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1. In light of this @RonanFarrow story about Larry Rendall Brock, Jr., an Air Force veteran, here's a quick #thread about the complicated, confusing, and evolving state of the law regarding when the military can (and cannot) court-martial retired servicemembers.


2. First, an important distinction: The military can *recall* most retirees to active duty. But that's not the same thing as whether they can be tried by court-martial for offenses committed *while* retired (and before being recalled).

That's where things get complicated.

3. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) authorizes courts-martial for *any* offense committed by those who have retired from a "regular component" and are receiving pay, along with members of the Fleet Reserve and Fleet Marine Corps Reserve (who are effectively retirees).

4. But the UCMJ authorizes courts-martial for offenses committed by those who have retired from *reserve* components only while "receiving hospitalization from an armed force." And #SCOTUS held in 1955 that the military cannot try those who have *separated* from the armed forces.

5. So whether Brock can be tried by court-martial — under current law, anyway — for his role in Wednesday's attacks depends upon his *exact* status as of Wednesday, i.e., whether he is separated from the Air Force, retired from active duty, or retired from the reserves.

But...
.@RepRickAllen #gapol #GA12 #Georgia claimed in a Dec 10, 2020 amicus brief to #SCOTUS that @GaSecofState unconstitutionally changed process by which signature matching on absentee ballots could be challenged

Here are the relevant passages from the brief


He cites this as the reason he voted to reject the electors on Jan 6, 2021


.@GaSecofState announced a partnership with @universityofga to study absentee ballot signature matching

Another post-election effort by @GaSecofState is a signature matching audit beginning with Cobb County, identified as a model of proper election procedures
This issue is, appropriately, contentious. As a vaccinologist - & citizen & relative of people in at-risk groups - I fully support the UK decision to increase dose intervals of both our Ox/AZ product and the Pfizer product. I'd happily receive either with a >8w gap. Here's why đź§µ


For the Ox/AZ vaccine, it's fairly simple. The trial demonstrated efficacy at a range of dose intervals. Antibody responses after the boost were significantly stronger with longer intervals - see table

(so in response to @drmarkporter's point, higher immune responses with a longer interval is proven & now public. I haven't seen a similar analysis for efficacy against disease but the data exists and I suspect the regulators & JCVI committee have)

For Pfizer, there isn't direct evidence of efficacy with a >3wk interval. But as widely publicised, efficacy in the period from 14 days after first dose to 21 days is high.


Can we extrapolate from this to a longer interval? It's a judgment call. On one hand is evidence-based medicine's scepticism of anything not directly proven 'beyond reasonable doubt' in an RCT; on the other is a 'balance of probabilities' approach based upon the biology.
I think this thread came from a good place, but I want to add a few thoughts because I think service members WILL be talking about yesterday's events -- and that leaders SHOULD be talking to their troops about them.

They need to be thoughtful, not scared of doing so. 1/


Yesterday, our nation's capital was attacked and the capitol was briefly occupied. 1100 members of the DC National Guard were activated, as were more than 6000 NG troops from half a dozen states.

They're now operating in a highly political environment. More could join them. 2/

Calls for our military to remain apolitical really mean: (1) our military must be non-partisan; (2) it should not interfere or influence elections; & (3) service members should not portray their personal opinions as the military institution's opinions. 3/

While there is a lot we don't know, there are indications that at least some police yesterday acted in a biased way -- allowing the mobs to bypass barriers to attack and enter the capitol building.

Personal/partisan sympathies cannot interfere with a military unit's duties. 4/

Leaders and commanders should talk to their formations about these issues, and try to understand if there are service members for whom that might be a problem. (Hint: there probably are.)

You can't do that if you're not communicating with them and having real discussions. 5/
Wow, so here we are, 36 hours after the destruction wrought on DC and this thing we call “democracy”... “The American Experience”. We’ve all seen the pictures and heard the gaslighting by a group that has no moral compass. We *have* been here before, and it’s time to get out. 1/

First, some history that some are likely to remember. Does anyone remember The Vandals? Not the band, but the actual tribe of Germanic people who were pushed around Europe when it was the Roman empire. Maybe worth a read:
https://t.co/N7zRAeAgq6 2/

As you might imagine, these people weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box or one of them would have built an electric car that you actually wanted to drive. Or just simply proclaimed that the earth was not flat and revolved around the sun. 3/

Any student of history will tell you that it repeats itself. We call what happened in DC “domestic terrorism”, but when I was a kid, this would have been called “felony vandalism”.

We’ve been here before. That link again in case you missed it: https://t.co/N7zRAeAgq6 4/

If you’re like me, you’re pretty pissed off at having wasted 12 years with modern-day Vandals destroying the change we could believe in and almost destroying the entire American experiment. If it weren’t for COVID, most still wouldn’t notice. But here we are. 5/
When Presidents propose a bill or plan, congress still has to draft and pass the bill in full, bc it includes more than just "issue this check."
So ask your congressional rep where your checks are, because it's on congress to get it through.


Biden did sign an executive order last week to push the treasury to expedite delivery of the initial $600 payment that was already approved in December, because a lot of eligible folks still haven't received it, even though the deadline for disbursement was Jan 15th.

Y'all wanna hold Biden to his promises this term, hold your folks in house and senate to theirs, because it's their job to negotiate plans and bills and pass them. Not everything can be done through executive order. Biden's ability to do what he says is reliant on them.

The proposed American Rescue Plan hasn't even been approved by congress yet - they couldn't start work on drafting the bill before he was sworn in, but *they* are the next step to your money.

Yes, that exact congress (senate may be 50/50 but Dems are in control and Harris has the tie-breaking vote), because they couldn't start work on this until Biden officially took office.
The UK government is reportedly planning to install former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre as chair of the broadcasting regulator OFCOM. Some background: https://t.co/psZabLCOaD 1/

Polls have consistently shown that the UK public currently has a much higher level of trust in TV and radio media than they do in the UK newspaper industry, which has consistently been found to be the least trusted in Europe:
https://t.co/EY7DnA8SvW /2

The UK public's low level of trust in our newspaper industry should perhaps come as no surprise. In 2016 the Daily Mail and Sun were both called out for "fuelling prejudice" in an international report on rising racist violence: https://t.co/mdwZoWPtgf /3

In 2015, the United Nations spoke out, condemning "decades of sustained and unrestrained anti-foreigner abuse, misinformation and distortion" in the UK press: https://t.co/maP2ZIElrL /4

By contrast, UK broadcast media are currently held to a much higher set of standards. Although not perfect, OFCOM has strong powers to tackle racist and hateful coverage within TV and radio, eg: https://t.co/hXjbtkgU2s /5