While we're all busy blaming corrupt Afghans for the Taliban's return, it seemed like a good time to remind everyone that us Americans did all we could to nurture that corruption.
There are so many examples. Here's one oldie but goodie to get you started nytimes.com/2013/04/29/wor…
An old quote that sums it up all damn well: “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”
This was 2013 people. Anyone in the gov telling you they're shocked about what's happened in Afghanistan is an idiot or a liar.
Jun 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Mike Flynn is again talking coups - and Trump is again listening.
Wondering how we got here? Re-upping a deep dive from earlier this year about Flynn's transformation from an esteemed intelligence officer into a QAnon conspiracy theorist. nytimes.com/2021/02/06/us/…
In the final weeks of his presidency, Trump toyed with the idea of making Flynn chief of staff or possibly F.B.I. director. Was Trump serious? We'll never know - Flynn said he needed to focus on paying off legal debts he had amassed fighting off the Russia investigation.
Jan 6, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
That’s Richard “Bigo” Barnett, 60, from Gravette, Ak., showing off the personalized envelope he took from Speaker Pelosi’s office. He insisted he didn’t steal it — “I left a quarter on her desk.”
Barnett, whose shirt was ripped opened and who kept shouting about being “maced,” was loudly entertaining fellow protesters with tales of his exploits.
After getting into Pelosi’s office, he said, “I wrote her a nasty note, put my feet up on her desk and scratched my balls.”
Jan 5, 2021 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Mike Flynn, speaking to a couple thousand Trump supporters gathered at DC’s Freedom Plaza tonight: “America is awake now! This country is awake!”
The crowd responds, “We Love You! We Love You! We Love You!”
He thanked the crowd and all the other “digital soldiers” — an unambiguous QAnon reference — that are fighting to keep Trump in the White House.
Jan 4, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If you want to know why Dalton, Ga., makes an ideal spot for Trump's rally tonight, here's a pre-election story about how QAnon and other conspiracy theories were becoming mainstream among Republican voters.
The dateline? Dalton, Ga.
nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/…
Dalton recently helped elect Congress' first QAnon supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Conspiracy mongering might be a hindrance elsewhere, but not in Dalton.
“In this district, it can have benefits,” said McKray Kyer, the local Republican vice chairman, when I met him in Sept.
Nov 10, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
"Even if it's not proven, I still will always believe there was voter fraud" - a Trump supporter in Georgia I spoke with yesterday.
I was circling back to folks I interviewed on a trip down there in September. All firmly believed there had been massive amounts of fraud, and most said President Trump’s word was all the evidence they needed.
Aug 20, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
NEW The Republican Embrace of QAnon Goes Far Beyond Trump - A small but growing number of Republicans are ushering QAnon adherents in from the troll-infested fringes of the internet - @AllMattNYT & @maggieNYTnytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/…
In Texas, the state Republican party adopted a QAnon slogan -- "We Are the Storm" -- as its new rallying cry late last month. They've even got merch:
Aug 12, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
With nearly half the votes counted in Georgia's 14th Congressional district, Marjorie Taylor Greene, perhaps the most unabashed QAnon supporter running for Congress, is leading the Republican primary runoff 59.1% to 40.9%. If she wins, she goes to Congress nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Greene is not the only QAnon candidate. Last month, the @NYT wrote about how QAnon was becoming a political phenomenon with more than dozen supporters running for Congress, their path cleared by President Trump's own espousal of conspiracy theories nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/…
Mar 19, 2019 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Citing @nytimes revelations about Cambridge Analytica, a Congressman who oversees antitrust issues is calling for the FTC to investigate Facebook for anti-competitive and "predatory" business practices nyti.ms/2ug8kBa
In an op-ed, @davidcicilline laid out Facebook's troubling pattern: It paid teenagers to spy on their behavior, collected sensitive data through back doors in other apps, and gave device makers deep access to user data, also revealed by @nytimes last year nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Jan 17, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
For the record: You can fly commercial to Afghanistan. I did it for years, and my colleagues still do. Last I heard, @StateDept folks and other American officials were also still flying commercial to Kabul (please correct me if this has changed).
There are many flights a day from Dubai to Kabul on @emirates, @flydubai and other airlines. Or you can go via Istanbul on @TurkishAirlines. Hell, you can even book your tickets online. It's just like flying anywhere else.
Sep 25, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1/243 A thread on Rod Rosenstein, The New York Times, David Simon and Søren Kierkegaard’s ideas on subjective and objective truths, alienation and the stages on life’s way.
116/243 In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus wrote: “What is perceptible in Leo Chestov will be perhaps even more so in Kierkegaard. To be sure, it is hard to outline clear propositions in so elusive a writer.”
