BC POLITICS
Saved by @Jacobtldr

Joe Biden is winning the election and Donald Trump is trying to pull a literal coup.

Let's talk about where we are, what we know, and separate the things we shouldn't be worried about from the things we absolutely should be worried about.

1/

 First and foremost, this election has largely played out as some of us expected it to. There hasn't been some cataclysmic loss. Biden made in-roads, including in Arizona. We're still looking at a possible 300+ electoral college victory if votes are counted.

2/
Last night felt AWFUL for a variety of reasons. Lingering trauma from 2016. A desire to watch the country reject Trump in a major way. The bizarre feeling of watching the race not get called on Election Night as the networks have trained us to expect.

But that was a feeling.

3/
Trump's attempt to steal this election is predicated on that feeling last night and the feeling that somehow this thing is lost even while Biden is winning in a big way.

Trump is determined to use that anxiety and uncertainty and spin it into his own chosen reality.

4/
For months Trump and his goons have told us what they planned to do. Counting would not be finished on Election Night and Trump would use the appearance of momentum to undermine confidence and hopefully stop the counting before momentum swung.

That's what he's doing.

5/
All signs point to the votes working out like expected and Biden winning states Trump took in 2016. It appears, again, that he might have over 300 electoral votes.

What Trump has to do is plunge this country into a chaotic mess and win control of reality.

6/
It is one thing to feel uncertain. That's expected. But do not let Trump and the people around him determine how this works and what reality is.

That feeling last night is absolutely crucial to Trump undermining the vote and breaking the will of the people.

7/
Here's something to be actually worried about.

Trump's desperate attempt to frame this as a stolen election will, once more, further radicalize his followers and create an atmosphere for potential violence.

As votes are counted we'll enter a volatile phase.

8/
I talk about it in AMERICAN RULE. The Republican Party has managed and used an alternate, paranoid reality for decades now.

Their base literally believes they're fighting in a life or death battle and that this election might be an apocalypse.

9/

https://t.co/84HbGzJKwe
If Trump continues to call this a stolen election or a coup by the Democrats, we could see asymmetrical attacks, including altercations at government buildings and around the country.

Trump is creating an incredibly volatile and unstable environment.

10/
One of the main ingredients of a successful coup is to have your followers turn into a roving band of enforcers that intimidate and brutalize people until there's no one left to call it a coup anymore.

This is how fascism works and why we've been warning people.

11/
There's a possibility the votes will just be counted and everything works out without violence. God, I hope that happens, but it's absolutely unrealistic to not admit it's a possibility we could be in for some violence, oppression, and really frightening moments.

12/
Right now, the votes are being counted. Trump signaled last night that he intends to stop the count. There'll be lawsuits and continued misinformation by Trump and his supporters.

We're on the brink of something. If he tries to stop the count, you need to be ready.

13/
Things change rapidly in these situations. This afternoon might look completely different from this morning. Remember that this volatile environment serves fascists. It's what they feed on, what they depend on.

Be alert, but don't succumb to the mind games.

14/
There'll be plenty of time after this election is decided to determine why it was this close, how it could've been operated better, or talk about what we can learn politically from it.

Right now this is a survival moment. The ballots HAVE to be counted. Period.

15/
If Trump wins this, if he manages to undermine the actual will of the people again, we're going to watch these creeps continually subvert elections from now until the end of this country.

This is a line in the sand moment. It's a test, and we can't afford to fail.

16/

More from Jared Yates Sexton

Jared Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton
Polices that could make us safer, that could prevent massacres of children and people in public places are incredibly popular.

The problem isn't a lack of support.

The problem is that our leaders have failed us by lacking courage and

I wish I could say what happened in Uvalde is an unfathomable tragedy.

But it's not. It's completely predictable.

This disgusting state of affairs and these senseless tragedies could be prevented if our leaders had courage and were concerned about more than the economy.

2/


We absolutely have to address gun culture in the United States.

