BC TRUMP
Saved by @ThomassRichards

2022 is shaping up to be a bloodbath. The Trump census cooked the numbers to advantage Republicans, and GOP statehouses are poised to redistrict in ways that will hand potentially permanent minority rule to the GOP in Congress.

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 There's a potential way out: #HR1, an omnibus bill of electoral reforms that would create durable, structural protections for voting rights and a level playing field for campaigning.

2/
To get a sense of how urgent the looming crisis is - and of how important HR1 is - listen to @ryangrim interviewing @schwarz and Rep @JohnSarbanes [D-MD] on this week's @intercepted.

https://t.co/BFaga8Rr5F

3/
In theory, HR1 could be blasted through - Dems control the Senate, Congress, and the White House, and the future of the party depends on it, but I'm far from confident that they'll find the discipline and political will to make it happen.

4/
The Democrats keep squandering their majorities and wasting opportunities to make real change - changes that are must-haves, not nice-to-haves; changes needed to head off existential threats to the nation itself.

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Take the stimulus, which every Republican will vote against, which will only become reality if the Dems use their majority. Why are they bargaining themselves down?

https://t.co/HtdGvvGw5D

6/
Yes, as @sensanders says, the Dems "have the votes" for a larger stimulus, but only if they use it, and everyone understands that they won't - not if it is bold, and reflects the will and priorities of the people, rather than the donor class.

https://t.co/QXDJZyU0Kp

7/
That's because the Democrats - like the Republicans - are a coalition, not a party, but there's a fundamental difference between the two coalitions. The GOP coalition is between finance ghouls, religious maniacs, white nationalists and paranoid latter-day Birchers.

8/
Whereas the Democrats are a coalition between leftists, liberals...and Republicans. The party establishment includes figures whose policies are squarely in the GOP mainstream - if they were on the other side of the aisle, they be "hard liners," not "moderates."

9/
I'm not talking about people like Pelosi who want to reform a system governed by 80 rich old white men by replacing half of them with women and people of color.

I'm talking about Joe Liberman. Dan Lipinski. Michael Bloomberg. Richie Neal.

Monsters.

10/
But while the right has been doing entryism into the Democrats for a generation-plus, there's no reciprocal left-entryism into the GOP.

In states like California where Dems have solid majorities, Republicans join the Democratic party and primaries are the real elections.

11/
It's not even subtle! In NYC, 1.6m independent and GOP voters just switched their party affiliation to Democrat and lifelong Republican hard-liners are running for mayor as Democrats.

https://t.co/DqrLEN2JqE

12/
It's a completely understandable urge. If the real contest over policy is intra-party (whoever wins the primary wins the election), then you'd expect people who care about policy to form a faction in the party, irrespective of whether their politics align with the party.

13/
But it only seems to go one way. When Ontario shifted for the NDP, Bob Rae stood for leader and governed like he was from the Liberal party (which he later joined and spent the rest of his political career in).

14/
Blair and his cohort were Tories who took over the Labour Party. The safest Labour seats are also the most anti-Labour - thinking of my MP, Meg Hillier, who could easily have served as a Thatcher back-bencher.

15/
Why is there no left-entryism into right parties? In part, it's got to be because there's no business-model for it. Lipinski and Lieberman and Ritchie absorb titanic fortunes in corporate money.

There's no comparable source of money for leftists who join the Missouri GOP.

16/
Maybe that's all there is to it: the GOP - the right - stands for the rule of the few over the many, whether that's billionaires, white people, men, Christians, or the US empire.

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The people who support this position have power, which means they have money (power can be converted to money and vice-versa) so they can fund DINOs.

18/
But it's weird to think that a RINO is "a Republican who isn't racist or conspiratorial enough" while a DNO is "a Democrat who supports the unchecked power of wealthy people and multinational corporations."

You know, a Republican.

eof/

More from Cory Doctorow #BLM

Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
If you think "It's not censorship unless the government does it," I want to change your mind.

It's absolutely true that the First Amendment only prohibits government action to suppress speech based on its content, but the First Amendment is not the last word on censorship.

1/


Here are some kinds of private speech-suppression that I think most of us can agree are censorship: when the John Birch Society burned mountains of rock records and novels - or when Tipper Gore's PMRC pressured record stores to drop punk, metal and rap albums.

2/


Or the Comics Code Authority, which signed up all comics publishers and retailers to block comics if they contained anything unfit for small children, which stunted American comics for generations while their European counterparts created entire sophisticated genres.

