While @staceyabrams credits me & my wife w/ investing in GA "before it was logical," the signs were there if you knew what to look for. The question now is who's next?

In my latest for @thenation, I point to 4 factors for turning a red state blue. THREAD

1.) Favorable demographic trends

Texas has the second-largest pool of nonvoting people of color (after already blue CA), and the numbers of potential voters of color far exceeds the margin of difference in statewide elections.

Joe Biden lost Texas by ~600k votes, and despite the record turnout on both sides, 4.5 million eligible people of color still did not vote according to exit polls and census data.

2.) "Level 5 Leaders" also known as:

Leaders who combine personal humility with indomitable will and are "infected with an incurable need to produce results" for the cause.

and Brianna Brown are Abrams-like Level 5 leaders who have built a relentless and effective civic engagement machine that has helped tip electoral outcomes in cities and counties across the state.

Re reopening schools, @BorisJohnson & @Keir_Starmer haven't thought this through: they just want too-early reopening 1/

Schools need to be made SAFE b4 reopening & that means more than giving teachers half of a vaccination. 2/

The stats & graphs are clear: Covid cases increased via schools after reopening in September & cases are now increasing in nurseries, left open since Xmas. 3/

Why hurt or kill more people by reopening schools too soon? We need to ensure safety FIRST. 4/

How to make schools SAFE? I’m not an expert but, unlike @BorisJohnson or @Keir_Starmer, I can apply commonsense. Here are my suggestions. 5/

I just saw a thread with people debating teacher’s salaries again.

Are we still doing this? Are we still throwing around this 180 days?

I don’t know one teacher that works 180 days and I know THOUSANDS of teachers. I don’t know one that works 8-3 pm.

Maybe that’s just my network? You can be connected to plenty of orgs and schools and someone will still try to tell me about what educators deserve...

With an anecdote about their Uncle’s cousin’s entrepreneur friend that used to teach.

STOP THIS.

And the educators that tell you...”I take all my days. I take all my summers.”

They dream lessons. They wake up with kids on their minds. They plan without realizing they’re planning.

They get called to professional development WEEKS before school begins.

Professional developments look different at every school. Leaders implement their visions based on need, board directives, survival, and sometimes ego.

I know educators that are painting walls and scrubbing floors during “PD.” I know educators that are internalizing...

Curriculum a mile a minute and are being asked to memorize them. I know educators that are being asked to write instruction from scratch. I know leaders that were told 1 week before school starts that the fire/health/contractor dept. cleared them to be in the building.

Hi Twitter I can't sleep again. I need to ramble and rumble myself into passive aggressively sleeping.
The past 12 years haven't been easy for many but for those of us who are Jews of African descent in America it has been a trial by ordeal.

When Obama was president I remember when 1 of my students expressed a sense of fear of him. Their parents compared him to Hitler, wary of his passionate speeches &ability to arouse the masses. I immediately balked but knew where there was this sentiment there were others.

I lost a friend in Eva when she called him a Muslim born in Kenya. She also splashed a kid in the face with water...a lot...and I was like that's not cool but I also realized that would be my ass if I did that.

A parent I did not know threw a Karen moment at me before I knew what they were for wearing an Obama kippa...I took it off after a mild talking to...and I put it right back on after he won.

Then Trump came on the waves of birtherism. People we thought we knew became more and more hostile, untrustworthy and mean. We saw our community struggle between 2/3 mostly ok with us and 1/3 not. Many of us stopped going to the shuls we always had.

State of this children's home in Lancashire, run by the private company Care 4 Children Residential Services Ltd: this Ofsted report was uploaded today

Firstly, it is a shit hole (excuse the language, but...)

A child's clothes and shoes are taken away to stop him from running away.

The home is short-staffed and in chaos.

Staff take under-age children to buy cigarettes.

A thread on psychology and game theory in raising capital.

Here’s some stuff I’ve learned about how to create a good outcome in a fundraise.

Processes and Plans

I’ve seen people do unstructured fundraising. I hate it.

You see the them just thrashing but never getting anywhere.

Want to play a game well?

Then have a plan. Run it. Modify as needed on the fly.

