Dear @SecDef :

First, as an African American Navy veteran who is the daughter of one of the first five Black Men to serve as officers on the USS Midway in the 50s, I cannot express how delighted & proud I am of you and yours ascension to the awesome responsibility & authority

of Secretary of the entire Department of Defense and its multiple subordinate entities. Congratulations, Sir. Yours will not be an easy task, but your reputation of being a smart, deeply ethical and formidable leader proceeds you, and will serve you well.

I write to raise very

specific concern I have regarding the radicalization and polarization of our troops by media outlets that have targeted them with propaganda and deception.

As I am sure you know, FoxNews, OANN and Newsmax have been selling white supremacy grievance as a business model for years

and their presence on Military bases, installation and deployed units is almost ubiquitous.

As the events of January 6, and the ongoing investigations that have ensued demonstrate, the poison of those

outlets is infecting and debilitating our troops.

It is killing off their discernment, causing them to encamp on absolute lies & fiction, tearing them apart from their fellow brothers & sisters in arms, and in too many cases, inciting people who swear to defend the

1. This is how our country was being operated prior to the bankruptcy of the Corporation of the United States, and our being returned as a Constitutional Republic under DJT. Biden was fraudulently elected to the defunct Corporation.

Pelosi: "The President of the United States incited this insurrection, this armed rebellion, against our common country. He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love."

Pelosi: "They were domestic terrorists and justice must prevail. But they did not appear out of a vacuum. They were sent here, sent here by the president, with words such as a cry to 'fight like hell.' Words matter. Truth matters. Accountability matters."

who wants to tell him?

"They want to cancel the president" -- Jim Jordan

Rep. McClintock (R) is out here arguing that Trump's speech encouraging a riot was "freedom of speech"

@bbclaurak asks what went wrong. Many things....

1. The government and particularly the PM was complacent in getting into gear as the virus gathered pace in China and Italy.

2. The March lockdown came far too late. A fault that may lie with the govt and the scientists advising; perhaps the latter were incorrectly assuming a lockdown would not be agreed to and so did not recommend it early enough.

3. The first lockdown was arguably too stringent and inefficient, and possibly even too long. IMO it was a reasonable precautionary design. But a case can be made.

4. Test trace isolate was a total disaster. Including the hiccoughs developing the app[s], and the non digital side of the operation. Time spent lockdown, and enjoying low transmission in Summer, was wasted.

NEW. 🚨🚨🚛🇬🇧🙄🚛🚚🚨🚨 clear signs govt is preparing for coming #brexit turbulence - consulting on new fast-track scheme for food lorries returning to Europe /1



The idea is that 300 lorries a day will be granted 'fast track' permits so they can go back EU and replenish supplies...this is because (see below) the gov fears that potential for disruption is "high" /2

The 8-page consultation document notes this is both because of #Brexit but also because of #COVID19 and continued French insistence on checks on all drivers from UK. /3

Lots arriving in Kent without clear tests SO separately Dept for Transport is considering £150 fines for drivers that don't have clean tests before entering Kent - problem, say hauliers, is that this requires communicating with EU-based drivers (85% from EU) /4

The govt is worried that disruptions will risk the kind of panic-buying we saw in early #COVID19 pandemic /5

There were at least two insurrectionist plans that day.

As I’ve written previously, one of the plans was simply to either take Pence hostage or to assassinate him. 1/28

That was the more extreme plot, and it is an interesting question whether and to what extent Trump, Giuliani, some WH aides, and some nationalist insurrection members of Congress knew of the plan and either facilitated it or condoned it. 2/28

But there was another plan, less violent and extreme, but equally seditious, which we know was supported by a number of extremist members of Congress. It was also the plan that Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani publicly espoused. 3/28

That plan was simply to ensure somehow, by force or by intimidation, that the certification of the election by Congress failed or fell short on January 6--the constitutionally mandated date for the final and determinative certification of the election. 4/28

The principal target here was VP MIke Pence. Pence had already announced publicly that he would not throw the election in the way that Trump had demanded because he lacked the statutory and constitutional authority to do so (which was, of course, perfectly true). 5/28

1. Sun. 10 Jan. Simon Parkes Update: https://t.co/8bLsoBcbB2
•Source close to decision making team said “This is not a drill.”
•We expected the announcement next Wed, not last night.

@AlexandraChalup "As MAGA World’s hopes for an election redo have slipped away, an equally improbable idea has begun to percolate among Donald Trump’s most bitterly disappointed followers: secession." 12/21/20 h/t @AlexandraChalup 1/

2/"Texas GOP chair Allen West floated the idea of a new union of 'law-abiding states,' and Texas state Rep. Kyle Biedermann—previously best known for dressing up as “gay Hitler”—pledged to file a bill in Austin to put the question of Texas secession to voters."

"Rep. Randy Weber also posted pro-secession material on his Facebook page, becoming the first official in Washington to advocate for disintegrating the U.S. Trump’s most reliable media supporters have likewise spread the idea nationally." 3/

"Rush Limbaugh, recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this month claimed the country was suddenly 'trending toward secession.'" 4/

"Actual secession in the U.S. remains, for the moment, something outside the realm of feasibility." 5/

Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism

I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.

We're seeing it manifested heavily in the present moment as Trump and his followers are forced to contemplate the loss of the presidency but it's important to realize that losing is the psychic core of the U.S. right.

Trump's repugnant demeanor and prior history of political moderation is what made him so reviled by conservative activists and donors in 2015 but his angry victim complex so deeply resonated with the GOP base that this is why he won the primary.

