I've spent 18 hours mulling over what to say about the Nashville shooting as we waited for more information regarding the Nashville shooting. But, let me preface m y thoughts with this: I've never been so scared of what comes next. A 🧵1/n First, the facts up front: a 28 YO individual, who police identified as transgender after first describing them as female, shot and killed 3 children and three adults at a Nashville Presbyterian private school that they had attended as a child. 2/n reuters.com/world/us/multi…

For all the excitement over Trump indictments, I highly doubt there will be a conviction, much less jail time. I'm not a lawyer, but here's issues that real lawyers have brought up: 1/n There's serious issues with

* Statute of limitations
* Federal vs. state law
* Intent
* Advice of counsel
* Throwing underlings / kids under the bus

The biggest among these, IMO, is intent. It's so hard to prove, especially with Trump because he's incurious ignorant. 2/n

It came as a surprise to many in Australia, and the even a few in the UK, to see sieg-heiling, goose stepping, self identified Nazis marching in support of anti-trans "feminists", and these same "feminists" not rushing to distance themselves. 1/n losangelesblade.com/2023/03/19/neo… They were marching in support of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, who has a long relationship with both the far right, and prominent anti-trans figures in the UK, including JK Rowling. 2/n nationalreview.com/corner/its-pol…

I haven't posted a thread on Ukraine in a while. There's quite a bit of "fog of war", particularly on the Ukrainian side, but here's some of what I can piece together from OSINT. 1/n Russia has taken half of Bakhmut, and encircled it on 3 sides. There has been discussion of when Ukraine will withdraw to consolidate their lines. Bakhmut is heavily fortified, and inflicting heavy losses on Russia. 2/n news.yahoo.com/ukraine-russia…

There's certain cartoons whose points continue to be relevant over and over again. For instance, all those folks who claim that trans people have silenced them... on page A1 above the fold NYT or The Times article. Somehow, the irony is lost on most people. From 2018. 1/n Then there's the folks pretending to be radical centrists claiming that trans people brought the fascist backlash on themselves, rather than admitting they helped create the space for fascists to do what they wanted in the first place. From 2018. 2/n

A lot of people were shocked and dismayed when Governor DeSantis repeated Kremlin talking points about Ukraine, and declared that the US doesn't have a national interest there. Ron isn't dumb, and he served in the Navy.

There's a logical explanation. 1/n

thehill.com/homenews/state… "Moderate" (and I use the term very loosely) Republicans were appalled by this, and denounced it quickly. Something that Democrats and Republicans can still find common ground on is National Security. 2/n thehill.com/homenews/39022…

Under the US Constitution, all officers serve at the pleasure of the President. This allows him to (theoretically) fire everyone he thinks isn't loyal enough, and replace them with sycophants and loyalists.

Trump intends to do this. This would devastate the US military. 1/n

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1636446515471196167

People don't realize how strong the ethos of political neutrality is among senior officers, or the respect for the rule of law. They recoil in horror at the idea of the military being used against US citizens, or as a political instrument.

There is historical precedent. 2/n

I've been betting for a while that DeSantis was likely to get the GOP nomination due to support from the GOP donor base plus strong negatives with some Republican voters.

In this thread, I'll make the devil's advocate case why Trump is the favorite. 1/n
thedailybeast.com/the-republican… In my book, American Fascism, I described Trump as part K-Mart brand Mafia Don and part Borscht Belt insult comic.

Ron DeSantis' closest personality comparison is Lord Farequaad. 2/n

This narrative scares me.

Who do they want retribution against? The people who "ruined" "their" America

Who "ruined" America? The Woke Mob / Cultural Marxists

Who do they define as the most visible example of the things they hate? Trans people 1/n Everything bad that happens is a result of "wokeness" (read: trans people).

Chaotic withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan? Trans people

DoD missing military retention goals? Trans people

SVB bank failing? Trans people 2/n

This represents a profound ignorance of what life is like as a trans person. There are no other trans people in my daily life. None of my coworkers, who are my most common contacts. Not on weekends, where I do my hobbies. 1/n And online, trans is just a part of it. I would MUCH rather be talking about Suns basketball, military theory and technology, helicopters, ships, animation, husky rescues, etc.

