Thread-
What do the Dems need to do on a policy front?
cc @speakerpelosi, @joebiden, @senschumer

1. Do or Do not. There is no try. - Yoda

For starters they need to get shit done. No more talking. Make people's lives better immediately.

Some claim there's no difference
1/

between R's and D's. And for some people, it's kinda true. Dems TRY and make the average person's life better and R's stop them, but the net effect is - no difference.

So, for starters Dems must actually do some good things: $2,000 stimulus checks, vaccine deployment,

2/

student loan forgiveness, health care expansion, more $ for education, LGBT protections, environmental reforms etc...

But HOW you might ask?

2. Think like the Turtle.

Dems get all caught up in process and policy and procedure. They think every legislative change needs 3
3/

months of hearing and testimony. Don't get me wrong. That is a good way of coming up with fair and effective public policy. But, it's time to get shit done fast.

McConnell has lobbyists write bills at 3 am and moves them through committee by noon. He can push dozens of

4/

judicial nominees through in an afternoon. Why? Cause he knows it's about just delivering for his constituents. Dems worry about losing marginal seats in the next election...

5/

Voters: each voter is responsible for our choice. In 2016 we were attacked by Russia, who interfered with our election. Russia started interfering as far back as 2012 and they focused on conservatives so they could place a president who would help their agenda. 1/

Denying it happened is silly. Every one of our intel agencies including the Senate has agreed we were overwhelmingly attacked by Russia. No, they didn’t change votes, but they changed MINDS. Their aim was to create chaos, make us distrust our government, and they wanted...2/

...division so we would have a civil war. The Kremlin wanted Trump as president. He was the man for them to manipulate.

SO it is urgent we realize that this insurrection which was incited by Trump fits right into one of Russia’s Active Measures

We have a choice. We live in a democracy. We are protected in this democracy. We are free to speak, to worship, to protest to get peaceful redress (remedy for problems) and in authoritarian countries, such freedoms don’t exist. Trump is a criminal who wants to...4/

...overthrow this government. He has been taking illegal steps and is trying to throw out millions of legal votes. He used his power, our tax money and his status to file and he lost over 60 lawsuits trying to prove election fraud. He did not prove fraud. The election is...

5

1/Listen up, Patriots. This is not the time for the faint of heart. Stop the hand wringing. You disrespect our President but, more importantly, all the young men who have fought and died for us. They did not face the enemy with a heart filled with fear.

Here I am going to try to address some confusion about why Allegheny County is not going to begin counting 30,000+ ballots until tomorrow. People are going bonkers about this, or castigating hard-working employees on no sleep, and it is wrong. (thread)

The ballots in question require special attention. The vast majority -- up to 29,000 -- involve a situation where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters, and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races. The challenge there is now voters have 2 ballots, one w/wrong races.

So you have to give those ballots special scrutiny to make sure that a) people don't vote twice, and b) if they just send in the old one, they don't vote in races they aren't eligible for. So you can't just scan them with the rest.

Other ballots in the pot include those that don't scan for whatever reason -- it's like when the ATM won't process the amount of the check you want to deposit, so you have to bring it into the bank office itself.

When ballots require special scrutiny, the county records the vote through a return board whose members are sworn in for that purpose. The board reviews the results tallied up by election workers after polls close, but also addresses provisional ballots, military ballots, etc.

1/ When will America wake up to the evil that has seized the Republican Party?

2/ We’ve seen it around the world and throughout history: when a political party or government exists solely to serve the very wealthy, and begins to lose power, they inevitably turn to authoritarianism and police violence.

3/ We saw this in Florida when Gov. Ron DeSantis sent State police with guns drawn to intimidate the family of whistleblower Rebekah Jones, who he’d earlier fired for refusing to lie about Florida coronavirus statistics and is publishing a daily “Florida coronavirus dashboard.“

4/ We see it with Donald Trump committing a felony for which you or I would immediately go to prison, trying to tamper with the outcome of a legitimate election by threats, intimidation, and offering bribes to government officials.

