This might be a good time for folks to take a deep breath before interpreting election results. We don't know how much of victory was due to Biden's campaign message, Biden's record, Kamala's boost to the ticket, hatred for Trump, Trump errors on the campaign trail...

If the (erroneous) Office of Legal Counsel memo saying president's can't be indicted for crimes while in office had not been written, hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive today.

If Rod Rosenstein had not told Mueller to stay out of investigating Trump's finances and to narrowly define his investigation, the coup attempt would never have taken place.

If Mueller had not gone along with Rosenstein and had followed all of the investigations into Trump's ties to the Russians and his finances, we would not have seen months of attempts to attack and weaken our democracy.

If Mnuchin had not blocked the attempts to release Trump's tax returns and had followed his constitutional responsibilities and the law, millions would not be out of work due to COVID.

If McConnell had fulfilled his Constitutional obligations and had conducted a Senate trial in which evidence was presented and the GOP had not reflexively defended Trump despite all his abuses, millions of US children might not be going hungry now.

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.

I've led a fortunate life, much to be thankful for. I've been to 80 countries. Wherever I went I was thankful I lived in the U.S. where evils like autocracies & theocracies were impossible. Since 2017, we've discovered that's not so. Today's SCOTUS decision underscores that.

If there is anything to be thankful for in it, it is the hope it will serve as a wake-up call to those who do not realize the threats that lie ahead. Recent elections have reminded us how important it is to wrest democracy out of the hands of the donor class that's seized it.

Our recent experiences have also made it painfully clear that our system contains deep imperfections that assure that a minority will have disproportionate power in our Senate, our electoral college and, thanks to the Senate, our courts.

Either we, the majority that elected our next president, will continue our activism & engagement & work to fix what's broken in that system or we will drift further toward the kind of dysfunctionality that has led to so much suffering around the planet.

Our work, in short, has just begun. Removing Trump was an essential step toward preserving our democracy. But it was just one of several such steps. Winning back the Senate, rebalancing the courts, changing our campaign finance and election laws, are all essential.

I'm under no illusions. @JoeBiden and his team will make mistakes. But they will try to do right. And here's what they won't do:
--Betray the country to a sworn enemy
--Try to undermine the international system
--Put children in cages
--Promote white supremacists & racism

--Seek to undermine our democracy
--Work to undermine the rule of law
--Be corrupt
--Commit crimes
--Obstruct justice
--Destroy our environment

--Use force against peaceful protestors
--Embrace dictators and kleptocrats worldwide
--Promote misogyny (and commit rape and sexual abuse)
--Attack or seek to blackmail our allies
--Lie...and lie constantly...lie more than 20,000 times

--Deny science or history
--Let hundreds of thousands die to protect their political fortunes
--Send the nation into the worst economic and public health crisis in a hundred years
--Go AWOL at the moment that crisis is peaking

--Turn their backs on suffering Americans
--Serve the richest Americans at the expense of the poorest
--Promote division and hatred
--Be the worst administration in American history

Pretending that voting for Trump or denying climate change or suggesting the solution to every problem is more guns is a legitimate point of view, worthy of respect is not "how America works." It is how it dies.

People in a free society are entitled to any point of view no matter how obviously wrong or outlandish or destructive provided they do not impose their views on others.

But suggesting that something ignorant or divorced from reality warrants the same kind of treatment in public debate as something based in fact or at least credible is absurd and when done on behalf of a society in public media or academic settings it is self-destructive.

We would not grant media coverage or much bandwidth at all to a group that argued that unicorns exist or that there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Yet views like denying climate change or basing policy decisions on sweeping, obvious lies, are just as unsound.

Somewhere, somehow, judgments must be made. Some behaviors are wrong and must be condemned. Someone must challenge lies and demand facts. Coddling people who embrace idiocies does not help them no matter how loudly they demand to be coddled.