3/


Or MPAA ratings, in which a secret group of censors (falsely described as frequently rotated, randomly selected parents - really they're long-serving studio insiders) decides whether movies get NC-17 ratings and thus be blocked from nearly every screen in the country.

4/


(You can learn more about this from Kirby Dick's unmissable doc, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," which documents both how the MPAA misleads the public about ratings, and uses them to block LGBTQ
HISTORY
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
20 years on, #BushVGore is back in our discourse - an election stolen by mobs at the polling places, a media blitz, and a Supreme Court at its most antidemocratic and antimajoritarian.

1/


We remember this as an election that the plutes stole, but it's also an election that the Dems gave to them. That's why we're talk about it now. There will be an attempt to steal next month's election. Will we surrender again?

2/

The last surrender led to a war being fought today by the children of the soldiers who were sent into battle on day one. It led to climate inaction, monopolistic concentration, erosions to our right to vote and to our right to protest.

3/

Thanks to that surrender, voter suppression was expanded and reinforced, leading to the election of a fumbling liar who got to appoint more SCOTUS judges in 3.5 years than all Democratic presidents did in the previous quarter


You may be wondering how the Dems surrendered in 2020. For a detailed account of what surrender looks like, read @rsgexp's @jacobin memoir of her time as an @AFLCIO organizer sent to Florida during the
POLITICS
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Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Accountancy is more likely to be mocked than celebrated (or condemned), but accountants, far more than poets, are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

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Though "bean counters" are employed by firms, they are notionally bound by a professional code of ethics every bit as serious as the Hippocratic Oath: "count things honestly." Without an accurate accounting of quantities, you can't make good decisions on quality.

2/

Though accountancy concerns itself with counting things, it is inextricably bound up with the realm of ideas, and accounting conventions (how you account for things) are philosophical matters, not empirical ones.

3/

It's no coincidence that #ModernMonetaryTheory owes more to accountancy than it does to economics. Economic accounts of the economy have an unfortunate tendency to proceed from first principles, creating models based on pure reason, without checking in on the actual world.

4/

For example, neoclassical econ's "homo economicus," the rational value-maximizing actor who populated so many models; or economists' insistence on targeting inflation with interest rates; or treating national "debts" like they were household debts.

5/
HISTORY
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
2018 was almost the year we won the #RightToRepair.

Instead, 2018 turned out to be the year we lost #R2R: 20 bills defeated in 20 state houses, and it was mostly @apple's fault.

1/


Apple has a problem. As CEO Tim Cook warned his investors at the conclusion of his company's repair-killing lobbying spree, Apple's profits depend on people throwing away their devices, not fixing them.

By monopolizing repairs, Apple doesn't just get to gouge you on parts and service - the real action is in pronouncing your device DOA, beyond repair. Then you have to buy another one.

3/

Other companies lobbied hard against R2R: John Deere, GM, and other monopolists backed Apple's play. But Apple wrote the playbook, coming up with risible bullshit like claims that blocking independent repair is essential to protecting

Apple's anti-repair FUD got picked up and amplified by Big Car in 2020, when they spent millions fighting an automotive R2R ballot initiative in Massachusetts, claiming that letting independent mechanics at your car would lead to your actual MURDER.
BUSINESS
Cory Doctorow #BLM
Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Thinking through Mitch McConnell's plea for comity; Further, on Mitch McConnell and comity; Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/1rRmrJa4FK

#Pluralistic

1/


Thinking through Mitch McConnell's plea for comity: A thoughtful analysis.

https://t.co/2T74ykb3Ws

2/


Further, on Mitch McConnell and comity: I thought about it some more.

https://t.co/mTQ225Lr3X

3/


Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets: Even if there's no angels, there's still a path to glory.

https://t.co/x7BaqUQ0hj

4/


#10yrsago Morrow’s Diviner’s Tale is a tight, literary ghost story https://t.co/XFW0AGFwhI

#10yrsago ATM skimmer that doesn’t require any modifications to the ATM
TRADING

More from Trump

President-Elect Catswhiskas
President-Elect Catswh...
@Catswhiskas2
Ok. I began this journey because of Pizz'gat3, deehate cabal, Trump etc. Now it has led to RH- bloodtypes, (of which I am one). This is another rabbit hole, and suddenly close to home. Joining the dots of info I have read so far, other RH- stories and my own history (pt1)

