https://t.co/4N44Gnm1zn

It's Christmas. Do you think there are 3 wise men or 6 wise men? Or 6 wise men and women? Ever heard of Tuxedo Park, NY? How about the name Harriman?

This is Mary Williamson Harriman. Interesting woman. She donated quite a bit of land and sold other parcels and businesses that now make up unincorporated Tuxedo Park.

One of her sons is Averell Harriman. Served as Secretary of Commerce under Harry S. Truman. Potus and Flotus are standing under Harry S. Truman. He was also JFK's Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and also Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

As a member of "The Wise Men," he helped create bi-partisan foreign policy based on the resistance to Soviet Expansion. The Wise Men were the "hidden architects" behind The Truman Doctrine, The Marshall Plan and Cold War containment.

After Kennedy's assasination, Averell was heavily involved with Vietnam under Johnson and then became affiliated with organizations like the Club of Rome and the CFR. The Skull and Bones Yale Grad went on to form Harriman Brothers and Company with his brother, Roland.

So I was traveling with Mattis in 2017 when Trump made his infamous “fire and fury” comments amid escalation with North Korea over its nuclear program, and obviously talk of a preemptive strike. (Thread)

Mattis looked exhausted and was desperately avoiding engaging in discussion about what Trump had said. He kept insisting that he would “leave the rhetoric up to the President” but you could see that he was trying to hold back a hell of a lot of thoughts.

Staff told me at the time that he wasn’t getting a lot of sleep (he never really did anyway) but that despite his constant insistence that he kept other people up at night, he was having a difficult time sorting a way out of the situation.

Later that year, on another trip with Mattis this time to Asia, I asked him about what he thought of nuclear madman theory. It was my way of trying to get him to engage on what we were seeing from Trump, since he is a student of history, without making him utter Trump’s name.

For those unfamiliar, nuclear madman theory predates Nixon, but he’s closely associated with it as he was working with aids to suggest to the North Vietnamese that he might just be crazy enough to nuke them, and that they should therefore negotiate a settlement.

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General Flynn Special Counsel 302s

"FLYNN introduced TILLERSON to the Transition Team through ROBERT GATES so he took a personal interest in the matter."

If Wednesday was the final act of Donald Trump’s circus, @RepMoBrooks is one of the ringmasters. For weeks now, he has been lying to the public and whipping people into a frenzy that he and crew were going to “stop the steal” Wednesday.

Check his Twitter feed for the last month. Speeches and statements pushing debunked conspiracy theories based on absolutely nothing. Also, promising that they were going to use their power to overturn the election even after his own Republican colleagues said it wasn’t possible.

After spinning this false narrative, stoking this fire and encouraging “Patriots” to show up at the Capitol to fight and “stop the steal”, he then is the first speaker at the rally and says this.

So, @RepMoBrooks, Wednesday was the day the people he charged up, manipulated, and lied to decided to go into the chamber and take names and “kick ass” just as he said. As a result, 5 people are now dead including a LEO that was trying to protect him from the melee he incited.

There are now bullet holes in the Capitol. Windows were busted and offices were vandalized. Bombs were found around the building. Mo’s “Patriots” showed up with guns, Molotov cocktails and zip ties to help him kick ass and “stop the steal”. Blood was shed on the Capitol grounds.

Big week for tech platforms & free speech!

- Twitter & FB banned Trump
- Apple & Google banned Parler
- Amazon kicked Parler off AWS
- Stripe stopped handling payments for Trump campaign

I just wrote a 4,000 word piece on these issues.

Here's a thread with my 10 takeaways...

1. Contrary to what many people have been claiming, no, Big Tech is not more powerful than the government.

The government can tax you, imprison you, and kill you. It can even nationalize private companies.

Tech companies can delete your free account.

2. Trump may be banned from Facebook and Twitter, but he’s still the president of the United States and he has not been silenced.

As @ModeledBehavior reminded us, only 22% of adults use Twitter. (And only 10% are daily active users).

Twitter is not real life.

3. Banning right-wing extremists or those who incite violence is not a slippery slope toward an Orwellian dystopia, and it’s certainly not a civil rights issue (contrary to what @willchamberlain might claim).

Every platform bans some users for speech issues, including Parler.

4. Repealing Section 230 would not solve any of these issues (and might make them worse).

People who claim "this is why we need to repeal 230" are lying to you (or severely misinformed).

Follow experts like @jkosseff & @mmasnick to learn what Section 230 actually says and does.

