“Unity” cannot mean that Democrats agree not to hold anyone responsible for what happened last week and over the last four years and Republicans agree to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing.

I mean it can and Republicans would certainly prefer that it did, but that path just brings us right back here.

Pretty cynical effort by Trumpists to turn criticism of Trump and other Republican leaders whose lies incited the crowd into an attack on all 75 million who voted for him.

Good plan for avoiding accountability; bad plan for avoiding more violence from their supporters.

In my head I've been breaking down the people involved with Wednesday's events into sevenish groups. Each group had a different level of engagement, perhaps understood what was happening differently, and requires a different level of social and legal sanction.

1. Protesters

They were lied to, they came, they protested, they never got near the Capitol, they left.

Protected First Amendment activity, they shouldn't feel proud that they participated but not much to be done here.

1. What good has @realDonaldTrump done?
Find yourself not knowing or know others who dont care? Fed up of hearing the same old crap.
*this thread was created by someone else. I thought I'd bookmarked the OP.

Please let me know if anybody knows who! (I saved all images)

A tour of front pages this morning, starting with the Arizona Republic: “AGAIN.” Above the banner: “Donald J. Trump becomes first president in history to be impeached twice, as House charges him with inciting Capitol riot” 1/

LA Times: "TRUMP IMPEACHED FOR A SECOND TIME” 2/

The Washington Post: “Trump impeached again” Subhead 1: “An isolated president has few willing to defend him.” Subhead 2: Senate trial is likely to occur after departure” 3/

Miami Herald: “IMPEACHED AGAIN: House Democrats and 10 Republicans say Trump should be ousted for ‘incitement of insurrection’ but trial is likely to come after he leaves office”

The Times of Gainesville, Ga.: “House votes to impeach Trump: 10 Republicans join in historic 2nd charge over Capitol assault”

Okay, the fatalism and despair on my TL is foolish and silly and exhausting. Sit down and shut up and listen to me for a sec.

One year on: 9 things you need to know about the 2019 General Election

1. The Conservatives won a big majority… despite only increasing their vote share by 1.3% on 2017

2. Smaller parties got crushed – as usual. Nearly 900,000 votes for the Green Party across the UK equated to exactly one Green MP.

In contrast, it took just 25,000 or so votes to elect an SNP MP (thankfully, both parties back proportional representation!)

3. The ERS predicted with 100% accuracy the result in the majority (56%) of England’s seats – 300 of them – before polling day

For the 16 million-plus voters in these seats, it may have felt like there was barely an election happening at all

4. Around 14.5 million voters are unrepresented across the UK (they didn’t pick the one winner in each seat)

That’s a marked contrast to proportional representation, where we'd end one-party-takes-all results at last

THREAD Last night’s vote against delaying the budget deadline means nothing can stop the Knesset dissolving @ midnight. Election on 23.3. I explained in @haaretzcom last month why Netanyahu doesn’t want a March election. Too many factors beyond his

A March election means the campaign will be dominated by 3 events beyond Netanyahu’s control: 1. 3rd wave of covid crashing down on Israel before vaccines have an impact 2. From January 20, a much less friendly administration in the US 3. Early February his bribery trial resumes

Netanyahu’s biggest advantage is that he’s going in to the election serving PM with control over the critical finance and health ministries. Gantz and his B&W ministers will remain in office but have much less power as discredited members of a zombie

Netanyahu’s campaign is going to have 2 themes: Only I could have brought millions of vaccines early to Israel (expect another show when he gets his 2nd jab) and my diplomacy brought peace with Arab states (he’s desperate to visit the UAE during the campaign). No-one else could.

Netanyahu’s biggest problem going in to the election, he won’t have Gantz to kick around any more and brand “weak left” but much more experienced right-wing challengers determined to take him out. Sa’ar, Bennett, Lieberman. Sa’ar tried and failed last

This is what propaganda looks like.

Notice how they all speak the same words at the same time, the cathedral, and how the sheep in your life start repeating them all in chorus.

The dehumanization of groups of people, in the case conservatives, liberals who are *not* social justice Marxists or authoritarians, Christians, Jews, people of color who are conservatives, anyone who voted for Trump, the police & military, etc has already begun.

It began a long time ago actually. Watch some Uri Bezmenov and his discussion of demoralization. But I didn’t notice it until the acceleration in 2016/2017. I had been blind.

We are in the middle of another acceleration of dehumanization and this one is unlike anything we have seen in many many years, though humans have seen it before, many times throughout history.

Dark days ahead. But there is light on the horizon. Things are becoming so dystopian that more are able to see it. Strap in.

They are storming DC!
Trump supporters just tore down some barriers at the Capitol in Washington, DC #StopTheSteal #WashingtonDC

THREAD: What the world wants from John Kerry in 2021

Re-joining the #ParisAgreement isn't enough, say 25 climate ministers and advocates we interviewed from six continents. Deeds before words: Legislating a tough 2030 U.S. emissions reduction legislation is 1st serious step

2) But the world wants the words too, hoping Kerry will be world's climate cheerleader: convincing reluctant and developing country governments (also with $) to set aggressive climate goals, which many pinpoint as including carbon neutrality by 2050.

