A thread on the #ElectoralCollege as voting gets underway. This is day that 538 privileged people out of 239 million eligible voters actually get to vote for president and vice president. 1/11

A reminder that "college" is probably the wrong term. That word does not appear in the US Constitution. By design, the full set of electors never actually meets as a group. 2/11

This bizarre and antiquated system violates the fundamental norm of "one person, one vote." States such as mine get showered with attention from the campaigns while most others are ignored. It is well known that voter turnout is higher in the battleground states. 3/11

What is often overlooked is the system also makes elections less secure. An election that turns on a few states is easier for a malicious actor to get a foothold. Hacking a decentralized national system is nearly impossible, but targeting a few states is not. 4/11

The system also fosters partisan disputes. When it all comes down to a few battlegrounds, political parties are incentivized to manipulate election rules, file lawsuits, & generally do all they can to win by small margins. 5/11

A misguided friend sent me a document supporting #45Regime allegations that he won reelection in November. Among the allegations is that in #Nevada "in an effort orchestrated by the Biden campaign, Native Americans appear to have traded their votes not for pieces of silver but

rather for Visa gift cards, jewelry, and other 'swag.'"

Here's the link to the Nevada Supreme Court's decision in response to the Biden delegates' request for the Court to expedite a squashing of the Trump delegates' attempts to forbid them from voting

I'm no lawyer, but this sounds to me like Mike Tyson pulverizing a boxer seconds after the bell of the 1st round is rung:

"The district court held not only that Contestants failed to prove each and every ground for contest asserted, but also that they failed to establish any

elements of these grounds, as a matter of fact or law, under any applicable burden of proof, let alone with the clear and convincing evidence required for an extraordinary judicial intervention into the democratic process. Indeed, despite the soundness of the district court’s

factual findings and legal conclusions, and the utter paucity of compelling evidence Contestants have amassed to support their implausible claims, Contestants press on with this appeal—a decision that can be considered frivolous in light of the thoroughness of their defeat and

The face and back of #jihad in #Europe and the world. Muslim Brotherhood, violent and civilizational jihad. The case study of #Bosnia, the #SDA political party and its MFA Bisera Turković. Who is she indeed?

Surprised in this otherwise excellent obit of legendary journalist Neil Sheehan, the @nytimes didn't mention that the Nixon admin tried to charge Sheehan and his wife Susan under the Espionage Act *after* the Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case.

The Pentagon Papers Supreme Court ruling is, of course, a landmark First Amendment opinion. But it's bizarre to me that the Nixon admin actually tried to *criminally charge* Sheehan for his reporting, and the case is almost lost to history.

One of the only descriptions of the Espionage Act grand jury investigation into Neil Sheehan, besides in the @nytimes archives, is this 2011 @DailyBeast piece by former NYT general counsel James Goodale. It is an absolutely remarkable story.

After Nixon lost the Pentagon Papers Supreme Court case, he was enraged and still wanted the NYT prosecuted. While @DanielEllsberg's grand jury was happening in LA, federal prosecutors opened up an investigation into Sheehan in Boston for "conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act"

The grand jury investigating both Sheehan and his wife Susan, who was a writer at the @NewYorker, subpoenaed several famous journalists and academics, including David Halberstam, Noam Chomsky, and Howard Zinn.

1. Thread: Making a New Political Alignment Work
 
There has been much speculation, in light of recent events in Perak, that Pakatan Harapan could forge some kind of cooperation with UMNO and Barisan Nasional.
 
Anything taking place in Perak will have national repercussions

2. A development of this kind will naturally be a major, if not earth-shaking event in Malaysian politics.
 
As a KEADILAN MP, I firmly believe that PH is the best platform to achieve a progressive, equitable Malaysia

3. Any new alignment must have the interest of the rakyat at heart—this is non-negotiable.
 
However, it must also be recognised that political realignments are nothing new in Malaysia

4. After the May 13 1969 tragedy, the National Consultative Council was created by Tun Abdul Razak, in part to restore socio-political as well as economic normalcy for Malaysia

5. Except DAP, all the other main Opposition parties took part in the NCC – PAS, the People’s Progressive Party and Gerakan. DAP was protesting the detention of its Secretary General Lim Kit Siang.

