Fanatical gamer. Clan Bell 🏴. MOS 19D. Systems analyst. Center-left Democrat. Love is the answer.✌️#TheExpanse #CypherSystem #StrongerTogether
Mar 14, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
My former military commander made headlines recently for suggesting that Putin was being ‘too gentle’ and that Ukraine should surrender. His comments, of course, were grist for Russian propaganda mills.
Short thread.
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
I interacted with the guy a bit. He was a newly-minted Desert Storm hero; I was just a clerk in the unit he commanded. We weren’t buddies, but he was free enough with his opinions then that over the years I’ve never been shocked by headlines like this:
It’s weird. I don’t talk about it much because my prognosis is excellent and it doesn’t have much impact on my life.
When I got the biopsy results, it was terrifying. But then... nothing. No real medical concerns. Everything is ok.
My docs say I have a better than 99% survival rate without treatment, that something else will kill me before my cancer does.
I’ll need annual biopsies for the rest of my life. Just to make sure.
But that’s about it. The story of big bad cancer in my life.
Feb 1, 2020 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The Senate’s decision to have a trial without witnesses or evidence is disappointing. We’ve never removed an impeached president before, and this new hurdle created by the Senate— whether to actually hear the entire case— will only make future removal from office less likely.
Much more concerning is that the Senate has effectively endorsed the Dershowitz standard— that nothing an American president does to get re-elected is impeachable, as long as he thinks his re-election is in the national interest.
This new precedent for impeachment is scary.
Jun 28, 2019 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
It's interesting that school bussing as a means to integrate schools is topical again.
I was a white student bussed to a predominantly Hispanic and black school in the 1970s.
Here's my take.
First of all, it's difficult to remember now how divisive this issue was among whites back then.
Parents who wanted their kids to go to the best schools possible moved to neighborhoods which were not coincidentally all-white, only to be told their kids would be sent across town
May 1, 2019 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
You know, the thing that really gripes me the most about Barr's behavior doesn't have a lot to do with Donald Trump.
I mean, it does, circumstantially, but as bad as Trump's grifting and lying is, Barr's performance as AG has been so much worse.
Let me explain this, or try to.
It's hard to remember, now, but committed Republicans weren't always firmly in Donald Trump's camp.
Back on November 9, 2016, as the presidential election returns came trickling in, not one of my Republican friends or family members was enthused about a Trump presidency.
Aug 15, 2018 • 26 tweets • 4 min read
Okay, here's my thread on Brennan having his security clearance stripped, offered because I'm seeing a lot of Twitter experts expressing profoundly ignorant opinions about national security issues.
First, though, a disclaimer: I haven't held a security clearance in years, and my own clearance was strictly low-level. I'm not passing myself off as an expert here, but I am at least informed.
Jul 14, 2018 • 55 tweets • 10 min read
I turned fifty in October, and I'm just starting to realize all of the ways that being an abused child has molded and shaped me over the years. This thread will be a work in progress, that I can add to over an extended period.
I remember having happy childhood moments, mostly reading and playing with other kids; during the abuse itself, I experienced sheer terror. The rest of my childhood was a vague sense of dread-- waiting for more physical abuse.
