1)
Mark Levin: "The Muslim Brotherhood Has Infiltrated Our Government, It's Called Barack Obama"

(1 of 2) Paul Manafort—a longtime associate of Howard Liebengood Sr.—is an exec at Event Strategies, which planned the 1/6 rally that ended with a breach of security at the Capitol, where Howard Liebengood Jr. worked security (USCP). 2 days later Liebengood Jr. committed suicide.

(2 of 2) I believe this is a coincidence. That said, because I don't think Manafort aiding and abetting a rally that ended in insurrection is coincidence, I have to assume that—out of an abundance of caution—law enforcement will investigate any possible Manafort-Liebengood link.

(PS) It is vital that no one presume connections where there may be none. My point is that as a criminal investigative matter, Manafort will be investigated for any role he had in the Save America March, and Liebengood's suicide would naturally be investigated due to its context.

(PS2) I'm sure there'll be those who say that a Donald Trump event giving tons of money to a company that enriches Paul Manafort at a time when Trump continues to need Manafort to stay quiet and Manafort is having money problems is a mere coincidence.

*That* I do not agree with.

(PS3) By the same token, as a federal criminal investigative matter, when you are about to have numerous investigations into whether security at a government building had been pre-compromised and someone who worked security at that building commits suicide, it gets investigated.

UK Energy White Paper is here.

I'll tweet the key points here👇

1/

Link to press

UK commits to an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 1 January 2021.

Seems like a win for @beisgovuk, as @hmtreasury was known to be keen on a carbon tax

2/

Exploring the RAB model for new nuclear, as per @emilygosden article in @thetimes this

From press release, doesn't look like that many big new measures. Not surprising, as next year we're expecting:
▶️ Heat & Buildings Strat
▶️ Industrial Decarb Strat
▶️ Hydrogen Strat
▶️ Net Zero Strat
▶️ Transport Decarb Plan

And

A couple of hours later, and the White Paper is now here.

Powering Out Net Zero Future.

Details to follow

The crisis in the NHS is overwhelming this week. It has reminded me of conversations I had with my late father on how to manage within the state sector. I think they're worth sharing.

My father worked for the nationalised electricity industry from the late 1940s to late 1980s. He spent much of that time as a fairly senior engineer. He was committed to what he did. He believed electricity supply was a human right. And he sought to delver it.

He left the industry and retired when he realised that privatisation challenged what the believed in. The priority was no longer supply. It was, instead, profit. He had a clear example of the difference this made. It was about emergency management.

In his day the state electricity boards ensured that they had all the capacity they needed to manage emergencies to keep supply going as well as possible, come what may. It meant there was excess capacity. But it wasn't wasted - maintenance and training was done instead.

Privatisation saw that excess as waste, and it went. It was assumed contracts could buy in support when needed. My father believed that was dangerous - because when demand was strongest the most inexperienced people would be put to work on the job.

THREAD: British people are so thick that they will watch the government make exactly the same mistake for a fourth time, and carry on cheering. Ok, yes, you're being lied to in the press. But the opposite of "opening up as quickly" is not "lockdown forever". Here's why: 1/

In fact, opening up as quickly as we can will lead to more lockdowns, and worse restrictions over the course of the next year. Or to put it another way an extra week of lockdown now saves us from an extra month of lockdown in the Summer or Autumn.

How does that work? Right 2/

now the number of infections is declining quite fast. But the number of cases is still quite high. If they are still quite high (or even medium) when we lift restrictions this will lead very quickly to a massive spike in cases, and then we will have to lock down again, 3/

probably for a long time.

Sounds familiar doesn't it. It's exactly what we did in November through to now. First we went into lockdown, then we released it too early (at the beginning of December). As a result, cases spiked. By the end of December there was an enormous wave 4/

of infection, which killed tens of thousands of people. In the first weeks of January the government put in the current lockdown restrictions. They didn't really have a choice: about 80% of the British public supported restrictions. But here's the thing: after six weeks of 5/