1/10
Three days ago, we saw the putrid runoff of what’s been stoked, distilled & fomented by Trump since the beginning of his term. The riot in service of an attempted coup wasn’t spontaneous. It was planned & encouraged by the President of the United States of America. #velshi

1/13
President Biden signed an executive order phasing out the federal govt's use of privatized prisons. It instructs the Justice dept. NOT to renew contracts with privately-operated prisons; a policy that was first implemented under Obama, then reversed in 2017 by Trump. #velshi

2/13
Private prisons are a stupid, amoral idea. So how did we end up with them in the first place? For starters, the U.S. is the most prolific incarcerator on the planet. That is a fact & it is not new. #velshi

3/13
2018 figures show the U.S. ranks number one when it comes to the total number of incarcerated people. It has roughly 300,000 more people that have been sentenced to prison than China does... which has literally one billion more in population. #velshi

4/13
What about prisoners as a percentage of the population? America for the win, again, with the highest rate of incarceration in the world, a great deal higher than the next country on the list, El Salvador. #velshi

5/13
Our prison system became so overwhelmed, partly due to misguided federal initiatives like The War on Drugs in the 80s and the 1994 Crime Bill, that it was forced to outsource help. #velshi

1/8
Mike Pence is the 48th Vice President, the 2nd highest office in the U.S. executive branch. He’s also the Senate president, with the authority to cast the tie-breaking vote. That’s what made his response to a vital question during this week’s debate so feckless. #velshi

2/8
Just before the debate ended, the moderator reminded Pence that Trump has, several times, refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. She asked, if Joe Biden won the election and Trump refused to leave office, what would he do as VP? #velshi

3/8
In his roughly 2-min. answer, Pence talked about Hillary Clinton, spying, the Mueller report, Trump’s impeachment, mail-in voting & the FBI. One of the only thing Pence didn’t mention was what he would do if Trump refused to accept a peaceful transfer of power. #velshi

4/8
Here's the thing: Mike Pence isn’t about to tell Trump anything he doesn’t want to hear. It’s the basic rule of survival in the Trump orbit. But back in 2016, that is exactly what Pence told “60 Minutes” he WOULD do. #velshi

5/8
Pence said in 2016, “I promise you that when the circumstances arise where I have a difference on policy or on presentation…I would have no hesitation, were I privileged to be vice president, to walk into the president's office, close the door, and share my heart.” #velshi

1/15
By now you have undoubtedly seen the craziness going on in the stock market, with a selection of stocks surging hundreds if not thousands of percent in a matter of days or even hours, along with a whole bunch of financial jargon. So what exactly is going on? #velshi

2/15
One major term you have heard is "shorting" - which is just placing a bet that a stock will go down in price. #velshi

3/15
An investor can make money on this type of gamble by borrowing shares from a broker, w/o initially paying for them, selling them immediately & then later buying the shares at a lower price & returning them to the broker, keeping the difference in price as profit. #velshi

4/15
For example, an investor borrows 1 share of stock XYZ at $200 & sells it. The investor now has $200 at an initial cost of $0. However, the investor stills owes the broker that 1 share. #velshi

5/15
The gamble is that the price of the stock XYZ will go down - let's say to $100 a share. The investor can then buy the 1 share that it owes the broker at that lower $100 price. #velshi

1/11
It may sound counterintuitive to be having a conversation but there are some issues that just don’t have two sides. Nobody is in favor of tornadoes, or cancer, or against pizza – maybe pineapple on pizza, but not pizza itself. #velshi

2/11
There are, in fact, things that we can all agree upon. Unanimously. Or at least within a very VERY small margin of error. What led to the second impeachment of the former president is one of those things that doesn’t have two sides. #velshi

3/11
There are many who claim to be against the 2nd impeachment but, when you examine those claims, they are political, or maybe even constitutional when considering impeaching a president whose no longer in office. #velshi

4/11
On the specifics of what happened on January 6th, there’s no debate. Exactly 2 weeks before we inaugurated a duly elected president – a fact determined not just by 50 secretaries of state but by MORE than 50 courts of law - a violent mob ransacked Congress. #velshi

