BC GOVERNMENT
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Alejandro "Ale" Mayorkas is testifying on Capitol Hill today, as Biden's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security - the 3rd largest federal agency.

It's not his first confirmation hearing -- previously nominated by Obama as Dep Sec in 2013, confirmed in 2014.

 Mayorkas, unlike some Senators in the hearing, has kept his mask on the entire time so far -- delivering his opening statement, and even now as he begins to take questions.
Sen. Portman asking what Mayorkas learned from an investigation into his involvement in investor visa cases while he was Deputy Secretary...
Mayorkas: "I learn each and every day to be better tomorrow than I was today...these weren't the only 3 cases I was involved in, whether they involved the rich or the poor...I became involved to ensure our agency improved each day..."
Mayorkas on leveraging DHS resources to support pandemic response:

-FEMA should to ensure supply chain
-CISA (cyber security) should protect supply chain from cyber attacks and ensure other agencies' work protected

"the reach of the department is significant..."
Sen. Peters: I've often met with resistance my efforts to investigate white supremacist violence and threats...what steps will you take to tackle this persistent and growing threat?
Mayorkas on white supremacist threat:
"the threat of domestic extremism is one of the greatest challenges DHS confronts"

I&A (intel + analysis office) has critical role to play in partnering with state/locals to gather + share info

Mayorkas says wants to further "empower" I&A
Sen. Johnson holds up chart related to border crossings, titled: "Minors and Families"... asking about facilities built by Obama administration to house surge of children crossing border in 2014
Johnson: "you detained individuals correct?"

Mayorkas: correct

Johnson: "There were children separated from their parents correct?"

Mayorkas: When I was Dep Sec, I "explicitly rejected" the policy to separate children from their parents.
Johnson: will a thousand a day be a bad day? pick a number
(referring to border crossings)

Mayorkas: (whose prev boss, Sec. Johnson once said 1,000 crossings was 'bad day'-taxing resources) does not provide a number - says he looks forward to working with cmte in transparent way
Mayorkas as passionate as we've seen him so far - sharing story of getting involved in case of Guatemalan orphan adoptions that were held up, setting up task force to address issues and fix it...says he's kept close photo of child running through airport to meet adoptive family.
Sen. Hassan asks about growth of domestic terrorism - notes that even tho DHS was set up to respond to 9/11 terrorist attack, agency has not reworked resources to respond to evolving threat of white-supremacist and anti-government domestic terrorism.
Mayorkas: "I think we can do a lot better in the distribution of that information [from intel & analysis] to state and local partners"

Hassan: one thing to talk about info-sharing, another thing to coordinate. clearly we need to do better job of it.
2021 problems.

Sen Scott, dialing into Mayorkas' confirmation hearing remotely, having audio issues

"can you hear me now?"

"maybe you can turn up your microphone? or come closer to the computer?"
Sen Scott asking about border wall.

Mayorkas: when I served as Dep Sec, met with Border Patrol...what I heard from them was we need a diverse approach to border security...in some instances, physical barrier, in others boots on the ground, in others tech, air + marine...
Sen Scott: would you tear down parts of the wall? stop the construction?

Mayorkas: Pres-elect Biden has committed to stop construction. Would be my responsibility to see through that. I have not looked at costs/benefits beyond that.
Sen Scott: asks about calls to abolish ICE and abolish border patrol.

Mayorkas: ICE and CBP play critical roles in US govt and I would not abolish them
Mayorkas asked about DACA/TPS protections

Says he looks forward to working towards reform of "broken" immigration system, as laid out in Biden's plans

(reimplementing DACA, strengthening TPS protections, etc)
Mayorkas asked about Anti-Semitism:

"I am profoundly aware" of this growing threat

"My mother lost her paternal grandparents, 7 uncles, by reason of their Jewish faith, in the Holocaust. My mother fled her home, with her parents, because of the Holocaust."
Sen Hawley asks about Biden's plan for path to citizenship.
"concerns about that...do you support mass amnesty, 11 million large number?"

Mayorkas:
Biden has committed to presenting Congress on Day1 with immigration reform bill to fix what we can all agree is broken system...
Mayorkas: Biden has spoken of path to citizenship...I would be privileged to work with Congress to support that path and fix broken system...
Hawley: worried amnesty on that scale will become pull factor? i am concerned.

Mayorkas: i remember bipartisan legislation years ago with path to citizenship...spoke of certain requirements...(those who'd been here for years, had contributed to US, etc)...
Mayorkas:
I dont think severity of push factor can be overstated...

"when loving parents are willing to send their young child alone...because of the acute violence and poverty and fear of persecution...i think we need to address the push factor as gravest threat"
Sen Hawley asks about "MPP" program (remain in mexico Trump program): will you end this?

