I'm back from my hiatus, with a rather unorthodox "Sunday Pages" involving the Matrix, Slacker, Better Call Saul, the 2016 World Series, and the racist origins of the Cubs' 108-year

“Donald Trump is nothing less than a threat to the American way of life. His term in office comprises an existential threat to the republic, the gravest since the Civil War. Not since 1860 has the future of the Union itself been in such doubt.”

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1/ I wrote that in DIRTY RUBLES the spring of 2018. This—right here, right now—is what I was worried about—although I will confess that things have gotten scarier and uglier than I could ever have imagined.

2/ On 1/6, we came within a hair’s breadth of a full-on overthrow of our federal government. This is not hyperbole. Trump & his disciples organized, instigated, and carried out a coordinated attack on the Capitol, for the purpose of subverting democracy. People died.

3/ This is NOT time for business as usual. We have to IMMEDIATELY discard outmoded forms of thinking to get through the next eight days. Hard ball. Here. Now.

4/ Calls for “unity” from Republican collaborators are cynical & hallow. Unite with the United States, or join the Trump insurrection. There is no middle ground. You’re with America, or you’re with Trump. Period.

Trump is a Russian asset, a mob money launderer installed by his mob whoremasters to sow chaos and weaken the US & our allies.

EVERY SINGLE THING HE’S DONE since taking office is to achieve those purposes—that and to enrich himself personally.

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1/ His entire family is part of this. Melania is a fucking crook. Ivanka is a fucking crook. Junior and Gums are fucking crooks. They will all die in prison, except for Kushner, who, if he really *did* trade US intel for money, should be executed for espionage.

2/ Why do you think Trump installs uniquely corrupt & awful people to Cabinet positions? Pruitt, Zinke, Betsy, Rex/Pompeo, Wilbur "Melting Nazi Face" Ross. They are not there to serve us. They are not there to drain the swamp. They are there to BURN THE REPUBLIC DOWN.

3/ Trump steals. He takes taxpayer money—your money and mine—and lines his pockets with it. He exploits his office to make himself richer. This is all he cares about. Why are Republican citizens, you “fiscal conservatives,” not more angry about this? Riddle me THAT, #MAGA.

4/ Matt Whitaker, the human dildo and “acting AG,” was illegally installed to throw a monkey wrench in the Mueller investigation. That’s why they won’t release his financials. He’s fucking bought and sold. He’s going to prison for obstruction.

As we now have an hour-long recording of Donald John Trump going full mobster on a Georgia state official, I thought I'd do a thread highlighting some of my work on the criminality of Trump & his associates.

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1/ We begin with the three-part series written with mob expert @LincolnsBible. Part One discusses how Trump, a second-generation mob money launderer, became a Confidential Informant, thus avoiding

2/ Part Two details how a guy owned by La Cosa Nostra came to be owned by the Russian mafiya. The 80s were boon times for hostile

3/ In the final segment, @LincolnsBible explains why Trump's criminality is not more widely known, and how the IC's commitment to secrecy above all else failed us these last four

4/ If you believe Rudy Giuliani, now the president's private attorney, somehow changed in the years after 9/11, you'll be surprised to learn that he's always been awful, INCLUDING during his "America's Mayor"

Let’s talk about hope & despair.

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Crank this up for the

1/ One of the more memorable—and frightening—lines from “Nineteen Eighty-Four” reads: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” In Orwell’s dystopia, resistance is futile. Big Brother wins, inevitably.

2/ I refuse to believe this applies to the USA in 2021. I won’t have it. I don’t care how much dirty money mobster spy psy-op disinformation data manipulation corporate MAGA Christofascist QAnon Fox News weapons these fuckers have in their arsenal. WE shall prevail. Not them.

3/ Is this second impeachment infuriating? Yes. Are Trump’s lawyers and his GOP lickspittles gaslighting us yet again? Yes. Does that mean that all hope is lost? Hell no.

4/ I’m hearing this w/r/t impeachment: “’Mueller is coming’ didn’t work out so well.” Can we parse that for a minute? Yes, we wanted Mueller to arrest ALL of them, and he didn’t—because he couldn’t. Rosenstein didn’t allow him to follow the money. Barr cockblocked the Report.

Let's do another thread about Kushner/Khashoggi/MbS/Trump.

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1/ Overview
The 30something Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) became heir apparent in 2016. Although he began his regime with a series of modest if widely-publicized reforms, these were designed to disguise his true despotic aims.

2/ Jamal Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist critical of MbS, who portrayed him as the tyrant he is at heart. For this, MbS had Khashoggi brutally murdered.

Jared Kushner is chummy with MbS. Donald Trump is a staunch supporter. Both men have ulterior motives for siding w/MbS.

3/ TIMELINE

April 2017
Charles Kushner, father of Jared Kushner, asks Qatar for a loan to bail out the troubled property at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The Qataris turn him down.

4/
June 2017
Saudi Arabia organizes a blockade of Qatar, a country where the US has a major military base. Kushner leads the extreme minority view in the West Wing to support the blockade. To the consternation of the State Department, Donald Trump praises the move.

@pope_brendictus Every time I see them I think of this video.

Trump's team says they need a special master so they can find the evidence they need to move for the return of his personal property. As convoluted and backwards as that is, what's worse is why they really want a special master, something made clearer today. 1/THREAD

As @MarcACaputo reported, they not only want the special master to review every page the FBI seized, but they also want the special master to give *them* access to all of it too, including an unredacted search warrant affidavit. 2/

To give a prospective defendant a peek at each and every page seized lawfully by the FBI plus the underlying search warrant affidavit -- which contains grand jury information and evidence obtained from *multiple* witnesses -- is bonkers. 3/

And it means that Trump's real strategy is not, as I and others thought, just about delay. If he gets his way on the scope of the special master review and his team's role in it, he'll be able to compromise the investigation long before it could become a prosecution.

President Trump and Queen Elizabeth II were very close. Pray for both families during this time of grieving.

@Talyn777 Props to the Hardee's social media team