American conservatism has been obsessed with death and loss since it emerged in the 1940s. The utter humiliation of Herbert Hoover and the rapid growth of federal spending and regulation under FDR was an existential moment for the corporate barons who started the U.S. right.

The rise of explicitly atheist Marxist-Leninism was also immensely triggering of long-time fundamentalist fantasies of persecution and death before the return of Christ. Most Christians don't see John's Apocalypse as a literal text but fundamentalists do.

“Giving prosecutors more authority & leverage to punish those who are despised—white racist fascists, for example—will inevitably result in more poor nonwhite people being prosecuted.” White crime often leads to harsher punishment for Black & Brown

"Even hate crime legislation specifically intended to help prosecute crimes motivated by white supremacy & other forms of bigotry, can have a disparate negative impact on minority groups. In 2019 Black people (roughly 13% of population) were accused of nearly 24% of hate crimes."

"Half-century ago, the Mafia was seen as a pervasive, violent threat. Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO the most sweeping federal criminal law ever enacted. At the time, lawmakers weren’t talking about going after Black groups." Well?

Despite RICO passed in response to predominately white Mafia threats, Black people are now "disproportionately prosecuted under RICO In a 2012 study, approximately 86 percent of federal criminal prosecutions of gangs using the RICO statute have targeted racial minorities." Why?

"[T]he implicit racial biases of prosecutors" is what drives prosecutions of Black people under RICO. "They tend to only see a White gang as a “gang” when it is formally organized while far likelier to apply the label to an informal group of Black friends in a neighborhood."

I've been trying to put this into words for a while now:

I truly think Biden understands the presidency more than perhaps any President since JFK. He is very aware of this moment and his role.

At some point you should stop underestimating him.

Conservatives pretend Biden is senile while others categorize him as just a "Joe from Scranton". Both are very wrong.

Yes, he's got a regular guy persona. But he also lapses into quoting Irish poets, Lincoln, and St. Augustine at the drop of a hat. He's not shy about it.

He's incredibly in-tune with the American Ethos: he knows the role of the Presidency, in both a practical and inspirational role. His idea of the presidency is fundamentally as a transformative role. I've seen nothing to suggest the contrary.

He gets it. He freakin' gets it.

The bar is so low after Trump that a half-assed attempt would clear it easily and look miraculous in comparison.

Nah. Joe's gunning for the record. At some point you have to stop complaining he's complacent when he puts a 1.9T package as priority #1 and signs 30 EOs in 3 days.

I don't think enough has been written about the transformative impact a successful Biden term could actually bring. We're going from an administration who honestly didn't even try to one staffed by experts and experienced veterans.

People will notice the effects.

This is the mind-blistering fact that everyone should be aware of. The government still has *no plan* for ending the pandemic. Or even for ending the lockdown. I knew we had a troupe of clowns in charge, but this is beyond incompetence.
My column.

Taiwan's most recent death from covid-19 was on May 11th last year. It stopped the virus without lockdowns. How? Mostly through its genuinely world-beating test-trace-isolate-and-support system, developed with the help of participatory democracy. Compare, contrast and weep.

See those numbers on the y axis? They are the actual numbers. SEVEN deaths in total from covid-19, in a nation with over twice our population density. This is what competent government looks like.

From the outset, the Taiwanese government built its system on mass popular engagement and active consent. It also understood the central importance of getting TTIS right, part of which means providing a 5-star service for people who have to go into isolation.

Taiwan's approach was the exact opposite of the racist trope with which some people have tried to explain its success: "people in East Asian countries do what they're told, we don't". It actively built public engagement and enthusiasm, while our government centralised everything.

WEDNESDAY 23rd

UK-FRANCE DEAL
-Last night the government announced the deal agreed with France to reopen the border and allow freight to travel through

-The deal is based on mass testing of lorry drivers, 150-200 military personnel are being deployed to give lateral flow tests to hauliers in Kent
-Lorry drivers get their results in 20-30 minutes, they’ll then get a text message, allowing them proceed to France

-It appears Macron backed down on a demand to make the lorry drivers have more accurate PCR tests, which take 24 hours to give a result
-A government official says the PM was “full of praise” for how Transport Secretary Grant Shapps handled the crisis 💕

-It is expected to take days to clear the backlog and hauliers are still being asked not to come to port
-Rail, air and sea services will resume on Wednesday morning, all those travelling from the UK to France will need to show a negative test taken within the previous 72 hours

ABOUT THOSE LATERAL FLOW TESTS
-“The government shelved plans to open rapid-turnaround test centres across England amid concerns about the accuracy of their results”
-“Directors of public health had concerns about the potential false reassurance to those testing negative.” 😬

MINISTRY OF INTERIOR
ABUJA

PRESS RELEASE

FG DECLARES DECEMBER 25, 28, 2020; JANUARY 1, 2021 PUBLIC HOLIDAYS

The Federal Government has declared Friday 25, Monday 28 December 2020 and Friday, January 1, 2021 as public holidays to mark the Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year Celebrations respectively.

Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola (@raufaregbesola), who made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government, felicitated with Christians and all Nigerians both at home and abroad on this year’s Christmas and New Year Celebrations.

Aregbesola urged Christians to adopt the creed of Christ on faith, hope and love.

“We must emulate the life of humility, service, compassion, patience, peace and righteousness that the birth and Ministry of Jesus Christ signified, that will be the best way to know Christ and celebrate his birth”, he said.