former GWB speechwriter Mike Gerson:

"The GOP is increasingly defined not by its shared beliefs, but by its shared delusions.

"To be a loyal Republican, one must be either a sucker or a liar."
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
"The people who accepted this political mythology and stormed the Capitol were not lying. They seemed quite sincere.

"Who knows what Trump really thinks? When a congenital liar surrounds himself with sycophantic liars, he can easily lose radio contact with reality."
"No, it is the elected Republicans who are lying with open eyes, out of fear or cynicism, who have the most to atone for.

"With the health of U.S. democracy at stake, their excuses are disgraceful."

• • •

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More from @JohnJHarwood

15 Apr
from Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, about LBJ:

"there took place therefore so many 'extended discussions' of measures to keep them from coming to a vote that the device got a name, 'filibuster,' from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means 'freebooter' or 'pirate'..."

/1
"...and which passed into the Spanish as filibustero, because the sleek, swift ship used by Caribbean pirates was called a filibote, and into legislative parlance because the device was, after all, a pirating, or hijacking of the very heart of the legislative process..."

/2
"Like seniority, filibustering became a tool of the South early on..."

/3
Read 7 tweets
12 Apr
ex-GWB aide Gerson:
"Nearly every phrase of Carlson’s statement is the euphemistic expression of white supremacist replacement doctrine. The Democratic Party means liberals, which translates into Jews. new people from 3rd World black and brown skin."
/1 washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
"Those kinds of people, in the racist trope, are obedient, meaning docile/backward/stupid. Their votes aren't real democracy because they're replacing the current electorate — whiter and less docile. Truer Americans are thus deprived of their birthright of political dominance"
/2
"fighting back — making sure the new 3rd World people have less power — becomes defense of the American way.

This is what modern poll-tested mass-marketed racism looks like. Carlson provides his audience sophisticated rationales for their worst, most prejudicial instincts"
/3
Read 4 tweets
2 Mar
Council on Foreign Relations head ⁦@RichardHaass⁩ defending Biden on MBS:

“US isn’t in position to prevent his ascension to the throne. Any attempt would almost certainly fail, triggering a nationalist backlash, domestic instability, or both”

/1 project-syndicate.org/commentary/us-…
“US has many reasons to maintain working relationship w/an individual who’ll likely lead for decades a country critical to setting world energy prices, containing Iran, frustrating terrorism, and, if it elects to, promoting Mideast peace. realism might lead to opportunity.”

/2
“promise of meetings w/Biden admin should be traded for firm commitment to never again target a political opponent this way and release imprisoned human rights advocates.

“Bringing Saudis into diplomacy might preserve possibility of two-state Israeli-Palestinian solution”

/3
Read 4 tweets
13 Feb
so to recap:

now that it’s all over, Senate Republican leader McConnell acknowledges everything Trump said after the election was a lie and everything the Democratic House managers said in their impeachment case was true
in other words, the vast majority of Republican members of Congress won’t/can’t act in accordance with the truth even when they recognize it

cnn.com/2021/02/07/pol…
McConnell (“not guilty”) eviscerating the defense:

“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible.

“A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name.

“These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, screaming loyalty to him.”
Read 4 tweets
18 Jan
from Smithsonian historian Felicia Bell: Enslaved Black craftsmen helped build the U.S. Capitol that a mob fueled by racist rhetoric stormed washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
“The sandstone used for the original walls of the building was extracted from the earth by enslaved men forced to do this backbreaking work in the isolated quarries at Aquia Creek in Stafford County, Virginia.”

/2
“In the aftermath, we saw the images of Black maintenance workers sweeping debris from the halls of the Capitol and learned the stories of Black police officers who prevented the attack from being much worse than it could have been.”

/3
Read 4 tweets
17 Jan
“As President Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency.” nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/…
“One of the lobbyists closest to Trump and his administration, Matt Schlapp, who was tapped by Trump last month to sit on the trust fund board for the Library of Congress, has been lobbying for a pardon for a major Republican donor convicted of securities fraud in November.”

/2
“After stepping down as the president’s lawyer, Dowd marketed himself as a potential conduit for pardons because of his access to Trump and aides like Kushner, saying the president was likely to look favorably on petitioners investigated by federal prosecutors in Manhattan”

/3
Read 7 tweets

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