A thread…

Thank you to @rmneiss for letting us play with the “Official Statement”generator yesterday. His @realpresssecbot was one of the primary inspirations for this account, so this is kind of a perfect bookend.

I started @TrumpEmail because I couldn't believe the tenor of the vitriol and the brazenness of the lies when Trump emails unexpectedly started showing up in my inbox. I was surprised nobody else was already putting these into the public record and took it on as a pet project.

3️⃣,6️⃣6️⃣6️⃣ emails later, it is safe to say I did NOT know what I was getting myself into.

But I’m glad I stuck with it. This felt important; a sitting president raising money in this fashion with these tactics needed a light shined on it.

While Ted Cruz incites sedition over election results in swing states Trump lost, Cruz's own state of Texas doesn't pass a smell test.

Do we just accept their election results without question?

A TX county who's actually SUING Trump also voted for him for the 1st time ever?🤔👇

Zapata County TX is 95% Hispanic/Latino

In Feb 2020 County Commissioners voted 5-0 to deny entry to US Customs & Border Protection

Then the County actually SUED Trumps WH claiming the building of the wall was a racist assault on residents

But Trump had a record breaking win?🤔

Since 1920 Zapata County hadn't voted for a Republican President
In 2016 Clinton trounced Trump winning 2-1
Yet in 2020 Trump flipped a 33-pt loss
into a 5-pt win?

We should accept this without question?

Especially considering that in 2020 Dems won EVERY OTHER RACE in Zapata

Zapata County had 725 new voters

2016 Votes for Prez =3142
2020 Votes for Prez = 3867

Did these new voters all vote for Trump? Could be since Trump got over 1000 new votes

2016 Trump Votes =1029
2020 Trump Votes = 2032

In 2020 Biden got 12% LESS VOTES than Hillary in 2016🤔

When I looked at Kentucky I found a county with more registered voters than age-eligible people. Same in Zapata.

In 2018 they estimated 6,683 people above the age of 18
In 2020 they had 8,257 registered voters

Zapata seems to have 24% MORE registered voters than people over 18?

I've seen a lot of praise for this Kevin Williamson piece on Trump and the GOP. I obviously agree with the "Trump is bad" sentiment, which accounts for its popularity among Never Trumpers. However....

There are a couple massive flaws worth highlighting, because they're characteristic of the poisons that inhabit even many species of anti-Trump conservatism.

The first his Williamson's whitewashing of William F. Buckley's support for white supremacy:

Williamson justifies Buckley's support for disenfranchising blacks on the grounds that Buckley also wanted to disenfranchise "unqualified" whites.

But that was not on the table. What was on the table was measures to equalize voting for blacks and whites. Buckley opposed them.

And while his view "evolved," that means that he gave up on restoring de jure segregation after he lost his fight to preserve it.

His principle didn't change.

THREAD ✖
@M_McCormackMP voted against

A carbon price

A fast transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy

A minerals resource rent tax

A Royal Commission into Violence and Abuse against People with Disability

An NBN (using fibre to the premises)

✖
Assisting the Arts through the coronavirus pandemic

Carbon farming

Community right to say no to nuclear waste disposal sites

Creating a federal Anti-Corruption Commission

Decreasing the private health insurance rebate

Doctor-initiated medical transfers for asylum seekers

✖
Encouraging Australian-based industry

Ending illegal logging

Ending immigration detention on Manus Island

Ending immigration detention on Nauru

Government action on animal & plant extinctions

Increasing Aboriginal land rights

Increasing access to the JobKeeper Payment

✖
Increasing access under Freedom of Information law

Increasing competition in bulk wheat export

Increasing consumer protections

Increasing fishing restrictions

Increasing funding for legal aid

Increasing funding for university education

✖
Increasing funding for vocational education

Increasing government support for dairy industry

Increasing housing affordability

Increasing investment in renewable energy

Increasing marine conservation

Increasing penalties for data breach

Increasing political transparency

Harvard’s Institute of Politics has removed @RepStefanik from its Senior Advisory Committee.