We need to admit our white supremacist foundations have led to a state of paranoia, of firearm fetishism.

That is a massive part of the problem and requires a sea change of cultural proportions.

3/


We must recognize that the GOP, with its radicalization, its dependency on fear, paranoia, and conspiracy theories has created an environment where guns and violence are a main part of their appeal.

This state we're living in isn't independent of that. At all.

4/


And any conversation about gun violence or mass shootings has to involve the NRA, an institution that has done more harm to Americans and created more tragedy than nearly anyone else.

It is an absolute blight on the American body and its influence cannot be downplayed.

5/
CATEGORY PDFMAKERAPP GRAB THIS READWISEIO SAVE THREAD THREADER COMPILE SUMMARIZE
Jared Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton
All right.

We need to talk about how Trump and the GOP are marketing themselves as the Southern Fire-Eaters who spurred secession and the Civil War and how that time bizarrely mirrors our own.

Here's a taste of what I write about in AMERICAN

This ad that's making the rounds by Lauren Boebert, in which she brags about taking her gun to Congress, is not just empty posturing. It reflects a growing tension in our government that seems to be trending toward the societal discord and violence of the Civil War.

2/


The way our history is taught, the Civil War just...kind of happened. Out of nowhere. But there were many forces involved and they reflect what we're going through now.

To understand, we need to look at those forces and the people who benefited and cultivated them.

3/


Prior to the Civil War, Congress erupted into violent chaos. There were massive brawls, duels, assaults, all of it arising from the South's refusal to accept any legislation or development that didn't reflect their desires or empowerment.

4/


Members of the southern Democrats would come armed to sessions to intimidate their rivals, flashed knives and clubs and, if the process got out of control, would use them.

These threats we're seeing now have a very, very similar flavor and should concern people.

5/
TRUMP
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Jared Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton
So. Let's talk about Rick Perry calling Donald Trump "the chosen one" and discuss how American evangelicals became a white identity doomsday cult that threatens our safety and the very nature of reality. 1/

To begin, I have to give a bit of context. I grew up in the evangelical church. That means I was steeped in this stuff from my youngest years, even as I didn't understand it and was unable to imagine a reality outside of it. 2/

I had no idea that white evangelicals, in the 1960's, reacted to Civil Rights leaders like MLK using scripture to base their movement on Christianity by splitting the church and dismissing the ideas of Christianity in favor of a white identity gospel based on power and wealth 3/

People like Jerry Falwell, mostly southern televangelists, transformed Christianity from a religion of service and charity and inclusion to one of wealth and power, where God's will was shown via wealth and control over the world. 4/

We now know this as the Gospel of Wealth, but it started with the 1960's and that redirection from Civil Rights. Basically it was a doctrine that sought to base white power and domination under the dominion of an all-powerful God, thus making it right and defendable. 5/
CATEGORY PDFMAKERAPP GRAB THIS READWISEIO SAVE THREAD THREADER COMPILE SUMMARIZE
Jared Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton
We're facing a fascistic movement that's backed by the wealthy and powerful who want to dismantle government, an administration and party desperate to cling to power, a racist evangelical base, and a mob lost in weaponized conspiracy

This video is a primer and explainer of the complicated and frightening moment we find ourselves in, a crisis that is a long, long time coming and that won't simply stop unless we address it and the underlying factors.

Have the hard conversations about this. Reject this.

Talk to the people around you about what this coup attempt was, the fascist movement growing in this country, and the very real history the wealthy and powerful don't want you to know.

The only we way we're going to escape this is to expose what it is and fight against it.

The truth is that a large part of the country has been intentionally ensnared in fascistic conspiracy theories for profit and power and the other part is still trying to disentangle itself from mythologies of American exceptionalism.

It can happen here. It IS happening here.

Misplaced trust and faith in our history, our exceptionalism, and our institutions has gotten us here and allowed this fascistic threat to grow.

