When I was 25, I worked as a legislative assistant in the Missouri General Assembly.

It was a dream job, honestly.

But that dream dissipated the day the #MoLeg decided to name Rush Limbaugh as an “honorable Missourian” and place his bust in the “Hall of Famous Missourians.”

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It’s cute that people think Hawley’s latest autocratic grab is new.

This guy left DC, moved to MO + from the moment he stepped foot in Boone County he’s violated ethics laws, lied to the public + positioned his pawns in places of power to achieve his endgame—the Presidency.

Every single thing he does is for one singular purpose—power.

He tells lies like most of us breathe. Using photos of him in New Mexico at his in-law’s ranch to make folks think he’s from a Missouri farming family.

Just like he was caught not living in Jefferson City as AG.

Just like he sold his home in Boone County after winning his Senate seat and pretended his entire family lived with his dad in Springfield.

Just like he now says he lives with his sister when really he’s building a million dollar vacation home on the Lake.

This guy doesn’t believe rules apply to him. It’s why he shops for wine in the afternoon when he’s supposed to be working.

It’s why he formed an organization that he later used for his campaign in violation of ethics rules.

It’s why he violates Senate rules so brazenly.

Like when he took official Senate correspondence sent to him from the public and posted it on his personal Twitter.

This guy DGAF, y’all. And he never has.

He lies. He’s hypocritical. He breaks the law. He’s disingenuous.

But it doesn’t matter. He’s climbing that ladder.

I live in a community that never took their Trump signs down.

The kind of place where they hope Trump starts a second government.

I need you to hear me when I say this—these people believe the assault on the Capitol was a great victory for

Early polling after the terrorist attack shows that 45% of Republicans approved of it.

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More alarming is that nearly 70% of Republicans don’t think a terrorist attack at the US Capitol is a threat to democracy.

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And more Republicans would call those who stormed the Capitol “patriots” than “terrorists.”

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For those holding your breath, thinking Trump or Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz will resign—don’t.

There is no incentive for them to do so.

If they manage to stay in power after an attempted coup—they win.

If they are forced out by the “elite Washington establishment”—they win.

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What is happening on the floor of the United States of House of Representatives is tragic.

Tragic because it was preventable. Tragic because most of the Republicans in the House are themselves brainwashed into believing that this is all *just politics.*

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I take no joy in supporting impeachment against the President.

In fact, it pains my soul to know that the Commander in Chief launched an attack on his own people, on the People's House, on democracy.

It is tragic.

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Our checks and balances have failed.

Our institutions of justice have failed.

The only power that has not failed is the power of the American people. We voted and we won.

And that's why Trump attacked it.

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This is an attack on us as a people. It is an attack on those the autocrat cannot control. He has radicalized those who feel disenfranchised and he sent them into the Capitol as his pawns while he watched the attack with glee from afar.

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He was capable of doing this because he has not one or two or even three lieutenants in Congress--but over 150 of them.

Their loyalty to Trump--their thirst for power--their devotion to a political party--and, yes, their fear of exiting the cult--has ruined our country.

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It's funny how so many people who claim to worship "democracy" also dismiss nationalism as selfish xenophobia. Democracy is absolutely meaningless without strong national sovereignty. Under globalism, citizens of any given state have little influence over how they are governed.

Nationalism isn't just mindless tribalism. People are correct to insist their government has a responsibility TO THEM that vastly outweighs any imagined responsibility to foreign governments they have absolutely no influence over, or foreign populations.

We've seen that point taken to absurd extremes by the Left during the Trump administration, with whack-job judges ruling that foreigners have rights that EXCEED those of American citizens, including absolute rights to enter the U.S. and influence its government.

And we're frequently told that some international elite "consensus" completely overrides our ability to make individual decisions - or even to petition our own government, or vote for representatives who disagree with whatever "the world" has supposedly decided.

All of that is the absolute negation of "democracy" in any form, including the dangerous mob rule and majoritarianism that the Left selectively advocates. (Notice they always have a list of things nobody gets to vote on anymore, no matter how strong the majority vote would be.)

Remember: Just because an idea is old doesn't mean it's good.

Knowing whether old ideas are more likely to be good requires understanding whether conditions have changed in important ways.

Horse archery was an amazing method of warfare for over a thousand years...then people invented guns, and suddenly this great idea that had stood the test of time became obsolete.

Then again, when underlying conditions don't change much, tried-and-true approaches are probably better.

"Learning the lessons of history" usually just means assuming ergodicity and stationarity in an informal time-series model...

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So much #FactCheckBait being put out by IT Cell today and so many people biting.

What is #FactCheckBait? Fascists putting out tweets or messages with very obvious rebuttal properties. So non-fascists are distracted by rebutting or fact checking them. And the fascists get more name recognition. What have the top sanghi twitter accounts done other than provoke?

Why are so many sanghi bigot handles famous & well followed on Twitter despite having no notable quality other than getting called out by liberals? Cos that's all it takes. If they can fool liberals into QTing or even screenshot-ing them, they become heroes and then are like

Another example of #FactCheckBait. This sanghi wants you to identify them while pointing out the very obvious flaws in their logic. This sanghi is counting on it to improve their visibility. Don't give them that oxygen. Call them out like this, without IDs, if you must.

As pointed out by @bongopondit, peak #FactCheckBait was Ted Cruz saying rejoining the Paris climate agreement was about appeasing Paris not Pittsburgh. He knows it's BS. He's an evil psychopath but not dumb. He wants you to QT him and distract from his insurrection efforts.

Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal"

It refers to the whole stalking and murder episode as something that led to Rajagopal's "fall" - i.e a story of crime against a woman is turned into a story about the impact of the said crime on its perpetrator, not its victim.

It refers to the stalking victim as a fit antagonist for the protagonist Rajagopal, as Rajagopal's nemesis. But the point is, she set out to be neither. She didn't make him part of her life story. He forcibly, violently disrupted her life.

The podcast ends by telling us how Rajagopal's employees and friends and many others abuse the woman he stalked, for pursuing the case of her husband's murder and bringing Rajagopal to justice. It also tells us that some admire her. And it "asks us to decide" where we stand

I find it disturbing that a story of a powerful man feeling entitled to ruin a woman's life & trying to get away with murder, is turned into a story of HIS "rise, popularity, and fall".

Overall I think Labour will be a bit disappointed with how the ‘relaunch’ has started. Labour have given themselves a mountain to climb anyway through a year of inaction but the speech today lacked coherence, purpose and distinction from the government.

Starmer is (funnily enough) making a lot of the same mistakes Corbyn made in 2019. He is listing a ‘bold’ set of policy proposals that come across as disjointed and lacking connection to Britain’s priorities.

The policies themselves were basically good, I wouldn’t argue against them. But I would cringe whenever Labour came out with spending proposal after spending proposal in 2019 without any rationale or connection to a larger economic strategy. That’s what Starmer did today.

The questions that voters will have about Starmer’s speech are the same ones that voters will have had about Corbyn’s 2019 manifesto: why are these policies your priority, how can we afford them and why aren’t we doing these already?

The first one needs to be answered by diagnosing Britain’s problems and their causes. He doesn’t have to diagnose all of them. For the purpose of today he could have picked three that feed off each other: inequality, stagnant income growth and stagnant productivity.