In a letter to other members of the committee, Dean of the Faculty of the Kennedy School Doug Elmendorf writes...

2/ “My request was not about political parties, political ideology, or her choice of candidate for president. Rather, in my assessment, Elise has made public assertions about voter fraud in November’s presidential election that have no basis in evidence,...

3/“... and she has made public statements about court actions related to the election that are incorrect. Moreover, these assertions and statements do not reflect policy disagreements but bear on the foundations of the electoral process..

4/“... through which this country’s leaders are chosen.

“I made this request to Elise mindful of her important contributions to the crucial mission of the Institute of Politics over a long period, beginning with her role as a student leader (she was in the class of 2006)...

5/“... and continuing to her mentoring students and strengthening the IOP’s programming in many ways. I know that we are grateful for her long and committed service.
 
“In my conversation with Elise, she declined to step aside, and I told her that I would therefore remove her...

The NYSBA strongly condemned the violent uprising that occurred at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, orchestrated by individuals bent on subverting the will of the voters by disrupting the certification of the 2020 presidential election

Thankfully, Congress overcame this assault and fulfilled its constitutional responsibility in certifying the Biden-Harris victory. However, we must address the root cause of this abhorrent incident, the blame for which lies first and foremost with President Donald Trump.

But the president did not act alone.

Hours before the angry mob stormed the Capitol walls, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, addressed a crowd of thousands at the White House, reiterating baseless claims of widespread election fraud in the presidential election and the Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.

“If we're wrong, we will be made fools of, but if we're right a lot of them will go to jail,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Let's have trial by combat.”

To understand not only what took place last week in DC, but the response of many Americans and the Republican party to it, it's absolutely essential to understand the role a certain kind of religion plays in US culture and politics. /1 #capitolsiegereligion

This kind of religion is most accentuated in its evangelical iteration, but is to be found in a lot of other sectors of religion in the US since, as Kristin Kobes du Mez shows in her book Jesus and John Wayne, evangelicalism has extended its influence all through US religion. /2

Some key reasons — rooted in a kind of religion that is deeply embedded in US culture and politics — many Americans and Republicans will keep lying boldly about what we can all see on the videos from last Wednesday: /3

a. The kind of religion on full display last week in the DC race riot lives in a world of alternative facts, and is proudly scornful of all information and news sources beyond that world. /4

b. The kind of religion we saw manifesting such malevolence in DC last week is ravenous for enemies. Its raison d'etre is the generation of an endless succession of enemies — the native peoples, "witches," "heretics," Jews, Commies, queers, women, liberals — to be overcome. /5

Truth: and this is going to hurt.

There are some of you who think that if Biden’s administration didn’t address your issue yet- that nothing has been done for black people.

The problem is you refuse to acknowledge black people that are not just like YOU.

How many of you ACTUALLY paid attention to the executive orders issued before you pontificated about how you knew this administration wasn’t going to do shit?

What black folks are you referring to?

You’re not talking about black folks in college.

You’re not talking about black folks who pay rent or own homes and are struggling to pay because of job loss or illness. Are you?

You’re not talking about black folks who live in communities that have poor quality of air due to the former administrations rampant abuses of our climate and rollback of basic climate rights right? Not those black folks?

You’re not talking about black folks who need racial equity in the healthcare system right?

Not those black folks either right?

Press conference starting shortly calling on @DonHarmonIL to let the elected school board bill have a floor vote in the Senate like he promised. We'll live tweet it here.

Labor leaders standing with elected, parents, community orgs and teachers @AFTunion, @J1Ramann, @SigchoFor25, SEIUHC,

of @KOCOmmunity & @J4J_USA: Mayor Lightfoot who said she would be different and support an elected board wants a hybrid that she controls

Brown: The senate president @DonHarmonIL who said he would be different and would stand with labor is refusing to call a bill

Next up Bob Reiter, @chicagolabor: the appointed board just represents the mayor's office. There is no reason why this school district should be different than any other district in IL. Parents need to elect their representatives

"Feel free to copy/paste, I did." ~ @lex31555

Here it is, abridged, and with pictures:

"I have listened to everyone else’s hatred, rhetoric and outright lies for the last four years, so now I am having my say.

