BIG NEWS: The NYT just published this adapted excerpt from my forthcoming book! They titled the excerpt "We Need a Second Great Migration." The title of the book is #TheDevilYouKnow. The excerpt will be the cover of the Sunday Review. So excited...

1. Because this is an excerpt, and the entire book is an argument that builds, the excerpt can only capture so much and will likely leave people with question (a good thing). But, let me address a few things in this thread...

2. This for me is not a theory or thought experiment. I believe completely in this plan. I have moved to Atlanta myself.

3. The idea of moving with political intentionality, to take over a state or colonize it, is not new. People have been talking about it in one from or another since slavery.

4. Perhaps the most successful example of it was not carried out by black people but white ones. In 1971 two Yale law students publish an article in the Yale Law Review called "Jamestown Seventy" in which they propose this idea of "radical federalism," taking over a state.

#BREAKING
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Al-Qaeda has a new home base. It is the Islamic Republic of #Iran. We ignore this Iran/al-Qaeda nexus at our own peril.

Al-Qaeda has had a relationship with Iran for nearly three decades.

The U.S. Attorney's office announced an update on charges related to the U.S. Capitol insurrection soon.

As I cover that, my colleague @ColinKalmbacher will live-tweet the Aaron Mostofsky hearing.

The briefing is about to begin.

FBI Washington Field office's Steven M. D'Antuono is up first.

"We have opened 160 case files, and that is just the tip of the iceberg."

D'Antuono:

We have received more than 100K pieces of digital media.

He solicits more at 1-800-CALL-FBI

D'Antuono:

He credits pre-siege intelligence to the arrest of Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio before Jan. 6

Our Federal Government doesn't need revenue. Taxes serve as a gas pedal or brake for an economy. They drive the need for currency. They stave off inflation and can be used to break up pooled concentrations of wealth that are destructive to a functioning democracy and economy.
1/x

So what's the fuss about marginal income tax rates and "fair share"? Why the chatter about how will the government get money to fund its operations?

First we must decouple the idea that spending and taxing are linked. Taxes are not a financing operation at the federal level. In fact, taxes are destroyed upon receipt. You see, the dollar is nothing more than a tax credit. A unit of measure. Just like a run in a baseball game

All government spending is new money. Every cent. From social security to government contracts. All new money. Accounts are merely debited & credited. Marked up or marked down. Congress issues instructions to the Fed who makes deposits in the Treasuries accounts & spending ensue

Second, wealth inequality destroys a functioning society. You can easily see how the issue began in earnest in the 1970s and went absolutely crazy in the 1980s as government spending withered on the people and deregulation became the norm.

A lot of you are going to just breeze past this story without reading it, so let me just break down how absolutely deranged these actions by the president are. He's openly engaging in actual election fraud.

the big flashing red flag here is the president threatening Georgia's secretary of state if he doesn't overturn his defeat in that state.

after Raffensperger (a Republican btw) calls Trump's assertions "debunked conspiracy theories," the president urges him "find 11,780 votes" and suggests "there's nothing wrong with saying" that he's "recalculated."

The president genuinely sounds like he's trying to talk his way out of prison.

Here is the president vaguely threatening Georgia officials that if they don't "find" these ballots that don't exist, they might be "subject to criminal liability." Hard to believe this isn't completely illegal.

So the Canadian government will soon be introducing legislation aimed at regulating platforms with respect to harmful speech, spearheaded by Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. I'm concerned b/c we haven't seen a lot of serious thought from the Gov on this. A thread:

Guilbeault has taken this on as part of a large digital regulatory agenda that also includes things like requiring Canadian content on streaming services, and potentially forcing intermediaries to pay for news (like Australia).

We don't know what form the legislation will take, but there's cause for concern that it's partially going to look a lot like the German NetzDG law, and require hate speech and other illegal speech to be taken down quickly. It will also include a new regulator to do...something

The concern comes from the PM's mandate letter to the Minister, which asked him to "create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties."

I haven't seen anything to suggest Guilbeault has moved away from this. His office was quoted recently as saying "our approach will require online platforms to monitor and eliminate illegal content that appears on their platforms."

Where does it say in the state constitutions of the states of PA, MI, WI, GA, NV and AZ that unless the governor calls a special session, the state legislature is helpless and cannot act or do anything?

I am researching this right now.

It's Presidents Day in the US and once upon a time I read a biography of every single US president so I may as well make use of that useless knowledge. Here is a thread of the wildest tweet-sized fact I know about each president:

George Washington: lost nearly all of his teeth, had terrifying spring-loaded 18th century dentures that were in constant danger of jumping out of his mouth. He mumbled through all of his speeches because he was afraid of opening his mouth too wide.

