Oh, my. Former FT Editor @lionelbarber defends bothsideism, impartiality, objectivity and other recent journalistic tradition.

In it, @lionelbarber laments the loss of trust in Walter Cronkite; "newspaper of record." That was trust imagined by the institution & limited to white privilege & power. Now, on the net, we hear people never included in the institution, who never trusted it. See: #BLM, #metoo

Barber quotes @WesleyLowery, which is good, but misses his point: that these institutional notions of objectivity, impartiality, trust were fictions those in power told themselves because they had the power to do so. It was journalism's fatal tautology. 3/

The bothsideism Barber defends was an invention, too, aimed at securing power journalism's hold on its claims of objectivity, &c. Of course, I advocate completeness, fairness, accuracy, openness. But then I advocate judgment. 4/

One irony of the age is that journalists are demanding that platforms make judgments that journalists themselves--like Barber--refuse to make. That is not onesideism. It is a sin of journalistic omission. What do I mean by that? 5/

THREAD on @CletaMitchell, @realDonaldTrump and @FoleyandLardner.

Here is the letter I sent today to the @FoleyandLardner attorneys who graduated from @UVA and/or @UVALaw: 1/

Dear Natalie, Edmund, Nanette, Courtenay, Christopher, Julia, Jasmine, Navid, Heidi, Sarah, Kristine, Gregory, Sarah, Michael, Eric, Nicole, Nicholas, Shane, Frank, Libby, Lori, Christopher, Charles, Kathryn, Joseph, Andrew, David, Sommer, Randolph: 2/

i am writing to each of you as @FoleyandLardner attorneys, and fellow @UVA graduates and members of your respective bar associations, to ask that you address your partner Cleta Mitchell's active involvement in the alarming, undemocratic, and potentially illegal phone call 3/

to Georgia's secretary of state that occurred this weekend. I graduated from the School of Law in 2004, and two of my sisters received their undergraduate degrees from UVA as well (go 'Hoos!) 3/

As we all know, it's impossible to graduate from UVA without deep inculcation in the values of the Honor Code. And, obviously, the ethical requirements of our respective bar associations impose on us the requirements to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. 4/

1) This is how we, all of humanity, move forward unite & focus on a beautiful empowered future together.
Data source is a Navy Super Soldier (Yes like Captain America), the same one who infiltrated ANTIFA & BLM posing as Trump supporter in the Capitol event on 1/6/21 & seized..

1. In honor of Trump’s last full day in office, and what may end up being the big story of the day, here’s a quick #thread on the President’s pardon power — and answers to some of the questions about it that may come up today:

2. Article II, § 2 of the Constitution gives the President the power to “grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

The idea was to provide the executive with a check on (perceived) excesses by the courts.

3. That’s why the pardon power is absolute; it wouldn’t be much of a check on the courts if they had the power to review every pardon. Instead, the remedy for abuses of the power, as Chief Justice — and former President — Taft wrote for #SCOTUS in 1925, is ... impeachment.

4. But which offenses can be pardoned? The widespread consensus is that the President may pardon any federal offense (this includes “local” crimes in federal territories like D.C.) by anyone *else* that has been committed (even if not charged) prior to the granting of the pardon.

5. This *includes* so-called “blanket” pardons, such as the one President Carter issued on his first full day in office for Vietnam-era draft

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.

‼️📺Exclusive Info on Trump & Nukes‼️

🔥Trump has UNCHECKED power to launch a nuclear missile.

🔥He commands it, exchanges codes with one person, and it’s done

🔥READ THE ENTIRE THREAD. IMPORTANT INFORMATION

#25thAmendment
#25thAmendmentNow

This information was given to us on background. This source is a top expert on United States nuclear doctrine and is well known in Washington among elected officials and the military.

We did extensive research on this source and feel 100% confident in the information that was provided.
This is not classified info, but it is not widely known or understood by the press or the public. It is discussed by officials in vague terms and is often misrepresented.

We feel it is important that the public know about this, especially in light of the 25th Amendment discussions. We have distilled the information as best we can from multiple conversations with this source.

President Trump can launch a nuclear strike at any time.

A launch order is considered legal if it comes from the President, his identity is confirmed, and it is part of a pre-approved target package FULL STOP. There are NO FURTHER REQUIREMENTS.

One reason it really is difficult for some to wrap their heads around why it's fine that Trump is banned from Twitter is because "a private company can do what it wants" is an unsatisfying answer. And it really is unsatisfying, but it is also not the actual reason why it's fine.

The reason why it is fine is basic to cybernetics: the most unstable element of any system has the most influence over the system. Not control necessarily, but influence.

