THREAD/ Taliban's messaging/ approach to Biden admin's policy review:
-high-level meetings with top US adversaries
-insists foreign troops will be targeted if not gone by 1 May
-repeats accusations of US non-compliance with deal (and insists a delay in withdrawal would be same).

1/13
I have watched every presidential inauguration that I can remember, since I was a little boy, and long before I ever imagined I would live in America. But I had never watched one the way I watched the inauguration of Joe Biden. #velshi

2/13
I’d never considered the details leading up to an inauguration. I watched this one like a nervous parent, making sure everything went as planned. #velshi

3/13
Thanks to the last four years, everything is different, now. Our demons are on full display, our Union is certifiably imperfect. Our nation is divided. #velshi

4/13
After a year that takes first place in our history for death, destruction, fear and injustice, normalcy is struggling to regain its place. One thing with which we will struggle in this new day for America is the death of shame. #velshi

5/13
In addition to the other norms the former president destroyed, he turned lying - deliberate, casual and often with the force of law - into an art form and, with that, contributed to the death of shame. #velshi

Has there been a moment in modern history where so many people in free societies have believed such damaging lies?
https://t.co/HrZcnJJ61W
1/

It’s easy to point to the US, where nearly 90 per cent of people who voted for Donald Trump believe Joe Biden’s election victory was not legitimate.
2/

But it’s not just the US. In France, a minority of adults are confident that vaccines are safe, which explains why only 40 per cent say they plan to get a Covid-19 shot.
3/

Meanwhile, across the world, substantial minorities believe that the Covid-19 fatality rate has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated”.
4/

How did it come to this? The simplest explanation — to repurpose a phrase from former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers — is: “There are idiots. Look around.”
5/

so ... I saw this and comment @GhostEzra made underneath

NEW: The Biden administration arrived in January to find an exodus of foreign service officers at State, climate scientists gone at Interior and EPA, and workplace safety inspectors at Labor dropped under Trump. @rbravender reports on the path ahead. ($)

Biden is scrambling to make government work cool again, hoping to staff up w/ young idealists who buy into the "build back better" slogan. His admin is looking at ways to rehire some of the many scientists, retired officials, & other experts who hit quit over the last 4 years.

It won't be easy. Some agency veterans who left have moved on from the US government & say they're not interested in coming back. Fights over where to prioritize federal $ will likely mean Biden & Congress have tough choices about which of their pet issues they want to pay for.

And even some government employees who are relieved by the Democratic president's rhetoric about empowering the federal workforce are worried about how another administration after Biden might approach workers.

The gov jobs portal is packed with openings, like a Kansas-based EPA criminal investigator, a diversity & inclusion specialist for the Peace Corps, & a guide at Kings Canyon National Park. It's critical that these jobs are filled across the bureaucracy, per former US officials.

1/13
President Biden signed an executive order phasing out the federal govt's use of privatized prisons. It instructs the Justice dept. NOT to renew contracts with privately-operated prisons; a policy that was first implemented under Obama, then reversed in 2017 by Trump. #velshi

2/13
Private prisons are a stupid, amoral idea. So how did we end up with them in the first place? For starters, the U.S. is the most prolific incarcerator on the planet. That is a fact & it is not new. #velshi

3/13
2018 figures show the U.S. ranks number one when it comes to the total number of incarcerated people. It has roughly 300,000 more people that have been sentenced to prison than China does... which has literally one billion more in population. #velshi

4/13
What about prisoners as a percentage of the population? America for the win, again, with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, a great deal higher than the next country on the list, El Salvador. #velshi

5/13
Our prison system became so overwhelmed, partly due to misguided federal initiatives like The War on Drugs in the 80s and the 1994 Crime Bill, that it was forced to outsource help. #velshi