peek, Aaron Leahy and Nicole Poimiroo -- take on an extra project. They contacted dozens of people who were in some way involved with the Watergate saga. Politicians, lawyers, political appointees, journalists and others. 2/

They spent weeks, before the internet existed, tracking down addresses. Then they sent a short letter that asked the recipients to respond to one question: What should America learn from Watergate?

Before long, responses started to show up in my mailbox at school. 3/

Archibald Cox replied, and I'm especially struck by this sentence: "...we should be reminded of the corrupt influence of great power, especially when the power is in the hands of someone who is willing to resort to any tactics, however wrong, to retain and increase his power."4/


Richard Kleindienst wrote his response by hand ... "Our Constitution worked! The federal judiciary worked. The Congress and a free press worked. That our Constitution works is the magic of America." 5/
GOVERNMENT
David Bier
David Bier
@David_J_Bier
Long thread: Because I couldn’t find anything comprehensive, I’m just going to post everything I’ve seen in the news/Twitter about Trump’s activities related to the Jan 6th insurrection. I think the timing & context of his actions/inactions will matter a lot for a senate trial.

12/12: The earlier DC protest over the electoral college vote during clearly inspired Jan 6th. On Dec 12th, he tweeted: “Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! #MAGA.”


12/19: Trump announces the Jan. 6th event by tweeting, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Immediately, insurrectionists begin to discuss the “Wild Protest.” Just 2 days later, this UK political analyst predicts the violence


12/26-27: Trump announces his participation on Twitter. On Dec. 29, the FBI sends out a nationwide bulletin warning legislatures about attacks https://t.co/Lgl4yk5aO1


1/1: Trump tweets the time of his protest. Then he retweets “The calvary is coming” on Jan. 6!” Sounds like a war? About this time, the FBI begins visiting right wing extremists to tell them not to go--does the FBI tell the president? https://t.co/3OxnB2AHdr
TRUMP , GOVERNMENT
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SandeepParekh
SandeepParekh
@SandeepParekh
How does a government put a legislation on 'hold'? Is there any constitutional mechanism for the executive to 'pause' a validly passed legislation? Genuine Koshan.


So a committee of 'wise men/women' selected by the SC will stand in judgement over the law passed by


Here is the thing - a law can be stayed based on usual methods, it can be held unconstitutional based on violation of the Constitution. There is no shortcut to this based on the say so of even a large number of people, merely because they are loud.


Tomorrow can all the income tax payers also gather up at whichever maidan and ask for repealing the income tax law? It hurts us and we can protest quite loudly.

How can a law be stayed or over-turned based on the nuisance value of the protestors? It is anarchy to allow that.
ALL , GOVERNMENT
NYC Angry Mom - #OpenSchools
NYC Angry Mom - #OpenS...
@angrybklynmom
Parents in cities, please pay attention to the reopening details from the Whitehouse.

Biden says "small classes". What we need to understand is how they plant to accomplish this.

Through "childcare programs in schools". We see this all over states w/ closed schools.


We need to grasp that the AFT, NEA, & local unions are systematically working to decouple education from childcare.

Their vision is your child sitting on a device all day, watched by a childcare worker, being "taught" from a Teacher working from

This isn't a paranoid conspiracy theory - it is already happening in the majority of districts across the US where schools are closed.

"Learning Hubs" open, supervised by childcare workers, sometimes in the same "unsafe" school

There is NO OTHER WAY to get "small classes" without Hybrid + wraparound childcare. Your child will spend 2-3 days per WEEK supervised by low wage workers and sitting on a laptop.

Here's

Fairfax,
GOVERNMENT
\u274cTimothy Tobin\u274c
❌Timothy Tobin❌...
@tatobin2
“There will be blood in the streets” — USAG Loretta Lynch (D)

“Show me where it says that protests must be polite and peaceful.” — CNN's Chris Cuomo

“There needs to be unrest in the streets” — US Rep Ayanna Pressley (D)

“Protesters should not let up” — Sen. Kamala Harris (D)

“I just don't know why there aren't uprisings all over this country. Maybe there should be.” — US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D)

“You get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!” — US Rep Maxine Waters (D)

“I will go and take Trump out tonight.” — US Rep Maxine Waters (D)

“When they go low, we kick 'em. That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.” — USAG Eric Holder (D)

“How do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck?” — MSNBC's Nicole Wallace on White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders

“I'd like to punch him in the face.” — Robert De Niro on President Trump

“If we were in high school I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell of of him.” — Democrat Candidate Joe Biden on President Trump
GOVERNMENT

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#Thread
12 Most Powerful Hanuman Mantras

Hanuman ji is the Hindu God of strength, valor, agility, and wisdom. He is considered as the incarnation (avatar) of bhagwan Shiva. Hanuman ji is the symbol of devotion and dedication. He is the greatest devotee of Prabhu Shri Ram. 1/n


Hanuman ji is known by several names such as Bajrangabali, Mahabali, Maruti Nandan, Pawanputra, Mahaveer, and Anjaneya. Hanuman ji is the son of Bhagwan Vayu, the wind god.

God Hanuman played a prominent part in rescuing Mata Sitafrom the bondage of demon King of Lanka, Ravana.


