BC POLITICS
Saved by @Jacobtldr

1) Why we need the electoral college system. (A thread)

Using the popular vote and not the electoral college count would have made Hillary Clinton president last time and Joe Biden president this time, in a landslide, which is what we anti-Trump citizens wanted.

 2) But what about "next time"? Trump is an incompetent bozo who killed 130,000 Americans, crashed the economy, embarrassed the nation and he's still very popular.

What if the next Trump is just as evil, but actually competent? The next Trump could win the popular vote, too.
3) Direct democracies ALWAYS commit suicide because the public always falls under the spell of a demagogue at some point, and they vote themselves into catastrophe.

Athenian Democracy lasted only 140 years -- far less than the US so far.
4) The Spartan system lasted 600 years, because it was more like our system -- the popular vote was merely the opinion of the people, and a wise few made their own choice -- usually with the popular vote, but not always.
5) In our system, the voters don't choose the president. Everyone thinks they do, but they do not. The president is selected by Electoral College electors on December 14.

The election we just had was the American public giving the EC our opinion.
6) What should have happened in 2016, is that the EC electors should have chosen Hillary Clinton, simply because Donald Trump is obviously a deranged, narcissistic criminal -- precisely the kind of man the Electoral College system was created to protect us from.
7) Our failure is that, for some reason, we accept and use the part of the Electoral College system where winning the electoral college (not the popular vote) wins the election. But we reject and fail to use the part of the EC system where electors choose the president.
8) In other words, we ARE NOT USING THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE SYSTEM, and when an unfit candidate like Trump gets into office we blame the Electoral College even though by using it we would have not elected him.
9) In this election season, Trump is proving his total unfitness once again. No matter what the final vote count, the Electoral College electors should choose Biden, the candidate who is not a deranged and incompetent criminal and the man who got the most votes in history.
10) Scuttling the Electoral College and embracing the popular vote would have saved us this time and last time. But it won't save us next time.

The Founding Fathers gave us a brilliant system. Let's use it.

More from Politics

Washington Pundit \xa9
Washington Pundit ©
@TWPundit
THREAD (WOW!)

1) If you want to watch a Coordinated Media Disinformation Campaign play out (just like the Trump-Russia Collision Hoax), there's one playing out right now in real

2) @TWPundit Exclusively Reported 10/13

"expect to see multiple...stories related to Turkey which will...be tied together by a massive “bombshell” piece in the @nytimes ...near election day in a well-coordinated smear campaign"
Yep, the piece just

3) The Turkey Disinformation Campaign is following the exact same playbook as the 2016 Trump-Russia Collision Hoax, and with all the same

4) In 2016, there were 3 separate stories related to Russia’s connection to @realDonaldTrump that dropped on Oct 31st.

Article #1 from Soros-funded @MotherJones by @DavidCornDC about @carterwpage alleging he was a secret Russian operative. Fake

5) Article #2 from @FinancialTimes about @SergeiMillian and his connection to Trump Tower projects
POLITICS
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Alexandria Ocasio-Cort...
@Ocasio2018
We’ve been getting calls and outreach from Queens residents all day about this.

The community’s response? Outrage.


Amazon is a billion-dollar company. The idea that it will receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks at a time when our subway is crumbling and our communities need MORE investment, not less, is extremely concerning to residents here.

When we talk about bringing jobs to the community, we need to dig deep:
- Has the company promised to hire in the existing community?
- What’s the quality of jobs + how many are promised? Are these jobs low-wage or high wage? Are there benefits? Can people collectively bargain?

Displacement is not community development. Investing in luxury condos is not the same thing as investing in people and families.

Shuffling working class people out of a community does not improve their quality of life.

We need to focus on good healthcare, living wages, affordable rent. Corporations that offer none of those things should be met w/ skepticism.

It’s possible to establish economic partnerships w/ real opportunities for working families, instead of a race-to-the-bottom competition.
POLITICS
Advertisement
Chuck Wendig
Chuck Wendig
@ChuckWendig
TRUMP: "I've decided to eat babies."

PEOPLE: "He can't eat babies, that's super illegal."

TRUMP, on TV, eating babies, not even cooking them first: "People are saying that I really am the best baby-eater, folks."

NYT: "Trump Vs. Babies: The Rhetoric On Both Sides Must Stop"

Jeff Flake tweets: "It is a sad day in America when this callous man can eat babies live on TV"

Jeff Flake, 10 seconds later, votes to help him install a series of 4,000 new judges that are very, very pro-babyphagia.

Judge Kavanaugh, found drunk in a Capitol Hill closet: "I LIKE BEER. OKAY? I LIKE BEER AND I LIKE BABIES AND THAT'S NOT SO WRONG. THAT'S RIGHT. I LIKE BABIES DIPPED IN BEER. I JUST DIP EM. IN THE BEER. THE BABIES. THE BABIES I EAT. OKAY? THAT'S AMERICA."

Mike Pence, wringing his hands about the baby-eating: "We must take care of our children. Our youngest must be protected on this troubling day."

Mike Pence then invites a Baby Chef to say a prayer.

Twitter Users: "It's a distraction technique! Trump eating babies is trying to DISTRACT YOU from ALL THE OTHER HORRORS, which are themselves distractions from the BABY-EATING. It's DISTRACTIONS ALL THE WAY DOWN."

