1/13
On the night of Thursday, May 28th, I was standing in front of a burning liquor store at the corner of E. Lake St. & Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis. 3 days had passed since the killing of George Floyd by police. #velshi

1/13
I don’t know how many GOP members of the House and Senate watch @VelshiMSNBC so I have a favor to ask of you: If you know any, or know anyone who knows any, could you pass this message on to them for me? #velshi

2/13
While the GOP is busy trying to tear down democracy, there are some difficult realities facing America right now that could really use their attention. We are starting 2021 off in bad shape, considering that this is the most prosperous country on earth. #velshi

3/13
America is not the most populous nation in the world; it’s only about 4.25% of the global population. Yet America accounts for nearly a quarter of the world’s coronavirus cases and deaths. #velshi

4/13
55 million Americans are living in poverty. You’ve seen images of cars lined up at food banks. 1 in 6 Americans are now food insecure, meaning they aren’t certain whether they will have the resources to put food on the table for their next meal. #velshi

5/13
In America, most people’s health care coverage is, stupidly, tied to their job, so 29 million Americans now don’t have health insurance. Up to 40 million renters are far enough behind on their rent to be living in fear of eviction. #velshi

1/8
Mike Pence is the 48th Vice President, the 2nd highest office in the U.S. executive branch. He’s also the Senate president, with the authority to cast the tie-breaking vote. That’s what made his response to a vital question during this week’s debate so feckless. #velshi

2/8
Just before the debate ended, the moderator reminded Pence that Trump has, several times, refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. She asked, if Joe Biden won the election and Trump refused to leave office, what would he do as VP? #velshi

3/8
In his roughly 2-min. answer, Pence talked about Hillary Clinton, spying, the Mueller report, Trump’s impeachment, mail-in voting & the FBI. One of the only thing Pence didn’t mention was what he would do if Trump refused to accept a peaceful transfer of power. #velshi

4/8
Here's the thing: Mike Pence isn’t about to tell Trump anything he doesn’t want to hear. It’s the basic rule of survival in the Trump orbit. But back in 2016, that is exactly what Pence told “60 Minutes” he WOULD do. #velshi

5/8
Pence said in 2016, “I promise you that when the circumstances arise where I have a difference on policy or on presentation…I would have no hesitation, were I privileged to be vice president, to walk into the president's office, close the door, and share my heart.” #velshi

1/15
By now you have undoubtedly seen the craziness going on in the stock market, with a selection of stocks surging hundreds if not thousands of percent in a matter of days or even hours, along with a whole bunch of financial jargon. So what exactly is going on? #velshi

2/15
One major term you have heard is "shorting" - which is just placing a bet that a stock will go down in price. #velshi

3/15
An investor can make money on this type of gamble by borrowing shares from a broker, w/o initially paying for them, selling them immediately & then later buying the shares at a lower price & returning them to the broker, keeping the difference in price as profit. #velshi

4/15
For example, an investor borrows 1 share of stock XYZ at $200 & sells it. The investor now has $200 at an initial cost of $0. However, the investor stills owes the broker that 1 share. #velshi

5/15
The gamble is that the price of the stock XYZ will go down - let's say to $100 a share. The investor can then buy the 1 share that it owes the broker at that lower $100 price. #velshi

1/13
This past week, before he did an interview with a top-rated AM radio station in St. Louis, and THEN being interviewed on CNN, Senator @HawleyMO wrote an Op-Ed for the fourth highest circulated newspaper in America. #velshi

2/13
In all of those extremely high-profile appearances, he repeated his grievance that he is being quote "cancelled" and quote "muzzled." That's rich. #velshi

3/13
Hawley freely discussing his being "muzzled" seems lost on him as he writes about how "corporate monopolies and the left team up to shut down speech they don't like and force their political agenda on America…” #velshi

4/13
Hawley continues: "For those who still believe in free speech & the First Amendment, this is the time to take a stand." That's cute. Complaining about being cancelled while speaking on the Senate floor. Complaining about shutting down free speech in a major newspaper #velshi

5/13
Hawley seems to enjoy taking stands, he's just not overly discerning about their being rooted in truth. And when they clearly aren't rooted in the truth, Hawley believes he bears no responsibility for what he says. Hawley can apparently dish it out but can't take it #velshi

1/13
President Biden signed an executive order phasing out the federal govt's use of privatized prisons. It instructs the Justice dept. NOT to renew contracts with privately-operated prisons; a policy that was first implemented under Obama, then reversed in 2017 by Trump. #velshi

2/13
Private prisons are a stupid, amoral idea. So how did we end up with them in the first place? For starters, the U.S. is the most prolific incarcerator on the planet. That is a fact & it is not new. #velshi

3/13
2018 figures show the U.S. ranks number one when it comes to the total number of incarcerated people. It has roughly 300,000 more people that have been sentenced to prison than China does... which has literally one billion more in population. #velshi

4/13
What about prisoners as a percentage of the population? America for the win, again, with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, a great deal higher than the next country on the list, El Salvador. #velshi

5/13
Our prison system became so overwhelmed, partly due to misguided federal initiatives like The War on Drugs in the 80s and the 1994 Crime Bill, that it was forced to outsource help. #velshi

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years.

