🗣️🧵 Two important speeches made by John Heilemann on Morning Joe:

"Joe, I’m struck by the same thing you are, right, because we’re both students of history, in a midterm election where the empowered president has an approval rating in the thirties. 1/ And the main economic variable for a lot of people in their lives which is inflation—even if it’s maybe getting a little more under control right now—it’s still way too high—and people talk about it all the time out here in America. 2/

🧵 I'm reworking an old thread about Clarence and Ginni Thomas from 2018.

The Thomases have a friend named Harlan Crow, a very rich real estate developer who has sculptures of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Nicolae Ceausescu, Che Guevara, etc. in his backyard garden. I would say the most egregious "favor" Crow did for them was uncovered by @mmcintire in 2011. Crow financed the restoration of A.S. Varn & Son Oyster & Crab Factory, a cannery outside Savannah, GA & built an adjacent museum, The Pin Point Heritage Museum.
nytimes.com/2011/06/19/us/…

🗣 Jonathan Swan: Let’s talk about a candidate you have talked about: Herschel Walker, the leading GOP candidate in the vital Senate race in GA. You endorsed him. Yet his ex-wife says he pointed a pistol at her head & said “I’m going to blow your f—ing brains out” and… Swan (cont’d): an ex-girlfriend has accused him of threatening her life. Why is he a suitable candidate?

Mitch McConnell: Herschel Walker has addressed that issue repeatedly over the last 10 years. I think he’s—

Swan: It’s a heck of an issue.

Former Manhattan prosecutor Mark Pomerantz said in resignation letter that Trump was guilty of “numerous felonies.”

nytimes.com/2022/03/23/nyr… Via @nytimes ➡️ In the letter, Pomerantz said that it was “a grave failure of justice” not to hold him accountable.

🗣 “I really hope that Russia—because I really believe that President Putin would like to do something. I really hope that you and President Putin can get together to solve your problem. That would be a tremendous achievement. And I know you’re trying to do that.” ⬇️ Trump to newly elected President Zelensky. A not-so-thinly-veiled threat since Russia had already invaded Crimea in 2014 and had started a war in Donbas in eastern Ukraine. That’s why Zelensky needed weapons to defend his country. 8:30 in. 9/25/19

I've been screaming about this since 2018. Canada 🇨🇦developed the “Learn to Discern” program which taught 15,000 Ukrainians 🇺🇦 how to detect and decode misinformation and propaganda.

If the Ukrainians did not have this training, they might be begging Putin to annex them. Finland 🇫🇮, the Netherlands 🇳🇱, Poland 🇵🇱 & other European countries are also took measures to educate the public on Russian propaganda and cyber attacks. We continue to do nothing. #RussiaReport

This “Russian Olympic Committee” deal is complete BS. The Russians are supposed to be banned for 4 years, starting in 2019, for blatant, systematic cheating. And then Putin lied about it. This is what happens when you make deals with criminals.

washingtonpost.com/sports/olympic… 🏆 Watch ICARUS, the Oscar winning documentary. @IcarusNetflix, directed by @bryanfogel

https://twitter.com/aliadair22/status/1204017445687746560

Don Cornelius—who died in 2012—is credibly accused of brutalizing 2 women who worked for Playboy, tying them up & raping them, locking them in closet. For 3 days.

Story from their “bunny mother,” who was part of the “clean up crew.”

#SecretsofPlayboyAE

yahoo.com/entertainment/… I left out the worst part.

🔥 This story did not get enough attention. Basically, Pence was afraid of being kidnapped by the Secret Service (presumably directed by Trump) so that the certification could not be completed. That’s nuts!!

“I Alone Can Fix It” by C. Leonnig & P. Rucker

businessinsider.com/mike-pence-ref… 📕 Book:

I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year amazon.com/dp/0593298942/…

⚾️ When people complained about long baseball games, the Major League Baseball responded with new rules such as limiting visits to the mound, timing pitching changes, etc.