Trump is less *stable* in his messaging than Ayatollahs and the Chinese government, leaving aside the object-level horror of messages. He's less restrained than pornbots, and more powerful than a run-of-the-mill death threatener.

He's also the absolute center of world news and attention, every day.

Both the "censorship" and "private companies" crowds are arguing for a static abstraction in the face of a concrete dynamic.

And the concrete dynamic is that Twitter, headquartered and publicly traded in the US, with many employees who are difficult to easily replace, is being made unstable as both a communication venue and a company, by Trump's continued presence on the site.

Trump's border record: A brief, incomplete history w. links and numbers. Thread -->

1) Border wall construction. CBP recently touted over 400 miles of construction. Only 80 miles is actually new wall, but the construction has nonetheless caused great harm to native lands and cultural sites, to the environment, to people whose homes are nearby.

Links:

2) The border has been the site of family separations. Over 5,000 children were separated from their families at the border. The rollout was chaotic, and the trauma, immeasurable.

The administration forced families seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while their cases wound through imm courts. Then the court hearings were suspended. ~60,000 people were placed in this program, in shelters and makeshift camps in Mexico, waiting indefinitely.

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.

This thread is against attempts to 1) downplay the danger of a coup and/or 2) argue that Trump's Twitter ban is actually what we should be worried about. All posts are directly lifted from today's WSWS perspective, linked at the end.

#CoupAttempt

The claims being made by various pseudo-left tendencies that the seriousness of the events in Washington should not be exaggerated, that it is wrong to refer to a coup, are dangerously complacent.

Jacobin magazine, which is affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, argues against “social media posts and liberal magazines of record [that] immediately characterized the rampage as a coup.”

The danger of fascistic violence, Jacobin claims, is minimal because the ruling class supports democracy. It writes: “The takeover of the Capitol has laid bare the lack of backing, both among corporate elites and within state institutions, for far-right authoritarianism. [...]

[...] Capital, it seems, is still committed to liberal democracy, which has served to safeguard its interests throughout American history.” [end of Jacobin quote]

read this as breakfast heated --

the scuzzy history of enabling the tRUmp era


and by 2021

#TrueStory

on the Raiders in the Capitol

On the incitement

📌How the horrific insurrection of Jan 6th started & who was involved.

Nov 6, 2020: Trump-linked figures have boosted #/StopTheSteal Insurrection

Associates of Steve Bannon and top Trump allies have taken leadership roles and stoked

Also on November 5, Bannon started his own "Stop the Steal" Facebook group; he changed the name to "Own Your Vote" the following day. It was not removed by Facebook, but they did later remove several other pages affiliated with

Roger Stone and Steve Bannon have been in full disinformation mode. Stone has appeared on the show of far-right radio commentator Alex Jones to trumpet groundless claims that Biden is trying to steal the election.

Bannon is echoing similar conspiracy theories on his podcast, calling the election "a mass

"Stop the Steal is a highly coordinated partisan political operation intent on bringing together conspiracy theorists, militias, hate groups & Trump supporters to attack the integrity of our

So It Begins Initiated
2,005 views•Mar 17, 2019

Sebastian R L C
3.64K subscribers

Democrats cause chaos, pain and death.
Blame Trump. "Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty"
Inside traitors purged (She) and then (He). (M)
All traitors 1 by 1

Terror caused by Deep State
Trying to destroy the economy
Spreading disease
Attempting to cause war
Aircraft
White van
Bridge
26
HRC and HBO and enablers (Tick Tock)
Lying media and enablers (Tick Tock)
Election fraud will be exposed
Protect the Judge

(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.

Am I glad Trump was impeached again? Not really. I am glad people are catching up with politics - there has been a lot of learning going on - but the future presents some difficulties, and lots of people lack post impeachment, post sedition experience.

[Thread] /2

I see columnists writing with a prophetic eye, tackling the question "What's next?", but they really don't understand what has happened so far. The denials that were registered at the podium by Republicans were BRUTALLY ignorant and irrational.

/3 How do you foresee the future when you deny the past and obscure the present?

Republicans still support Trump. How is that possible?

/4 It is possible only because Republicans have been casting Democrats for years as something less than human. To them, we are all Socialists, Communists, unfair judges, idealistic, and disingenuous. If they let loose of the coattails of Trump, they lose their lifeline.

/5 But it isn't that simple. Republicans embrace their ideology. You don't become a Republican by demonstrating free-thinking independence. You pass the vetting by showing loyalty and your willingness to stand with others rather than stand for others.