3) World's moved on from Obama era. Jacob Werksman (the EU’s international climate adviser) warned Obama alums on Biden’s team “they can’t expect to be treated the same way” as four or eight years ago

4) Net-zero emissions by 2050 — once an activist slogan — is now a guiding framework for policy across the G-7. “It is a totally different political and historical moment right now,” Costa Rican minister @AndreaMeza76.

5) @timothydadams, President and CEO of @IIF warned against the U.S. aiming too low at home, creating policy divergence with the rest of the world. He urged the Biden administration to “broadly align with the rapidly evolving global climate policy framework.”

Every one of these Trump election suits is the same gobbledygook garbage barge:

FRAUD!

It coulda happened.

Well, no, we can't prove it.

But just to be safe, best let the gerrymandered legislature give us all the electoral votes!

https://t.co/Z926668H05

They're like SO MAD YOU GUYS that these local officials submitted grant proposals for their own cities and not the whole state. Unlegal!

Would you faint from shock if I told you that the statute which supposedly says ballot drop boxes are "so seriously in violation of the Wisconsin Election Code" doesn't actually mention drop boxes?

Maybe you should sit down.

The Trump campaign has known about the dropboxes since mid-August, but it didn't get around to suing until four weeks after the election?

Let me introduce you to my friend Doctrine O. Laches. We met THE FIRST MONTH OF LAW SCHOOL.

Can the Trump campaign interest you in some wild speculation about evil ballot harvesters taking advantage of illegal drop boxes (they're not illegal) to commit massive vote fraud?

It coulda happened! Like Jesus riding a dinosaur. Were you there???

A thread on the #ElectoralCollege as voting gets underway. This is day that 538 privileged people out of 239 million eligible voters actually get to vote for president and vice president. 1/11

A reminder that "college" is probably the wrong term. That word does not appear in the US Constitution. By design, the full set of electors never actually meets as a group. 2/11

This bizarre and antiquated system violates the fundamental norm of "one person, one vote." States such as mine get showered with attention from the campaigns while most others are ignored. It is well known that voter turnout is higher in the battleground states. 3/11

What is often overlooked is the system also makes elections less secure. An election that turns on a few states is easier for a malicious actor to get a foothold. Hacking a decentralized national system is nearly impossible, but targeting a few states is not. 4/11

The system also fosters partisan disputes. When it all comes down to a few battlegrounds, political parties are incentivized to manipulate election rules, file lawsuits, & generally do all they can to win by small margins. 5/11

1/ Will Republican voter suppression efforts be enough to block the tens of millions of Americans who have discovered that Trump and the Republicans don't give a damn about them >> per https://t.co/dw0Y01pwXG by Thom_Hartmann >>

1) 💥SHORT THREAD - Hard or soft dates❓

8th December 2020 -

The ‘Safe Harbor Provision’ - requires a State to settle its Election disputes within the State and determines it’s Electors six days before the Electoral College members meet in person.

👉

1) @DNI_Ratcliffe and Chris Miller the director of @DeptofDefense with the @realDonaldTrump at the #armyvsnavy game Sat (Dec 12th) and hand delivered the #EO13848 report on election interference.

THREAD: Nevada GOP local party chair spreads conspiracy that President Trump is taking over the country starting January 20th - saying "It's 1776 all over again!"

The Nye County, NV, GOP Chairman has released a letter declaring that President Trump will be president for another four years, and President-elect Joe Biden will not be president.

The letter is not signed, with the message explaining that the “intended audience was our rural membership and they all know me” – however the local party website where the letter is published states that the party chair is Chris Zimmerman.

Zimmerman declares that President Trump is about to govern a newly independent nation – he states the following:

- Zimmerman notes that President Trump never mention Biden’s name in his speech about a new administration coming to power, and does not formally concede. He says the new admin under Trump will include a new VP/new cabinet as “current ones have all made their treason complete.”

Women are the real election mobilizers, look at the percentage of those who vote during Nigerian elections, the data tells it all. Women do not only mobilize, they ensure these voters go out to cast their ballot. We’ve got more @staceyabrams in most Nigerian communities/villages.

Political elites place premium to “market women” votes, I recall how important the “iyaloja” position was/is in Lagos. It is the votes these women pull. When you need mobilizers. You can bank on women but importantly bank on women to also lead in your administration.

Elections show how men dominate politics in Nigeria. Although 47 percent of registered voters are women, according to the electoral commission @inecnigeria, their political representation is limited. That needs to change...

Since 1999, the story behind the elections in Nigeria can be told in numbers and women make up that number, we have continued to observe voter apathy at the ballots but women still show up strong when its time to vote 🗳. These women go underreported but they’ve become the force.

I have seen arguments (not data) suggesting women are “told who to vote for by their husbands” not sure if this is a beer parlor statistics but what I know is, these women are the movers and shakers of electoral processes in Nigeria - pay attention to women mobilizers.They showup