John Adams: everybody but everybody thought he was a prudish, entitled, arrogant little jerk, including all of the other founders and especially his closest relatives and *extra specially* Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson: an asshole. Died completely broke after a lifetime of living on borrowed money way outside of his earnings. Tried to save things at the last moment by selling all his books to the state. Died the same day as Adams.

James Madison: wrote the constitution and the bill of rights. I don't care what you heard. His super power was giving his ideas of government to other people and making them think it was their idea, and letting them take credit. But he wrote nearly all of it.

Interesting parapo meeting today, anger, lots of 'THEY' vs 'US'. The zoom meeting was well attended. People threatening fire, thunder, tagging those of us calling for calm "Traitors".

Then I asked, how many of your children were involved in the Ibadan killings today? SILENCE!

Then one of my "Comrade" himself and his wife are always jumping from @channelstv to @ARISEtv. I asked him, aside your television rounds, have you ever handled an AK47? Simple question, he called me a bastard.
I asked will your Ibadan radio station host 100 Eso's? SILENCE!

Then another one, he was Afenifere lackeys, during the Ajegunle crisis, the same one who chopped money meant for young Yoruba who were defending their streets, mane died needlessly. I asked when last he visited Eso zones across Yoruba land. SILENCE! He kept ranting Fulani bla bla

Then practical questions to another, do we have a list of our vulnerable settlements? Any attempt to activate our fighting organisations so that all manner of people don't go about attacking innocent non Yoruba. SILENCE!

That one pretended he had poor network. No answer!

Then another one, he said I had 'changed'. I told him, you cant have witnessed a wicked Yoruba ruling elite, hype up sons and daughters of the poor and personally attended the burial of many of those unsung heroes and not call for extreme caution and the need to truly be prepared

Freedom of assembly is a Constitutional right, Mayor Bowser.

9/12/2018 President Trump declared election interference a national emergency and authorized the use of government resources to address and intercept the threat.

11/28/1861 President Lincoln “ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.”

11/26/1789 “As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration in America ....”to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".

Today is 1/2/2021. I propose that President Trump make January 6 into a National holiday, proclaiming it “National Liberation Day” or similar.

This presumes public awareness of the reality of our situation, Biden stepping down, Pence replaced, etc. as reported unverified.

Things the GOP did not find "divisive": Launching an insurrection against the US government, seeking to disenfranchise 81 million Americans, seeking to negate the votes of entire states, seeking to negate the votes of African Americans, attacking the Capitol...

...killing Capitol police officers, inciting a riots that claimed five lies, participating in the largest act of domestic terrorism in US history, hunting down Congresspeople in the halls of Congress, supporting and defending white supremacists...

...supporting and defending Neo-Nazis, turning US federal force against peaceful demonstrators across the country, calling Mexicans rapists, discriminating against Muslims, putting children in cages, ending protections for children born innocently in the United States...

...promoting economic policies that help only the rich in America and fostering the worst inequality in our history, seeking to stigmatize those who sought to do the right thing to protect America from a deadly pandemic...

contributing to the spread of a disease that has killed hundreds of thousands--disproportionately people of color & the elderly, seeking policies that deny COVID relief to states with Dem leadership, seeking to help only those close to the GOP leadership with COVID relief...

My friend’s father went to the Virginia Military Institute, which is as hardcore as the name implies. He tells a story that has always stuck with me:

[THREAD]

1/ The school had a rivalry with another school, I can’t remember which. My friend’s father was one of three cadets guarding the school’s canon during the big football game. The rival school thought it would be a funny prank to steal and/or deface the canon.

2/ A dozen or so drunken students came upon the three of them, guarding the canon. My friend’s father was a bit scared, because they were badly outnumbered. But the cadet in charge was not scared. At all. He stood there with his rifle, holding it as if to bludgeon.

3/ The drunk students approached, rowdily demanding that the cadets move so they could deface the canon.

“Stand down,” the cadet said.

The students got closer, grew rowdier. Now they were taunting.

“Stand down.”

4/ The taunting grew. The drunk students fanned out, surrounding the three cadets. My friend’s father was now terrified.

Again: “Stand down.”

NEW: A former US Marine, Donovan Crowl, stormed the Capitol as part of an organized militia. My latest for @newyorker, on what he reveals about the role of far-right groups last week and beyond:

Crowl, whose name and role in last week’s events are being reported for the first time in this story, is fifty years old and served in the Persian Gulf in 1990.

Crowl was wearing the crest of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that recruits former and current law enforcement and military officials. He is also a member of a local Ohio militia that has shown up at political events, sometimes armed.

