1/9 My response to the announcement today that @10DowningStreet has appointed 16 new peers to the @UKHouseofLords:

My fundamental concern is about the number of new peers that have been appointed by the Prime Minister in his first 12 months in Office.

2/9 Mr Johnson has added 16 to his list of appointments bringing the total for the year up to 52 new peers over two lists. This list will bring the total in the House of Lords to over 830 - almost 200 more than the House of Commons.

3/9 I will not comment on the personalities involved, although perhaps I could personally welcome @JohnSentamu. But my concern remains that the central defect is the present system of appointments.

4/9 Unlike other senates in democratic countries, there is no limit on the number of members there can be. Any Prime Minister can appoint as many as he or she likes. To her great credit the previous Prime Minister, @theresa_may , committed her govt to a policy of ‘moderation.'

5/9 In a massive U-turn, those words seem to have been forgotten. It may also now be the time to review the role and the powers of the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC.)

I will not comply (thread)

HR 127 - previously introduced by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) - now has full bill text available. And it's worse than we thought.
Taken strictly on the surface, this legislation would implement:

Dear @nsitharaman and @narendramodi, with having full faith in you & your government, I wish to draw your attention to certain facts. A thread

We haven’t come across or heard incident of corruption against your government which should be a normal practice but yet when compared with the previous UPA government, it is a commendable achievement

However the situation is not as good at the ground level. There has been lesser corruption because of use of systems driven techniques and lesser human intervention. But still there is rampant corruption in many departments & ministries, by bureaucrats & officers

Officers including IRS officers at Income Tax office both at investigation & assessments level, Enfircement Directorate dealing in FEMA, PMLA, IT. Customs offices, GST department again at all levels to name a few are highly corrupt

I and my office have been dealing with many of them on behalf of our clients and regularly come across several incidents of revenue officers asking for huge money and threatening to open old cases and harass clients on various counts

Sen @HawleyMO wants to toss out Biden’s election

When he ran for President of Yale Law’s FedSoc chapter and narrowly beat me, I didn’t contest. Relying on students who weren’t regular members for his win was distasteful, but he played by the rules…

I lost to Hawley by a handful of votes

But Biden won by 7 million — and by far, far larger margins in swing states than Trump won in 2016, to wind up with the same Electoral College map: 306-232

@HawleyMO should do what I did: concede gracefully and move on 2/

.@realDonaldTrump has had his day in court over the issue of voter fraud, many times.

He has lost the court fights over this, period. 3/

This is abundantly obvious, and denying reality for political purposes will not fare well in the long run. The dictum that there’s no such thing as bad publicity won’t hold here for @HawleyMO. 4/

.@HawleyMO has the power to stand out in a positive way between now and when he faces re-election or runs for President himself.

He can help to lead the GOP out of the darkness of conspiracy theories and sometimes-lethal denialism. 5/

I won't sugar coat this...this is a disaster.

If Nov. was Pearl Harbor...we got hit again and lost all carriers.

Our retaliatory options are limited and better employed as shields than swords

But America has survived worse. Here's how we will survive this

#MAGA #2A

1/MANY

First, just the facts about situation.

1: Very soon, Democrats will have (narrow) unified political control of all 3 branches of government and can wreck US.

2: Our country is in an awful position financially due to the Obama spending during the good times.

2/MANY

3: They will greatly escalate "cancellation," likely creating blacklists of people like us.

4: They will use the full force and power of Gov't against us (look up AFP vs Harris), they've been rationalizing it 4 years.

3/MANY

5: They will try to use their current political advantage to stack the deck in future elections and policy fights.... likely trying to grant statehood to DC and Puerto Rico to explicitly help them in future elections.

Court packing is BACK on the agenda.

4/MANY

6: A lot of Republicans and conservatives will try to blame this on their enemies in the party. Populists will blame libertarians and vice versa.

THAT IS A MISTAKE. A civil war would doom us all and we need every hand on deck. YES, THIS MEANS YOU!

5/MANY

I really wish someone would call my Dad, a retired Capitol Hill police officer (37yrs), to talk about the difference in preparation. The stories he’s telling me about prep for Farrakhan and others vs why yesterday happened the way it did is mind blowing.

cc @JoyAnnReid

He just told me about a time when Farrakhan was on the Hill with 4 men. Not 40. Not 14. FOUR. They had the SWAT Team in the garage and held the entire department until Farrakhan left.

He said if you even mentioned his name, all days off were canceled due to prep.