THREAD ✔
what @M_McCormackMP voted for

A citizenship test

A combined Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia

A plebiscite on the carbon pricing mechanism

A same-sex marriage plebiscite

An Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)

✔
Emissions reduction fund

Banning mobiles and other devices in immigration detention

Charging postgraduate research students fees

Civil celebrants having the right to refuse to marry same-sex couples

Compensating victims of overseas terrorism since the September 11 attack

✔
Decreasing ABC and SBS funding

Decreasing availability of welfare payments

Deregulating undergraduate university fees

Drug testing welfare recipients

Getting rid of Sunday and public holiday penalty rates

Government administered paid parental leave

✔
Greater control over items brought into immigration detention centres

Increasing eligibility requirements for Australian citizenship

Increasing funding for road infrastructure

Increasing indexation of HECS-HELP debts

Increasing or removing the Government debt limit

✔
Increasing scrutiny of unions

Increasing state and territory environmental approval powers

Increasing cost of humanities

Increasing the initial tax rate for working holiday makers to 19%

Increasing the Medicare Levy to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme

1/ Moderate Republicans are the most important people in the world right now. More comments on the #ElectoralCollegelRiot from a political sociologist.

2/ Right now, we have a severe problem: as long as you can gather up a critical number of primary voters, you can do some very horrible things, like incite a riot that gets 2 police officers killed.

3/ So what can be done? Part of the solution is relatively easy: criminal charges. We need a bright line. Free speech is ok, riots should be met with prison sentences every time.

4/ But part of the solution is much harder. Getting moderate Republican politicians and voters to punish people. They have more power to fix the situation than any other group right now.

5/ We've seen some honorable exceptions, like Corker and Schwarzenegger, and that is promising. But we've seen a suprising level of silence from the groups that are important moderate parts of the GOP coalition.

For those nationally talking about Marjorie Taylor Green, allow me to point something out:

1/10. The claim that Trump won the election is a Big Lie.

2/10. A Big Lie changes reality. To believe it, people must disbelieve their senses, distrust their fellow citizens, and live in a world of faith.

3/10. A Big Lie demands conspiracy thinking, since all who doubt it are seen as traitors.

4/10. A Big Lie undoes a society, since it divides citizens into believers and unbelievers.

5/10. A Big Lie destroys democracy, since people who are convinced that nothing is true but the utterances of their leader ignore voting and its results.

01/11/2021 10:57 AM EST
Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State
Today, the United States is imposing sanctions on seven individuals and four entities that are part of a Russia-linked foreign influence network associated with Andrii Derkach, who was designated on September 10, 2020

Thread-
What do the Dems need to do on a policy front?
cc @speakerpelosi, @joebiden, @senschumer

1. Do or Do not. There is no try. - Yoda

For starters they need to get shit done. No more talking. Make people's lives better immediately.

Some claim there's no difference
1/

between R's and D's. And for some people, it's kinda true. Dems TRY and make the average person's life better and R's stop them, but the net effect is - no difference.

So, for starters Dems must actually do some good things: $2,000 stimulus checks, vaccine deployment,

2/

student loan forgiveness, health care expansion, more $ for education, LGBT protections, environmental reforms etc...

But HOW you might ask?

2. Think like the Turtle.

Dems get all caught up in process and policy and procedure. They think every legislative change needs 3
3/

months of hearing and testimony. Don't get me wrong. That is a good way of coming up with fair and effective public policy. But, it's time to get shit done fast.

McConnell has lobbyists write bills at 3 am and moves them through committee by noon. He can push dozens of

4/

judicial nominees through in an afternoon. Why? Cause he knows it's about just delivering for his constituents. Dems worry about losing marginal seats in the next election...

5/