Double standard: a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups

Insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government

Terrorism: the use of intentional violence for political or religious purposes

Anarchism: belief in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion

Fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.

Neoliberalism: market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence in the economy.

Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

After yesterday's dumpster fire pressers by both @jkenney and @TracyAllardUCP, I have a few things to say on a more personal note. Maybe that will penetrate thick layer of privilege covering you both. #ableg #abpoli /1

My mother was hospitalized from October through early December when we moved her into a LTC facility.

I can count on one hand the number of times I was able to visit her during that time. Hospital units were locked down to visitors for most of that period. /2

I was only able to take my father to see her in hospital once in that 2 months - they've been together 64 years. /3

Then, when she transferred to the LTC home, she was immediately quarantined for 14 days. I wasn't able to take my father to see her until Dec 23. /4

On Dec 24, the home went into COVID lockdown because of a staff member testing positive.

We had plans to be with my mother on December 25. One little bit of normal we could have had vaporized on one test result. /5

Welp.

Republican majority of the Pennsylvania State Senate just removed @JohnFetterman from the chamber. President Pro Temp Corman is presiding instead. Fetterman refused to recognize a motion that would have prevented a duly elected Democratic senator from being sworn in.

Fetterman did not leave the chamber or the rostrum so there are two people presiding. Fetterman is being ignored by the Republican senators in the majority. Corman is starting the certification of the results district by district.

Very ugly.

For background on what's happening, read @AngelasInk on the dispute:

Under Corman's presiding, all results but in the 45th district were read. The election of Jim Brewster was not recognized. @SenTonyWilliams shouted the results in that race, showing Brewster's win, to the chamber as Corman moved to start the Republican senators' swearing in.

The Republican State Senator in Pennsylvania just set a very dangerous precedent: as long as your opponent refuses to concede, you will not be sworn in. No matter that the *highest court in the state* already said the election is Kosher.

Here they are being sworn in.

Anyone who now has any opinion which questions the groupthink that is being heavily promoted by the government and mainstream media in relation to how we should behave during this pandemic, is now being branded a conspiracy theorist and even labelled in the most derogatory terms!

It goes beyond anti-maskers and is including links to anything that contradicts the prevailing general consensus that just falls into line with whatever we are being told. It’s as if any such views are being quietly airbrushed by the main social media platforms as well.

Recently I tried accessing a news item that featured prominently during the summer last where the WHO’s U.K. ambassador on visiting the U.K. heavily criticised governments for using repeated lockdowns as a first response to a pandemic. I simply couldn’t find anything about it!

Nor could I find the name of that ambassador who said it even though I checked the names of all WHO representatives/spokespersons. Strange one!

Local radio presenters have been constantly bringing on selected so called experts at busting the myths around this pandemic and labelling as Covididiots everyone who has a separate opinion as in denial that there is a serious virus around or a conspiracy theorist.

1. If the @SenateGOP think that simply turning blind eyes to Trump's high crimes will make them go away they're likely to be disappointed. First, if they fail to convict & ban Trump from future political office, IMO it's likely Trump & members are indicted soon after the verdict.

Well, Kukah is a bishop, Perhaps he sees and hears things mere mortals can't see.He said there could have been a coup if Buhari were not the president.

The idea is that Buhari's sins and incompetence necessitate a military coup. Kukah is a bishop, otherwise, I would have said he is serpentine. Regardless of how well or badly Buhari might have functioned, the suggestion of the probability or propriety of a coup is mischievous.

But Kukah is a bishop so I won't say he is a trouble maker. Let's just say he is mistaken. In 2018, Kukah resurrected Atiku and helped cleanse him of political leprosy. It was in desperation to unseat Buhari. Kukah and company lost woefully.

Today, Kukah, the democrat, is talking about a coup. When the bible forbids certain things it says, let it not be heard amongst you. One would think that a coup is a word that shouldn't ever come out of Kukah's mouth.

The coup Kukah is hinting about would have been staged by a section of the country to correct Fulani nepotism or domination, right? Kukah is the leader of the peace committee but here he was throwing firewood into the fire in the name of telling the truth.

A message to all US citizens from an experienced and Catholic Venezuelan. V3.

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A word of caution: many aspects of the social, political and informational mess that led to extremists storming the US Capitol are present in Western Europe too. (1)

I. Political Violence

Wednesday didn’t happen in a vacuum: it happened in a context of rising right-wing terrorism, aimed at their adversaries in the elite (pipe bombs mailed to Obama, Biden, Clinton, DNC) and among the public (Charlottesville, El Paso, Pittsburgh, Charleston).

Europe has seen its share of the same violence.

Against parliamentarians: Jo Cox, Labour Party MP, and Walter Lübke (CDU politician in Hesse) have been assassinated. Plots against other politicians, in Germany and the UK, led to further convictions. (3)

Against minorities: in Florence and Macerata, racist shooters targeted, injured and killed black people; there were mass shootings targeted at minorities in a synagogue and a kebab shop in Halle, and shisha bars in Hanau; in Finsbury Park a man drove a van into mosque-goers. (4)

Against seats of power: German protesters tried to storm the Bundestag during the coronavirus protests. The Gilets Jaunes broke into a ministry, after attempting to tear down its front door with a forklift. (5)

Here are the actual physical and temporal limiting factors on presidential nuclear launch authority. 1/

1. POTUS needs to contact the NMCC or an alternate command post. This requires a phone number. These number are on speed-dial on the phones carried by the military aide and emergency action team from WHMO.

2. He could also ask a White House operator from Royal Crown, the secure switchboard to connect him. But he’d have to know exactly what to ask for. Not a big constraint - a tiny one.

3. Assuming POTUS connects to a commander center, he would be transferred to an Emergency Actions controller. By this point lots of other people would be notified that POTUS was trying to do something.

4. The controller would first ask for authentication. POTUS would be read aloud a series of alphanumeric as and challenged to provide the corresponding alphanumeric on the nuclear authentication card he carries.