When Obama was elected he said they did a surprise background check on all of the police officers on the Hill. He said they had never done it since he was on the force & he was there from Nixon thru Obama.

He said they found out two officials, one Sgt and one Lt, were members of a racist motorcycle club. He said he the conditions are worse than when he was there b/c you don’t have the same voices & advocates on the force. He retired in 2009 & was the #1 senior person when he left.

He said since they got rid of the german shepherds and they got rid of the horses. He said if that was Black Lives Matter they would have called in Park Police horses for crowd control. He said there was NO crowd tools yesterday.

China and the EU: 2020

The media and the US think tank complex have persistently touted the narrative that Europe is "turning against China" and presumed instantly that a Biden victory would create a "transatlantic alliance" against it. It's time to look at the details:

2020 has been a bad year for China's relations with the west at large. It would be naïve to assume that this has had no impact on the EU. However, it would be a simplification to assume that such spells an appetite for Pompeo's cold war fanaticism and evidence of this is scant

Firstly, European Union foreign policy is a collective endeavor, than a monolithic one. We should not talk about the EU as "one" thing when it is a bloc of 27 countries who forge common positions through pragmatism and compromise, and is subsequently less dogmatic than the US.

The diversity of Europe means that priorities and perspectives amongst the states subsequently differ, therefore its views on China constitute an aggregation, than a single binary position which the U.S advocates. Some countries in the EU dislike China more than others.

The European Union subsequently operates on an agreement of its collective interest towards a "greater good". Whilst this means it will have some disagreements with China in the process, it also means it has a pragmatic understanding of why Beijing is important too.

In remarks today at the southern border, @POTUS: Millions of our citizens watched on Wednesday as a mob stormed the Capitol and trashed the halls of government.  As I have consistently said throughout my administration, we believe in respecting America's history and traditions...

That is why we are here today: to talk about what we must do to uphold the rule of law in America and how we must continue to support our law enforcement heroes.

For years, politicians ran for office promising to secure the border – only to get elected and do the exact opposite.  But unlike those who came before me, I KEPT MY PROMISES. Today, we celebrate an extraordinary milestone: the completion of the promised 450 miles of Border Wall.

We arrested nearly 500K illegal aliens with criminal records. We removed nearly 20K gang members from the US, including 4,500 members of MS-13.
...
Through the landmark reforms we have put into place, we have ended the immigration chaos and re-established American Sovereignty.

Now, instead of Catch-and-Release we have DETAIN-AND-REMOVE.
...
We instituted a series of historic policy changes to shut down asylum fraud.

When I hear weak and tepid calls for unity, I’m reminded of these words by Martin Luther King Jr. and also this letter which was a resounding critique of white moderates.

“So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be?” 1/5

Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. 2/5

We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime- the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality,and thus fell below their environment. 3/5

The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.

The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Letters from a Birmingham Jail (April 16, 1963). 4/5

There can be no unity with white supremacists, nazis, and others who raided the Capitol

But citizens of good faith across diverse political/religious affiliations can find courage to seek a more beautiful way-become extremists for love.Truth tellers. Healers. Justice makers 5/5

"The millions Girardi poured into Democratic political campaigns made him a confidant of generations of power brokers, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year gave the attorney an official role in filling coveted state judgeships."

.@NYGovCuomo : "If the UK spread catches on in NY, hospitalization rate goes up, hospital staff gets sick - then we have a real problem. Then we're at shutdown again."

The problem with capacity now is staff shortage, he says. "We have beds, we have equipment." Primarily nurses.

Cuomo: Very worried about UK strain. Still just 1 case confirmed in NY, but believe we have more. Notes spread in UK only took about 3 weeks.

Says this concern + staff shortages at hospitals is why such a push for faster vaccination of health-care workers.

Cuomo: "We have seen a dramatic increase" in performance of vaccinations.

Were doing 10k per day for first several wks

On Monday, went to 30k

Tuesday, a little over 30k

Wednesday, went to 50k

And today going to be in excess of 50k

"That's 5 times the rate they were doing."

Cuomo: Refusal rate varies. Drs taking vaccine at much higher rate. Anecdotal, but would expect to see numbers around 80% for drs. "And drs know best."

Nurses, there's a variation. Would expect to see that 70-80%. 70 is the minimum threshold for viability of vaccination program.

Cuomo: 2M health-care workers in state. Only have 900k doses for the 2M.

"Any hospital that hits their refusal rate, fine, tell me, we'll reallocate it - bc overall we don't have enough dosages for half the population of health-care workers."