5/ We see it in Michigan where the Macomb County GOP seems to share an address with the group that showed up, armed, to threaten and intimidate the Secretary of State and her four-year-old son as they were preparing to watch “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”

I guess it is true: Democracy does die in darkness!
Thank you @SenTedCruz & @Jim_Jordan for standing by #WTP & @realDonaldTrump
As for other @GOP, mainly @LindseyGrahamSC , you should resign your posts bc GOP is dead & useless. You all are treasonous traitors who betrayed #WTP

If our government was truly for #WTP, @VP & @SpeakerPelosi would not of held a certification over night when most voters are sleeping. They would of open mindedly listened to electors who objected to their state certifications instead of waving it off like they didn't exist

Instead as a Republic our Democracy was stolen in the dead of night.
You have to ask yourself, if our government is so "transparent" why would they wait to finalize votes and electors when most the nation is sleeping? Why would they want to hide?

Why would the so called "duely" fraudantly elected @JoeBiden push for $2000 stimulus checks, yet Congress would reject it from @realDonaldTrump , who wanted #WTP, small businesses and unemployed, taken care of?

Why would our government be so against setting up an election commission to verify there was no fraud during the election? What are they so scared of finding out? That they actually manipulated an election to screw America?

Does anybody want to know how the Darkness to Light Theme came along?

I keep going back to the same position.

How can @Mike_Pence be expected to count either;

a) electors produced in elections that publicly operated in conflict with state legislated and US election laws (constitutions); or

b) count 2 slates of electors for the same state?

Protesters have breached the Capitol. They’re outside the Senate chamber

This is happening

Police officers are holding them steps away from the Senate chamber, which is locked. Senators are inside. I see a few confederate flags.

Some sort of gas has been set off. I’m not sure by whom. Police seem to be trying to deescalate and talk to them.

“If we don’t get justice, this will never stop,” one protester yells

I count about 10 protesters by the Ohio Clock

1/

In light of GA's election results, and what's likely a flipping of the Senate, a quick thread recapping some key provisions of the Biden Tax Plan...

(No GIFs. Proposals don't get those)

On the income tax side, the Biden tax plan sets a clear, bright-line mark at $400k...

2/

If you're below that, you'd be pretty 'safe' from seeing your tax rate(s) increase under his plan.

For those w/ income of $400k or more, he proposed returning the top rate to 39.6% (though whether this is for single filers, joint filers, or both, was never made clear)...

3/

Biden also proposes eliminating the QBI deduction for anyone with income more than $400k (today, non-specified service biz owners may be able to continue to benefit from the deduction if they have sufficient wages or property).

The $400k mark is also the proposed cut off...

4/

for taxpayers who want to do a 1031 exchange. Income higher than that? You wouldn't be able to do one under the plan.

Deductions for high earners would also take a hit under Biden tax plan, as the max benefit would be capped at 28% instead of at the taxpayer's actual rate...

5/

Biden also proposes replaced IRA and 401(k) deductions w/ a flat credit. Would be a big benefit for those w/ more modest incomes, while hurting those with higher incomes.

Would also flip SOP for high earners, making Roth accounts FAR more likely to be the better option...

Immediately after the 2016 election, I wrote a piece on Trump's victory. Like other JOCs, I pointed to racism as the center. It's striking to me how so many mainstream journalists 4 years later still struggle to deal with the realities of this country.

FROM 2016: "Trump clearly sensed the fragility of the coalition that Obama put together — that the president's support in heavily white areas was built not on racial egalitarianism but on a feeling of self-interest."

"A recent study by sociologists from Harvard and Tufts found that white Americans believed that they experienced more discrimination than black Americans. Trump spoke openly to those Americans, articulating what many Iowans felt but could never say. It was liberating."

"There has never been a moment in America in which black people’s gains have not been perceived by some white p as their loss. History is littered with ex of how economic and racial anxieties can create a wedge with which to destroy interracial political and economic alliances."

"White supremacists overthrew the biracial fusion party in NC in the late 1800s and, with the support of the white population in the state that had once supported the sharing of power, worked to disenfranchise black North Carolinians and usher in seven decades of Jim Crow."

I see a lot of fantastic discussions, papers, threads, and op-eds about the insurrection from experts from various fields.

As a social scientist, I want to add that it's important to understand that collective action like we saw yesterday is due to *many* factors.

Yes, the leadership of Donald Trump played the central role in instigating the anti-Democratic effects--from his initial attempts to dismiss and discredit state votes to fomenting the insurrection yesterday.

