Right now: Senate Intel Dems charging
@senatemajldr
McConnell with doing “irreparable” danger to American democracy by blocking bill on election security.
Fmr FBI Counsel and DOJ official James Baker worries that Trump influence on Justice Dept becoming “normalized,” calls for officials to “speak out,” even at risk to careers. “Think of the long-term interests of yourself and the country.”
@maddow
We are way, way past the “no collusion“ sale date. The president of the United States is now discussing handing over a distinguished former American ambassador to Russia. If this doesn’t provoke massive resignations from this administration, nothing else will.
No. You are not overreacting. The entire country should be aware of this. If Putin can single out
@mcfaul
, he can single out anyone. The President’s job is to protect us, not to even *consider* handing any of us over to an enemy government.
1/ Trump wasn't "urging" anything in Feb, other than "this will go away."
2/ Burr is the INTELLIGENCE CHAIR. He knew damn well what was going on.
3/ Rather than warning Americans about COVID, Burr quietly sold stock in things he knew would tank, like hotels/resorts.
#traitor
Here’s the clip. He literally says doctors are delivering healthy children, wrapping them up, and then having a conversation with the parents before EXECUTING THEM. This DOES. NOT. HAPPEN. It is pouring gasoline on a fire.
@CBPMarkMorgan
Just a guess here, but I’m thinking that
@CBPMarkMorgan
and his ilk would be crazed out of their minds if a Democratic administration deployed unmarked paramilitaries to arrest, say, highly armed rightwing militia members threatening public health officials.
As a veteran I have to say that Trump choosing Memorial Day to pardon accused military war criminals is a desecration, not to mention deeply disturbing.
Breaking News: President Trump is showing signs he will pardon several servicemen accused of war crimes. He asked for paperwork to be prepared by Memorial Day
Italian doctor facing Coronavirus tsunami publishes long, moving thread that culminates with, ‘Is panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?’ Read the whole frightening thing here. We may be next.
1/ I may be repeating myself, but I want to fight this sense of security that I see outside of the epicenters, as if nothing was going to happen "here". The media in Europe are reassuring, politicians are reassuring, while there's little to be reassured of.
#COVID19
#coronavirus
Red alarms were going off all over Washington about Michael Flynn’s contacts with foreign officials, especially the Russian ambassador, following on his payments from the Kremlin’s RT and invitation to sit at Putin’s table. FBI shouldn’t have been interested?
The four major U.S. networks will carry Obama’s hour-long “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020,” at 8 p.m. EDT, a consolation prize for millions of students whose home-town ceremonies were canceled because of the pandemic.
Brian Williams opener: “It’s a sad fact of life, but if impeachment touches your presidency, it goes right to the top of your obituary and it stays there forever.”
Flynn Secretly Paid $200,000 in Middle East Nuclear Scheme—Report. Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad dug up internal audit documents revealing more unreported payments in wild scheme for Arab power plants. My story for
@talk_spy
‘Toward the end of the administration, Mr. Trump ripped pictures that intrigued him out of the President’s Daily Brief — a compendium of often classified information about potential national security threats — but it is unclear whether he took them to the residence with him.’
‘ Bill Barr has pretty much marked himself as a fanatic.’—John Harwood on CNN tonight, commenting on Barr’s equating covid-19 health-safety restrictions to slavery.
@JohnJHarwood
On Flynn’s troubling calls with Kislyak, Obama wanted to be sure “every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book,’” Susan Rice said in an email memorializing the WH meeting, attended by Biden. This is bad somehow?
@SteveSchmidtSES
Leading news orgs need to refine their terminology and start adding ‘insurrectionist’ to ‘Republican’ wherever applicable, ie, ‘Insurrectionist Republican Senator Josh Hawley,’ etc.
Trump egged on the mob against Pence about 12 mins after the rioters had made it inside the building. “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution," he tweeted.
As a former CIA director and graduate of West Point, fmr congressman Mike Pompeo certainly knows that accepting secret help from foreign agents is not only illegal but borders on treason. He has violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution of United States.
ISIS is NOT destroyed. Here is where Trumps delusion will destroy our Mideast National security. We are abandoning our SDF allies to Turkey, Iran, Assad and Russia? Prepare for ISIS 2.0
“This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals,” the co-owner said of her decision to evict Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
‘ES&S and Dominion are both owned by private equity, which means we don’t know who funds and controls them. And what little we do know is concerning.’—
@jennycohn1
on our frightening lack of election security. And where is DHS? Crickets.
Zelensky Prepares to Go Down with the Ship. He rejected US pleas to flee intro exile, said an American friend who talked with the president yesterday. by
@talk_spy
Important, clarifying threads on how Trump was not just protecting himself by obstructing justice but covering up a foreign power’s efforts to subvert US politics, from
@ThePlumLineGS
and
@gtconway3d
. Strong argument for impeachment, no matter how futile it appears now.
