@WendyRogersAZ We have an eyewitness testimony, an actual victim of Robert E. Lee's cruelty.

Wesley Norris speaks to us from the grave.

"My name is Wesley Norris"

"My name is Wesley Norris; I was born a slave on the plantation of George Parke Custis; after the death of Mr. Custis, Gen. Lee, who had been made executor of the estate, assumed control of the slaves, in number about seventy; it was the general impression among the slaves of Mr.

... Custis that on his death they should be forever free; in fact this statement had been made to them by Mr. C. years before; at his death we were informed by Gen. Lee that by the conditions of the will we must remain slaves for five years; I remained with Gen. Lee for about ...

.... seventeen months, when my sister Mary, a cousin of ours, and I determined to run away, which we did in the year 1859; we had already reached Westminster,

... Westminster, in Maryland, on our way to the North, when we were apprehended and thrown into prison, and Gen. Lee notified of our arrest; we remained in prison fifteen days, when we were sent back to Arlington; we were immediately taken before Gen. Lee, who demanded the reason

1/15 You'll hear a lot of talk today about how what happened yesterday is extraordinary and antithetical to our history. It's important to reject that idea, not out of cynicism or pessimism but because that pretense of innocence is dangerous. Let's talk about U.S. Cruikshank.

2/15 Cruikshank is a case virtually every single con law casebook discusses though most con law professors don't necessarily spend a great deal of time talking about but it's instructive about how we frame yesterday's events.

3/15 In Cruikshank, decided in 1875, SCOTUS considered whether, under the Enforcement Act of 1870, the federal government had the power to prosecute members of a white mob that killed between 80 to 150 Black people. The case was essentially about a mass lynching.

4/x The Court concluded Congress lacked the power to authorize such prosecutions because the massacre involved criminal matters constitutionally left to the states. In short, the court said the massacre was a series of murders and it was up to the states to prosecute such crimes

5/15 The thing is if you read the opinion, you'll get a vague sense that a mob was charged with violence but you'll never get that it was about the 1873 Colfax Massacre - the single deadliest instance of violence during Reconstruction and one that occurred because of an election

.
"AOC proposes funding to deprogram white supremacists"

The problem is: ANY expression of #WhiteIdentity, on which America was originally founded, is equated with #WhiteSupremacy.

There is a coup in progress, initiated long ago, by #BigBrother & #TheMatrix of state capital.

America's founding fathers knew it would be difficult enough forging a nation from different European peoples (English, French, German, Dutch, etc.) of the SAME race, & impossible to include other races, which is why the 1790 Nationalisation Act restricted citizenship to Whites.

By modern standards, the founders were indeed White supremacists, but also had enough sense to know that multi-racial nationhood could never work. And so it has proven.

America never became a genuine nation, but just a bigger, more powerful, mercenary #PatronState than Britain.

This is profoundly important to understand.

America's #FoundingMistake was to equate state & nation.

It is by deceitfully posing as our nation that the state tricks us into loving #BigBrother.

The famous line from Lincoln's #GettysburgAddress, "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" was Orwellian newspeak (long before Orwell was born) for "Government of the elites, by the elites, for the elites.

Lincoln, remember, was a lawyer & one of the elite.

Just listened to the latest episode of @DWTWR, about Aliens of London, partly because @sjcAustenite and @KyleDAnderson are funny and insightful critics, but mostly to hear my monthly name-check.

But I think the satire in this story lands better than they give it credit for. 1/

At one point, Erik raises and dismisses the possibility that Russell might want to say that inside all our politicians are evil monsters bent on destroying us — but I think that’s absolutely what Russell wants to say. Here’s why. 2/

Russell really hates Tony Blair. He is found dead in a cupboard early on in Aliens of London, and he will return in a new form as Harold Saxon in the finale of Season 3. Russell will kill the current or former British PM (or President) literally every year during his era. 3/

(He will also kill the PM in the form of Boris Johnson in Revenge of the Nestene, the story he wrote to accompany the lockdown rewatch of Rose in March 2020.) 4/

In 1997, Blair’s Labour promised a “third way” between capitalism and socialism. This seemed new and exciting, but was basically just a shift to the right, to accommodate the sort of neoliberalism that kept getting Margaret Thatcher elected. 5/