We're not immune to fascism. In fact, we're especially vulnerable to it. And it is growing in strength and size and ambition.
GOVERNMENT
Jared Yates Sexton
Jared Yates Sexton
@JYSexton
People are going to try their damnedest to tell a story that Trump was the cause of this crisis and a total aberration.

The truth is that America’s history is lousy with fascism, that the Right and the wealthy created an environment of fascistic lies to expedite profit and power

This symbolic outrage from a party who has gleefully used Trump to dismantle government, fundraise, and stock the courts right up until the last week of his term will help build that narrative.

This lie will only grow the very real danger we’re in.

We’re facing fascism because of our weaponized mythologies of American exceptionalism that spurred on oppressive empire and hid white supremacy, we’re here because of planned economic inequality and because fascism is a means of suppression of reform.

Trump has to be punished. We have to reject and rebuke him. But any honest conversation about this crisis has to go deeper and explain how we arrived at Trump and how the Right fomented this moment intentionally and with no regard to human life, decency, or democracy.

We can have better lives, a better country, a real and just and human society, but we have to move past easy explanations and scapegoats and the spectacle and these mythologies of exceptionalism.

We have everything to gain and everything to lose.
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All the challenges to Leader Pelosi are coming from her right, in an apparent effort to make the party even more conservative and bent toward corporate interests.

Hard pass. So long as Leader Pelosi remains the most progressive candidate for Speaker, she can count on my support.


I agree that our party should, and must, evolve our leadership.

But changed leadership should reflect an actual, evolved mission; namely, an increased commitment to the middle + working class electorate that put us here.

Otherwise it’s a just new figure with the same problems.

I hope that we can move swiftly to conclude this discussion about party positions, so that we can spend more time discussing party priorities: voting rights, healthcare, wages, climate change, housing, cannabis legalization, good jobs, etc.
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@ElShabazzz
HUF / H!ndu Undivided Family - A thread

HUF or H!ndu undivided family is a special provision under the income tax act which allows H!ndu families to enjoy lesser payable income tax as compared to any other individual.

1/n


It also encompasses Buddhist, Ja!n & Sikh families.

HUF Essentially allows a Joint or any family 4 that matter 2 be treated as an individual & the family’s income 4m inherited property, wills and gifts 2 be taxed separately rather than being clubbed with individual’s income.
+

Essentially they can divide their income in two parts.

What does that mean? In essence, It means that it allows the individuals to reduce the payable income tax, as they do not have to consider income from HUF when calculating “their own” taxable income.

3/n

The income from inherited property,wills, gifts is accounted under HUF (with a separate PAN card) and since it is not summed with individual’s income, it warrants a lower payable tax.

4/n

What’s interesting is that, HUF is based on H!ndu law, which does not govern other families allowed to avail benefits of HUF, i.e Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.

5/n
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1/ Back in the mid-aughts, I was a Koufax Award-nominated political blogger (I don't know what Drezner was doing then; I first heard of him about a year ago). So I was into the blogosphere pretty deep, as I also ran a second high-traffic blog that was focused on the art world.

2/ The "blogosphere" was an outgrowth of MySpace and LiveJournal, inasmuch as in the heady early days of the internet people suddenly realized that they could engage in private diaristic writing—a very specific subgenre of writing—in the public square, and it was suddenly "okay."

3/ So the blogosphere as such had *nothing* to do with journalism, which needless to say was in a different state just 15 years ago (note: unlike Drezner, I also teach writing and journalism at the university level, so this thread is squarely "in my area," unlike his Post piece).

4/ The blogosphere was a manifestation of the transformation of the public-private binary at the dawn of the internet—and *also* connected to the "creative writing" explosion (what I did a PhD on); in the aughts, creative writing was the fastest-growing discipline *in the world*.
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Adi Shankara established the Sringeri Peetham as the 1st of 4 amnaaya peetams.

The four being
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2/ This phenomenon—I’m calling it a Sex Recession—really surprised me. It seemed improbable in the age of Tinder, digital porn, and attitudes that are generally permissive and sex-positive.

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