Mayorkas: Pres-Elect Biden has committed to end program, and I would execute on that should I have privilege of serving as secretary

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George Webb - Investigative Journalist
George Webb - Investig...
@GeorgeW63613375
1. I am in the process of recovering four years of destroyed Twitter posts from my recent hack. Most related to an organization of rogue CIA agents doing election hacking, drug running, and dark weapons trading in a group led by AG Bill Barr. Other have call this the Enterprise.


2. The Enterprise is run Bill Barr himself and organized 800 ex-CIA agents and 300 ex-Soviet KGB Generals into a junta of 1,100 Frank Guistra partners in a sort of law firm of international crime. Iran Contra drug running was the first major operation in 1980. by the Enterprise.


3. Chip Tatum, a CIA pilot, flew Bill Barr, then a CIA attorney for George Bush, to Central America for Iran Contra banking and money laundering operations talks about this extensively in him book about his close friend, Robert Mueller, entitled, "The Mule".


4. A fundamental premise of my work over the last four years is to focus on this core Iran Contra, "Enterprise" group, to follow election hacking, dark weapons trade, drug running, and money laundering. Here are some video notes capture on the web from shows I did in 2016.


5. You can see in these 2016 show notes how my focus was on a USAID funded Serbian election flipping, subversive group called OTPOR. This group received subversion funds for election flipping through KKR, a joint venture of David Petraeus and Henry Kissinger.
GOVERNMENT
Cleveland Documenters
Cleveland Documenters
@cledocumenters
Last week, @CleCityCouncil started reviewing Mayor Frank Jackson’s proposed city budget for 2021. There was robust discussion, and Documenters were there to cover it. Here’s a thread of what we learned last week about the #CLEBudget

First, it helps to know where we are in the budget process. From today through Feb. 24, the council will meet about the General Fund budget. The council will then agree on a budget with their changes (if any); 15 days after doing so, they can vote to make the budget official.


In other words, there’s still time to use your voice! The #refundcleveland tool can help. Create the #CLEBudget you want and send it to your council member. Click “Change the Budget” on the homepage and follow the on-screen instructions from there.

Want to know the budget basics? Our #CLEBudget primer details the timeline, different types of budgets and the funds involved, and defines budget-related terms. It can be a helpful guide during City Council’s discussions.

And don’t forget: all these meetings are livestreamed on City Council’s YouTube channel. They’re slated to start at 9 a.m. every business day from today through the 24th. You can also follow along with #CLEDocumenters live-tweet threads and
GOVERNMENT
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Deepti Gurdasani
Deepti Gurdasani
@dgurdasani1
I've been seeing a lot of discussion around the dosage gaps recommended by government for the Astra/Oxford & Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. My thoughts on the potential benefits & risks of such an approach, and the need for much greater transparency around these decisions. Thread.


The UK govt announced recently that both the Oxford & BioNTech vaccines would be now administered with a gap of between 4-12 weeks (so prioritise administration of first dose, given limited resources).

What is the basis of this?

The basis that's been discussed seems to be that
1) the first dose is likely to confer some degree of protection against disease, so better to roll this out as fast as possible, and
2) that for Oxford/Astra efficacy may be higher when the gap between doses is greater.

I discuss some of the technical details around the Oxford trial below for those interested in these. If you'd just like a summary of this, please skip to the summary tweet titled 'SUMMARY'.

What does published evidence show? The Astra/Oxford data are a bit messy because of protocol changes during the trial. This is because the trial was originally planned as a single dose trial, but a booster dose was added when developers realised that this would likely help.
GOVERNMENT
Andrew Neil
Andrew Neil
@afneil
Spectator thread: Among the Scottish parliament’s many crucial roles, there is none more important than its ability to scrutinise government and hold it to account. The same is true of a free press. Both are at their best when they hold power to account on behalf of the public.

But neither can do this essential duty when crucial documents are withheld during important inquiries. The Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish Gov’s handling of the Alex Salmond affair decided last week that it would not publish crucial submissions, including Mr Salmond’s ....

... apparently because it would contravene reporting restrictions rightly introduced to protect the identity of complainants.
We have published a duly redacted version of Alex Salmond’s account on our website.

We felt that an overly-cautious interpretation of the court order by the committee was frustrating the due process of parliamentary inquiry — and the freedom of the press to publish matters of public interest and importance.

We were aware that the court never intended to obstruct parliamentary or public scrutiny; but because of how the committee had interpreted the issue, we today sought clarification from the High Court in Edinburgh.
GOVERNMENT
Zoe Tillman
Zoe Tillman
@ZoeTillman
A federal judge in DC is holding a detention hearing in the cases of Capitol insurrection defendants Eric Munchel (who was photographed wearing tactical gear and holding a bunch of zip tie handcuffs) and his mother Lisa Eisenhart — the govt is arguing to keep both behind bars


Re: the zip tie handcuffs that Munchel and Eisenhart allegedly picked up inside the Capitol, AUSA Ahmed Baset says they were visible to lots of people passing by at the time but these two not only took them, but did so "with glee"


Baset says it's true that Munchel and Eisenhart aren't charged with physically hurting anyone, the evidence shows they were looking for lawmakers, who had been cleared out. "They should not be given credit for that," Baset argues.