Artificial Scarcity

Many of the ideas in this thread are from Persuasion by Cialidini.

This is one of them.

By running a tight process with deadlines, you create a situation that plays to the human nature of wanting scarce things even more.

Owning the timeline

If you don’t set a timeline, investors will naturally set you on *their* timeline.

You should set the timeline (as best you can) so you set the rules of the game.

Of course, be reasonable. Listen and adjust the timeline as needed.

Transparency and Trust

Winning trust from an investor is easiest if you hide nothing (post NDA obviously) through the process including due diligence.

There should be no surprises after a term sheet — and be open about your investment’s risks, strengths and weaknesses early.

Over the last few months through pcrclaims, a core group of lawyers, scientists and other experts have been campaigning hard for an end to PCR data inaccuracies. #PCR #PCRGATE #PCRTest

As a team, we have received nearly 1,000 stories of hardship, disappointment and tragedy. And been moved by the many people out there who are really under pressure as a result of Government policies enacted through PCR data.

So what are we doing?

Through our pro bono network or law firms and individual lawyers, we have been collating witness statements relating to personal harms, harms to children and harms to businesses for ongoing judicial reviews.

We have collectively put thousands of hours into researching, making FOI requests, talking and writing to potential claimants, writing legal letters, researching claim options and interviewing claimants and expert witnesses.

Our team behind the scenes receives and reviews filings and judgments from courts around the world - all offer us all some hope for future cases here in England. So why the delay?

The Missouri Democratic Party is holding its quarterly meeting on January 30. I wish I could invite you to it, but the Party is closing the meeting to the public.

I strongly oppose this lack of transparency, and I am exploring every avenue to fight back.

1/

I've been to every meeting since 2016, even those that required me to be on the road at 5 AM so I could make it for an hour and then get back on the campaign trail to ask my fellow Missourians to vote for Democrats. This will be the first one I miss; I'm not allowed to come.

2/

My position - and I believe the position of many of you - has been very clear: We need more, not less, transparency, in our government.

3/

That is especially true for the Missouri Democratic Party, an organization that has a poor reputation in many parts of our state, primarily, as I learned, because people are unfamiliar with what it stands for. At least, that's what I used to be able to say.

4/

I learned about this closed meeting while I was preparing to protect government transparency at the Missouri Supreme Court. I thought the Missouri Democratic Party supported that given how quickly the Party capitalized off of my work, often without attribution.

5/

.@GavinNewsom has made lots of showy announcements, vowing California would lead a smooth, equitable vaccine distribution plan across the state's 58 counties. He has propped up his administration as a leader & sought to reassure the public that he can handle it. Some comments:

Oct. 19: "We have long been in the vaccination business. Our experience with mass vaccinations makes us a unique partner with the CDC and DOD, based on the scale and scope of the vaccinations that occur on an annual basis here in the state of California."

Nov. 16: “Rather than criticizing the [Trump] administration, rather than lamenting about what could or should be done, we engaged proactively and continue to engage proactively to make sure we have a plan for safe and equitable distribution of the vaccine.”

Dec. 3: “There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are a few months away from truly seeing real progress with the vaccine, real distribution, real accessibility, real availability... You’ll be hearing good news on top of other good news."

Dec. 7: "Hope is on the horizon with a vaccination. We continue to accelerate our planning and preparedness for a safe, and equitable vaccine distribution," Newsom said. "I really believe this-you’re going to start hearing good news, and numbers that continue to significantly..."

Fuck it.

My real pronouns are She / Her

I can't adequately describe how terrifying it is to tweet that as someone who's just moved, been out of work for months, left an abusive relationship and in general has just lived a live on the margins of actual economic survival.

To all my Trans family, I'm sorry it took me this long. To every man that's ever joked about queerness with a hint of violence, I remember you.

Special shout out to @DJDague , @CortanaV, @msyeseniac @TheVTran & @beardswin for their crucial and timely and seemingly effortless support that may have seemed a small gesture to them but were bricks in the support leading up to me coming out to my mom yesterday

Shout out to all the incredible women in my life who have made me felt seen and understood literal decades before I had the language to name the disembodiment I've endured.

