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Don Moynihan Profile picture
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5 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Trump appointee Michael Pack diverted over a million tax dollars to a conservative law firm, tasking them with a fishing expedition investigation of his public employees. Included review of employees social media posts. npr.org/2021/03/04/973…
For context, see this earlier thread about how Pack politicized Voice of America.
Why was Pack investigating his own employees? They had warned him that his plans to politicize Voice of America were illegal, and he was looking for a means to fire them.
This is unbelievably bad, but hey something something Dr. Seuss cancel culture.
In all, Trump appointee Michael Pack appears to have funneled over $4M taxpayer funds to no-bid contracts to investigate his own employees who protested his other illegal activity.
Where is that waste, fraud and abuse hotline again?
washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/medi…

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More from @donmoyn

Don Moynihan Profile picture
6 Mar
So yesterday, I became a character on red rose twitter.
What was that like? At the risk of drawing another pile on where I am told I am an awful human being and a neoliberal shill of Big Biden, some thoughts.
My original post below, which was definitely sarcastic. It was in response to a fairly specific claim by David Sirota – that Manchin could be compelled to support a $15 min wage if progressive members of Congress threatened to not to support the COVID bill
This claim seemed unrealistic to me, and as I explained in a thread, if it were so obvious a “professional politican” – that is someone whose full time job is to achieve their policy goals - would have applied it. This include Sirota’s former boss, whom he called out in his piece Image
Read 15 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
5 Mar
The best way to understand America today is to study the post-Reconstruction era.
States passing bills to limit the vote. Congress trying to ensure equal access to the ballot, opposed by those who say its federal overreach. It has all happened before
nytimes.com/2021/03/05/opi…
New in APSR: incredible historical study demonstrating how administrative burdens systematically reduced Black access to the ballot. cambridge.org/core/journals/… Image
Just an extraordinary data viz from one of the authors. Blacks had equivalent political participation as whites in the 1870s & 1880s. Jim Crow meant it would be over 100 years before they would reach equivalent levels of participation.
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
5 Mar
The weird thing here is that both Gray and Sirota have worked in politics, for a guy who is now one of the most powerful politicians in the Senate. If they have a workable plan to achieve his goals, they should let him know!
Not sure I am going to be able to recover from this. Absolutely brutal owns. ImageImage
This has strong “you were at my wedding Denise” energy https://t.co/SjG7TWmCYs
Read 4 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
5 Mar
Lets toss aside COVID relief plus the chance to halve child poverty because I understand politics better than the politicians
Per the Sirota school of politics, this sort of take-no-prisoners hardball will eventually make me agree with him but its not working thus far.
Since by replies are now full of Sirota-stans saying I hate poor people, let me just lay out the logic of his argument and leave it there:
An unreasonable conservative W. Virginia Senator will go along a bill if progressives play hardball by making it more progressive.
Read 5 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
4 Mar
Seems like a pretty clear example of a powerful campus group imposing its views and free speech standards upon others. The main difference is that this will not be treated as a sign of cataclysmic attack on free speech of get a portion of the attention of the rapping librarian.
A lot of free speech stuff, like much of the culture war stuff in general, is not about what happened, but about a) how serious the event was, and b) how typical it is. If you are upset about something, it is both very serious and a sign of a broader threat to your values.
These tendencies in argumentation seem to have gotten worse, elevated by confirmation bias and in some case, professional motivations. If your job is to explain that civilization is under attack, then naturally the unusual and inconsequential are elevated to be major threats.
Read 8 tweets
Don Moynihan Profile picture
2 Mar
The problem with contacting a university employee's boss to try to get them punished because they offended you is that you forever lose credibility when you complain about a student trying to get university employees punished for offending them.
One reason that Stephens draws more ire than other conservative op-ed writers at the NY Times like Ross Douthat is that he is so obviously hypocritical on issues like tolerance for dissenting views.
See, e.g. these comments from @WajahatAli.
If you have not read @powellnyt's account of what happened at Smith College, you should because it is certainly troubling. nytimes.com/2021/02/24/us/…
Read 4 tweets

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