Okayyyy, I’ll join everyone else in responding to today’s news (instead of just sighing, gazing into middle distance). The profit incentive baked into private prisons is a mess. But you know what else is a HUGE MESS?

The revenue incentive in the federal jail market. 🧵

Ever since 9/11, we've been instructed that tiny minorities of extremists are solely responsible for their reprehensible actions. There was no greater sin than blaming law-abiding people who share some of their beliefs.

That's how we got the "lone wolf terrorist" cliche. A great herd of lone wolves swept across the world, each completely isolated from anything but the most direct support for their heinous deeds. "Tiny minorities of extremists" were blamed for "hijacking" the beliefs of millions.

The Western world did backflips to completely firewall the actions of terrorists from the larger bodies of people they claimed to represent. We hired a legion of consultants to show us exactly where the line between extremism and legitimate belief was drawn.

We wouldn't even name the adversaries of civilization. We declared a "global war" on their methods, to avoid criticizing their beliefs. The Obama administration launched a huge, expensive "Countering Violent Extremism" initiative that pointedly treated extremism as generic.

The greatest of pains were taken to draw very sharp and bright lines between violent extremism and even the most provocative and incendiary acts of legitimate speech and political organization. This was true of the race riots in the Obama years, as well as terrorism.

I'm watching the City of Austin press conference:

Judge Andy Brown says today's ice storm made roads incredibly dangerous, so please stay home if possible.

.@austinenergy : we are starting to get more power and are prioritizing turning on the power for people who have been without power the longest. if we can sustain this level, we can do true rotating blackouts

.@austinenergy : we have crews out in the community trying to fix things, but they are having people screaming at them and throwing things at them. Jacquie Sargent asks that people let them do their jobs and not harass them.

.@AustinWater : we ask that you DO NOT drip your faucets, stop using laundry machines, dishwashers, and if you know how to take care of a burst pipe please do.

City Manager Spencer Cronk: We know this is frustrating and I'm sorry this is happening. We have shelters open.

(Here is a list of the various shelters, some are for warming, some are for staying the

Is the European Union really being unreasonable over the City of London?

Or are we seeing an inevitable consequence of a Brexit that prioritised sovereignty over financial services?

A thread…🧵💵🏦🇬🇧🇪🇺

Andrew Bailey’s Mansion House speech this week showed clear signs of frustration about the EU’s foot dragging in granting “equivalence” to UK regulators on financial

The view among UK financial lobbyists and regulators is that the EU has various financial equivalence agreements already with a host of other third countries (even the US) so why not the UK, which is currently, of course, totally aligned?...3/

But the view in the EU is that the UK is different from those other countries because it’s so dominant in finance - and they fear outsourcing regulation to an authority outside the bloc when that regulated activity could potentially affect EU markets/business so profoundly ...4/

Andrew Bailey thinks the EU is gearing up to demand the UK be a simple “rule taker” in return for equivalence, unable to unilaterally change UK rules, which he says would be "intolerable"....5/

A federal judge in DC is holding a detention hearing in the cases of Capitol insurrection defendants Eric Munchel (who was photographed wearing tactical gear and holding a bunch of zip tie handcuffs) and his mother Lisa Eisenhart — the govt is arguing to keep both behind bars

Re: the zip tie handcuffs that Munchel and Eisenhart allegedly picked up inside the Capitol, AUSA Ahmed Baset says they were visible to lots of people passing by at the time but these two not only took them, but did so "with glee"

Baset says it's true that Munchel and Eisenhart aren't charged with physically hurting anyone, the evidence shows they were looking for lawmakers, who had been cleared out. "They should not be given credit for that," Baset argues.

Baset says that Munchel was in touch with the Proud Boys in Tennessee *after* Jan. 6 and talked about how he'd wanted to join their ranks before but didn't know how

Munchel's lawyer Sandra Roland argues that the Tennessee magistrate judge who granted pretrial release to Munchel and Eisenhart got it right in finding that the govt failed to show there were no combination of release conditions that would protect the community