Be courageous as you can

Hunter of Daily Kos reports a lawsuit has been filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James against the National Rifle Association and its Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre. The lawsuit accuses NRA top officials with fraudulently putting $63 million of NRA funds into their own pockets between 2015-2018.

The suit says LaPierre hired senior officials who would enable him to control the organization, even though these officials didn’t have needed skills. Then they regularly violated NRA bylaws to use favored vendors (such as controlled by LaPierre) and to bill the NRA for extravagant vacations. The suit demands LaPierre be removed, that he repay misused funds, and that the NRA be dissolved.

Yay!



Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, retweeted a thread about preserving freedom when authoritarianism develops. Some of his points:

* Do not obey in advance, don’t try to please the regime without being asked.

* Support the multi-party system and vote while you can.

* Remove signs of hate if you can.

* Be wary of paramilitaries.

* Remember Rosa Parks by setting an example that breaks the spell of the status quo.

* Believe in truth.

* Figure things out for yourself. Delve into long articles. Some of what is on the internet is there to harm you.

* Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.

* Establish a private life. Resolve legal issues. Tyrants seek hooks on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.

* Contribute to good causes.

* Learn from peers in other countries.

* Listen for dangerous words, such as extremism, terrorism, emergency, and exception.

* Be courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny.



Gregg Gonsalves is a professor at the Yale School for Public Health and does research into infectious diseases. He tweeted a thread. He feels there will be a national reckoning soon because of the tens of thousands of preventable deaths. Why are people consenting (sometimes supporting, sometimes acquiescing) to the carnage? Do people feel they have no ability to resist? They aren’t personally under threat, so why collude?

The answer I’ve come up with: They also want mass death. They are also supremacists and the endgame of supremacy is mass death.



Some place in the Bible Jesus says that a person cannot serve two masters. One cannot serve both God and Mammon. The online dictionary defines mammon as a noun:

1. New Testament. riches or material wealth. Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:9,11,13.
2. (often initial capital letter) a personification of riches as an evil spirit or deity.

Dan, who describes himself as a classical philologist, tweeted:

friend of a friend has made a [browser] plugin that replaces all instances of "the economy" with "Lord Mammon," and i think this is vital for getting a christian perspective on the news

Benjamin Franklin posted some tweets I’d like to share. Alas, they’re not in one long thread. So…

One:

Make America Great Again ended up being an eviction on every block, a Waco in every city, a plague death in every family.

Two:

If laws stopped authoritarians from seizing power, there wouldn’t be authoritarianism just like if laws stopped murder from happening, there wouldn’t be any murders. Authoritarianism is the murder of a democracy.

Three:

The people telling you that the election has some sort of divine protection from sabotage are, by and large, dupes or even worse, being paid to lower your guard to help Trump.

Four, on news he’s been blocked by someone who didn’t like his criticism:

Did someone not like it when I pointed out that the idea that the intelligence agencies, who didn't stop Epstein or the 2016 election attack, were waiting 4 years and for 150k+ Americans to die before saving us all with a super secret plan at the last minute is an idiots fiction?

Seriously, explain how the same FBI that protected Epstein for 30 years, the same IC that told Acosta to leave Epstein alone because he "belonged to intel," can be trusted? They can't.

Five:

Don't let the fact that all the people who told you we've been winning were wrong and that Trump is still in power, attempting to sabotage the election and sending federal goons into the cities while the House fails to use all their available tools to oppose ruin your fun.
...
Until you understand that at least a full 25% of resistance content is being pushed by hostile actors who want to deceive you into a false sense of victory, you will never understand what's going on. They make shit up so you don't pay attention, ask questions, or stay alert.