ANYTHING but trans stuff. There's only ONE reason why I'm still discussing it a decade later. 2/n

This just passed. But my immediate question is: what happens when Texas makes it a felony to travel to New Mexico to access these services? Or invokes the Comstock ack Act to prevent ISPs and phone companies from allowing people in Texas to look up or call these orgs? 1/n

https://twitter.com/ACLUNM/status/1633197001117696000

What happens when New Mexico responds with it's own sanctuary state laws to prevent extradition to Texas? Then Texas announces (or legislates) they won't prosecute or extradite "vigilantes" who "retrieve" (kidnap) women and trans people from New Mexico? 2/n

There's been some discussion of what it means to eradicate trans people, and if this is even genocide.

I want people to understand what this means in practice, based purely on what's being proposed today by Republicans, and what it means for trans people. 1/n Let's start with the kids. Teachers and other mandatory reporters cannot even mention trans people. They are, however, required to report any child suspected of being trans to their parents, and to the government to be put on some sort of list. 2/n

When I posted about why DeSantis is more dangerous than Trump, one counter was that DeSantis would not launch a coup like Trump did.

Probably true.

But DeSantis is smart enough that he would never need to, because he's learned from Orban.

Let me explain. 1/n After Orban lost an election, he spent 4 years out of power. In that time, they figured out how to rig the game such that he would never lose an election again by capturing the referees and changing the rules. 2/n

If Knowles had said, "For the good of society... Judaism must be eradicated from public life," and then followed it up with, "I just meant Judaism, not Jews", I don't think the ADL would respond with, "Oh, well, nevermind in that case. Carry on!"

It means what you think it means Look, he's probably sincere when he insists that he doesn't mean rounding up all the trans people and committing industrial scale murder.

He means to make trans people disappear, or flee.

But, that was also the goal in 1933-1934. 2/n

This is such an incredibly bad take, and it is completely contemptuous of those people who actually spent their post graduate education studying how democracies collapse. I wrote at TNR about this, but I will summarize here why smart people can believe DeSantis is worse. 1/n First, Trump isn't that smart. He's intellectually incurious. He issues orders, and expects people to make them happen. He listens to no one, and has no idea how the system works most of the time. He filled his admin with sycophants and D-listers. 2/n

Something that is missing from the discussion of all of this is that MTGs rationale for why there should be a "national divorce" is "sick and disgusting woke culture issues." 1/n eand.co/why-the-gop-wa… We know they're talking about trans people. They've introduced 350+ anti-trans bills in the first 2 months of the year, and MTG has sponsored or co-sponsored several in the House. The implications of these two together are why I keep sounding the alarm. 2/n

I've seen a lot of people jump on Marjorie Taylor-Greene's comments about needing a national divorce. Based on other (seemingly unrelated, but not really) events, this is way more complicated than "We had one civil war already." 1/n

nymag.com/intelligencer/… First, it needs to be acknowledged that the US is going in a bad direction. The GOP wants to assume authoritarian control over the US, and Gov. DeSantis is providing a roadmap on how to ban freedom of speech and the press, silence corporations, and drive LGBT people out. 2/n

It's been a while since I did a thread on Ukraine. While it seems like it's been pretty static, the movement is happening beneath the surface. A few thoughts on where this is going and what we're learning. 1/n First, it's still unclear whether what we're seeing now is the famed Russian "Winter Offensive". It seems only a matter of time before Russia takes Bakhmut, they've retaken some territory around Kreminna and Kupyansk. The attacks on Vuhledar have been disastrous, though. 2/n

Nikki Haley has announced she is running for president, and is the first Republican to challenge Trump. This is bad for presumptive candidate Ron DeSantis. 1/n nytimes.com/2023/02/14/us/… The polling data pretty consistently shows DeSantis defeating Trump in a head to head match up. When you average them out, the lead falls outside the margin of error. 2/n cnbc.com/2023/02/09/des…

Let's talk about the Chinese spy balloon that's somewhere over the Northern Continental US now. There's a lot of speculation by folks (see Fox and Friends) who have zero experience with this. So, let your friendly neighborhood defense analyst have a crack at it. 1/n

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1621483090165080065

First, there's a long history of using balloons to get to the US. The general concept isn't new. Japan used highly inacurate "balloon bombs" to try to start fires. One incident killed six people, but it was declared a secret and hushed up. 2/n smithsonianmag.com/history/1945-j…

Trump bases his messaging on what gets a reaction from the crowd at his rallies.

And anti-trans stuff gets a big reaction. We are the minority they love to hate openly

He released a video yesterday that declares the Federal Government will de-recognize all gender marker changes

https://twitter.com/ShelbyTalcott/status/1620774801571987456

This is very, very bad. What happens to your passport? It also means the federal government won't recognize the validity of a birth certificate or driver's license from a state that let you change the marker. 2/n