1. Inauguration and Your Character, Anonymous: It's truly fascinating. Many patriots, upon seeing Joe B*iden sworn in on TV — nothing but a theatrical production, of course — have lost their minds and surrendered to defeat. They had hoped that military arrests of B*iden would...

Has there been a moment in modern history where so many people in free societies have believed such damaging lies?
https://t.co/HrZcnJJ61W
1/

It’s easy to point to the US, where nearly 90 per cent of people who voted for Donald Trump believe Joe Biden’s election victory was not legitimate.
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But it’s not just the US. In France, a minority of adults are confident that vaccines are safe, which explains why only 40 per cent say they plan to get a Covid-19 shot.
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Meanwhile, across the world, substantial minorities believe that the Covid-19 fatality rate has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated”.
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How did it come to this? The simplest explanation — to repurpose a phrase from former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers — is: “There are idiots. Look around.”
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I'm leery as fuck about Biden but Jesus at this point it's fucking stunning to have someone without an overt psychological pathology as the President.

Like it's fucking weird to have someone who can devise policy and explain that policy and petition congress to make that policy into law and not just screaming that he's going to magically make another country pay for the racist border wall designed to keep them out.

It's been as much a blessing as a curse that most of the time Trump has had no fucking idea how to implement policies.

Remember that shit he was doing with the Census? He fucked it up because he just declared something and left it to others to figure out how. It's not happening.

But then you had the times when Trump was like "Make the brown people stop" and he threw Stephen Miller at it and we end up with kids in cages and troops on the Mexican border with vague orders to maybe start shooting people.

It's been this constant farce of horrors.

The "trade war" with China, what the fuck was that?

Place tariffs and demand negotiation.

Wait, no, they implement their own tariffs. MORE TARIFFS THEN.

Shit they still aren't negotiating and now to keep the farmers from revolting we did a socialism shit fuck shit

Did the paedophiles create the virus?

I think so!

Is Joe Biden the paedophiles choice?

Jury’s out.

Scumbags

Lock them all up and f their vaccine.

https://t.co/fhVL1fjDhC

Thank you Victor for this gift.

Nothing punitive or carceral, nor punishment related, nor negativity related should ever be tied to healing, recovery, rebuilding one's life or anything that makes a person feel worse about himself, herself, or themself. We know enough now to understand that punishment, loss

and/or reminders of past traumas and/or losses have no business and play nothing but a negative role, in rebuilding self-esteem, self-worth, self-love, community and the meaningful things we all need to create lives for ourselves that we feel are worth living. Especially in

exceedingly early ‘sobriety’, ‘abstinence’ and/or the traditional deprivations of one’s substance(s) of choice when people have had their only coping mechanism ripped away from them, under the ancient and provenly ineffective current model of ‘recovery’.

The author @johannhari101 , wrote the book ‘Chasing the Scream The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’ said in his now famous Ted talk ‘Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong’:

We called on Biden to remove ALL Trump holdovers who could legally be fired on day one. So how’d he do?

It was a good start but many more still need to be dismissed.

Let’s recap:

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Kathy Kraninger?

Fired.

United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Director Michael Pack?

Fired.

Voice of America Director Robert Reilly?

Fired.

General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Peter Robb?

Fired.

1/ THREAD - MSN ARE ONLY *NOW* ‘BREAKING’ THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY... It didn’t fit their agenda 2 months ago pre election so they LIED to you👇🏻

THREAD ➡️ President Biden has just issued an unprecedented number of foolish and economically destructive executive orders. So much for unity. You might be wondering how he is allowed to do this. After all, America isn't a dictatorship and the president doesn't make laws.

Put simply: Congress. Every president issues guidance to the executive branch. That's normal. But when Congress passes bad, vague, or imprecise laws, it opens up space that executive orders fill. In other words, Congress enables presidential discretion.

This is THE biggest problem with Congress today. You may have heard that America has three coequal branches. This is wrong. Congress is the dominant branch of government. We are the first branch, and we have the most power over the other two.

Our constitution is designed to have Congress at the center. We are supposed to be making laws and directing the government. The president and the federal courts are empowered to check Congress, but they are not supposed to replace our legislative authority.

So what happens when Congress decides not to play its part? First, the other branches step in to fill the space. Courts legislate from the bench. The president and bureaucracy tackle problems and policy however they like.

Clock ticking. 2 years until Republicans can take back both houses of Congress. The most important branch of government is not Congress or the presidency. It's the judiciary for they have life appointment. Mitch McConnell understood this

which is why he snatched that Supreme Court appointment from Obama & used Trump to pack the courts w/conservatives. Now Biden & Democrats must respond in kind & make good on a threat FDR made decades ago. PACK THE SUPREME COURT NOW while you have the chance. I say go to 19-

justices & then start term limits of 8 years after all 19 die. No 1 deserves a life appointment for anything. There is no accountability for people w/life appointments. They can do whateva the fuck they want & there is nothing U can do about it. Notice I said after all 19 die.

This would guarantee Biden is able 2 make a serious stamp on the country's future & possible make a complete judiciary break from white supremacy or the judiciary coddling of white supremacy. Never 4get Obama appointed judges who acquitted or let off cops who killed black people.

Congressmen 2 yrs, Presidents 4yrs, Senators 6 yrs & Supreme Court Justices 8 yrs would be a better formula for good government. Supreme Court justices & other federal judges are the true royalty in this country as they serve for life & the ability to remove them by impeachment-

Biden saying that Rs “beat the living hell out of us” in downballot races across the country is significant, because (1) he said it to an audience that didn’t really want to hear it and https://t.co/FM7OwUgWYH 1/8

(2) because he wouldn’t have said it unless it was based on conclusive internal polling. 2/8

It is also encouraging if it *is* the correct analysis of Ds’ disappointing-- even calamitous--electoral outcomes in downballot races.