Today I am ASHAMED of my people. The BACKBITING, BLATANT THEFT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, APPLAUSE AND SUPPORT GIVEN TO SAID THIEVES, THE CRABS IN THE BARREL MENTALITY AND BEHAVIORS... ALL OF IT!!!!!!! WHEN & WHERE do ETHICS & MORALITY come in? I’m also seeing A LOT OF SELF 1️⃣▶️

HATRED. Because YOU CAN’T love yourself, and LACK INTEGRITY. You CAN’T love yourself, and ALLOW yourselves to be used and swayed by DISINGENUOUS, FRAUDULENT, CALCULATING, MANIPULATIVE, THIEVING people. You WOULDN’T just stand by, or take part in UNSCRUPULOUS behavior. 2️⃣▶️

ESPECIALLY against people who THOUGHT ENOUGH OF YOU AND YOURS, who would CREATE something to BENEFIT YOU AND YOURS at THEIR EXPENSE. What WRONGS YOU are willing to do or allow to be done to others, is a DIRECT REFLECTION of how LITTLE YOU THINK OF YOURSELVES. It DOESN’T 3️⃣▶️

matter if you disagree with those people. It DOESN’T matter if YOU have decided for PERSONAL reasons that YOU no longer want to support or applaud those people. But, RIGHT IS RIGHT...and WRONG IS WRONG. And, YOU have to have enough SELF RESPECT to STAND ON THE SIDE OF RIGHT 4️⃣▶️

and CALL OUT THE WRONG. This is NOT about *liking* people, and joining *cliques*, or clubs. YOUR individual behavior AFFECTS THE ENTIRE COLLECTIVE. The MORE people who VALIDATE, PARTICIPATE, CONTRIBUTE, and PROMOTE the UNPRINCIPLED, IMMORAL, UNETHICAL, CALLOW BEHAVIORS of 5️⃣▶️

If you’ll indulge, a bit of a thread on the 10th anniversary of the Sunday Tribune closing. This morning 10 years ago I was sitting in the Spar on Talbot Street with @pjcunningham1 as we planned a three-week trip to the States. 1/?

It was going to be mega. A bit of NBA, baseball spring training, The Masters. Think we talked about a Nascar race too. It was a classic PJ project – don’t worry about what can’t happen, this will be good, let's do it. 2/?

We’ve laughed about it a good few times since. There we were, planning an outrageously expensive trip completely oblivious to the fact that within a few hours, we’d be struggling to get the receipt for the coffees we were drinking covered on expenses. 3/?

It was kind of apt, too. I worked in the Tribune for 11 years and right up to the last morning of the last day, I found it to be a place where journalists had licence to try things that would be good. Didn’t always make financial sense but that was someone else’s problem. 4/?

Thing was, we always knew it was doomed. We always knew it wasn’t making money and that the plug could be pulled at any time. On some level, I always felt that gave you a bit more freedom to try things. Which made it a great place to be young and make mistakes. 5/?

I've noticed a kind of tribal individualist that's common online. They move in mobs, make nearly identical objections, claim not be a group or believe in groups, and are extremely hostile to the identities of others.

They've also been REALLY BAD for online scientific discourse.

Many people believe in individualism so strongly that they seem incapable of perceiving anything to do with groups. They don't understand sociology as a category of knowledge or social problems as anything more than a collection of the unique challenges of individuals.

Many individualists don't believe in sociology. They see it as a false science. Since groups don't exist for them, only individuals, they don't think sociological can exist either. After all, how can one scientifically study groups when groups aren't real?

Many individualists don't understand public health. Inherent in the idea of public health is the idea that you personally might have to sacrifice for the well-being of others. That doesn't sit well with them so they reject public health as a false ideal.

Since many individualists claim not to be part of groups, they often substitute group identity with pledges of allegiance to ideas. They might say "I believe in logic and reason". They will say this even when they've long since abandoned logic and reason.

@MarkYoungTruth @chuckwoolery 1) What would you say if a BLM/ANTIFA activist (attached) was paying people in 2020 during BLM/ANTIFA "protests", I mean riots. Could that same man have been at the Capitol helping plan the fake MAGA people (attached)?