Baset says that Munchel was in touch with the Proud Boys in Tennessee *after* Jan. 6 and talked about how he'd wanted to join their ranks before but didn't know how

Munchel's lawyer Sandra Roland argues that the Tennessee magistrate judge who granted pretrial release to Munchel and Eisenhart got it right in finding that the govt failed to show there were no combination of release conditions that would protect the community
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THREAD:

80 Films with the biggest Plot Twists that will blow your mind.

1. Fight Club


2. Predestination


3. Seven


4. Requiem for a Dream
MOVIES , ALL , LIST OF MOVIES
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Vशुद्धि...
@V_Shuddhi
क्या आप जानते हैं कि क्या है, पितृ पक्ष में कौवे को खाना देने के पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण!

श्राद्ध पक्ष में कौओं का बड़ा ही महत्व है। कहते है कौआ यम का प्रतीक है, यदि आपके हाथों दिया गया भोजन ग्रहण कर ले, तो ऐसा माना जाता है कि पितरों की कृपा आपके ऊपर है और वे आपसे ख़ुश है।


कुछ लोग कहते हैं की व्यक्ति मरकर सबसे पहले कौवे के रूप में जन्म लेता है और उसे खाना खिलाने से वह भोजन पितरों को मिलता है

शायद हम सबने अपने घर के किसी बड़े बुज़ुर्ग, किसी पंडित या ज्योतिषाचार्य से ये सुना होगा। वे अनगिनत किस्से सुनाएंगे, कहेंगे बड़े बुज़ुर्ग कह गए इसीलिए ऐसा करना

शायद ही हमें कोई इसके पीछे का वैज्ञानिक कारण बता सके।

हमारे ऋषि मुनि और पौराणिक काल में रहने वाले लोग मुर्ख नहीं थे! कभी सोचियेगा कौवों को पितृ पक्ष में खिलाई खीर हमारे पूर्वजों तक कैसे पहुंचेगी?

हमारे ऋषि मुनि विद्वान थे, वे जो बात करते या कहते थे उसके पीछे कोई न कोई वैज्ञानिक कारण छुपा होता था।

एक बहुत रोचक तथ्य है पितृ पक्ष, भादो( भाद्रपद) प्रकृति और काक के बीच।

एक बात जो कह सकते कि हम सब ने स्वतः उग आये पीपल या बरगद का पेड़/ पौधा किसी न किसी दीवार, पुरानी

इमारत, पर्वत या अट्टालिकाओं पर ज़रूर देखा होगा। देखा है न?

ज़रा सोचिये पीपल या बरगद की बीज कैसे पहुंचे होंगे वहाँ तक? इनके बीज इतने हल्के भी नहीं होते के हवा उन्हें उड़ाके ले जा सके।
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
It’s underremarked upon that stablecoins accomplish basically all of the original design goals for Bitcoin qua a transactional mechanism (instant free value transfer anywhere), but that nobody cares about this because nobody ever cared about that part of the pitch.

“Why do people care about stablecoins then?”

A mix of “they encourage dollar-denominated liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and discourage withdrawal of the same” and “they’re good for money laundering.”

“But they make value transfer between exchanges much faster!”

This was a solved problem in traditional finance, too, mostly through the extension of credit. (It doesn’t matter how long settlement takes if there is sufficient trust to enable credit.)

The Bitcoin ecosystem is *positively allergic* to credit, so you have to call it a coin for them to accept it. And after you call it a coin they ignore everything the world has learned about credit, like risk management.

“Stablecoins aren’t credit!”

They’re pretty much exactly credit? A tether is a zero-coupon Bitfinex bond with a non-functioning call option. I
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foone
foone
@Foone
So I was talking to @gewt about Job: A Comedy of Justice and I came up with a theory that I think explains why Heinlein's late-period work is so kinda-terrible and why I still enjoy it so much


So Heinlein had always been very interesting in the short parts of his novels, like the little snippets inside chapters. He had a very fun writing style, and wrote some fun dialogue with fun characters, right?>
It probably comes from how much of his early stuff was short fiction

And I think what happened with a lot of his longer works is that he'd just start writing fun bits and hope it would end up going somewhere or having a bigger plot by the end. like eventually he'd figure out where this was going, then go back and rewrite it into a cohesive whole

and I'm sure he had editors that'd help this process. No editor would let you publish something as rambly and changing-gears-every-other-chapter as The Number Of The Beast, for example... unless you were God-King Of Science Fiction 1980s Robert Heinlein.

so basically I think what happened is that by the 80s (when he was in his seventies!!) he lost the drive to go back and rewrite and he was too Untouchable for editors to make him.
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Shaun Russell
Shaun Russell
@_ShaunRussell
"I really want to break into Product Management"

make products.

"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."

Make Products.

"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."

MAKE PRODUCTS.

Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.


There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.

You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.

But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.

And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.

They find their own way.
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