It is encouraging because it is easily remediable with better messaging. 3/8

In fact, Biden made it clear during the election that he did not favor actually defunding the police: that he only favored reforming the police, and specified policies to do that. But he didn’t say it loud enough, and downballot D politicians didn’t either. 4/8

(The R messaging over “defunding the police” seems to have worked to protect R politicians in downballot races, but wasn’t enough to get Trump himself reelected over the repugnance Ds and Independents felt for him.) 5/8

1/ This was lifted from a FB post...

Any regrets yet??

Biden Update....

2pm yesterday marked Biden’s 50th hour in office. Let’s take a look at the Biden/Harris administration —

- A loss of 52,100 jobs in oil.

- Ended energy independence for the United States.

@simonbarrow @Ekklesia_co_uk Some thoughts on Fintan's piece.

Can Joe Biden make America great again?

Since the day Trump was elected America as we thought we knew it was over, there was no way back, there would only be a way forward. This was not necessarily bad, bc the old imperial America did much harm in the world. 1/

The fissures O'Toole points to have always been there. White supremacy has structured our society far more than ppl realize bc it's been internalized as a communal assumption about who should wield political and eoconomic power. 2/

The task facing Biden is enormous, perhaps the most challenging any president has ever faced and O'Toole captures the complexity of someone who knows suffering being able to lead/offer us vision in this moment. I have consistently underestimated him . . .3/

but perhaps he is the bridge to what comes next. I think it is undeniable that we are now sliding toward open civil war, being held hostage to the guns we allowed to proliferate, but Biden, if he sees clearly, could help. Public facing rhetoric of healing is fine, 4/

BREAK: Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States.

The Trump administration is over.

Technically another 9 mins to go for the official handover. But it’s a formality.

Biden: "This is America's day. This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope....Today we triumph not of a candidate but of a cause. The cause of democracy. The people, the will of the people has been heard. And the will of the people has been heeded."

"At this hour my friends, democracy has prevailed."

Biden thanks his predecessors from both parties "from the bottom of my heart."

With, perhaps, the exception of one.

Biden addresses the pandemic and its economic consequences: "Few people in our nation's history have found themselves in a moment as challenging as the one we're in now...but the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer."

Along w/ Biden climate news, some thoughts on solar geoengineering (SG) research under Biden Admin. SG closer to Biden/Democratic politics than Trump/Conservative: science-based, multilateral “green” capitalism. Recent moves indicate SG steadily moving into climate policy: THREAD

US is the world leader in SG research, with most funding from private sources – largely billionaires, wealthy individuals, and their boutique foundations – with ties to Silicon Valley tech firms, venture capital, and Wall Street hedge funds (also major donor bases for Dem Party)

Some philanthropists funding SG research include Bill Gates, Rachel Pritzker (billionaire heir of Pritzker family; Chair of Board at Breakthrough Institute), Chris Sacca/Lower Carbon Capital (billionaire VC, deep ties to Silicon Valley). All representatives of “green” capitalism

Leading centrist think tanks and environmental orgs like EDF and Resources for the Future (RFF), both of which take corporate funding (with RFF taking money from fossil fuel industry, e.g. Aramco, Chevron, Shell) support SG research and promote its inclusion in US climate policy

RFF recently published an SG policy paper by Harvard economists Joseph Aldy (fmr. Special Advisor to Obama for Energy and Environment) and Richard Zeckhauser that advocates SG as merely one prong of “prudent” climate policy:

The most important remaining nomination for Biden to announce is the most important one he will ever make: for Attorney General of the United States. 1/8

If Biden nominates Sally Yates, it will be a pretty clear signal that the D voices who believe that Trump and his enablers must be held accountable for a uniquely lawless presidency have carried the day. 2/8

Since I’m hoping Biden will nominate Yates, it is encouraging that Biden has waited so long to announce his selection for AG. (It is going to come now after the Electoral College formalizes Biden’s election on Monday.) 3/8

(Trump’s outrageous attempt to overturn the 2020 election--“overturn” being a term Trump actually used in a tweet--has probably made it more likely that Biden will take a hard line on all this. He certainly should.) 4/8

If Yates is nominated, the writing will be clearly on the wall for Trump, who in its wake would probably make a deal with Pence involving his resignation some time before inauguration day and a pardon for all his federal crimes. 5/8

Life Comes At You Fast Thread: Just two weeks into his presidency Biden's resolve is being tested by Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Isreal, China, and even Burma.

1/ I don't know why @TheRealCletus1 can't do this himself, but I have to do it for him.

Odd, uncharacteristic and one-off items surrounding the Biden presidency.
1. Biden sworn in 14 minutes early..
2. Trump leaves on AF1, Biden flies small private jet.

After 4 years of Donald Trump, the US must "reassure" its allies.

That's what I'm reading/hearing lately, such as in this @nytimes piece. What do international relations scholars know about reassuring allies? Can it be done? Is it even

This passage from the article captures well the call for "reassurance": the US must convince its allies in Asia and Europe that the US would indeed use its nukes to protect them.

That's a tall order!

Indeed, such a tall order that it's been a major question explored by international relations scholars for a long time. A LONG TIME.

The topic was of keen debate in the 1950s, with Henry Kissinger writing a series of pieces on the topic, such as this 1956 @ForeignAffairs

The academic discussion picked up in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

This included Robert Schelling's paper in the first issue of the Journal of Conflict