There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia).

Summarizing:

1.Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.

1/-

2.Mitigation (slowing transmission) versus elimination (stopping transmission)

3.Gradually responding to increasing levels of infection by imposing greater restrictions which enables the infection rate to grow (red zone strategy), …

2/

versus starting with high restrictions to arrest transmission and relaxing restrictions only when the number of new cases is so low that contact tracing or localized short term action can stop community transmission (green zone strategy, including localized "fire fighting").

3/

4.Trying to keep economic activity and travel as open as possible but perpetuating the economic harm and imposing yoyo restrictions, versus making an initial sacrifice of economic activity and travel in order to benefit from the rapid restoration of normal economic activity.

4/

5.Focusing attention on few individuals resistant to social action because of shortsightedness or selfishness, versus recognizing the vast majority do the right thing if given clear guidance and support, which is what matters for success, as elimination is a robust strategy.

5/

Joanna Cherry:"Alex Salmond secured a concession that nothing in Scotland Act would preclude the people of Scotland from subsequently choosing an independent future. This is recorded in Hansard during second reading of Referendums (Scotland & Wales) Bill, May 21, 1997."

Donald Dewar said: “I should be the last to challenge the sovereignty of the people, or deny them the right to opt for any solution to the constitutional question they wished. For example, if they want to go for independence, I see no reason why they should not do so." JC

"In same debate Alex Salmond went on to emphasise that “… the Claim of Right referred to sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine a form of Govt best suited to their needs. It did not suggest sovereignty resides with English Members of Parliament." Joanna Cherry

Joanna Cherry: "Donald Dewar articulated the democratic norm later enshrined in the Edinburgh Agreement. His concession laid the foundation for the 2014 referendum in recognising the rights of Scots to choose whether to remain part of our voluntary union with England."

"I am wholly in agreement with view that we must find a legal & constitutional way to demonstrate that public opinion in Scotland has changed since 2014 referendum, in order for our independence to be internationally recognised & therefore meaningful." Joanna Cherry

For Black History Month, Vox is publishing a big series on rethinking policy for Black America.

I wrote 3,200 words on eradicating exclusionary zoning.

It's a 3 step formula: Persuade, incentivize, and if all else fails, SUE THE SUBURBS.

Thread

We know that exclusionary zoning is locking millions out of opportunity.

Work by @OppInsights, Richard Rothstein, Ta-Nehisi Coates, @nhannahjones, @RickKahlenberg, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Enrico Moretti and @ProfSchleich details the economic impact of these discriminatory policies.

51 years after the Fair Housing Act, it's never been seriously enforced. It's time to change that.

First things first, Biden has work to do to convince whoever can be convinced that there is a racial, environmental, and economic imperative to undo residential segregation.

Use whatever explanation works!

For sympathetic progressives Biden should link racial and environmental justice to ending exclusionary zoning.

For everyone else, he can simply make an economic

Second, there are many tools to incentivize localities that rely on federal dollars to reform their zoning codes.

There is a ton of federal money that can be conditioned on reforming exclusionary zoning laws. @ebwhamilton has some good ideas on this front.

Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal"

It refers to the whole stalking and murder episode as something that led to Rajagopal's "fall" - i.e a story of crime against a woman is turned into a story about the impact of the said crime on its perpetrator, not its victim.

It refers to the stalking victim as a fit antagonist for the protagonist Rajagopal, as Rajagopal's nemesis. But the point is, she set out to be neither. She didn't make him part of her life story. He forcibly, violently disrupted her life.

The podcast ends by telling us how Rajagopal's employees and friends and many others abuse the woman he stalked, for pursuing the case of her husband's murder and bringing Rajagopal to justice. It also tells us that some admire her. And it "asks us to decide" where we stand

I find it disturbing that a story of a powerful man feeling entitled to ruin a woman's life & trying to get away with murder, is turned into a story of HIS "rise, popularity, and fall".