MINI-THREAD

1) This week we saw one of the most disgustin' aspects of Trumpism rear it's ugly head. In Texas, an armed MAGA caravan of vehicles intercepted a Biden-Harris campaign bus and attempted to run it off the road.

NEW: European Commission president @vonderleyen: As things stand I cannot tell you whether there will be a deal or not, but I can tell you there is a path to an agreement now. The path may be very narrow but it is there.

2/ VDL - it is therefore our responsibility to continue trying.

3/ Commission president says the "good news" is we have found a way forward on most issues, but this is now a case of being "so close and yet being so far away from each other."

4/ VDL - level playing field: our aim is simply fair competition on our own market.

Says the "architecture" of a level playing field provision rests on two pillars: state aid and standards

5/ On state aid we have made progress based on common princples, guarantees of domestic enforcement, the possibility to autonomously remedy the situation where needed [ie, either side can take action if distortions of trade etc]

A central tension in our politics is this we have 1 political party that cares about upholding democracy, whereas the other party's aims can only be achieved thru undermining democracy. This is coupled w/ the fact that 1 party cares about people's well-being & the other does not

These 2 facts lead to a situation in which, in order to both uphold democracy & advance well-being, 1 party is dedicated to a functional gov't & the other party is well-served by a dysfunctional government. Such dysfunction is both instrumental & ideological (anti-government)

And then, of course, we have gerrymandering + a cap on the House of reps, 2 Senators per state, & the electoral college. A set of circumstances that gives massively disproportionate power to the anti-democracy & anti-well-being party.

Taken together, the structural issues in our electoral system, deep ideological divides about government/democracy, & the differential investment in advancing citizens' well-being does leave Democrats at a perpetual disadvantage.

A firefighter who is looking at a burning house & trying to decide whether to concentrate on stopping the fire from spreading or to save a child at the expense of a grandmother is facing a fundamentally different set of choices than the person who lit the fire in the first place

This letter is... something. But, it illustrates two points. First, most Americans don't realize that the majority of of the GOP base thinks this is a religious war for the soul of the nation. They're willing to abandon democracy FTW. 1/n


The other illuminating part is where they insist Trump is a Christian. I agree with @C_Stroop the "real" vs. "fake" Christian debate is unhelpful. However, if someone thinks religion is "b******t", they're not Christian regardless of how you define it 2/n

It always amazes me how strong the cult of personality is. They're completely willing to rearrange their beliefs to support Trump (grab 'em by the pussy). They're willing to ignore the evidence he regards them as rubes, suckers, and morons. 3/n

Of all the awful things he's done, bilking his followers with fake raffles somehow stuck with me as just about the sleaziest. He's already rich. Even Rand Paul, Hannity, Carlson, Cruz, Cotton, and Hawley don't stoop this low. 4/n

On February 26th last year, I predicted that the US would handle the pandemic poorly for a lot of reasons: poor scientific literacy, bad employers, poor laws against endangering employees, lack of hospital beds, lack of preparedness. But, I whiffed badly on one thing... 5/n

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.

1. The Real State of Affairs in America; All will change in the Public’s Eye within Weeks!

Patriots and awakened souls, what you witnessed on 1/20/2021 was an illusion of [B]iden getting sworn in. This was fantasy and a big joke, just like many optics that past [d]eep state...

The errant Christian participation in the Capitol insurrection has its roots in the apocalyptic craziness espoused by the likes of the late Hal Lindsey and Tim Lahaye. Their 'end of the world' mania misled many, laying the foundation for conspiracy theories...

... and the horrid view of the civil government so many trapped in the maze of this nonsense espouse. In an odd-couple marriage, Christian post-millennialism was then married this movement to a 'save America', all in the name of a mythical 'lost' Christian America and hopes for a

... future Christianized state, a theocracy in the Christian sense. Opposition to Christian positions on moral issues was equated w/ opposition to God. How? Paul Weyrich and the Reagan-era GOP saw this as an opening to win the Evangelical vote for themselves & beat Carter in 1980

EVs had voted for Carter in large numbers in 1976, Carter identifying with them as a Baptist and Sunday School teacher, a humble, gracious, country boy. The GOP wrangled that support to itself by taking up the fearful millennialism of the EVs and making the Democrats...