While the B sides of the Western phil canon wait here is a thread on The Pantokrator Xenon, the Byz hospital that you cannot hear a lot about at the usual places

The Pantokrator Xenon was established by John II Komnenos in 1136 as a part of the Pantokrator Monastery. Its purpose: to heal the sick of Constantinople

At the same time and the same place gerokomeion (home for seniors) was founded. Xenon and gerokomeion had diff functions

We know a lot about the functioning of the monastery and its charitable institutions thanks to the Typikon of the Imperial Monastery the Pantokrator: the constitution drafted by John II Komnenos

The facilities: no private rooms, 50 beds in 5 sections: fractures and wounds (surgical ward), diseases of the eyes and intestines, ward for women, and two wards for men with other illnesses

We could make our Defense cheaper. We could reinstate conscription. We could transfer large portions of our standing forces into guard and reserve units. We could stop invading central and southwest asian countries. We could increase direct military aid to our allies.

The other good ideas include more unmanned and uninhabited systems (WHERE APPROPRIATE, and nobody has convinced me yet that naval presence is worth a damn unmanned), as well as investing more in the dark arts of gray zone warfare.

Now, all that wouldn't be very efficient were we to need to go to war in a hurry. But maybe... And this is crazy... We shouldn't be in a hurry to go to war?

But our adversaries -- Russia, China and Iran -- all invest heavily in the dark arts, all use conscription, are all investing in unmanned. They ain't crazy. They know if WWIII was about to kick off they'd need time to boost readiness and train conscripts.

And I know what folks would say: "Sometimes you don't have a choice of when you got to war. Think of 9/11."

And, good point. But my recollection of that time period was that in Afghanistan, the CIA and SOF had the Taliban and al qaeda just about licked within a few months.

Today's front page features our story on the loosely connected, QAnon-believing network of 'patriots' that spent weeks organizing and crowd-sourcing money for mass action at the Capitol on Jan. 6: https://t.co/Kc1BL9JqFv w/ @ddknyt @mmcintire

Keith Lee, an Air Force veteran, was one of the far-right, low-budget agitators trying to 'Stop the Steal'. More than an hour before Trump's speech: “If you died today and you went to heaven, can you look George Washington in the face and say that you’ve fought for this country?”

1) 💥THREAD ON ANTONY GREEN💥

Antony “Deep State” Green ...

... is very famous in Australia.

👉

Listening to a @jbouie livechat about the filibuster right now and it's made it clear: the filibuster (and particularly reconciliation as a workaround) hasn't just bottled up progressive legislation, but it's warped the entire constitutional system in subtle-but-fundamental ways.

Reconciliation is the only way to get a law through Congress most of the time, and most of Congress's authorities, to regulate or pass social legislation, are inaccessible in reconciliation.

So the role of Congress has shifted. Instead of the broad national legislature envisioned by Article I - a body to rule over the whole country and direct its government - Congress has become, in most cases, an agency for management of the federal budget.

The existence of reconciliation as an exception to the filibuster is essential to this shift. If reconciliation didn't exist, Congress would be sidelined almost completely, paralyzed, and what would likely happen is that frustrated majorities would just end the practice entirely.

But because of reconciliation, there's actually a pathway to legislating - it's just bound by a strict set of rules that actually dramatically alter the scope of how Congress can act. Thus most of Congress's work gets channeled through those limits, narrowing its practical power.

The stunning announcement of >$6B in philanthropic donations in one year by @mackenziescott deserves wider

Fine piece by @nkulish in the @nytimes that addresses some of the key

But this should be just the start.

Important first to put the $6B total in context. Total grantmaking in 2019 by @darrenwalker at the @FordFoundation was ~$350M. Total at @Hewlett_Found was ~$450M.

So @mackenziescott is ~15x some of the largest and most discussed foundations.

To the best of my knowledge, what we know about her philanthropy stems from a total of two posts on @Medium.

No address. No website. No known staff. We don't even know much about the entities she's using -- DAFs, LLCs, private

What's interesting about her philanthropy?

