Don Moynihan Profile picture
Aug 24, 2019 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Interpreters in Iraq signed up to work with the US military. They put on uniforms, lived on a base, saved US lives, earned the loyalty of the troops around them. They made themselves targets. Then, the US refused to help them. 1/
nbcnews.com/politics/immig…
Congress passed laws to allow Iraqis who worked with the US to seek safety in the US. The Bush and Obama administration put administrative burdens in place to slow down that process, making the process incredibly slow and onerous. People died waiting. 2/ thisamericanlife.org/499/taking-nam…
Under Trump, things have become much worse. Consistent with his anti-Muslim and anti-refugee policy, the trickle has virtually stopped.
Iraqi refugees admitted to the U.S. in 2016: 9,880
In 2018: 140

Interpreters admitted in 2016: 325
In 2018: 2.
There are so many sad lessons from this.
First, it shows the way bureaucracies use administrative burdens to defy legislation promises they are charged with keeping.
Second, it hurts military security by making it harder to recruit in the future. 4/
npr.org/2019/05/01/718…
Third, bureaucracies are motivated by blame avoidance, to the point that interpreters who had shown loyalty to the US were treated as potential terrorists.
Fourth, the immigrant hostility of the Trump admin is clearly influencing bureaucratic decisions. 5/
thisamericanlife.org/607/didnt-we-s…
When you listen to the stories of those who risked their lives for the US, it is hard not to feel outrage and shame. Sarah was not only an interpreter but an an extraordinarily effective intelligence agent. 6/
npr.org/2019/05/01/718…
Sarah was such an effective US asset that militants nicknamed her "the Lion." They killed her husband as retribution. Thats when she decided she had to take her kids and leave.
After 8 yrs in the application process, her visa was denied. 7/ thisamericanlife.org/607/didnt-we-s…

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More from @donmoyn

Sep 22, 2023
The connections are pretty clear. Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society helped bankroll the work of Ginni Thomas. He also arranged for Clarence Thomas to attend Koch fundraisers.
propublica.org/article/claren…

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The shared purpose of Leonard Leo, Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas and the Koch network was to put right-wing judges on the court. And Clarence Thomas used his public position on the court to raise money for that. Image
Clarence Thomas used to support the Chevron doctrine, which allows delegation to administrative expertise. But the people who fund the Koch network can't buy off administrators, so they want to remove their influence from the process. Now Thomas agrees with the donors.
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Read 4 tweets
Sep 12, 2023
Holy shit, its the original Avocado Toast guy!
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Also this guy: young people today can't afford a house because they occasionally buy new clothes
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If the people @FinancialReview care for free speech at all, they will do the decent thing and allow replies to this tweet, allowing a full and frank exchange of views. Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 28, 2023
America has 22 times the firearm homicide rates as the European Union.
We are less safe and less free because of how available guns are in this country.
healthdata.org/news-events/in…
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America makes up about 15% of gun homicides, and together with five other countries constitutes half of gun homicides in the world. vox.com/2018/8/29/1779…
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The reason more people in America are dying from guns is because there are more guns in America.
America is the only country with more guns than people. cnn.com/2021/11/26/wor…
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Read 5 tweets
Aug 17, 2023
New, from me: I wrote about how the emerging debacle at New College (one-third of faculty gone, students can't find classes, housed in airport hotels) reflects the incompetence of populists like DeSantis. Image
Competence, the ability to perform organizational core tasks, is an underrated quality. It is an especially overlooked quality by people who value other things, like ideological goals, or believe that existing institutions are corrupt, or who have never actually run things. Image
Fuck Around (left, celebrating the firing of a faculty who criticized the Regents)
and
Find Out: (right, soliciting faculty applications because you don't have enough to teach classes - one-third have left for some reason).
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Read 6 tweets
Aug 16, 2023
The DeSantis takeover of New College was meant to offer a model of a conservative-run higher ed.

The result is chaos, which is what happens when incompetent people who don't actually care about organizational mission take over public services. insidehighered.com/news/students/…
The NY Times recently featured Chris Rufo to explain how DEI was undermining liberal education.

You know what actually undermines a liberal education?
Losing one-third of faculty.
Not offering core classes to students.
Raging incompetence and blind indifference.
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Rufo is seeking to personally recruit replacements. Which is completely at odds with what university trustees are supposed to do. No way that could go wrong, right? Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 3, 2023
Update: Kathleen McElroy receives a settlement of $1M from Texas A&M, who had offered her a senior tenured position, and then pulled that offer.

From the internal Texas A&M reports: it was A&M Regents who signaled their opposition to McElroy, at which point the university figured out they would not tenure her.
Seems like the Regents cost A&M $1M. Nice job.
: ... tamus.edu/wp-content/up
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Not great when a university President is saying "I'm assuming all texts were deleted" and then tells faculty she was not involved in hiring process. (She has since resigned).
Read 8 tweets

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