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/

64 PA legislators want to ignore the results of the election. Here are their names in a single thread. I made the thread when I noticed people following a link to this document, and confusing the recipients with the aforementioned 64 PA

Sincerely,
Seth Grove
Representative, 196th District
Kristin Phillips-Hill
Senator, 28th District
Judy Ward
Senator, 30th District
Mike Regan
District Senator, 31st District
Dave Arnold
Senator, 48th District
2/14

Doug Mastriano
Senator, 33rd District
Joe Pittman
Senator, 41st District
Pat Stefano
Senator, 32nd District
Kerry Benninghoff
Representative, 171st District
3/14

Bryan Cutler
Representative, 100th District
Jim Cox
Representative, 129th District
Kate Klunk
Representative, 169th District
Torren Ecker
Representative, 193rd District
Bud Cook
Representative, 49th District
4/14

Frank Ryan
Representative, 101st District
Tina Pickett
Representative, 110th District
David Rowe
Representative, 85th District
Clint Owlett
Representative, 68th District
Ryan Warner
Representative, 52nd District
5/14

Dear Senators
Jacqui Lambie
Senator Rex Patrick,
I am writing to ask that you both vote against the legislation to extend the Indue card trials to any further sites and to end those currently on foot.I outline my reasons in the body of my letter and ask that you give my words

2. your serious consideration.
The Liberal and National parties have an ideological obsession with paternalistically controlling the lives of our First nations peoples and the unemployed. Demonizing both groups by constantly referring to their alcohol and drug abuse

3., gambling addiction and supposed high incidence of domestic/family violence. Other vulnerable groups have already been added to this list, those in receipt of a disability support pension (DSP) and students on Youth Allowance who also apparently need to have their income

4. controlled by Indue.
Without having any conclusive evidence that quarantining 80% of an individual’s social welfare payment to the Indue debit card prevents the purchase of alcohol or participation in gambling the Morrison government wants to continue the so called

5. "Indue card trials" and extend them to other sites experiencing social disadvantage.
More troublingly they also wish to extend the use of the Indue card to other social security recipients such as Aged Pensioners. There are only two groups who will benefit from

1/ Moderate Republicans are the most important people in the world right now. More comments on the #ElectoralCollegelRiot from a political sociologist.

2/ Right now, we have a severe problem: as long as you can gather up a critical number of primary voters, you can do some very horrible things, like incite a riot that gets 2 police officers killed.

3/ So what can be done? Part of the solution is relatively easy: criminal charges. We need a bright line. Free speech is ok, riots should be met with prison sentences every time.

4/ But part of the solution is much harder. Getting moderate Republican politicians and voters to punish people. They have more power to fix the situation than any other group right now.

5/ We've seen some honorable exceptions, like Corker and Schwarzenegger, and that is promising. But we've seen a suprising level of silence from the groups that are important moderate parts of the GOP coalition.

I've worked in IT for a few decades. The 2020 election is fraudulent. No one explained the core of the fraud, the configuration of the servers. I'm talking best practices
USB ports are disabled on every server and on many workstations to protect data and prevent intrusions.

Logs are reports of events on server functionality visible on screen or in print. Levels of users are defined w/ permissions. Administrators have full control over the server and software. They can read, edit, and write code or change internal server settings.

Next, there are Power Users. A Power User can't install new software. Others can read but can’t change anything. Access is severely limited. If the server is configured correctly their NAMES are visible.

Login are multifactor. Logs also show any intrusion attempts and can show the IP address (unique set of numbers identifying every computer) if the server is configured to do this. You can backtrack using the IP to identify the location of intruder.

Logs show backup schedules and data loss. Given the sensitivity of the data, assume a full backup. A couple of ways to do this. Another identical server, or the Cloud or RAID – Random Array of Inexpensive Disks. RAID disks located in the server itself capture pieces

By its campaign and conduct of the 2020 election, the ruling class ceased pretending to be part of a constitutional republic. By treating fellow Americans as inferiors through word and deed, its members renounced their common citizenship with us.

Eschewing persuasion, they set about compelling obedience to an openly manipulated election.

Thus did they burn their bridges to the rest of America as surely as did Cortéz when he burned the ships that had carried his troops to conquer the Aztec empire.

Henceforth, they must rule or ruin as the oligarchy they have become.

For four decades beginning in the mid-1960s, a class of rulers grew in America. They became ever more uniform socially and intellectually, ever more opposed to the rest of Americans, and ever more powerful.

This happened as government took upon itself the tasks of eliminating poverty and harmonizing the races, and as it controlled ever greater shares of the national income.

WHEN RESISTANCE FALTERS

📌About an hour before Trump's GOP stormtroopers assaulted our Democracy Wednesday, one Mitch McConnell -- THAT Mitch McConnell -- was on the Senate floor doing what he does best: talking in code out of both sides of his dirty, ROTTEN mouth ...