(1/x) We need to organize to protect each other and fight this while we still have some semblance of freedom. There are police forces across the country with military grade weapons and probably the vast majority are very loyal to Trump,

(2/x) and then the military itself (though I’ve heard mixed things about soldiers’ loyalties to Trump) and national guard. Just like when there’s a BLM protest and the national guard shows up in a day, if there’s a coup, police are *already* everywhere, and then

(3/x) the national guard and military can also be deployed throughout the country within a day. They can also massively ramp up censorship online and increase tracking down and arresting people for their political organizing or news-sharing. All the above, & many very bad things,

(4/x) have of course already *been* happening for the whole course of US history, but that doesn’t negate the fact that living under a dictatorship will be a massive change on a massive scale with violence and repression ramped up even more every way to opposition or even

(5/x) just perceived opposition. This is how dictatorships work. It’s in the history books. I’ve read about it in Chile.

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I am hearing a lot of talk from conservatives that they still believe President Trump has a chance to pull off a miracle win and the big question to ask is why? Why would they even think to believe such a thing? After all of the court cases that have been thrown out,

At the moment, POTUS is sitting on a stack of Trump cards that he's just waiting to unleash...a royal flush!
He has court cases that will go to the Supreme Court and thanks to the Texas case, he's now aware how to file them properly...under article 3 not 2...

Supporting the impeachment of President Trump under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the President is calling for calm.

If there was a time for America’s political leaders to bend a knee and ask for God’s counsel and guidance, it is now. The most important thing for leaders to do in times of crisis is to make things better, not worse.

The process being used in the House to impeach President Trump is an affront to any concept of due process and will further divide the country.

The President, who will be leaving office in less than a week, has committed to an orderly transfer of power, encouraging calm and rejecting violence.

The House impeachment process seeks to legitimize a snap impeachment totally void of due process. No hearings. No witnesses. It is a rushed process that, over time, will become a threat to future presidents.

Text of the Impeachment Resolutionhttps://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2021/01/Articles-of-Impeachment-Incitement-of-Insurrection.pdf

It's very simple & short as it's a little over 3 pages. Article 1 is entitled, "Incitement of Insurrection". It focuses on the Trump rally in front of the WH during the deliberations on the electoral vote count in Congress in which he made false claims about the election.

The resolution next states that Trump "willfully made statements that encouraged—and foreseeably resulted in—imminent lawless action at the Capitol." He incited a riot which resulted in a mob attacking the Capitol and interfering in the process to certify the results.

The resolution brings up the phone call w/Raffensperger to 'find votes' to overturn the GA result to establish a long pattern & practice of Trump attempting to subvert election results. His activities threatened national security & interfered with a peaceful transition of power.

Because Trump represents an enduring threat to national security, the resolution calls for impeachment, trial, removal
from office, and "disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States." That's it.

As usual, so much vying for our attention. But tonight two members of Biden team gave the most detailed interview to date abt incoming Admin’s plans for dealing w asylum, Central American migration, & the southern border. It was more a statement of purpose than an action plan. 1/

There are very encouraging signs and, as expected, some lacunae. A few noteworthy details: (1) The advisors said Biden will “expand legal pathways for migration...allowing people to apply for refugee resettlement & temporary worker and employment-based programs” in the region. 2/

All presidential admins (some MUCH more cynically than others) stress the dangerousness of the overland journey to the US. It obviously *is* dangerous. It’s also true that large #s of those arriving at US border don’t qualify for asylum under strict dictates of US imm law. 3/

All legal/policy/humanitarian experts I consult agree: there need to be *more* ways, not less, to give people a chance both to seek asylum & come to US legally (if not permanently) to work. Regional processing helps w this. Language used by Biden team is good in this regard. 4/

What else is striking abt Biden team’s language from interview? (2) Asylum officers will adjudicate claims. This is on the progressive wish-list. It’s a practical and humane way to give people speedier relief and take pressure off of a beleaguered immigration court system. 5/

Right now, President Trump is on his way to the southern border to tout his record on immigration.

It's one of chaos, cruelty, and illegality. Let's set the record straight

The Trump administration has separated over 5,500 families under its draconian “zero tolerance” policy.

Years later, at least 545 children remain separated from their parents

They have delivered tens of thousands of asylum seekers to danger in Mexico, where @humanrights1st has found 1,314 public records of rape, murder, kidnapping, torture, and assault.

They misused public health authority over the objections of senior experts at the CDC to expel children and asylum seekers to danger.

One expelled Nicaraguan dissident frantically ate his 5-page declaration listing his torturers so that the Nicaraguan police wouldn’t find it.

They imposed an illegal transit ban to deny asylum to hundreds of #refugees, including persecuted pro-democracy advocates, torture survivors, and people targeted due to their sexual or gender identities.