Trump: *eats tons of babies at a rally*

*literal tons of babies*
POLITICS
Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
(THREAD) The main problem with that @DanDrezner piece in the Post is that it's an international politics prof writing about the field in which I'm a professor—communications. No one in communications would *ever* compare the blogosphere to either Twitter or Substack. Here's why.

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*.
POLITICS
BrianMier
BrianMier
@BrianMteleSUR
Congratulations to Jacobin for, the day after Lula's defense team filed it's 2nd motion to dismiss due to illegal US involvement in Lava Jato, its timid reference to the US DOJ partnership. This relationship has been public knowledge for over 5 years but better late than never.


When William Barr, from the US DOJ, responded to the 13 democrat's congressional inquiry into US involvement in in Lava Jato last year, he responded that they have been posting information about this partnership on their website since 2016 and linked this.
POLITICS

You May Also Like

Christina Warren
Christina Warren
@film_girl
A brief thread on Jovan Hutton Pulitzer, the crazy con man who is now claiming to have hacked into the Georgia voting machines in Fulton County. 90s kids and tech aficionados might remember Jovan as the inventor of the CueCat, the dumbest gadget of all time.

Also, for anyone who wants to claim that Jovan Hutton Pulitzer (not his given name, but one he changed legally after the CueCat debacle) invented QR Codes: he did not. Like that other right-wing crazy man who claimed to have invented email, Jovan didn’t invent QR Codes.

He did invent the CueCat, a product that somehow raised $185 million dollars for a tethered barcode scanner for magazines and newspapers, so you could get ads from your ads. As I said, the dumbest product of all time. Good backup barcode scanners after they were hacked, however

Oh, that’s another thing. When CueCat was a thing, its systems were hacked. I guess that’s what makes Jovan a security expert. His bankrupt company from 20 years ago was hacked and widely mocked. He’s a genius.

In recent years, Jovan pivoted to being a treasure hunter who was featured on and widely mocked on Curse of Oak Island, because the man is insane.
POLITICS
Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
ANTARVEDI LAKSHMI NARASIMHA SWAMY, EAST GODAVARI DIST.(AP)

Located where Vasistha Godavari joins Bay of Bengal.

Present structure was built by Kapanati Krishnamma of Agnikula Kshatriya clan in 1823.

It is one of the oldest among 32 Narasimha Kshetras in AP.
@LostTemple7


Legend says that here Maharishi Vasishta prayed to Narasimha to end the demon Rakta Vilochana.

Narasimha created Maha Maya, also called Ashwaroodambika or Gurralakka to suck his blood as he got a boon from Brahma that blood falling from his body would produce another demon.


After his death, the stream of blood was let out by Maya to form a pond called Rakta Kulya.

Narasimha,then,washed Sudarshan Chakra at a place called Chakra Tirtha.

Brahma is said to have performed Yagna and installed Shiva Linga here. Hence the place was called Antarvedi.


Later Sri Rama prayed here and Arjun also visited here.

Panchamrita Abhishekam is done every day.
One can have Nijarupa Darshanam (main murti without any decorative shield) between 6.00 a.m. and 8.00 a.m.

Anna Prasadam is very famous and distributed daily from 10:30 to 2 pm.
ALL
Advertisement
Sumit Grrg
Sumit Grrg
@sumitgrrg
These 10 threads will teach you more than reading 100 books

Five billionaires share their top lessons on startups, life and entrepreneurship (1/10)


10 competitive advantages that will trump talent (2/10)


Some harsh truths you probably don’t want to hear (3/10)


10 significant lies you’re told about the world (4/10)
ALL , MOTIVATION , BOOKS
Kirsti Miller
Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30
@FionaPearman @ScottMorrisonMP Morrison is our statue of unempathic neoliberalism - erected by evangelical and corporate Australia to celebrate their victory over compassion, equality and secular humanism. 

Hopefully it gets pulled down like the statues of dubious heroes of oppression from an earlier age.


@ScottMorrisonMP The two-party-preferred system in 
Australia politics isn’t working for people, and it sure isn’t working for the planet.

@ScottMorrisonMP My collapse of faith in our democracies isn’t an accident. It’s one of the central victories of the neoliberal project, delivered through two generations of privatisation, outsourcing and deregulation, underfunding of government services (locked in by tax cuts),...

@ScottMorrisonMP restricting freedom of information, targeting whistleblowers and raiding the media who report on them, delegitimising and gagging public interest advocacy, and criminalising protest.

@ScottMorrisonMP Politics in Australia today relies hugely on the fact that most people don’t know most of what’s going on so as to get away with stuff that couldn’t be done under real scrutiny we have seen a clear example of this with the National Coronvirus Cabinet.
FOR LATER READ
Antonio Garc\xeda Mart\xednez
Antonio García Martíne...
@antoniogm
Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.

We're basically fucked.

The tech world has gotten so huge, self-reinforcing, and insulated from reality they can no longer even vaguely look at themselves (and their actions) as others do. They just live on a different planet than most people.

Conversely, the average tech consumer doesn't understand the technology that has slowly taken over their lives, and their designated emissaries to figure it out--politicians, pundits, regulators, journalists--understand it barely better than they do, and have their own agendas.

To say more than generalities for a moment, here's what I think is likely the core problem.

Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.

Most people work inside a legacy industry that's evolved that way over time (usually for good reasons), and they think about the future via some analogy with their present (which is a function of a long-ago past). The interruption that tech will introduce is often hard to grasp.
TECH