-putting aside all of the theories of Nephilim, reptilians, aliens, etc. I think I was an experiment as a child. I was adopted by a military person and had an extremely traumatic and abusive upbringing. Watching trans videos has made me remember how I was forced to dress (pt2)

in boy clothes as a child. My hair was always cut off short. My sister wore all of the pink clothes, long hair & ribbons. I had the blue, the dungarees, the shit hacked off hair cut, and was given marbles, train sets, and racing cars to play with. I was effectively a tomboy (pt3)

This remained with me through to this day. I am still largely interested in male activities. But I did get ridiculously into pink and all girly things, to the point of now being awake and realising it is childish and mkultra programming. I was sexually and physically abused (pt4)

I also wonder, as I have medical issues and was given meds my whole life and only ever visited military hospitals & medical healthcare in my childhood, what meds was I given? I do have an extremely strong physique for a female. It is often commented on how unnatural it is (pt 5)
GOVERNMENT , TRUMP
Quarantined Life
Quarantined Life
@Real_QL
The December 12th, 2020 - "DC Rallies To Support Trump" (Jericho + Stop the Steal + MAGA million march).

The prelude to the January 6th insurrection.

Thread.
TRUMP , INSURRECTION
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Seth Abramson
Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
(THREAD) Independent journalists have already created a comprehensive list of impeachment trial witnesses who can *confirm* Team Trump helped plan the insurrection. Those witnesses can now be called. This thread lists the proof. Please RETWEET this widely.

(ARTICLE 2)

(ARTICLE 3)

(ARTICLE 4)

(ARTICLE 5)
TRUMP
Ryan Devereaux
Ryan Devereaux
@rdevro
Good to see the paper of record highlighting this important national news story that we’ve been covering at @theintercept for the past eight months.

Going to provide some links and info for those who might be interested in reading more on the topic.

In June, a trove of hacked law enforcement documents was posted online. I went through hundreds of those files to look at how law enforcement was treating antifa/anarchists vs groups on the far right.

Part of the reason I did this was because we had already published reporting showing that the NYPD was using a curfew in response to the George Floyd protests to hand over demonstrators to the FBI for questioning. Antifa was a subject of the interviews.

You can find that original reporting here: https://t.co/7vD7QuNLZP

And in more depth here:

As expected, the analysis of the docs posted online showed extensive law enforcement emphasis on antifa/anarchists even amid detailed evidence of threats and action from far right groups, including the murder of law enforcement
TRUMP
Eric Lipton
Eric Lipton
@EricLiptonNYT
Prison sentence ended: Sholam Weiss, who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering re insurance fraud scheme

Robert Zangrillo, a Miami real estate developer who was charged with conspiring with a college consultant to bribe athletic officials at the University of Southern California to designate his daughter as a recruit to the crew team, received a pardon

William Walters, a wealthy sports gambler convicted in an insider-trading scheme, who paid tens of thousands of dollars to ex-Trump lawyer John Dowd to get him on Trump’s list. Prison sentence ended.

Commuted remaining prison sentence: Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, 66, a major Democratic donor and eye doctor who ran a series of clinics in Florida that fraudulently told Medicare patients that they had eye diseases and then performed medically unnecessary tests and procedure

FULL PARDON Former Uber Executive WHO HAD Pleaded Guilty to Trade Theft: Anthony Levandowski was charged with stealing driverless-car plans when he left Google to form a company, which Uber then acquired.
TRUMP

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I'm going to attempt to chronologically list all of the Marvel characters Stan Lee had a hand in creating. Working with his genius collaborators, Stan and his team produced an insane amount of iconic characters in a roughy ten year period. (Thread)


With his younger brother, writer Larry Lieber, and Jack "the King" Kirby:

Groot

Tales to Astonish #13 (November, 1960)


With writer Lieber, and artist Kirby:

Fin Fang Foom

Strange Tales #89 (October, 1961)


With the King, Stan gives birth to the Marvel Universe:

The Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four #1 (November, 1961)


With Jack Kirby:

Mister Fantastic

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Suhail
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1/ The first 18 months of starting a company is often life or death. I must've made 5 different companies that each failed within 9 mo. 😭 Each time the company failed I figured out what I could do better. Eventually startup #6 got to $40K/mo by month 18. Here’s what I learned...

2/ Stay focused! Ignore things that are a waste of time: meetups & conferences, meetings with no clear agenda, fundraising if you're not fundraising, reading lots of tech media articles, etc. Every week should feel like significant progress in the first year.

3/ Your first 5 hires will be the difference between life or death. Choose carefully. Be picky. Many of the things we do at the company still are a result of those early hires' legacy. Have fun as a tight knit team. It will change & evolve as you get bigger so enjoy this moment.