Yesterday saw the Government reach a compromise with Peers over the devolution aspects of the UK Internal Market Bill. The Lords were standing strong over an amendment on Common Frameworks - so what has been agreed & where do we go now? 🧵

First a quick recap: the bill enshrines 2 Market Access Principles in law 1) Mutual recognition, anything acceptable for sale in one part of the UK is acceptable in another 2) Non-discrimination, no discrimination against goods from another part of the

The purpose of these is to prevent trade barriers, caused by divergence, between parts of the UK. But the 4 governments were already working on 'common frameworks' to manage divergence *by agreement*. The Scottish & Welsh govs argued these were sufficient

Lord Hope's amendment aimed to exclude areas were divergence has been deemed acceptable through common frameworks from the Market Access Principles. The gov amendment makes it clear existing powers for UK ministers in the bill can be used to do that.

So this is good news on the devolution front. But it doesn't solve everything - common frameworks only cover policy areas returned from the EU & the devolved governments also have concerns about other parts of the bill. So what are the key questions now?

Stepping back from the ledge - a thread.

The military and veterans have been mythologized far too long. All are infallible heroes regardless of their service record. 1/

Yet on Jan 6th, veterans and some members of the military, encouraged by the President and other politicians, actively participated or supported the insurrection in DC. 2/

All this because the favored candidate lost and a self-fulfilling prophecy of alleged election fraud led to his inevitable defeat. Defeat equated to theft. 3/

How did we get here? In part, a disinterested public willing to overlook our flaws while correcting Vietnam’s scornful legacy. Military leaders repeatedly telling their subordinates how special they were – the 1% trope. 4/

Can I just point out that it has been admitted that the British & US government told us masks made no difference because they didn’t have enough even though they knew this wasn’t true

Like this is fact not even speculation. Healthcare workers didn’t have PPE there wasn’t enough to go to them and the public so they told the public masks had no scientific evidence behind them so people would stop buying them

The conspiracy theories wind me up so much because of this exact point. The truth is equally scandalous we don’t need some 5G theory

The arrogance of the west has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, desecrated the economy & caused a mental health crisis. There’s no conspiracy theory you can create that is worse than the actual truth of what’s happened this year.

America and the UK was warned about an impending pandemic at the beginning of January - they both chose to ignore it, they had time to start buying PPE in January, they didn’t. When they started making PPE instead of giving it to their citizens they sold it to China.

WHAT THE FCUK IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?
Well, here's a 1/13 thread about why #britain thinks it's powerful. We don't know if we're top-table or in the relegation zone #SmartPower.
A leader talks of his country's great past and its magic future. You believe him. Are you wise? 1/

You want your country to top every league table it can.
But maybe he's a charlatan who will take his country down, you’re sure of it.
The leader says he wants his country to be the world-beating number one nation.
Great, but one problem. The world we grew up in is over 2/

Imagine living at the same time after #Napoleon, the Kaiser, #Hitler, the fall of the #BerlinWall when the world order was overturned and a new way of life begun.

Well, that's now.

Every thirty years or so a battle is fought for the future... 3/

Once every 100 years everything changes. We had the Spanish century, the French century, the British century, the American century, now we face the Chinese century.

All were epic struggles and all needed a once-in-a-century bloodbath to separate the winners from the losers..4/

Every century a crisis arises not only to control the state but to change it and the way the world is run.
We're at the beginning of a new era in history.
A new battle for power is underway.
But what are the rules of the game, and how smart the leaders who play it? 5/

Actually myself & a few others were contacted by a Bernie FO to help find captains for districts & it got done. Bad actors in the campaign said “I made them look bad,” bc it was about optics, even if I was asked. Their anger went as far as forcing my # from my friends.

I was traveling to Iowa to cover the primary & kept getting calls incessantly demanding I take a tweet down. They badgered my friends until they gave my PERSONAL #. I refused to it was my gd right. Especially since I was asked to use social media to find help. The job got done.

There was absolute 0 “leaking of documents”. I have two other people who were also helping and someone very high up in the campaign who had to apologize to me & was angry I was harassed, bullied, emailed, & threatened via social media. We wrote a letter that never got an answer.

This was AFTER several on the ground activists knew there were bad actors in the campaign but were trying to work w it & stay silent for Bernie. One of the many mistakes the campaign made was put optics over honesty, & that was bc it was largely directed by DC consultants.

Ultimately I came to find out this whole “making us look bad” took precedent over listening to seasoned field organizers, Bernie 2016 volunteers, & many grassroots activists who had a different approach. It was all about the top dogs looking good & not very #NotMeUs.