Democrats who are gloating, be careful. No one, not even you, can control the mob, yours, or "not yours." The mob is the mob; it's an irrational, unthinking, self-destructive, nihilistic force your party created and nurtured for over 50 years with your collectivist bullshit. 1/

NO one's hands are clean, and your party's least of all. You created Trump too. You pushed him, directed your media pals to push him, they made money with him in the headlines, and were happy to oblige. Did you think of the country, you who claim to be so "patriotic" today? 2/

You destroyed candidates who were decent human beings, enabled the candidacy of Trump for self-serving reasons that backfired, ironically b/c the people you maligned for decades, average un-hyphenated Americans were on to you, and picked the "outsider," character be-damned. 3/

When you touted "democracy," which is nothing but mob-rule, did it occur to you the "mob" might turn on you? Did it occur to you it was unpatriotic to encourage mobs, rather than defend individual liberty FROM them? When you trashed the electoral college, what did you expect? 4/

Democrats are JUST as responsible for yesterday as Donald Trump, and everyone who breached security. You don't get to celebrate mob violence for MONTHS, attack the COTUS as "antiquated" or failing to serve "the people," and then act like yesterday had nothing to do with you. 5/

Tough choice: @GavinNewsom and @JoeBiden speaking at the same time...

Going w/@GavinNewsom budget talk:

"There's no better investment than #teacher preparation."

You have my attention...

2/

Adding funds for Special Ed, Early Childhood and Preschool- "Historic investments".

Of the $13B in deferrals $9.2B will be paid off- if #CaLeg adopts proposal

$2B to support reopening schools for in-person teaching

Go on... #Budget2021
3/

"We're going to be serious about women re-entering the #workforce" $2B action package for equity
Early childhood support (3 & 4 YOs)
#Preschool PreK/K

Schools will also get federal funds $6.7B to help re-open
4/

Now onto #highereducation
No tuition, fee increases
More student aid
Community College support (hooray!)
Open source text books (smart)

5/

If you want to know what the Trump administration has been about, then read this list of ‘midnight regulations’ that they’re trying to implement in their final days in office. I’ll post a few of them below.

The Trump administration is expected to move forward plans to make families of noncitizen immigrants ineligible for subsidized housing.

The Trump administration is expected to move forward plans to increase the speed at which chickens may be slaughtered by putting workers at higher risk of amputations.

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to allow 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds to operate long haul trucks even though those age groups are generally much more likely to have accidents.

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans allow federally subsidized homeless shelters to exclude transgender people.

My take on 2024 election
(Just an opinion)

Why do I have the feeling that Donald Trump’s job was to secure the integrity of our elections.

I want to try to build on the excellent points made by @dpcassidyC3, @DavidAFrench, @Peter_Wehner & others about the need to disentangle the white, evangelical church from far right wing politics and its contribution to the insurrection.

I want to consider practical steps. 1/21

But first, a defense. Why the need to do this? And why address this, but not, say the BLM protests?

Because many of us are adjacent to these types of right wing Christians. These are our folk.

We may not have them in our congregations, but we know them. 2/

I don't know anyone in Antifa. I don't know anyone who lit buildings on fire this summer.

Of course arson is wrong, but my primary job is to care for our folk, not call out the sins of others (see I Cor 5:9-12). 3/

And we know the kinds of folks who went to the MAGA rally on Jan. 6th. If they are not in our churches, they are adjacent to our churches. Folks who promoted the patently false narratives about the election. 4/

They covered over the president's abuse of democratic norms and the rule of law. They chose to ignore many warning signs, going all the way back to 2015. 5/

We're live, talking about the Georgia Senate election results and more with @AmandaBecker, @AndraGillespie and @beckerdavidj.

@AndraGillespie @beckerdavidj "Ossoff did a little worse than Warnock in many counties, and it just seems Warnock picked up a few more votes ... it's really granular," and it will be a while before we can tell why there's a difference, says @AndraGillespie.

@AndraGillespie @beckerdavidj "I don't see how [Trump saying votes don't matter] is a message that will energize your voters to get out there and vote, and I think that hurt Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue," says Amanda

@AndraGillespie @beckerdavidj "We could do a story on voter fraud, but it would be a very short story. It has been investigated extensively... and evidence of voter fraud is very close to zero," says @beckerdavidj.

