President Trump extends the national emergency with respect to Southern Border until February 15, 2022.

As we now have an hour-long recording of Donald John Trump going full mobster on a Georgia state official, I thought I'd do a thread highlighting some of my work on the criminality of Trump & his associates.

[THREAD]

1/ We begin with the three-part series written with mob expert @LincolnsBible. Part One discusses how Trump, a second-generation mob money launderer, became a Confidential Informant, thus avoiding

2/ Part Two details how a guy owned by La Cosa Nostra came to be owned by the Russian mafiya. The 80s were boon times for hostile

3/ In the final segment, @LincolnsBible explains why Trump's criminality is not more widely known, and how the IC's commitment to secrecy above all else failed us these last four

4/ If you believe Rudy Giuliani, now the president's private attorney, somehow changed in the years after 9/11, you'll be surprised to learn that he's always been awful, INCLUDING during his "America's Mayor"

What's the "value" offered by international relations scholarship?

What does it mean to think about world events "like an international relations scholar"?

Trump's order to withdrawal 🇺🇸 troops from 🇸🇴 offers a useful

This event could be viewed from a variety of angles, from the "micro-level" on up.

International Relations scholars/analysts can and do use each of the following angles, though not all are strictly speaking taking an "International Relations angle".

Let's explore the angles.

The "country-expert" angle entails discussing the event by laying out the situation within Somalia, providing details on key figures involved and perhaps how the conflict has disrupted Somalia's internal governance and

The "Military/Security analyst" angle involves outlining the details of what US troops presently do in Somalia and how they carry out their mission (including equipment, mission, and tactics).

See this @ChathamHouse report by

The "Area Studies/Regional Expert" angle involves discussing the decision as an event that will impact the Horn of Africa or East Africa more

THREAD: To cap off the Trump era, I interviewed a politically diverse group of constitutional scholars, presidential historians and experts on democracy to put together a definitive list of Trump's ten most egregious abuses of power. Here's what we found.

1) SUBVERTING THE 2020 ELECTION. There is broad agreement that Trump's worst abuse was his relentless effort to undermine the vote and overturn the legitimate results. No POTUS ever tried a political coup like this. It's simply un-American, experts said.

2) INCITING AN INSURRECTION. We all saw what happened on January 6. Trump incited a rally supporters in DC to attack the US Capitol while electoral votes were being counted. He got impeached for it. A permanent scar on his legacy, experts said.

3) ABUSING THE BULLY PULPIT. Different than other abuses because it's speech, not actions. But still, experts said this was a very big deal. His nonstop lying, attacks, racist rhetoric, and fanning of flames was deeply corrosive to our political culture.

4) POLITICIZING THE DOJ. Trump repeatedly crossed lines and violated norms that have been in place since Watergate to create independence between the WH and federal law enforcement. Wielded DOJ as a weapon against enemies and shield for himself and allies.

Prison sentence ended: Sholam Weiss, who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering re insurance fraud scheme

Robert Zangrillo, a Miami real estate developer who was charged with conspiring with a college consultant to bribe athletic officials at the University of Southern California to designate his daughter as a recruit to the crew team, received a pardon

William Walters, a wealthy sports gambler convicted in an insider-trading scheme, who paid tens of thousands of dollars to ex-Trump lawyer John Dowd to get him on Trump’s list. Prison sentence ended.

Commuted remaining prison sentence: Dr. Salomon E. Melgen, 66, a major Democratic donor and eye doctor who ran a series of clinics in Florida that fraudulently told Medicare patients that they had eye diseases and then performed medically unnecessary tests and procedure

FULL PARDON Former Uber Executive WHO HAD Pleaded Guilty to Trade Theft: Anthony Levandowski was charged with stealing driverless-car plans when he left Google to form a company, which Uber then acquired.