... an embodiment of the Beast of Revelation. American could be a Christian Republic, saved from evil - from the Democrats in particular - and, later, from the swamp, the deep state, or whatever label worked best. Because a majority of people would never accept these wild views

So the SCOTUS said no. They won't hear the case. Cue crazy leftists and their inane celebrations. You're probably pissed off by now because you thought the SCOTUS was going to take this case. Trump never needed them to begin with. This is an easy one to explain.................

When it comes to elections there is no HIGHER or FINAL authority than the state legislatures. No, not even the Supreme Court has the final say in this, believe it or not. Trump knew this case would get thrown out..because Texas filing was weak.

Their argument was REALLY weak, so weak that both of the Levin's would have told Trump days ago that this case wasn't going to get heard.

In fact...Mark Levin DID say it wasn't going to get heard on his radio show...all week long and he was right.

Justice Alito was right in his decision. He argued that the state of Texas wasn't, in so many words, as serious about a resolution as they pretended to be. He said there weren't "interested" in real resolution...and he was right.

He stated that just as in Arizona vs California 589 U.S. where they disputed over the distribution over the water from the colorado river, the actions of what state cannot disenfranchise the actions of another.

Lots of talk over the past year about repealing Section 230. I though that it might be helpful to have a thread about what might happen if Congress entirely scraps 230.

We don't know for sure, because 230 has been on the books since 1996. Very few court opinions have examined platforms' liability for 3d-party content in a world without 230. So we have to look at pre-Internet cases involving bookstores and other distributors of content

and examine the protections for these distributors under the common law and 1st Amendment. The bottom line is that without 230, the platforms at minimum would face substantial litigation risks for 3d-party content.

For instance, under the common law, defamation plaintiffs can only succeed in suits against distributors such as bookstores if they can prove that the bookstore knew or had reason to know of the defamatory content.

Under this standard, there is a strong argument that a platform knows of allegedly defamatory content if it gets a complaint, and that the "reason to know" provision even exposes platforms to liability if they are aware of the defamatory character of some posts.

THREAD: Following multiple defeats in the 2020 election, Georgia Republicans are returning to their voter suppression tactics to hold onto waning power. #HB531, presented by voter suppressor Rep. Barry Fleming, includes several rollbacks on voting rights. ⬇️ 1/ #gapol

#HB531 could:

❌Eliminate Sunday Voting
❌Slash 108 Total Available Hrs of Early Vote
❌Remove 1 of 2 Saturday Vote Options
❌Force Counties To Raise Taxes To Pay For Elections
❌Slash Time Counties Can Mail Ballots
❌Prohibit Early Voting on Holidays

2/ #gapol

Slash Mail Ballot Application Window By 113 Days
Require Photocopy of ID for VBM App If No Driver's License
Set Restrictive Ballot Return Deadline of 11 Days Before Election

3/ #gapol

Allow Counties To Set Arbitrary Time For Ballot Return On New Fri Deadline
Require Counties To Pay For 24/7 In-Person Drop Box Security Official
Limit Drop Boxes To Only In EV Locations Only During Voting

4/ #gapol

Ban Use Of Drop Boxes After Early Vote Has Ended
Reject Every Single Out of Precinct Ballot
Allow Problematic Precinct Splitting That Will Confuse Voters
Ban Mobile Voting Used Primarily At Nursing Homes During Pandemic

5/ #gapol

AIKS condemns @PMOIndia's resort to lies and deceit to deliberately mislead Indian farmers about Kerala Agriculture and role of the Left Democratic Front Government. His comments expose his ignorance about Kerala’s agriculture. THREAD. /0

Kerala never passed an APMC Act due to the predominance of spices and plantation crops in the cropping pattern. Kerala's agriculture primarily revolves around commercial crops which occupy about 82% of the cultivated area. /1

Crops like coconut, cashew, rubber, tea, coffee, different spices like pepper, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon etc grown by Kerala farmers have had their own specialised marketing channels sponsored by the concerned commodity boards under by the Ministry of Commerce, GoI. /2

Different Commodity Boards like Rubber Board, Spices Board, Coffee Board, Tea Board, and Coconut Development Board and a system of auctions are in place in the State. /3

The prices of all these crops are dependent on the world market prices and except for one crop that is copra (Dry Coconut) the central government does not even announce any MSP. /4

Post-Trump Career Thread 1/

BTW all GOP politicians who were on national stage in 2016, have developed a 'strategy' to survive the Trumpomess. They KNEW he will burn this down. They've all thought they had the perfect way to have a career beyond Trump. Here are a few examples:

Post-Trump Career Thread 2/

Some were Trump friends before his 2015 run for President started, and have remained with him until now. Like notorious serial pants-grabber & alleged attorney Rudy Giuliani.