4/ Growth may be flat for the first 9 months. It's gonna be okay. Almost every company has experienced this: Airbnb had to sell cereal in-between, Slack failed as a gaming company first, Tesla sold only 147 cars after 6 years! You probably won't be an overnight success either.

5/ In the beginning, do customer support yourself. You will learn a lot about why your product sucks. I did 5,000+ support tickets when it was the two of us. Delight customers & fix things fast while you learn. It will help you build an amazing intuition about your customers.
STARTUPS
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WORLD OF SANATAN DHARMA
WORLD OF SANATAN DHARM...
@world_sanatan
EVOLUTION OF CROWNS

The ancient Indian kings called a head crown as a Mukut and it would mostly constitute of a golden ornamental headgear like an oval cap with gems.

Sometimes it would also include a halo circle to show the divinity of the king

1/7


As it was considered that kings were appointment by the gods themselves. Example the kings of mewar considered themselves to be the ‘Diwan of eklingji')

But in most cases very few Mukut with halo effect have been found.

2/7

Samudragupta in the gupta era coin. You can see the helmet like headwear on him.

Till gupta era the solid golden head wear was used in most days of the monarch.

But since the onset of 8th century it reduced in usage and was now used only as a ceremonial headwear.

3/7


Whereas earlier the Maharaja had to wear the mukut whenever his court was in session.

Still mukut was being used prominently for ceremonial activities till recent times.

Maharaj Dahir of Sindh👇

4/7


But as times past the style of headwear also changed.

The kings mostly wore turbans ordained with pearls and gems while rarely anyone wore a true Mukut after 16th century.

Portrait of Sri Krishna Dev Raya👇

5/7
ALL
Shalini Singh Sengar
Shalini Singh Sengar
@Maverickmusafir
Post Independence, Army wanted to select the most experienced Indian commander as Army chief. But Nehru without consulting anyone appointed Gen Rob Lockhart, a senior British Army officer as the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Indian Army.


Most people were shocked to know that Nehru selected a British Man after fighting for independence for over 200 years! Major Gen A A ‘Jick’ Rudra of the Indian Army was completely upset with the decision.


One day Lockhart met Nehru with a strategic plan and proposed many government directive defence policies for the country. He placed it on the table and explained the point to PM Nehru. After a while Lockhart walked out of the room and met AA Jick Rudra,+

Lockhart looked shell shocked and stunned. When asked what happened he said “The PM took one look at my paper and blew his top. Rubbish! Total rubbish! We don’t need a defence plan. Our policy is ahimsa (non-violence). We foresee no military threats. Scrap the army!”

One year after the incident the Kashmir crisis had increased and Gen Lockhart used to exchange ideas with the Gen Douglas Gracey who was commander in chief of Pakistan Army.There were many infiltrations along the border which Lockhart knew and took no action. But Lt Gen Cariappa+
HISTORY
Mike DiCenzo
Mike DiCenzo
@mikedicenzo
"How the Avengers would respond to the Capitol riot" (a thread)

CAPTAIN AMERICA - tells Falcon, "I fought Nazis once before. They're extremely dangerous." They then see the guy scaling the Capitol wall fall into the shrubs. Falcon: "You sure these are the same Nazis?"

IRON MAN - lands by the guy carrying the podium. Says, "Mind if I borrow this?" then tosses it to Hulk, who swings it like a bat at the mob. Guy: "Hey, that's MY podium!" Iron Man: "Actually it's the Speaker's. And technically, it's a lectern." Then punches him through a wall.

BLACK WIDOW - enters hotel room where Jack Dorsey is tied up. Rips duct tape off his mouth. Jack: "I'll do anything you want!" BW: "Disable POTUS's Twitter. NOW!" Jack fumbles with his phone. "Done. Anything else?" BW: "Yeah. Trim your beard for God's sake." *tosses him clippers*

HULK - grabs a selfie stick from one of the guys and beats him over the head with it. Deeming it too small, he grabs another guy's Confederate flag and takes out a whole swath of rioters. He then tosses the flag to Cap, who uses it as a javelin to impale a fleeing Ted Cruz.

HAWKEYE - hears Iron Man in his earpiece say, "Looks like Orange Julius is tweeting from another account." Hawkeye: "On it." He locks in on Trump through the White House window and fires an arrow, knocking the phone out of Trump's hands. Hawkeye: "Damn that felt good."
GOVERNMENT