1/ In response to some questions about release of some Capitol Hill defendants on bond pending trial, I offer this brief explainer. Detention is governed by the federal Bail Reform Act.

2/ Keep in mind that pretrial, defendants are presumed innocent, and cannot be held to punish them for the crime of which they are accused. Detention is to prevent them from harming others or fleeing.

3/ Defendants get a presumption of release, and the majority are released on bond, a promise to pay a sum if they fail to return, often $10,000. Defendants are detained only if no conditions can ensure their appearance at trial or the safety of the community.

4/ At a detention hearing, the government bears the burden of proving danger to the community by clear and convincing evidence or risk of flight by a preponderance of the evidence.

5/ If the judge finds this burden is not met, she will release the defendant on bond. She may include conditions, like an ankle monitor to reduce risk of flight, or no contact with victims, to reduce risk of harm or obstruction.

Thread – Excerpt from a 30 Jan Ross Rant

1. These following is an excerpt from a recent “Ross Rant.” Joel Ross publishes these periodic reports that provide commentary on the changing scene with an eye toward wise future investments.

In contrast to Starmer's reported comments in the @guardian interview, Labour clearly do have ambitions to improve the Brexit deal. They're laying 9 amendments today on issues including SIS II, economic impact, employment and environmental standards and Erasmus.

Thread 👇👇 /1

None of them will pass - the Tories have an 80 seat majority - but that's not the point. They reflect Labour's starting position on improving the deal and deepening our relationship with the EU - a welcome sign of things to come.

Amendments follow 👇 /2

1. Economic impact assessments
'The Secretary of State must publish biannual economic impact assessments setting out the impact of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement on all sectors of the economy in UK nations and English regions, together with the Government’s response'

/3

2. Access to the Schengen Information System - SIS II

Asking for the Govt to negotiate access to SIS II within six months, or an equivalent system is access is refused.

/4

3. Proposed divergence on employment and environmental standards

Requiring the Govt to report on any alteration to UK employment or environmental standards which would trigger the rebalancing mechanism deal, and to hold a Parliamentary debate.

/5

If the (erroneous) Office of Legal Counsel memo saying president's can't be indicted for crimes while in office had not been written, hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive today.

If Rod Rosenstein had not told Mueller to stay out of investigating Trump's finances and to narrowly define his investigation, the coup attempt would never have taken place.

If Mueller had not gone along with Rosenstein and had followed all of the investigations into Trump's ties to the Russians and his finances, we would not have seen months of attempts to attack and weaken our democracy.

If Mnuchin had not blocked the attempts to release Trump's tax returns and had followed his constitutional responsibilities and the law, millions would not be out of work due to COVID.

If McConnell had fulfilled his Constitutional obligations and had conducted a Senate trial in which evidence was presented and the GOP had not reflexively defended Trump despite all his abuses, millions of US children might not be going hungry now.

Talking with Georgie about the horrible crime committed against Brittany Higgins.

I hope Brittany finds some justice, somehow.

Here's the thing: nothing that matters will change.

A thread:

Two side notes:
* Content warning for trauma and sexual assault
* I initially drafted this and was going to delete it because it's too cynical and very bleak, but it's also the truth and Georgie asked me to be brave and post it.

A Royal Commission has changed nothing.
Paris Street's revelation about St Kevin's changed nothing.
Grace Tame's bravery has changed nothing.
The Pell case has changed nothing.
The Wilson case has changed nothing.
The Redress Scheme has changed nothing.

Georgie burning two careers to jail a serial child rapist has changed nothing.
The National Apology has changed nothing.
The hundreds, if not thousands, of people who report sexual assaults each year have changed nothing.

Because the rules don't apply to the people at the top.

If you're at the top, it doesn't really matter if you're a politician, a political staffer, a journalist, a senior police officer, an ADF officer, a bishop, a business tycoon, or anything else.
If you're in the club, you're in the club.

#Shock-#Rock GIF-collection, it happened back in January 2020, went on in Febuary, March, April, suddenly stopped sometime after May 2020. Do you remember the time? It all started in the chans...

Thread ⬇️-Music: Michael Jackson, Remember The Time:
https://t.co/PS6mVgbdcU

2/:

I don't know, bet you wanna try
Every time you see

3/:

Do you remember
When we fell in love?
We were young and innocent then
Do you remember

4/:

How it all began?
It just seemed like heaven, so why did it end?

5/:

Do you remember
Back in the fall?
We'd be together all day long
Do you remember
Us holding hands?
In each other's eyes, we'd stare
Tell me

📢 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 📢

The Democrats’ “secret weapon” to help win the Senate:

UNITE HERE’s 1,000 union canvassers

A Thread 🧵⤵️

Hitting an astounding 1.5 million doors—laid-off hospitality workers joined the Georgia team that turned Georgia blue to help deliver come-from-behind wins in Georgia Senate races.

Today hospitality workers with UNITE HERE join Democrats in Georgia and nationwide to celebrate a definitive win for @ReverendWarnock and a promising lead for @Ossoff in the Georgia Senate run-off races.

#GASen #GARunnoff

UNITE HERE—a union of hospitality workers known for its impressive ground game that was key to turning Nevada and Arizona blue—credits conversations at the door for the historic gains in Georgia.

UNITE HERE led a program with 1000 of its members, mostly laid-off workers hit hard by the pandemic, to reach 1.5 million doors in the six weeks leading up to Election Day in Georgia.

Republicans caused this to happen, because they wanted it to happen.

The president.
The Senators.
The Representatives.
And their voters.

An open show that they care about nothing but domination. That is their politics.

The American Fascist Party.