Leadership matters a great deal for motivating collective action.

Of course, leadership doesn't occur in a vacuum. Trump was supported, enabled, validated and empowered by Republican elites for his entire term.

This came to head with the concerted efforts by GOP members of the Senate and House who tried to overturn the election certification.

The main attempt to overthrow a democratic process was by spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.

This was primarily spearheaded on social media, which is why freezing Trump's social media accounts is such a big deal.

These social media account accounts were used to spread misinformation and organize, but this misinformation was laundered and legitimized by right wing media figures to millions of people.

From Fox to OAN to Newsmax, these false messages were spread to millions of homes.

I'm not seeing much discussion of the massive damage that's been done to the Democratic Party.

The Democrats I know are cops, farmers, teachers; families who love America & their neighbors. They love the DP they knew from the past.

But the party has been wholesale hijacked.

The Clintons bear much of the blame for destroying the DP, but not all of it. The DP has sold out to multinational corporations, and allowed itself to be infiltrated by America-hating Marxists and other extremist splinter groups, while pandering for votes.

That's why Dems like Pelosi, Biden, Feinstein, Nadler, Tom Perez, Donna Brazile seem so hog-tied most of the time

Trump has been a GIFT to them, because they can focus all their public attention on him, and not on the deep divisions & fatal fractures in their party.

For example, they've embraced Antifa & BLM activists thinking that this will pull more voters to the DP, unified by their loathing of Trump.

The DP thinks it can "turn off" these protests like a spigot if/when they win the WH and Congress.

They're wrong.

Just like their embrace of the Squad: AOC, Tlaib, Pressly and Omar, those decisions are going to come back to bite them.

The Democratic Party has now taken the Marxists, anarchists and their poisonous ideologies right into the heart of the party, and it's going to kill them.

Decode Thread No 2 - CONT
October 31st 2020
Remember this morning when General Flynn tweeted
" American Dream"
@ 7:03 AM
And today that is the THEME of Trump's speech.
" The American Dream"
5:5 Confirmed!!

Some folks seem to think the rift w/ a lot of leftists and D*A is bc of this force the vote issue.

Its foolish to assume this outcry stems from ONE issue that people are divided on.

There are a plethora of real issues with the org, that predate the current discourse.

Thread 👇

Many leftists have grown disenchanted with D*A based on their experiences.

Every chapter is different,so the intention of this thread isn't to target any one specific chapter, or to generalize. It is to elucidate on REAL, counter-revolutionary issues within the org.

Buckle in.

#1: D*A still has anti-communist bylaws nationally, that could result in those of us who are further left than "social democrat" to be expelled from membership. In spite continous pleas to have the bylaw stricken, national has not done

#2: D*A constantly asks membership to water down policies that are BASIC NEEDS for survival moving forward, literally for the comfort of liberals/moderates.

Many leftists believe that anyone who asks you to water down your basic needs is not your ally.

#3: D*A has a long & documented history of ignoring abuse within their organizing spaces, and for not holding abusers accountable.
They mishandle disclosure of abuse (for accused & accuser) frequently enough, that many ppl leave the DSA over abuse & never return.

(Thread)
I may not be all that old, but I’m old enough to remember a time when politicians weren’t self absorbed bags of shit.
I’m old enough to remember how everyone came together in the wake of a tragedy that killed Americans.
A time before we had the internet widely available

In the days after 9/11 I was 16 years old in the NY Metro area. We watched our communities come together to lift up America.
We were proud to be American.
We were survivors in the face of terrorism. We buried loved ones and attended memorial after memorial for the 2,977 souls.

Nobody discounted any loss. Each was just as tragic as the next. From the people on the planes to those who gave their lives trying to rescue people from those buildings.
We were one people. We were American people.
We weren’t Republicans or Democrats we were AMERICANS.

In the years that followed, peoples dedication faded and life went back to a place of being semi-normal. But I never lost that pride of being an American.
My grandmother immigrated to America during WWII as a refugee from Poland.
She fled for the American dream.

When Barack Obama ran, I not only campaigned for him, but I voted for him. Twice, once in 2008 and again in 2012. I felt proud to have a successful black man breaking history for all of the little boys and girls that would look up to him.
But this is where it started.