DC Coup Analysis Thread 1/

I am doing my 'first thoughts' review & analysis of the Trump attempt of a Dictatorial Coup of America we just witnessed in DC the past few days. This is the first in a SERIES of THREADS. This looks at 'what happened'. This sets the stage

Thread 6: Brainwashing by Bannon

I mean literally brainwashing. Please see psychological and sociological theories. I mean literally building a cult - that CANNOT FIND THE TRUTH

It is like the Branch Davidians (mass suicide)

Steve Bannon built this cult for Trump

I mean literally brainwashing. MOST OF YOU have relatives or friends who are inside the cult. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot find the truth. They believe in their brainwashing.

PERFECTLY SANE even intelligent people can be brainwashed. It is not 'stupidity'

Yes MANY of the Trump #cult45 are gullible and some are mentally simple, many are lowly educated. BUT plenty of smart, educated, successful people have fallen into the cult - and like any cult - they cannot get out.

They cannot find the truth.

Steve Bannon, with Mercer money, and Putin's KGB brainwashing experts in Europe, built the best brainwashing machine ever designed, called Cambridge Analytica in 2016. They stole user info, and then used Facebook as the broadcast platform to poison nearly half of Americans

Most of the GOP voters were fed brainwashing lies with Steve Bannon / Cambridge Analytica developed activating phrases like Drain The Swap and Deep State. Yes. These were DESIGNED (with the help of KGB brainwashing experts) to poison Republican voters. Anyone who uses those..

Rudy Insurance Thread 1/

America's Vampire, the notorious serial butt-dialer and former attorney, Rudy Colludy once threatened the sitting US President with his 'insurance' files. Giuliani clearly thought Trump fears his evidence. Let's explore this 'tremendous' legal gambit

Rudy Insurance Thread 2/

Yesterday, Friday the retired judge who was acting as 'Special Master' finished reviewing files that FBI took from Giuliani raiding his office last April. Near 28,000 files, text messages, emails, pics, videos & sound files were handed to Fed prosecutors

Rudy Insurance Thread 3/

Like when same Special Master finished reviewing the files FBI took from raid of Trump attorney Michael Cohen's office, we can now expect Rudy Giuliani arrest is imminent

We know he'd committed a slew of crimes, he's even been confessing to many of them

Rudy Insurance Thread 4/

Can Rudy escape prison by bargaining with his notorious 'insurance' file? Ah... that is where this gets interesting

A normal criminal could well perhaps manage to do that. Negotiate a deal, and use the evidence in that bargaining. But not Giuliani

Rudy Insurance Thread 5/

The NORMAL criminal negotiates with prosecutors, telling them in a 'proffer' session what kinds of crimes the perp can confess to, & specifically, who else they can implicate as partners in that crime. It only really works if they can give someone 'big'

If you know me, you know I don't like broadcasting details about my personal life on this website, but I have been getting asked why I'm not doing Christmas this year so I just wanna put this whole mess to bed. First of all, I don't agree with gay marriage... (1 of 4,625)

... full of dog food and she said, "I'm pretending this is ice cream! Treat me like a baby!" and proceeded to hump her own arm and I thought, "something tells me this isn't the real Norah Jones"... (117 of 4,625)

...cost me $7,000. I had to put it on two separate credit cards! It wasn't 'til I got to my car that I realized "that's way too expensive for one onion." But I didn't have time. Amanda Seyfried was begging to change my diaper... (1,001 of 4,625)

...another Christmas miracle. Mistletoe, stockings, sleigh bells, snow! All these things I have put up my ass. The taste of coffee... (2,974 of 4,625)

...I felt a *very* cold finger on my cheek and I turned around and I said, "Grandma?" and she goes, "Surprise, I'm alive and I work at Sears!" I said, "okay"... (3,047 of 4,625)

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years.

There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia).

Summarizing:

1.Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.

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2.Mitigation (slowing transmission) versus elimination (stopping transmission)

3.Gradually responding to increasing levels of infection by imposing greater restrictions which enables the infection rate to grow (red zone strategy), …

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versus starting with high restrictions to arrest transmission and relaxing restrictions only when the number of new cases is so low that contact tracing or localized short term action can stop community transmission (green zone strategy, including localized "fire fighting").

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4.Trying to keep economic activity and travel as open as possible but perpetuating the economic harm and imposing yoyo restrictions, versus making an initial sacrifice of economic activity and travel in order to benefit from the rapid restoration of normal economic activity.

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5.Focusing attention on few individuals resistant to social action because of shortsightedness or selfishness, versus recognizing the vast majority do the right thing if given clear guidance and support, which is what matters for success, as elimination is a robust strategy.

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My dad’s first memory is hiding under a table 80 years ago tonight, when Nazis took his dad to Dachau on #Kristallnacht.

His parents, my Omi and Opi, always considered themselves more German than Jewish, so they didn’t think they’d get swept up in the madness.

Opi was taken to city hall with other Jews and lined up against a wall. He thought he was going to be shot.

He always remembered when they got to Dachau there were pajamas with Jewish stars waiting on their cots. Obviously not a spontaneous thing.

He was very lucky. His family got him a fake Uruguayan visa and he was out of Dachau six weeks later. “Before Christmas,” my dad recalls.

Since a lot of my fellow Texans are going to apply for aid through @FEMA let’s talk about the agency and some of the barriers disaster survivors encounter and persisting program flaws.

First things first, @FEMA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Here’s a blog I wrote about its history and shortcomings in how the agency is funded:

Many people will be applying for Individual Assistance (IA), but past disasters have shown us that help isn’t evenly distributed and frequently struggles to reach those in deepest need. This unpacks some of the class bias in accepted/rejected apps:

Of course, there are racial dimensions to this as well:

Documentation is seen as helping reduce fraud, but after a disaster many docs are destroyed. People who are denied assistance and appeal are often told to make small changes to the documents they provide or provide updated documentation b/c of how long the aid process takes.