*Proves it's not that difficult to give away a billion dollars.
*No strings attached giving - all general operating support over multiple years
*No reporting requirements, AFAIK

all the boy cousins split off to talk about romances and personal growth since the last family reunion. the girl cousins go down to the creek to smoke cigarettes and throw knives

our conversation inevitably turns to the dark and mysterious world of the girl cousins. “why do they smoke those things? they smell so nasty!” teddy cried. “i saw a pack of birth control pills sitting out on lisa’s desk,” ronald said somberly.

quickly a consensus is reached that we need to find out exactly what the girls are talking about. gerald and i volunteer for recon. spying seems dishonorable but we agree bigger things might be at stake. edwin caught tara rolling her eyes at the Sunday school teacher.

we slip down to the creek by a trail cut by a jack rabbit. as we sneak, sly and quiet as foxes, the sense of boyish mischief departs and an oppressive feeling sets upon us instead. the thicket grows darker and the shadows twist the wrong way. we look at one another very coldly.

coming to a bank looking over the sand bar we see the girls sitting cross legged in a circle darkly painted on the sand. one girl sits in the middle but her face is covered by a kind of mask. a deer’s head. fat black flies buzz around her and her chest is painted sticky red.

I just took a 1,600-mile road trip from Washington to St. Louis and back. I was shaken by what I saw.

(1/x)

Almost everywhere I stopped — gas stations, rest stops and hotels, across Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois — there was a sign on the door saying that people had to wear masks to enter. And almost everywhere, most people ignored the sign.

(2/x)

At a Fairfield Inn in Ohio, a middle-aged couple sat unmasked on a lobby sofa for hours, drinking beers and scrolling through their phones. The hotel staff evidently did nothing about it.

(3/x)

At a convenience store in Indiana, a hand-drawn sign on the door read: “Face masks are required. Please do not enter without one!!” Customers did anyway.

(4/x)

Nationwide, about half of Americans are not wearing masks when in close contact with people outside their households, according to a survey by the University of Southern California. (5/x)

NODEEP KAUR, our sister, who represents the best of us, is a 24 year old Sikh woman and Dalit majdoor rights activist who was actively working for majdoor rights and farmers protest since day one of this movement. She is in jail for more than 20 days now. (1/5)

She has been physically and sexually assaulted, her bail has been rejected by the court.

Nodeep Kaur, needs our support, let's stand for her, for women’s rights, for dalit rights, for majdoor rights, for farmers rights, and for sikh rights.
(2/5)

Nodeep has been tortured and beaten up by the police. Male police officers have sexually assaulted her. While Nodeep is being brutally assaulted at Karnal Jail, a threat hovers around the workers of the Kundli Industrial Area.

Her bail plea was rejected yesterday. (3/5)

Sexual violence against women, specifically with regards to dalit women is an epidemic in India. It is the state's way of maintaining dominance over the dalits - a group of people who were considered as 'untouchables' in India's regressive caste system. (4/5)

Nodeep used her voice to speak against this epidemic. She is a beacon of light. Lots and lots of prayers for Nodeep Kaur’s safety and release. In solidarity with Nodeep Kaur.

Use your platforms to bring light to Nodeep Kaur.

#NodeepKaur (5/5)

1/ To all who answered my question ab the college spread run game, I'd argue that RichRod & Urban were the first devotees & developers to have major success with it. RichRod started at wvu in 2001 & Urb at BG also in 2001. It was Urb's unbeaten 2004 Utah team that hit bigtime.

2/ In an interview I heard that season, Urban noted that so much of what they were doing was based on Tom Osborne's offense using inside & outside zone principles, but just from the shotgun. That's how the game almost always evolves-someone borrows something and tweaks it...

3/ the evolution of the "zone read" goes something like this: 1) teams needed a way to control the cutback defender on IZ run plays, 2) the naked bootleg was the first constraint play off IZ, 3) then came "orbit motion". Both of these actions created conflict for backside DE...

4/ SG teams used IZ as a base run play so they also used the naked and orbit actions. The legend goes that one day in pract a RichRod QB accidentally "read" the BSDE rather than just handing the ball off on an IZ play. They started tinkering with that and found that it worked...

