A few random thoughts about the special counsel report:

On one hand, it's outrageous they're not charging Biden for the same crimes they're charging Trump for.

On the other, shivving him by revealing he's senile might have bigger political impact than bringing charges. Now that we have some independent confirmation he's in mental decline, Biden's claims that he was not involved with Hunter's corruption are definitively unreliable.

So a short thread about China and Yahoo and what truly vile behavior an American company engaged in to appease the ChiComs:

https://twitter.com/bsindia/status/1455574170922782728

In September 2005, Hunan journalist Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sending the Chinese Propaganda Department’s directives to a website that advocates democracy.

The Obama admin floated -- multiple times -- removing the tax exempt status from churches. There was little braying concern about authoritarianism then.

To be clear I don't support removing the tax exempt status of colleges but there's one salient point that should be made... ...the empirical argument that most colleges operate as nonpartisan institutions is pretty dodgy. realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/…

1/ There have been a lot of jokes, but people haven’t sussed out the real problem with @nhannahjones’ conspiratorial tweets yesterday – she’s missing the *real conspiracy.* This isn’t just about New York’s firemen organizing a campaign to deprive protesters of... 2/ ...precious sleep or pave the way for artillery attacks on citizens. In fact, I’m reliably informed that on July 4 there will be shock-and-awe level fireworks at every city in America in order to reinforce the fraudulent notion that America was born in 1776.

So this thread has gotten a lot of attention and a slew of media outlets have picked it up. As someone who grew up in Oregon and heard the “exploding whale” story many times and even studied it at UO journalism school, this thread gets a key part of the story kinda wrong.

https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/1247083713428631553

Specifically, this bit: “An ex-member of the military advised George and the other officials that this was waaaay too much [explosives], and just a few sticks of dynamite would be enough. They ignored his advice.” The lesson? “DON’T IGNORE THE ADVICE THAT EXPERTS GIVE YOU.”

So I missed Kamala Harris' op-ed in the NYT on the Senate impeachment trial. Specifically this bit, which we should probably talk about. Do recall that when various people said that real-life court/constitutional considerations should guide how the House impeachment hearings were held a few weeks back, this idea was roundly mocked and sneered at. "It's not a real trial, basic rights given defendants don't apply!"

1/ Mollie had never seen it, so last night we sat down to watch Home Alone. I had seen it many times, but as we were watching it something weird dawned on me: Die Hard and Home Alone are basically the same movie and may even be part of an extended universe. 2/ Hear me out! (Perhaps I am not the first to notice this?) I mean, obviously the plots are different in a lot of ways, but there are some key similarities – they’re both Christmas movies about holding your familily together. In both, the bad guys are introduced as...

1/ So the new season of @jackryanamazon has a plot about Russia working with Venezuela. EXCEPT they have completely switched the ideologies in Venezuela. The ruler impoverishing the country is a "nationalist" strongman and his oft-praised domestic political opponent... 2/ ...is a “social justice” history professor whose supporters are “leftist.” The real story is that leftist economic policies and corruption are what have destroyed Venezuela. What’s the point of rewriting reality here, other than to make leftists watching the show...