Dems are not making one of their best arguments:
That by obstructing the probe, Trump impeded the inquiry into not just his conduct, but also into the Russian attack on our political system.
Here's scholar Philip Bobbit on why this might be impeachable:
Beware, warns CENTCOM veteran Patricia Ravalgi, ‘the constant drumbeat of right-wing conspiracy theories and hateful political rhetoric has found its way into a sizable portion of the U.S. military’s rank and file.’
Trump demonstrating once again today that, months into the
#coronavirus
emergency, he does not have even a grade-schooler’s understanding of viruses and vaccines— which would be fine if he was just your crazy uncle on the third floor.
Smart stuff fm
@ruthbenghiat
2nite on MSNBC. Trucker blockades have potential to morph into govt paralysis, demand for authoritarian leader, as happened when Nixon’s CIA made Chile economy ‘scream’ in 1973.
We have confirmed the
@nytimes
scoop: A Russian military spy unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to attack coalition forces in Afghanistan. From
@nakashimae
@missy_ryan
me and
@shaneharris
Klan terror and murders became so commonplace by the mid-1960s that LBJ ordered a reluctant FBI to act. Question now is whether the FBI can effectively crack down on white supremacists under a president who encourages them.
Our country is under attack from white nationalist terrorism, inspiring murder on our soil and abetted by weak gun laws. If we are serious about national security, we must summon the courage to name and defeat this evil.
I’d like to see
@CovCathColonels
host a televised town hall including the kids, their teachers, administrators and parents to explore the origins of such disgusting behavior. The
#MAGA
hats are a clue, but not the whole story.
This is a discouraging sign of where we are as a country. The school & community can & should turn it into a teachable moment, but it’s disheartening to see a tribal elder treated with such disrespect. The attempt at physical intimidation echoes other dark times.
I've been very moved by all the kind words from so many people about my being laid off today by Newsweek. Pls know that I really, really appreciate it.
Unprecedented, deeply disturbing lack of White House reaction to
#nashvillebombing
. Cannot the staff pry
@realDonaldTrump
from his grievance-tweeting for even a moment? (Oh, right, nothing on 330,000 covid19 deaths, either...and golf...)
Blam!: Trump purging another truth teller, HHS official ‘who angered him with a report last month highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals,’ per .
@peterbakernyt
Can’t help but wonder if all these
#Bush41
tributes and inspirational words moved Trump, for just a moment, to regret the trajectory of his own life, knowing that he is about to pay a steep price for it.
This might explain Parscale's suicide attempt: Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million via
@forbes
h/t
@MollyJongFast
Trump is just inventing mail-in ballot ‘election fraud.’ Reminder from
@JoyceWhiteVance
that the phony ‘commission’ he created to ‘investigate’ the issue came up empty-handed and collapsed.
Trump is making this up. There is no proof of fraud. His own 2017 “Election Integrity” Commission was shut down because it couldn’t find evidence of fraud anywhere, let along in mail-in states like Washington, Oregon & Colorado.
Murdoch and Fox bosses got their shots but they’re telling their sheeple not to get theirs because, you know, own the libs. They don’t give a shit if you die on that hill.—
@MollyJongFast
‘In 2017, McConnell...personally introduced a little-noticed amendment to eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Fund at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provided grants to states for detecting and responding to infectious-disease outbreaks.’
Richest man, poorest state: How Mitch McConnell became the most disgusting man in Washington. (Which is saying something.) Brilliant x-ray by
@JaneMayerNYer
in
@NewYorker
What can DoJ and FBI do about a American television news network that willingly parrots Russian propaganda it knows to be false, posing a threat to US national security? Vexing, unprecedented 1st amendment question.
If you think the continuing adoration of Putin by Fox News and its fans is a strange quirk and not another manifestation of the embrace of autocracy over democracy, then you haven’t been paying attention.
'The excruciating power of Zweig’s memoir lies in the pain of looking back and seeing that there was a small window in which it was possible to act, and then discovering how suddenly and irrevocably that window can be slammed shut.'
Trump and his QAnon Republican enablers are responsible for triggering crazy people like David DePape, 42, dentified by police Friday as the suspect in the assault on Paul Pelosi at the speaker’s San Francisco home.
I was a spy (a case officer in a real war eons ago). The FBI’s counterintelligence probe of suspicious contacts between Trump associates and Russian agents is not “spying” but the lawful *investigation* of subversion, which
@AshaRangappa_
deftly explains here.
