1/ We're now seeing the worst fears come true about appointing John Ratcliffe as Director of National Intelligence. Remember: his first nomination went up in flames because he was the least qualified person to ever have a shot at the position. He lied about his credentials.
2/ Even Donald Trump conceded Ratcliffe was not vetterd properly for the job. DONALD TRUMP CONCEDED HE MADE A MISTAKE. That's how bad Ratcliffe's initial appointment was. But the impeachment hearings changed everything.
3/ Ratcliffe made it clear he was a rabid defender of the president at all costs. It was an obvious audition. Trump had placed Richard Grennell as DNI -- the only person less qualified than Ratcliffe to be appointed, and so he left the Senate with little choice but to accept him.
4/ Ratcliffe was confirmed 49-42. His predecessor, Dan Coats, was confirmed by 85-12 vote. It's tough to put into words how many red flags were raised about Ratcliffe, but now we're seeing why. And it's like we all forgot how this happened.
5/ Now Trump has the framing of the Intelligence Community behind him 2 weeks before an election. They can accurately say "the director of national intelligence says" x, y, and z about Hunter Biden or Joe Biden or whoever they want. It doesn't matter what the evidence is.
6/ The performance Ratcliffe just put on with Fox News is a great example. He refuses to confirm when the Hunter Biden emails are legit. Instead, he says he does not know if they are a Russian disinfo plot, saying the IC is not investigating that.
7/ Of course, it's tough to say what that even means. Ratcliffe has basically no intelligence background. He has so far spent most of his time authorizing selective documents releases, doing Fox interviews and blocking Democrats from intelligence briefings.
8/ Ratcliffe says one thing, the people working for him say another, and the rest of us are left wondering what the hell is going on. Ultimately, it's the Trump playbook: flood the zone, muddy the waters. Ratcliffe is an extraordinarily good tool in that regard.
END/ We should always be skeptical of intelligence officials. ALWAYS. But especially so now. I trust WSJ, NYT, WaPo far more than I trust Ratcliffe. He can go on Fox and speak in half-truths all day, but ultimately he has one goal: elect Trump. All of us should act accordingly.
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1/ Don’t talk about this much publicly, but 3.5 years ago, I was in one of the darkest places I had ever been. I had applied to about 60 jobs and gotten zero of them. On seven occasions, I was a finalist for a reporting job I really wanted. All seven times, I got rejected.
2/ I had no idea what to do. My gig at the time, where I'd been for 7 years, was turning into a full on video outlet. I was no longer writing. I had ideas I wanted to execute but no idea how. Then my former colleague/boss/friend @catematthews mentioned something called Substack.
3/ I had some ideas I wanted to execute, namely a politics newsletter that summarized arguments from across the right & left on big, divisive issues. So I started a Substack, came up with a name, and sent out a few crude emails. Today, I just got this notification from Stripe:
Here are 5 of the most interesting political misconceptions that exist and persist in America today 🧵
1. “The Supreme Court is hopelessly divided.” Actually, over the last decade, 43% of all SCOTUS decisions were 9-0 *unanimous* decisions. In 2021-2022, roughly 60% were 9-0, 8-1, or 7-2 decisions. scotusblog.com/2022/07/as-una…
2. “Democrats hate police.” Ask a Republican, and they’ll estimate that about half of all Democrats think most police are bad people. Reality? Less than 20%. This is part of the “perception gap” perceptiongap.us
Every day, I write to one of the most politically diverse audiences (maybe *the* most?) in all of political news. Here are the five pieces from @TangleNews that got the most positive feedback from across the political spectrum this year:
If you think the NYTimes purposefully included a swastika in its crossword puzzle please get to therapy
If you actually need an explanation
1) This isn't what a swastika looks like 2) This shape happens when creating crosswords 3) The reader who made this crossword proudly explained the design!
1/ A few preemptive "election fraud" notes & what to expect on #ElectionDay2022
First, Pennsylvania's votes will take a while to count. You can take it to the bank that Dr. Oz will open with a big lead when the first tallies are released, and it will get closer as it goes on...
2/ That's because Republican state legislatures in states like PA, WI, and MI do NOT allow mail-in voting to be processed before election day. In OH and FL, Republicans allow this, so the count comes in quicker. It's an easy fix but they didn't fix it. 🤷♂️
3/ So, you can expand this to any state that has mail-in voting and doesn't allow processing before election day... don't be surprised if Rs open up some big leads in swing states and then those leads narrow and mail-in votes are tallied (which will skew heavy Dem)
1/ HELLO: I believe a lot of people are missing the point about Jan. 6th and what the #January6thCommitteeHearings are showing.
The Capitol riots were a horrible stain on our history.
But what led up to them was more dangerous.
To summarize what we now know:
2/ As the last returns began to trickle in on the early morning after election night, Trump's team understood that final results were still days away. Trump responded by announcing prematurely that he had won the election.
3/ When, days after election day, his top data analyst informed the president he was going to lose, he ignored him and insisted the results were wrong or stolen or corrupted.