5/11
The mob attacked the building itself, and then members of the mob went in search of its occupants. A mob that, by admission of many who actually participated, & have since been arrested, was doing what it did because the former President motivated them to do it. #velshi

1/13
On the night of Thursday, May 28th, I was standing in front of a burning liquor store at the corner of E. Lake St. & Minnehaha Ave in Minneapolis. 3 days had passed since the killing of George Floyd by police. #velshi

2/13
I had been at that intersection for 6 hours watching the frustration grow. For 90 seconds, I described the scene, in detail, to my colleague Brian Williams, who was anchoring in New York City. But I was concerned... #velshi

3/13
The impression one might get from watching a police station overcome & of buildings burning was that of riot, or that Minneapolis was burning. But it wasn’t & I wanted to emphasize that the majority of the protestors were peaceful & not participating in any violence. #velshi

4/13
So I took an extra 20 to clarify that. And that 20 seconds is the ONLY part of several days of my reporting that right wing media continues to circulate. #velshi

5/13
An inaccurate blending of the events of those days became a regular laugh line for Donald Trump, who repeatedly told rallygoers some version of this story. That 20 sec. clip of my reporting, without context, made it to the floor of Congress as part of a hearing. #velshi

24 January 20210 #MAGAanalysisisMini

"In the month leading up to the riot, Mr. Trump was devising his own plan: He and a Justice Department official plotted to oust the acting attorney general to try to advance baseless election claims, interviews showed...

What's the "value" offered by international relations scholarship?

What does it mean to think about world events "like an international relations scholar"?

Trump's order to withdrawal 🇺🇸 troops from 🇸🇴 offers a useful

This event could be viewed from a variety of angles, from the "micro-level" on up.

International Relations scholars/analysts can and do use each of the following angles, though not all are strictly speaking taking an "International Relations angle".

Let's explore the angles.

The "country-expert" angle entails discussing the event by laying out the situation within Somalia, providing details on key figures involved and perhaps how the conflict has disrupted Somalia's internal governance and

The "Military/Security analyst" angle involves outlining the details of what US troops presently do in Somalia and how they carry out their mission (including equipment, mission, and tactics).

See this @ChathamHouse report by

The "Area Studies/Regional Expert" angle involves discussing the decision as an event that will impact the Horn of Africa or East Africa more

Ok. I began this journey because of Pizz'gat3, deehate cabal, Trump etc. Now it has led to RH- bloodtypes, (of which I am one). This is another rabbit hole, and suddenly close to home. Joining the dots of info I have read so far, other RH- stories and my own history (pt1)

-putting aside all of the theories of Nephilim, reptilians, aliens, etc. I think I was an experiment as a child. I was adopted by a military person and had an extremely traumatic and abusive upbringing. Watching trans videos has made me remember how I was forced to dress (pt2)

in boy clothes as a child. My hair was always cut off short. My sister wore all of the pink clothes, long hair & ribbons. I had the blue, the dungarees, the shit hacked off hair cut, and was given marbles, train sets, and racing cars to play with. I was effectively a tomboy (pt3)

This remained with me through to this day. I am still largely interested in male activities. But I did get ridiculously into pink and all girly things, to the point of now being awake and realising it is childish and mkultra programming. I was sexually and physically abused (pt4)

I also wonder, as I have medical issues and was given meds my whole life and only ever visited military hospitals & medical healthcare in my childhood, what meds was I given? I do have an extremely strong physique for a female. It is often commented on how unnatural it is (pt 5)

‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years.

This really doesn’t surprise anyone, right? It shouldn’t — most of us have been talking about it on Twitter for at least four years.

“Then, in 1987, Trump visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics.” 2/X

Shortly after, Trump began considering running for POTUS one day.

“For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.” 3/X

I’ve often discussed how Trump was vulnerable to world leaders and intelligence agencies due to the fact that it’s so easy to get inside his bubble — you just have to satiate his ego and his personal sense of grandiosity.

Say nice things and spend money at his properties. 4/X

“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day”

Putin is a master at this. 5/X