@yarotrof
Good lord. While DoD slept, ‘The fact that Donbass Devushka isn’t a Russian from Donbas, as she presented herself online, but an American residing in Washington state, was first disclosed by pro-Ukrainian online open-source intelligence analysts and activists known as NAFO.’
If this video were posted without a headline or context, you'd think it came from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran or some other despotic nation. Snatching a mother off a street in front of her screaming children is about the most un-American thing I've seen in a long time.
I just caught up to ‘Trumping America’ via CNN on demand. It is the best broadcast distillation I’ve seen of the Trump-driven plotting to steal the election and the chilling prospect that he will succeed in 2024. Kudos to
@jaketapper
& co.
“A republic….if you can keep it.”
Hear from GOP election officials from all over the country as well as
@RepAGonzalez
@RepLizCheney
@AdamKinzinger
and more about how close we came to having our democracy undermined.
Tonight at 8 pm ET on CNN
This: ‘Barr’s summary does not describe how Mueller investigated or came to explain the many interactions the campaign had with various Russians during the election.’ It’s a big, big hole in Barr’s summary, as
@NatashaBertrand
points out.
Happy to have contributed to this strong counterintelligence piece by
@NatashaBertrand
: Barr’s Summary Omits a Key Aspect of Mueller's Report - The Atlantic
#MuellerReport
CNN's Jim Acosta: "What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you're not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don't match what your health experts are saying?"
President Trump: "That’s CNN. Fake news."
‘As Trump seeks to settle scores, terrify future witnesses, and generally act out all the fantasies in his authoritarian spank bank, Barr is his chief fluffer.’—
@TheRickWilson
Very happy to announce our new partnership with
@thedailybeast
, starting with today’s cross-posted piece: Poisoner, Hacker, Meddler, Spy: How Russian Agents Ran Wild via
@thedailybeast
The attorneys general of North Carolina and New York ‘said they would be examining the operations of Jay Sekulow’s group Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism (Case).’
@TheRickWilson
@NickNehamas
In this and other recent pieces, Trump has been revealed as a man-child who plays with national security secrets like a seven-year-old with shiny new toys: He insists on showing them to everyone in the room.
We’re still waiting for the truth behind Trump’s nonemergency emergency weekend visit to Walter Reed last Nov. And before that there were his phony medical reports. Can’t expect him to be honest about whether he’s been tested for Coronavirus.
Pence promised reporters he would get an answer today whether trump had been tested. That is a black hole—the potential answers are not to be believed anyway, assuming there is any answer at all.
"Listen you mother fuckers—we're gonna tax you 25%,” Trump said to China in this video I found. Spare me this fake controversy around Rep Rashida Tlaib.
All mask-mocking politicians like this jerk should be required to spend at least one day in the ICU, another day in the local morgue, and another day at coronavirus funerals. h/t
@RexChapman
Here’s video of Scottsdale City Councilman Guy Phillips shouting "I Can't Breathe" before removing his mask at today's Anti-Mask Rally in Arizona:
Mocking Eric Garner & George Floyd and many others in this moment is something I feel compelled to expose...
I guess we can stop talking about Hillary’s emails for awhile: Kushner using WhatsApp to do ‘govt’ business, KT McFarland using AOL to talk about ‘sensitive nuclear tech’ transfers to Saudis...
This is not just about Jared and Ivanka:
From Cummings letter: "Appears" K.T. McFarland used her AOL account to conduct biz over transfer of 'sensitive nuclear tech" to Saudi...
Cummings presses WH on Kushner use of WhatsApp via
@nbcnews
Even Fox is panning Trump’s statement. ‘This is an extremely flammable situation and the president just threw a match into it.’—Chris Wallace. Saying he won it and calling for voting to stop is ‘deeply irresponsible.’—Dana Perine. ‘Beyond the pale.’—Juan Williams
Trump’s crazed behavior on Jan. 6 is even too much for the WSJ’s forgiving Opinion editors. ‘Republicans can’t afford to look away from the accumulating evidence of his conduct,’ they finally said today.
Brutal portrait of a deranged President, with startling new and depressing details about his fawning calls with dictators and diatribes against allies, by Carl Bernstein
@CNNPolitics
Laurie Garrett on the CDC: “There’s nothing going on down there. They’ve gutted that place. They’ve gagged that place. I can’t get calls returned anymore. Nobody down there is feeling like it’s safe to talk...”
@FrankBruni
via
@nytopinion
@MSNBC
Neither was I or hundreds of thousands of other draftees a “fan” of the Vietnam War, but we went. Some 20,000 resisters honorably went to jail. Trump? Nothing.
#weak
Here it is: ‘Trump also gave no indication that he warned Mr. Putin against Russian interference in the 2020 presidential election, a prospect that has unnerved some of his own top aides, including the recently departed secretary of homeland security, Kirstjen Nielsen.’