BREAKING: @BorisJohnson confirms National Lockdown in England until mid Feb.

-Key message: Stay At Home.

Ok, it's high time to look at the REAL effects of Brexit. As the Tories implode & Labour sits on its hands, companies are executing contingency plans, shifting jobs & assets, slashing investments, or redomiciling (accounting exercise). Happening NOW, not in a fantasy future. 1/95

Barden Corporation is closing down its Plymouth factory after 51 years, putting 400 jobs at risk, as its parent company Schaeffler shifts production to various sites outside the UK due to Brexit.

8 health providers have warned of medicine shortages in the event of a no-deal Brexit: "we do not believe that the current medicine supply plans will suffice, and we will have widespread shortages if we do not respond urgently."

Pfizer - $100 million on Brexit prep: "Pfizer’s preparations are well advanced to make the changes necessary to meet EU legal requirements after the U.K. is no longer a member state, especially in the regulatory, manufacturing and supply chain areas."

The Government has spent £4.2 billion pounds on Brexit preparations (£2.2 billion in previous Budgets, plus an additional £2 billion in the most recent Budget.)

(THREAD) The Whitaker scandal is deepening, as it becomes clear that Sessions' Russia recusal was a coordinated sham and his firing an act of obstruction—and that his replacement is a White House plant inside the Mueller probe. I hope you'll retweet and read on for more details.

1/ From 2014-17 Whitaker worked for World Patent Marketing—which during his tenure defrauded consumers out of $26 million and was successfully prosecuted by the feds. His involvement in the scam confirmed he had loose morals and that the feds would never want to employ him again.

2/ Despite the seeming impossibility of a man with Whitaker's background getting a job at Justice ever again—he'd been found to have used his former title as a US attorney to fraudulently threaten consumers with valid complaints with criminal penalties—Whitaker found an opening.

3/ Within 60 days of parachuting out of World Patent Marketing as it was being fined $26 million by the feds, Whitaker was working for CNN and telling a fellow attorney panelist that his purpose in working for CNN was to get noticed by one man—Donald Trump—and thereby get a job.

4/ Whitaker spent his time at CNN making ludicrous statements about the Mueller probe: there was no obstruction or collusion, he said; Mueller had no authority to look into any aspect of Trump's finances or to subpoena him, he said. All the while, he hoped Trump was watching him.

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)

The Republican Party is an authoritarian power structure.

For decades, it embraced greedy nihilists in order to win elections.

In the last 10+ years, a well-funded insurgency has infiltrated and captured it.

They are now threatening & purging any remaining opposition.

We can’t address the threat they pose to democracy without addressing the methods by which they maintain popular support.

This requires action across multiple fronts.

In terms of public policy, we are working on the right things:

-Bills to eliminate the GOP’s counter-majorian control (voting security, eliminating vote suppression)

-Exposing dark money networks who are funding them (forcing transparency for anonymous shell companies)

-Addressing the immediate socio-economic pain that places people in anxiety-laden debt traps, makes them feel isolated, and makes them ripe targets for disinformation/authoritarian messaging appeals (fighting Covid with a plan, financial relief, genuinely empathetic leadership)

Biden and the Dem Congress are working on all of these things already.

This is moving us in the right direction, and shows that they get what needs to be done here. This is good.

There are three areas that still concern me, that I have been trying to call attention to...