The gates were opened for them.

Later they were escorted out.

In between, they delivered their message. This space belongs to white supremacy, because this country belongs to white supremacy.

And now those who orchestrated it will pretend they had nothing to do with it.

"The worst of us are safer at their very worst than any of the rest of you are at your best."

That's the message. Republicans have delivered it for decades, last year most notably in their Covid policy.

They're very consistent to it.

The American Fascist Party.

If you belong to this party, and you aren't a white supremacist fascist, yes you are.

Yes. You are.

You just gave yourself an alternate reason to join. And you lend your support to the things an American Fascist Party does, which they do use, to deliver their promised atrocity.

The events of yesterday shocked everyone—with the exception of those who were pretending to be shocked.

But for millions of us, it wasn't a surprise. We've been watching what Republicans do and say.

An attempt to overthrow democracy was always the promise.

And still is.

Schoen is pretending courtroom "due process" must be followed--after meeting with some of the jurors to plan strategy last night.

Schoen accuses Democrats of editing videos and taking comments out of contexts, after showing edited videos of Democrats and taking their comments out of context. I guess he wanted us to know he knows what he's talking about.

Schoen is showing longer clips of Trump speeches. The additional footage doesn't help Trump's case, unless you're a racist insurrectionist.

Yeah? Well what about YOUR whataboutism?

Schoen REALLY doesn't like Senator Warren.

It's because Trumpists love attacking Senator Warren.

Gee, it's almost like he thinks Senator Warren is being impeached.

Keir Starmer giving his most important speech yet-laying out his vision for the future.

“The Conservatives say they want to build back. But I don’t want to go back. You can’t return to business as usual. And certainly not back to an economy rooted in insecurity and inequality.”

"The foundations of our society have been weakened over a decade...even before the pandemic life expectancy had stalled for the first time in a century. Child poverty had shot up to over 4 million. A child growing up in a deprived areas of the North East can expect to live for.."

"...five fewer years than a deprived child brought up in a deprived area of London. What sort of legacy is that for a party which has been in govt for a decade? That life itself got cheaper. And shorter."

"During the last year my thoughts have returned time and time again to the wartime generation. Those who suffered the horrors of WW2, who rebuilt Britain from the rubble of the Blitz, created the NHS and built millions of homes fit for heroes. And I contrast that...

"...to those exposed to Covid in underfunded care homes, unable to say goodbye to families and to loved ones. How can the PM look those families in the eye and say 'we did everything we could'? When the truth is the Tories failed to fix social care for a decade?"

🇺🇸 Situation Update, Jan. 3rd – Senators announce 10-day emergency investigation into election fraud, Pence likely to invoke on the 6th

A dozen U.S. Senators have signed on to a demand for an emergency 10-day elections investigation commission that would dive into all the known

1)Absolute proof of voter fraud in Georgia via #ProjectVeritas ...

X : Thoughts on private companies being on the boards of ICS (integrated care systems).
Me : Conflict of interest question? Supplier determining needs?
X : Yes
Me : It's ok, as long as
a) you have effective spend control
b) those private companies are JVs which Gov owns 51% of.

X : What if they are not 51% owned JVs?
Me : Ah, that's a bad idea. You really want your boards to have your interests at heart.
X : What about experience, partnership?
Me : Those are advisors and you take it with a pinch of salt and as much as possible use critical friends.

Suppliers will always tell you that they want to be your partners, to build a relationship, to be your friends, to find the win/win in much the same way a second hand car salesperson wants to be your buddy ... but their interests are not yours and never can be.

X : Critical friends?
Me : Occassionaly you can find critical friends. People that we willing to tell you the truth as they see it regardless of the consequences. They are not very common and it normally requires a deep sense of duty that exceeds any loyalty to others.

X : Can the relationship be symbiotic?
Me : Rarely but that depends. If the organisation has a core overiding principle of focusing on the customer need and I don't mean lip service to this but absolutely embedded into its very core then yes i.e. places like Amazon, Alibaba etc.

The DUP's Ian Paisley MP tells the NI Affaris Committee that the NI Protocol shd be "removed" and that Article 16 of the Protocol should be invoked. Describes it as an "unmitigated disaster... Those who advocated for the Protocol have some responsibility for that.

"The protocol is now an impediment to trade. We told you so."

Article 16 of the NI Protocol: "If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the EU or the UK may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.

"Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation. Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the
functioning of this Protocol."

Mr Paisley then berates @Freight_NI for not demanding that Article 16 be invoked. Mr Leheny asks him what the alternative is. Mr Paisley says removing the Protocol is the alternative.

@LambeJerry Question for you: On Monday, Congress announces it's going to vote to impeach a federal judge on Wednesday. The president of the United States decides to issue a preemptive pardon of the judge on Tuesday. According to you, there's no problem, right, as there was no impeachment?

My thinking on this is identical to that of a law professor at Northwestern University who published his opinion in the NYT. But that wasn't mentioned in your piece. It's also odd that you believe the impeachment exception has nothing *really* to do with separation of powers.

You couldn't possibly think the impeachment exception has anything to do with separation of powers, as according to you and the small number of attorneys you cited, the impeachment exception isn't *actually* about keeping the president from interfering in the impeachment process.

Per you, the impeachment exception to the Pardon Clause of the United States Constitution is just a *narrow administrative cutout* to make sure that a President doesn't cause the Congress to have...what, have wasted their time? I'd love to see an argument for that interpretation.

I've read the documents surrounding the creation of both the Pardon Clause and the impeachment exception. The framers were explicitly concerned about the sort of situation we have encountered now—which is entirely unlike the situation in Garland. Your legal analysis is facile.