5/ this solved the major shortcoming of the naked and orbit actions--both those things were "guesses". If you called naked, and the bsde didnt squeeze the cutback, your qb could get a face full of hard plastic and metal. By reading him from the SG, this problem was solved...

@bayareahausfrau @politico https://t.co/zPc5IqZug6

MKULTRA survivor shares how Pierre Trudeau @JustinTrudeau daddy sexually abused her on Mackinaw Island, Michigan

It began w/ her abuse as a child to Gerald R Ford “buying” her, her father was protected under the blanket of National Security + then...

@politico @JustinTrudeau the mind control program was used to control her.
#GuyVanderjagt abused her sexually + she was then dedicated to Sen. Robert Byrd to run operations of drug trafficking.
While in Nashville, TN she watched Sen Byrd on the Grand old Opry stage w/ Wayne Cox on the fiddle. After...

@politico @JustinTrudeau she was subjected to a occult blood ritual. She witnessed Wayne Cox murder a railroad bum at the then abandoned Nashville Railroad yard, and cut off his hands - this was Wayne Cox’s M.O he used the severed hands to reactivate The mercenaries running the drugs in South America...

@politico @JustinTrudeau to remember what he could do to them. #mindcontrol

Nashville and Branson were fronts to distribute + run drugs.

she was sexually abused by @BillClinton + @HillaryClinton when Billy was the Governor of Arkansas. in 1978 his drug trafficking was in full swing. ...

@politico @JustinTrudeau @BillClinton @HillaryClinton Bill wasn’t as much into women as he is men, so the abuse by him was limited.
Her abuse was more at the hands of Hillary, who like Bill, is bisexual w/ each having their primary preferences sexually. Cathy O’Brien succumbed to a new level of mind control under @HillaryClinton

1/ To meet or not to meet, that is the question. Is Highfields Church going to keep meeting in-person on Sundays? (27 part thread coming up, for the brave-hearted), beginning with three intro comments:

2/ • This is a wisdom call not a right/wrong call; Satan would love to have churches & leadership teams divided on the topic, so we need to pray for unity and grace as we decide what’s best in our context.

3/ • What we decide will vary hugely on what the virus is doing in the geography and the demography of the church. I have friends pastoring where the case rate is over 1000, with majority older congregation. I don’t judge them at all for making the call to close.

4/ • I'm not going to rehearse the theological reasons for in-person gathering (e.g. by @WilliamsGarryJ earlier this week, which you can read again here:

5/ Rather this thread will focus on 10 practical reasons why in our context, we've decided to keep meeting in-person on Sundays (though we'll keep reviewing, in line with Welsh Govt guidance).

Let’s talk about “the mark of the beast.”

Every time some new vaccine becomes necessary, there’s a small-but-loud group of evangelicals and otherwise who believe taking this vaccine could be “pledging your allegiance to the devil.” But does this have any grounds in The Bible?

The so-called “mark of the beast” appears in The Revelation, so first we’ve gotta dispel some myths about the book as a whole.

I’d argue that if there’s one book that has been twisted most heavily by the “evangelical fanfiction lore” of the 80s and 90s, it’s gotta be Revelation.

American Christianity in the 90s was wack. After years of politicians stoking fears of communism & new world order, conservatives snowballed their vision of what “the apocalypse” would look like, and reverse-engineered their fears back into Revelation with stuff like Left Behind.

The Left Behind books were pretty critical to the end-times fearmongering. Even Liberty University’s Jerry Falwell said at the time, "in terms of its impact on Christianity, Left Behind is probably greater than that of any other book in modern times, outside The Bible.”

Meanwhile, Theologian David Carlson said, “Left Behind promotes a skewed view of the Christian faith that welcomes war and disaster, while dismissing peace efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere—all in the name of Christ.”

5th and Park Ave, apparently a group has gathered and some of them have lasers. Starting to march.

23:23

People are spray painting buildings at 5th and Park, possibly the Justice Center.
23:26

Police have observed several instances of graffiti and damage to property with this group.

Fireworks at 5th and Park, and more spray painting. 23:30

Medical Examiner's office was just tagged (graffiti). 23:33