One can worship Hanuman ji by chanting Hanuman Mantras. There are many different types of Hanuman Mantras, each fulfilling a specific purpose. Hanuman Mantras help to beget the blessings of Mahabali Hanuman for success. 3/n


Let’s explore these powerful Hanuman Mantras one by one. Here’s the list for you:

1. Hanuman Moola Mantra
!! Om Hanumate Namah !!
ऊँ हनुमते नम:

You can chant the “Hanuman Moola Mantra if you usually face problems and obstacles in your life.4/n
#hanumanjanmotsav


However, the Human Moola Mantra is also a very powerful success mantra.

It’s a Kaarya Siddhi Mantra.

It is highly advised that all those who usually face obstacles and problems in their life should chant the Hanuman Moola Mantra. 5/n
#hanumanjanmotsav
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Peter McCormack [Jan/3\u279e\u20bf \U0001f511\u220e]
Peter McCormack [Jan/3...
@PeterMcCormack
1/ So here is a thread on how I turned $32,000 into $1.2m and back to pretty much zero (once taxes are paid).

Just note, I am not bitter or salty in any way at all, the last 2 years have been an amazing ride - travelled the world, been wealthy, been poor.

2/ Dec '16, my advertising agency folded, I had a little bit of money left and I put $32k into Bitcoin and Ether. As it started to go up I diversified into everything, Monero, Dash, this that, any crap - even Ripplecoin. Everything just kept going up.

3/ By March I think I had around $300k and $500k by the summer. I used to take 25% out but towards the end of the summer I got greedy and put it all back in and by December it was $1.2m.

4/ Thinking I was an absolute genius I decided to start a bunch of businesses. As silly as it sounds I had this goal of making $5m as I wanted to buy Bedford Town Football Club and get them in the league, and as Crypto was going up forever I needed 6 months.

5/ So:
- Trading (income 1)
- Podcast (income 2)
- Mining (income 3)
- Mining pool (income 4)
- Consulting (income 5)

Yes - all of the above as a one-man army :)
LIFE
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Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
SRISAILAM: KASHI OF THE SOUTH (AP)
#andhratemples

The divine abode of Mallikarjuna Swamy (Jyotirlinga) and Devi Brahmaramba (Shaktipeeth).

When Ganesha was married before Kartikeya, he left in anger to Kraunch mountain. Shiva and Parvati also followed him there.


Shiva assumed the form of Jyotirlinga and resided on the mountain by the name of Mallikarjuna. Mallika means Parvati while Arjuna is another name of Shiva
It is also said that once, a princess Chandravathi, saw a cow shedding milk on a rock resembling a shivlingam.
@DubeyYash1911


She started praying to the lingam daily and used to offer jasmine (mallika pushpam) daily. Pleased Shiva appeared before her and agreed to wear jasmine garland (mallika pushpmala) on his head permanently. Since then, Shiva became known as Mallikarjun Swamy.


At this place, Shakti took the form of Bhramaram (bee) to kill Arunasur and settled as Bhramaramba Devi. The place is a Shakti Peeth as the neck portion of Devi Sati fell here.

It is said that by merely seeing the hill, one is emancipated from all his sins and worries.
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Anu Satheesh \U0001f1ee\U0001f1f3
Anu Satheesh 🇮🇳...
@AnuSatheesh5
Velimalai Kumaraswamy Kshetram
Kumarakovil, #Kanyakumari
#Tamilnadutemples 🚩

Velimalai Kumaraswamy Temple is a Murugan temple located in Kanyakumari District of Tamilnadu.

Muruga faces east and is said to be facing Sthanumalayan (Paramashiva) of Suchindram. Muruga is of


eight feet vigraham and Valli thayar is six feet tall. Eventhough Thiruthani is believed to be the place where Subrahmanya married Valli, it is also believed that Valli’s thayar's marriage took place with Murugan here.

There is a Kalyana Vinayakar sannidhi
who helped Muruga's


marriage with Valli. Kumarakovil is also known as Kumara Kshetram and Subrahmanya Sthala. The Tamil epic Chilapathikaram refers to the temple as Chera Nattu Aeragam

Wedding of Valli and Murugan is celebrated here in the Tamil month of Panguni (March-April).

Om Muruga
🙏🕉🙏
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sriram
sriram
@SriramKannan77
Swami Ramanujar:
Important personalities in Sri Ramanujas Life :
🌸ASURI KESHAVA SOMAYAJI-Father of Sri Ramanujar .Asuri keshava somayaji was a learned brahmana living in sriperumbudur.


🌸KANTHIMATHI-Mother of Sri Ramanuja. Kanthimathi was the sister of sri periya thirumalai nambi .
🌸SRI YAMUNACHARYA-Acharya of Sri Ramanuja.Also known as Alavandar.
🌸THIRUKOKOSHTIYUR NAMBI-Also known as Ghosti Purna.He instructed the Rahasya Traya to Sri Ramanujar.

He lived in thirukoshtiyur.
🌸THIRUKKACHI NAMBI-Kanchi purna was born in puvirunthavalli near kanchipuram and met the young ramanuja at an important time.He did the service of Lord Varadha.

🌸THIRUVARANGA PERUMAL ARAIYAR-Important acharya lived in srirangam and rendered the service of playing music for lord Sriranganatha.

🌸PERIYA THIRUMALAI NAMBI-He was the maternal uncle of Sri Ramanuja.He taught sri ramanuja about the epic of sri ramayana and other ithihaas and puranas.Served sri venkateswara at tirumala.
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