Thread 6: Brainwashing by Bannon

I mean literally brainwashing. Please see psychological and sociological theories. I mean literally building a cult - that CANNOT FIND THE TRUTH

It is like the Branch Davidians (mass suicide)

Steve Bannon built this cult for Trump

Rudy Insurance Thread 1/

America's Vampire, the notorious serial butt-dialer and former attorney, Rudy Colludy once threatened the sitting US President with his 'insurance' files. Giuliani clearly thought Trump fears his evidence. Let's explore this 'tremendous' legal gambit

Rudy Insurance Thread 2/

Yesterday, Friday the retired judge who was acting as 'Special Master' finished reviewing files that FBI took from Giuliani raiding his office last April. Near 28,000 files, text messages, emails, pics, videos & sound files were handed to Fed prosecutors

Rudy Insurance Thread 3/

Like when same Special Master finished reviewing the files FBI took from raid of Trump attorney Michael Cohen's office, we can now expect Rudy Giuliani arrest is imminent

We know he'd committed a slew of crimes, he's even been confessing to many of them

Rudy Insurance Thread 4/

Can Rudy escape prison by bargaining with his notorious 'insurance' file? Ah... that is where this gets interesting

A normal criminal could well perhaps manage to do that. Negotiate a deal, and use the evidence in that bargaining. But not Giuliani

Rudy Insurance Thread 5/

The NORMAL criminal negotiates with prosecutors, telling them in a 'proffer' session what kinds of crimes the perp can confess to, & specifically, who else they can implicate as partners in that crime. It only really works if they can give someone 'big'

Affidavit Day Thread 1/

So we had fun with Affidavit Day. Now let's do a Thread of what we learned, and where we now stand, on the largest espionage case in US history, in fact Trump's theft of US secrets is one of largest in world, of all time
#TrumpStoleClassifiedDocuments

Affidavit Day Thread 2/

With previous news, and what broke on Thursday, we know at least the following:

In January 2021, outgoing sitting US President Trump personally stole documents. They were not packed by the General Services Administration. Trump personally packed boxes

Affidavit Day Thread 3/

In January while Trump was still President, his White House Chief Counsel, Patsy Baloney told Trump that Trump does not own government documents. Pat Cipollone also told the National Archives that he is aware these documents must be sent to Archives

Affidavit Day Thread 4/

Trump was asked nicely by National Archives, & then in ever more severe terms, for a year, to return documents. In Jan 2022 Trump returned 15 boxes of government documents. Among non-classified, but government property, DOJ found 184 classified documents

Affidavit Day Thread 5/

That Trump had kept 184 classified documents is a crime. The penalty would be 184 x 5 years = 920 years of prison time JUST on taking these classified documents without authorization (and keeping them)

That is before we consider Top Secret matters, etc

Trump on climate: I don't believe it. Trump on Khashoggi: I don't believe it. Trump on Russia: I don't believe it. Idiocy? A canny game? Doesn't really matter as much as the underlying intellectual autocracy. In this administration only one opinion matters.

It's an assault on facts and reason. It's an assault on good governance. It's an assault on the bureaucracies that are being discounted. It's an assault on science and history. But it is also an assault on one of the underpinnings of democracy.

We live in a system that is grounded on the idea of collaborative government. Leaders may have a final word but even then, there are typically checks and balances. Hopefully, in this case, such checks and balances may work. But they also are being tested.

The president's position that he is smarter than all the world's scientists, than the entire intelligence community, than experts who have studied any issue all their lives, is, of course, asinine. But his belief that government turns solely on his opinion, is monarchic.

Louis XIV reportedly said, "L'etat est moi." That he was the state. Trump asserting that he knows better than all, discounts all advice, that his brain is enough to chart the course for America alone, is essentially saying the same thing.

As usual is maddening how easy this is to understand and how much everyone refuses to understand it. There are two things happening here, and they aren't super hard to understand. There's the asshole administration and the asshole reporter.

The court said asshole administration revoked asshole Jim Acosta's press pass without due process. WH deemed him press, gave him a press pass, then they kicked him out without even being able to say who made the decision or on what grounds.

We want hostile, combative reporters. We **want** that. **You** want that. We want that because the press secretary of every single administration is a liar. Even the ones you like. Lying is their job. They show up to avoid answering, but give the appearance of being answerable.

It shouldn't be easy for government to just refuse to be answerable. It should be hard to dodge. Hard to kick people out. Hard to control the narrative. That shouldn't be easy for the gov't. Not even your most favoritest president.

You, the American citizen, want the truth. Reporters should be there to get it. That means asking questions doggedly, demanding answers. This is not an obscure idea. It should be obvious to anyone who's experienced having a president you didn't vote for. Super rare right?

Some quick thoughts on Sam Gyimah's resignation after conversations with various Conservative MPs: 1) the chances of a second referendum are a lot higher than I thought:

2) At this point, if you are a young and ambitious Tory MP it is now so overwhelmingly in your interest to vote against the withdrawal agreement. V v hard to see how Julian Smith can cap rebellion at under 100:

3) Really just to reiterate 1) Gyimah is the kind of "No, never gonna rebel" vaguely pro-EU Tory you'd need to get on side to outweigh Labour Leavers and Real Concerners.

We promised people that if we won the Senate, we would send out $2,000 survival checks. They delivered us to victory—and now we MUST deliver.

“Targeting” checks to a smaller group fails to do that. People need help like never before, and we must put money in their pockets.

“Targeting” checks isn’t just bad for people, it’s bad policy too! It’s not humane, it's not smart, it’s not effective, and it’s not even fiscally responsible. Not to mention that it doesn't meet the scale of this crisis.

Help me spread the word about 4 obvious reasons why:

1⃣The survival checks often use 2019 tax data to measure someone’s income.

Millions lost their jobs in 2020 due to COVID—that’s the whole point of this relief!—and therefore their income from 1 or 2 years ago is no longer accurate. They need help now and we must provide it.

Even if someone isn’t one of the nearly 1 million additional people losing their job EVERY single week, they likely lost hours and therefore had their overall income significantly reduced.

By “targeting,” we cut out people who are desperately in need of help.

2⃣The data from people who filed for unemployment shows that more than 20% of those earning between $50k and $70k were still food insecure.

That's up 16% from 2019—and it's why food banks have such long lines. We need to put money in their pockets so they can feed their family.

Strongly endorse everything in this @OsitaNwanevu piece. One of the key mistakes I see among Dems, both online & in the real world, is thinking that people believe right-wing nonsense because they are unintelligent or uneducated.

In the area I know best, climate change, it's been found repeatedly that climate denialists & skeptics have, on average, MORE higher education than those who accept the science. They know MORE about climate science. They have, on average, HIGHER verbal intelligence.

What they do is adopt the conclusion that best serves their social tribe and then use their intelligence & education to build a case for it. It's called "motivated reasoning" & everyone is subject to it, very much including the smartest people.