📌Seems Mitch was finally ready to put a band aid on America's gaping wound -- the one he literally had everything to do with.

📌Mitch was going to push for certifying the vote of the American people. After months of inaction, Mitch the Great was saving the day.



📌But even Mitch knows, and has suppressed, that he could have removed Trump from the White House last year.

📌Even Mitch knows, but has suppressed, that he could have spared us from the absolute carnage of the past year that led to yesterday's attack on our democracy.



📌But never mind that brutal reality. On Wednesday, a defiant Mitch was willing to go as far certifying votes that were cast by REAL American patriots, who literally risked their lives to VOTE TRUMP OUT.

📌Wow! What a guy, eh???



📌There was NOTHING fucking heroic about what McConnell was doing. He was simply doing the bare minimum of what is expected of any American.

📌And that's when the real crime started ...

I want to try to build on the excellent points made by @dpcassidyC3, @DavidAFrench, @Peter_Wehner & others about the need to disentangle the white, evangelical church from far right wing politics and its contribution to the insurrection.

I want to consider practical steps. 1/21

But first, a defense. Why the need to do this? And why address this, but not, say the BLM protests?

Because many of us are adjacent to these types of right wing Christians. These are our folk.

We may not have them in our congregations, but we know them. 2/

I don't know anyone in Antifa. I don't know anyone who lit buildings on fire this summer.

Of course arson is wrong, but my primary job is to care for our folk, not call out the sins of others (see I Cor 5:9-12). 3/

And we know the kinds of folks who went to the MAGA rally on Jan. 6th. If they are not in our churches, they are adjacent to our churches. Folks who promoted the patently false narratives about the election. 4/

They covered over the president's abuse of democratic norms and the rule of law. They chose to ignore many warning signs, going all the way back to 2015. 5/

There are many (some with quite prominent followings) on social media with the view that the majors are tainted and push the message that both majors are the same. I argue that this is 100% a purely political agenda.

These people link Liberal and Labor together as one in the same and blame Labor for the Liberal’s Bills, practices, programs and behaviour. These people are minor party and IND supporters.

I don’t buy the position that “speaking up against the majors” is a pure non-political pursuit of social democracy, championed by people who are much better thinkers than the partisan aligned of the majors. I completely reject this idea and that is often the theme on Twitter.

I would argue it is a deeply entrenched political campaign based on the belief that Individualism should take prominence over collective platforms the major parties have based on their central ideology.

I would also argue that it is based on Individualism through ego, as they believe the minor parties and Independents will represent their view (often falsely represented as speaking for my community, which is a technical impossibility) or speaking for “my issue”.

Do you want to see if your Representative failed to vote in favor of a resolution calling for the global repeal of blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy laws? Look below. ⬇️

I think we deserve an explanation as to why they don't value basic global human

Louisiana Representative Ralph Abraham (R) "Not Voting." @RepAbraham

Alabama Representative Robert Aderholt (R) "Not Voting." @Robert_Aderholt

Georgia Representative Rick Allen (R) "Not Voting." @RepRickAllen

Michigan Representative Justin Amash (L) "Present." @justinamash

Arizona Representative Andy Biggs (R) "Nay." @RepAndyBiggsAZ

Georgia Representative Sanford Bishop Jr (D) "Not Voting." @SanfordBishop

Texas Representative Kevin Brady (R) "Not Voting." @RepKevinBrady

Florida Representative Vern Buchanan (R) "Not Voting." @VernBuchanan

Colorado Representative Ken Buck (R) "Not Voting." @BuckForColorado

Alabama Representative Bradley Byrne (R) "Not Voting." @RepByrne

California Representative Ken Calvert (R) "Not Voting." @KenCalvert

Texas Representative John Carter (R) "Not Voting." @JudgeCarter

Georgia Representative Doug Collins (R) "Not Voting." @RepDougCollins

Florida Representative Neal Dunn (R) "Not Voting." @DunnCampaign

Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D) "Not Voting." @TulsiGabbard

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz (R) "Not Voting." @RepMattGaetz

The NYSBA strongly condemned the violent uprising that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, orchestrated by individuals bent on subverting the will of the voters by disrupting the certification of the 2020 presidential election

Thankfully, Congress overcame this assault and fulfilled its constitutional responsibility in certifying the Biden-Harris victory. However, we must address the root cause of this abhorrent incident, the blame for which lies first and foremost with President Donald Trump.

But the president did not act alone.

Hours before the angry mob stormed the Capitol walls, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, addressed a crowd of thousands at the White House, reiterating baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the presidential election and the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.

“If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Let's have trial by combat.”