NEW - on @skynews shortly:
Reliable source tells me Withdrawal Deal text contains

- No unilateral exit from backstop

- Large annexe on level playing field

.... after reporting this on @SkyNews I get a call from a different senior source that this is “spot on” and further that the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has not pulled his punches in confirming in legal advice there is “no unilateral exit” from backstop ...

... furthermore I’m told (and this chimes with excellent Times splash this morning re Weyand) that the future partnership then takes its starting point as the activated backstop - ie UK-wide customs union-style arrangement and level playing field.

Understand that a ministerial briefing on the draft Withdrawal Agreement meant to drum up support from some trade organisations due tonight has now been postponed

(THREAD) Pre-election Russia collusion may take down Trump. It's equally possible the Trumps' pre- and post-election collusion with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel will do it—a course of collusion also connected to the Kremlin. I explain here. I hope you'll read on and retweet.

1/ I must stress how unbelievably complex the "Grand Bargain" theory of the Trump-Russia case is—a different thing from saying it's not substantiated. It's substantiated in *almost every single particular*—it just *also* happens to be very confusing. Not byzantine—just confusing.

2/ The basics: Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE all view Iran as their chief regional enemy. Iran is propped up by Russia. Therefore the Saudis, Israelis, and Emiratis all need a US government willing to find a way to get the Kremlin to *stop* supporting Iran in the Middle East.

3/ The best way to get Russia to stop supporting Iran—or reduce support—was/is to drop all sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, as that'd be worth *trillions* to the Kremlin over the next decade. Everyone knew that Clinton wouldn't do this—and that Trump would.

4/ Per the NYT, on August 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met secretly at Trump Tower with a Saudi and Emirati emissary, George Nader, as well as an Israeli intelligence expert, Joel Zamel, with *significant* ties to both Israeli intelligence *and* Russian oligarchs allied with Putin.

Good morning, electoral lunacy followers. Welcome to what I suspect will be the 2020 equivalent of the Orly Taitz litigation: Sidney Powell Sues Everoyen For LAL Of Teh ThInGs

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be a limited number of #Kraken-related threads.

That said, I doubt the number will be limited. I think Sidney Powell is the Orly Taitz of the Biden Administration.

And I doubt I've acquired enough maturity since my younger birther-watching days to ignore these. So, yes, at least for cases with public dockets, I'm here.

We've got two filings so far - a Michigan one (King v Whitmer) that has been filed, and a Georgia one (Pearson v Kemp) that cannot presently be located on PACER.

This may be because there are parallel Quorts not in the system but maybe it just didn't get filed.

Here's how I'm going to deal with that - I'll start livetweeting King (the filed one) in a little bit, after I do some turkey prep. I'll do that in this thread, but probably even slower and more interrupted than usual - so you might just want to bookmark and come back later.

Tonight, if there's interest, I might be both willing and able to stream a read of the (maybe unfiled) GA case on Twitch tonight.

1/12 Plan for today; we expect the #MOMA bill (Ministerial and Other Maternity Allowances) debate to begin around 12.45pm.
It is still not too late to email if you haven't already done so, but Tweeting about this and tagging MPs will raise more awareness on social media.

2/12 We have the names (in speaking order), of all those who are listed to speak. We suggest you Tweet these MPs (especially if you are a constituent) and make your views known. Use the #MOMA hashtag.

3/12 Minister Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North)
Shadow Minister Rachel Reeves (Leeds West)
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North)
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire)
Cherilyn Mackrory (Truro and Falmouth)
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham)

4/12 Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock)
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow)
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke)
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower)
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings)
Wera Hobhouse (Bath)
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland)
Feryal Clark (Enfield North)

5/12 Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West)
Sarah Owen (Luton North)
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham)
Claire Hanna (Belfast South)
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford)
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West)
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside)

ENEMY OF THE STATE: There is a growing concern in Biden's administration that the world's richest African American could pose a huge problem for Biden and Democrats in general. This thread discusses the possible reasons why they fear the mercurial billionaire named Elon Musk.