Hey, fun fact, threatening an elections official with criminal prosecution unless he rigs an election in your favor is not just impeachable but a federal crime

MSNBC medical experts are underscoring that the course of treatment Trump is on is one you would *not* apply to someone who's doing well—but to someone who is struggling. Indeed, the experts say, it would be a *dangerous* treatment to give to a COVID-19 patient who is doing well.

NOTE/ The specific cause for concern here is the steroids; they're given to "severe and critical" hospitalized patients, and could harm patients who are not having breathing or immune-response issues. Keep in mind Trump's doctors claim they're discussing discharging him tomorrow.

NOTE2/ Tomorrow Trump's doctors will come up with a reason why he can't be discharged. Or they'll recall what was always the case—Trump can get basically the same treatment at the White House. I maintain the most likely scenario is that he demanded Walter Reed, then regretted it.

NOTE3/ Another possibility: Trump's White House doctors are basically jokes who just do whatever he tells them, and he wanted the real doctors at Walter Reed. Now that *real* doctors have set the course of treatment, Trump can go to the White House unless/until it becomes acute.

(THREAD) The main problem with that @DanDrezner piece in the Post is that it's an international politics prof writing about the field in which I'm a professor—communications. No one in communications would *ever* compare the blogosphere to either Twitter or Substack. Here's why.

1/ Back in the mid-aughts, I was a Koufax Award-nominated political blogger (I don't know what Drezner was doing then; I first heard of him about a year ago). So I was into the blogosphere pretty deep, as I also ran a second high-traffic blog that was focused on the art world.

2/ The "blogosphere" was an outgrowth of MySpace and LiveJournal, inasmuch as in the heady early days of the internet people suddenly realized that they could engage in private diaristic writing—a very specific subgenre of writing—in the public square, and it was suddenly "okay."

3/ So the blogosphere as such had *nothing* to do with journalism, which needless to say was in a different state just 15 years ago (note: unlike Drezner, I also teach writing and journalism at the university level, so this thread is squarely "in my area," unlike his Post piece).

4/ The blogosphere was a manifestation of the transformation of the public-private binary at the dawn of the internet—and *also* connected to the "creative writing" explosion (what I did a PhD on); in the aughts, creative writing was the fastest-growing discipline *in the world*.

(THREAD) Pre-election Russia collusion may take down Trump. It's equally possible the Trumps' pre- and post-election collusion with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel will do it—a course of collusion also connected to the Kremlin. I explain here. I hope you'll read on and retweet.

1/ I must stress how unbelievably complex the "Grand Bargain" theory of the Trump-Russia case is—a different thing from saying it's not substantiated. It's substantiated in *almost every single particular*—it just *also* happens to be very confusing. Not byzantine—just confusing.

2/ The basics: Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE all view Iran as their chief regional enemy. Iran is propped up by Russia. Therefore the Saudis, Israelis, and Emiratis all need a US government willing to find a way to get the Kremlin to *stop* supporting Iran in the Middle East.

3/ The best way to get Russia to stop supporting Iran—or reduce support—was/is to drop all sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, as that'd be worth *trillions* to the Kremlin over the next decade. Everyone knew that Clinton wouldn't do this—and that Trump would.

4/ Per the NYT, on August 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met secretly at Trump Tower with a Saudi and Emirati emissary, George Nader, as well as an Israeli intelligence expert, Joel Zamel, with *significant* ties to both Israeli intelligence *and* Russian oligarchs allied with Putin.

Thread – The Buffoon in the White House (Irony)

1. A pal passed this to me the other day, and I saved it for today. The author is unknown (at least to me), but this has been posted on a number of blogs. An excellent read!

1. Juan O’Savin for verifying this. “Plane crashes are targeted kills.”

Here is a brief summary for those who may not be familiar with Kennedy History:

Congratulations to Jacobin for, the day after Lula's defense team filed it's 2nd motion to dismiss due to illegal US involvement in Lava Jato, its timid reference to the US DOJ partnership. This relationship has been public knowledge for over 5 years but better late than never.

When William Barr, from the US DOJ, responded to the 13 democrat's congressional inquiry into US involvement in in Lava Jato last year, he responded that they have been posting information about this partnership on their website since 2016 and linked this.