NEW: @StateDept's top counterterrorism official says the Jan 6 siege of the #USCapitol "wasn't just an assault on the Capitol. It was an assault on democracy, w/a violent mob trying to interfere with the results of the election"

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!

(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.

I reckon a lot of you probably view me as a crazy left winger. And that may well be fair, but if you’re wondering how I got here , I’m gonna have a crack.
In my 20s I had pretty much zero interest in politics. I grew up in Central Qld, surrounded by conservative influences.

Towards the end of the Howard years I began to feel that what he was doing wasn’t right, probably starting when they changed the rules retrospectively in the wharfie dispute. But it was even more troubling when he began adopting Hanson’s racist immigration views, and children

Overboard was a shameful chapter in racist dog whistling. I was disappointed that he spent the proceeds of the mining boom on Johnny’s Battlers instead of future proofing our economy and building a sovereign wealth fund. His failure to implement any sort of climate policy was

His biggest failure though, in my opinion. Despite that, I admired his guts with the gun reform he achieved following Port Arthur.
It was with renewed hope that I rode the #Kevin07 wave to a change in government. I felt hopeful that Australia was going to be a world leader in

The fight against climate change. How disappointed I was, as Rudd and the Greens completely botched a golden opportunity. Then Rudd showed a streak of cowardice I still cannot comprehend after miners spent a few bucks on tv ads attacking the RSPT. Julia jumped in the hot seat

Thread. 1) Thirty or forty years ago, supporting free speech was understood to be a non-negotiable core value of the liberal left.

2) Pop culture endlessly celebrated liberalism’s uncompromising support of speech rights — from The People Vs. Larry Flynt to Field of Dreams to The American President.

3) Think of “President Shepard’s” speech in “The American President” about how “America isn’t easy” and citizenship requires we “acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil.”

4) That started to change long before Trump. As “The American President” came out, Bill Clinton was pushing the first Internet censorship laws.

When the PATRIOT Act passed, every Democrat but one in both houses voted yes. Russ Feingold, Independent Bernie Sanders, and three Republicans voted no.