These are among a number of sometimes overlapping extremist groups that were present last week.

Far-right militias have deep roots in American history, and while several experts I spoke with said Trump had ignited those groups, they also did not believe their fervor would wane after Trump’s departure.

“Donald Trump is nothing less than a threat to the American way of life. His term in office comprises an existential threat to the republic, the gravest since the Civil War. Not since 1860 has the future of the Union itself been in such doubt.”

[THREAD]

1/ I wrote that in DIRTY RUBLES the spring of 2018. This—right here, right now—is what I was worried about—although I will confess that things have gotten scarier and uglier than I could ever have imagined.

2/ On 1/6, we came within a hair’s breadth of a full-on overthrow of our federal government. This is not hyperbole. Trump & his disciples organized, instigated, and carried out a coordinated attack on the Capitol, for the purpose of subverting democracy. People died.

3/ This is NOT time for business as usual. We have to IMMEDIATELY discard outmoded forms of thinking to get through the next eight days. Hard ball. Here. Now.

4/ Calls for “unity” from Republican collaborators are cynical & hallow. Unite with the United States, or join the Trump insurrection. There is no middle ground. You’re with America, or you’re with Trump. Period.

Keir Starmer who worked with Theresa May as DPP said '“Whether you agree with her or you don’t, this was a woman broken who had tried to genuinely deliver on what she thought she had to do … I can’t pretend I didn’t feel something.”: #StarmerOut https://t.co/0NzX7Ouv2a

Sir Keir Starmer was elected as an MP for Holborn and St Pancras in 2015. Before that he worked with May as director of public prosecutions when she was home secretary. #StarmerOut #LabourLeaks #Collusion #CONLAB

May was someone who was always straight with him, who always phoned him to ask whether she could use something he had said. “A lot of politicians didn’t do that. She never double dealt. She said what she would do and she did what she said.” #StarmerOut #LabourLeaks

At the end of his term as DPP in 2013, she invited Sir Starmer to dinner at an Italian restaurant in Westminster to say thank you.
“It was a difficult 90 minutes. Both of us were pleased to see the hour and a half was up.” #StarmerOut #LabourLeaks

''Keir Starmer credentials as a former director of public prosecutions (2008 to 2013) placed Starmer a cut above the rest of Labour's frontbench in the eyes of many Conservatives.''. He became acquainted with several senior Tories.

I’m not sure if the significance of the travelling at Christmas is well understood.

Kenney is thumbing his nose at Albertans.

This is no ordinary thumbing. He’s basically letting Albertans know that he and his MLAs will do as they please and there will be no consequences.

This is when following policy is helpful.

In March 2020 when Dr. Hinshaw closed schools down, Kenney was furious. He couldn’t reverse the order without seriously damaging his credibility & revealing his true nature. So he did the next best thing. He gave himself absolute power.

And, since it was during a pandemic, barely anyone noticed.

The powers he bequeathed upon himself and his political party are only in effect when a Public Health Emergency is invoked. Kenney invoked a Public Health Emergency in late November 2020.

The CMOH no longer has free reign to order public health orders and she no longer reports to the Deputy Minister of Health. She reports directly to the Minister of Health, who is guided by the premier in his decision making.

The other change was the addition of absolute power for the premier and ministers of cabinet, to repeal, amend or create ANY legislation, whether it has anything to do with the emergency or not.

Pence acknowledged Trump's allegations the election was rigged, of which there has been no proof and no court has upheld, in a likely peace offering to the president.
'I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election,' he wrote.
But he noted as

For most of my lifetime, people on the Left focused on the perils of Big Business while ignoring, or actively embracing, the menace of Big Government. A great deal of the Right did the reverse. Both Bigs are perilous, especially when they fuse into a combined threat to liberty.

The growth of both government and corporate titans was inevitable, especially after a century of industrial and technological revolutions. Technology makes it possible to have larger endeavors, both public and private. Economies of scale bring enormous benefits.

Industrial advancements meant government had to get bigger to handle even its most basic responsibilities, like national defense. The World Wars erased the model of a tiny central government handling a few key elements of defense. Every war became a clash of industrial titans.

After the wars, people - not just voracious political opportunists, but many average voters and nearly all of the intelligentsia - fell in love with the notion of using the power of industrialized warfare to address domestic issues. Every crisis became "equivalent" to war.

People expected more of government, so it grew - and then it exploded. Meanwhile, Big Business was growing too, and it delivers tangible benefits that would be impossible to achieve with only small, decentralized local companies. There is an inescapable logic to corporate growth.