What in God’s name have we done to speed up the judicial system and the people who use it to delay reality? Steve Bannon? He’s entitled to “due process,” but let’s face it, he did it.

He was issued a subpoena and he violated it.

There is no reason this should go on for a year.

📰 Julie K. Brown’s series on the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes was entered in 2 categories for the Pulitzer Prize: investigative reporting and local reporting.

It didn’t even make the finals in either category despite arguably being the reason for Epstein’s arrest.j After Epstein served his time in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, most of the press coverage consisted of tabloid-type pictures of him and girls who looked underage.

Until the @MiamiHerald and @jkbjournalist came around.

miamiherald.com/topics/jeffrey…

📮 Strange how there has been no investigation into Louis DeJoy’s role in losing, “misplacing” and delaying ballots in the 2020 election.

Plus, no reporter seems to care.

And he is likely doing it again in the 2021 recall election.

Lots of other offices are decided in 2021. #VoteNoOnTheRecall and drive your ballot to a collection box if you can avoid the Post Office, please do.

🟥🎣 RED TIDE in #Florida again!

“Never, ever, have I seen it this bad,” Nguyen, who fishes both in tournaments and commercially, told The Washington Post.

washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07… @washingtonpost: On Friday, St. Petersburg cleaning crews had collected 15 tons of dead fish after 10 days of cleaning up, officials said during a news conf., as the cleanup continued. “9 tons of those fish have actually been picked up in the last 24 hrs,” St. Petersburg Emer Mgr

So Amazon is buying MGM Studios, which owns all the APPRENTICE and CELEBRITY APPRENTICE tapes with outtakes of Donald Trump allegedly acting like a racist and a misogynist.

I wonder if Jeff Bezos will release them...after what Trump’s buddies did to him?

cnbc.com/2021/05/24/ama… In case you don’t remember this 👇

nytimes.com/2019/02/07/tec…

💊 If they really want to bring Trump to justice, the Manhattan DA, NY AG, Georgia AG & the appropriate DOJ districts should hire Dan Schneider to help them.

imdb.com/title/tt116001… THE PHARMACIST

The only one benefitting from this ridiculous push against eradicating #COVID19 (anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers) is Putin.

It is weakening America.

The same people are weakening our democracy with voter suppression.

They are working for Russia. Plain and simple. And knowingly. All Republicans were screaming about last year was how they wanted their lives to return to normal.

Well, this is how you get back to normal: masking and getting a vaccine.

It’s unAmerican not to do this.

🎞 Interesting documentary on the recent college admissions scandal where many have served short prison terms for allegedly bribing the way for their offspring to get into prestigious colleges/universities, using Rick Singer’s “side door” method.

imdb.com/title/tt141117… ❓ But the more important question is: what about the “back door” method, where parents donate exorbitant sums of money to these same prestigious colleges/universities and their offspring miraculously get accepted?

propublica.org/article/the-st…

Everyone who cares about Alexei Navalny should tweet out this video that he did, exposing Vladimir Putin’s abhorrent corruption.

The U.S.—or one of our allies—needs to step in and take action to save Navalny before he dies. Not after.

Then read this excellent interview with twice-poisoned Vladimir Kara-Murza.

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1384129903814008840

🎞 I don’t think I’ve ever been so blown away by a film in my life. It’s rough. It’s bone-tinglingly scary, devastating, brutal, suspenseful, heartbreaking...with a very small glimmer of hope.

WelcometoChechnya.com Putin’s strongman in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged war on the LGBTQ community by kidnapping, torturing & raping them, forcing them to turn in their gay friends, sometimes killing them or returning them to their families and directing their families to kill them.

Where’s Ivanka? Ivanka is bombing in Dalton, #Georgia!

This Trump phone call to #Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger (and lawyers on both sides) is a MUST read.

😱👽😱👽😱👽😱👽😱👽😱👽

Trump, near the end of the call: “I know this phone call is going nowhere.”

washingtonpost.com/politics/trump… 🔊 There’s also a partial audio recording of the call on that link.