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1. Donald Ayer served as Deputy Attorney General under President Bush. Here, he calls for the resignation or impeachment of the man who succeeded him in that office in 1990, and who now serves as attorney general: William Barr theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
2. “From his perch as attorney general, [Barr] is in the midst of a root-and-branch attack on the core principles that have guided our justice system, and especially our Department of Justice, since the 1970s,” Donald Ayer writes. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
3. More: "Barr has brought with him to the department an extraordinary belief in the need for an all-powerful president that is flatly irreconcilable with Levi’s vision, which restored the Department of Justice to honor and integrity in the mid-’70s.” theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
4. "Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen.” Barr must resign, argues former Deputy AG Donald Ayer: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
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Yoni Appelbaum
@YAppelbaum
1. As others have noted, this is a paraphrase from Judge Hare in 1889, not from Democracy in America itself. The gist is roughly accurate, though, and still worth grappling with.
2. Tocqueville’s fear was a tyranny of the majority, exercised through an overweening legislature. The Founders shared that fear. But it’s very hard to look at the trajectory of American democracy, and conclude it’s a story of a powerless executive humbled by Congress.
3. And Hare had a purpose for offering the quote—he, like many of his era, had come to view the impeachment of Andrew Johnson as a mistake. “The conviction of Andrew Johnson might have been the first step in the downward path."
Read 5 tweets
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Yoni Appelbaum
@YAppelbaum
1. Sondland says he didn’t take many notes. If there’s one thing that has disadvantaged Trump’s first-time political appointees in their fights with career civil servants? It’s that they have no idea how to wage bureaucratic warfare: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
2. The office memo is a technology. It enshrines a particular view of events. Longtime State Department officials understood this—and took pains to document their acts and instructions in writing. Trump himself views note-taking with extreme suspicion: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
3. Again and again, when Trump advances an account of events, he has been met with a contemporaneous documentary record produced by someone who understands bureaucracy, and forced to revise his claims. The humble memo is having a moment: theatlantic.com/politics/archi…
Read 3 tweets
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Yoni Appelbaum
@YAppelbaum
1. For our December issue, I wrote about a question that has obsessed me of late: What happens when a large section of the population becomes convinced that it cannot continue to win elections, and also that it cannot afford to lose them?

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
2. Democracies have generally required a healthy, vibrant center-right—confident it can compete in, and win, elections. Partisan coalitions in the United States are constantly reshuffling, realigning along new axes. But sometimes, instead of adapting, the political right hardens.
3. A conservatism defined by ideas can hold its own against progressivism, winning converts to its principles and evolving. A conservatism defined by identity reduces the complex calculus of politics to a simple arithmetic question—and at some point, the numbers no longer add up.
Read 7 tweets

Related threads

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Jason Keeney
@beingjkeeney
Let’s explore just how phony all this “Muh Russia” stuff is.

We will look at the real problem, China.

Read this article by Newsweek just to get how big this problem with China is, and then we will get into the weeds a bit.

newsweek.com/china-involved…
Next read this article and note the emphasis on 2014.

fifthdomain.com/international/…
Then read this Wired article and also note the emphasis on China in 2014.

If the problem with China is this bad, why does “Muh Russia” Start in late 2014?

Shouldn’t it be “Muh China”?

wired.com/story/marriott…
Read 390 tweets
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Brandon J. Smith
@brandonjsmith5
We're back for Day Two of the Curtis Hill disciplinary hearing.

Here's a quick recap of day one: wfyi.org/news/articles/…

Or you can go through my whole thread of day one:
Some stray thoughts before today's hearing gets underway:

Day One wasn't particularly revelatory for those of us who've been following this issue all along - we've heard or read most of the details the four women shared yesterday.
Day Two should see testimony from people we haven't heard from before and yield details we haven't gotten.
Read 134 tweets
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Stu Cvrk
@STUinSD
Thread: On the Office of the Director of National Intelligence

1. Established in 2005, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence integrates the intelligence gathering and analysis functions performed across the IC to provide intelligence to decision makers.
2. The core mission is advertised as leading intelligence integration and forging an intelligence community across the 17 component agencies that delivers the most insightful and accurate intelligence possible. Here is more from the official website:

<quote>
3. The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) serves as the head of the U.S. Intelligence Community, overseeing and directing the implementation of the National Intelligence Program (NIP).
Read 51 tweets
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CSM
@usacsmret
Another Mueller-Comey One-Two Punch bit.ly/2KdSm3H
Most Americans are unaware of the long history of comradeship and chicanery between Robert Mueller and James Comey. For nearly two decades, the pair have held the same jobs, earned the same foes, and swaggered in the same rarified sphere of political prestige and privilege.
In fact, their prior relationship should have disqualified Mueller from overseeing an investigation into one of Comey’s fiercest critics and the man who fired him, President Donald Trump.
Read 29 tweets
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Shem Horne
@Shem_Infinite
👇👇👇
Sally Yates did this last time before the IG report came out too, one of the few people quoted by name in the bombshell "Crossfire Hurricane" article by the NYT

source: nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/…
"Ms. Yates, the deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama, signed the first warrant application"

"Folks are very, very careful and serious about that process," Ms. Yates said.
Read 3 tweets
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Mona
@Monaheart1229
OH! READ THIS ⤵️Breaking NYT: someone on Mueller's team is talking and said that the report is 'more damaging for Trump than Barr revealed'
#WednesdayMotivation
nytimes.com/2019/04/03/us/…
2-"WASHINGTON — Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to
3-"government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations. At stake in the dispute — the first evidence of tension between Mr. Barr and the special counsel’s office — is who shapes the public’s initial understanding of one of the most consequential government
Read 40 tweets

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