When I say 'old friends', I mean these are criminals who need pardons

Post-Trump Career Thread 3/

Some opportunists jumped onboard early in 2016, but were smart enough to see Trump is setting up a kleptocracy, and JUMPED OFF before the inaugration to avoid all legal stench. Like failed Bond Villain, the Chrischristie

Post-Trump Career Thread 4/

Some with a spine, said No Trump and remained steadfastly away from him, not even appearing at the 2016 convention. Like then convention HOST Governor, John Kasich

Post-Trump Career Thread 5/

Some opportunists jumped onto the Trump train late (convention 2016) and hugged Trump ever since, hoping to take his voters into the 2024 cycle. But Ted Cruz is the most hated man in America, even this lunatic strategy won't make him President

At my office in Congress I have an original ballot of Mandela’s election as reminder to never take democracy for granted. After yesterday’s senate vote, I turn back to Mandela’s first speech when released from prison 31 years ago this week. Here’s what we can learn (THREAD)

GRACE: “I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.”

Robbed of 27 years of his life, no one would have faulted Mandela if he emerged from prison with anger. But instead, with his first words of his first speech in decades, he chose grace. 2/13

HUMILITY: “I stand before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.”

Mandela was revered by millions as a leader of conscience. But in his second sentence, he made sure to set the tone for humility and service. No individuals stand above the people. 3/13

SOLIDARITY: “I salute the working class...religious communities..the endless heroism of youth.. the mothers and wives and sisters of our nation”

He focused on the contributions of the many and showed respect to those often overlooked. He showed the vitalness of coalitions. 4/13

URGENCY: “Our struggle has reached a decisive moment.”

Mandela used the speech to set the tone for the work ahead. His release was not the climax, but instead just the possibility of change. No assumptions could be made of what comes next. 5/13

NEW: Ken Griffin gave $2 million to a Loeffler super PAC on Oct. 9, the day after the WSJ reported that his company made a major buyout that needed to be approved by the NYSE, which Loeffler's husband owns. Me @Salon

A month prior, Griffin gave her $1M. The day the sale went through, he gave to her & Perdue's runoff. No evidence of illegality, but Loeffler's conflicts of interest are inescapable: her husband owns NYSE, she used to work in the industry, & sits on the committee that oversees it

What's more, Griffin donated millions to the super PAC even though Loeffler didn't need the money: She was self-funding. (She loaned her own campaign $23 million — compared to raising a total $3.8 million from everyone else in the world not named Kelly Loeffler.)

The only other person to give more to Loeffler than Griffin was her husband — again, who owns the NYSE. And Griffin's $2M donation was the Republican megadonor's tenth-largest of all time. And this was after MONTHS of headlines about Loeffler's stock trades and conflicts.

Next, Griffin threatened to sue Salon for defamation if we pointed out the arrogance and ignorance of Wall Street on full display. Again, after months of headline reporting about this exact senator and this exact issue.

I think about the reports that Trump was excited by the invasion of the capitol because he thought it would derail the count, and it makes me think of a quote from the movie Boondock Saints: "Television. Television is the explanation for this. You see this in bad television."

In reality, there was zero chance that a violent assault on the capitol would have changed the outcome of the election, unless it was our own military doing it. An actual *physical* coup without military support? No.

And in fact, in reality, the more "successful" the assault was, the less likely it would be to affect the outcome. Had they succeeded in executing a congressperson on TikTok or whatever? They'd have killed their movement.

I believe that if they hadn't interrupted the process, the objections and debate would have been more successful in prolonging the process. But because of them, half the senators got cold feet and the remaining ones didn't even use their debate time.

Because they were attacked in their own chambers, because they were interrupted, it became a point of patriotic pride for Congress to finish the vote last night. Without that push, the objectors could have stretched it out, potentially for days.

💥🔴💥 The war between China and the United States has already begun, and America is the battleground.

👉 A confidential report on foreign election interference that was supposed to have been released late last week was delayed after John Ratcliffe, Director of the National