@AndraGillespie @beckerdavidj Gabriel Sterling, a top Republican GA elections administrator, told CNN that the loss will "fall squarely on the shoulders of President Trump and his actions since Nov. 3rd … When you tell people their vote doesn’t count, they believe that."

Trump MUST attend #Biden Inauguration: A Thread

There are rumors swirling that Donald #Trump, the outgoing US President, will not attend the inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden & Vice President-Elect #KamalaHarris.

1/

I pray these rumors are false.

Yes, we all know Trump lost by more than 6,000,000 votes and 4%. Despite his legal vomiting and protests to the contrary, he knows it as well.

2/

We know that Trump is a malignant narcissist who cannot face defeat.

And we know that his presidency was never about serving nor leading the American people, but to enrich himself, his children, his cronies, and his sycophants.

3/

Trump is likely the sorest loser in the history of the presidency.

All this is true.

And.

Trump MUST attend the BidenHarris inauguration. Why?

4/

I. American democracy is a covenant of trust and respect. Our institutions are strong because we the people give them power. Trump’s absence would be a violation of that trust. Every Republican official MUST call upon Trump to attend.

5/

I tolerated Obama for 8 years & kept quiet.
Here's my issue with the “let us all be a UNITED States again” that we heard from the crime family syndicate of @JoeBiden. For the last 4+ years, you Dems have gone scorched earth; you salted the fields and now you want to grow crops.

The problem for you Democrats is that 72+ million of us have memories longer than a hamster.

We remember the women’s march (vagina hats and all) the day after inauguration.

We remember the 4 years of attacks and impeachments.

We remember “not our president” & the “Resistance"

We remember Maxie Walters telling followers to harass us in restaurants.

We remember the President's spokesperson being kicked out of a restaurant.

We remember hundreds of Trump supporters physically attacked.

We remember Trump supporters getting Doxed, and fired from jobs.

We remember riots, and looting.

We remember “a comedian” holding up the President’s severed head.

We remember a play in Central park paid for with public funding, showing the killing of President Trump.

We remember Robert de Niro yelling “F" Trump” at the Tony’s and getting a standing ovation.

We remember Nancy Pelosi tearing up the State of the Union Address.

We remember the total "in the tank" move to the left towards Socialism of the mainstream media and social media.

“Unity” cannot mean that Democrats agree not to hold anyone responsible for what happened last week and over the last four years and Republicans agree to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing.

I mean it can and Republicans would certainly prefer that it did, but that path just brings us right back here.

Pretty cynical effort by Trumpists to turn criticism of Trump and other Republican leaders whose lies incited the crowd into an attack on all 75 million who voted for him.

Good plan for avoiding accountability; bad plan for avoiding more violence from their supporters.

In my head I've been breaking down the people involved with Wednesday's events into sevenish groups. Each group had a different level of engagement, perhaps understood what was happening differently, and requires a different level of social and legal sanction.

1. Protesters

They were lied to, they came, they protested, they never got near the Capitol, they left.

Protected First Amendment activity, they shouldn't feel proud that they participated but not much to be done here.

Republican List challenging Electoral College results:
Rep. Brian Babin
Rep. Andy Biggs
Rep.-elect Lauren Boebert
Rep. Mo Brooks
Rep. Ted Budd
Rep.-elect Jerry Carl
Rep.-elect Madison Cawthorn
Rep.-elect Andrew Clyde
Rep. Jeff Duncan
Rep. Matt Gaetz

I've a few thoughts about Trump and how we got here, going to be a long thread

I've just finished @Mikel_Jollett excellent book Hollywood Park, can't recommend it highly enough (and his band album etc) In the book he describes growing up with a Narcissistic mother amongst other things.

When he describes how every single thing that happens was through the prism of how it effected her and how it made her feel reminded me of Trump. To start with Trump is deeply disturbed individual, he was brought up as a racist.

He's risen to power by the use of racism however I don't think that's why he's become what he is. He's exploited institutional racism to help himself feel better about himself.
I see institutional racism as a result of an exploitation of power.

The fact that some people have a genetic predisposition to higher level of pigmentation in their skin can never be a logical reason for bias. Due to the historical imbalance of power it is exploited to consolidate power and with it riches.