🧵I was active in the anti-South African apartheid movement as an undergraduate at Oxford (1970-73). The post below brought back a memory.

https://twitter.com/aldamu_jo/status/1977934761671692678

In those years, we held many large, noisy protests in Trafalgar Square, opposite South Africa House.

🧵My read: GM's pressuring Trump, as I wrote she would. If she were quiet and happy in the cushy digs she negotiated w/ Blanche, they'd leave her be, at least till after mid-terms, and there'd be no need to parlay with her. That they're meeting w/ her suggests she's got demands.

https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1977534916205392084

From GM's pov, there's no upside in delaying her power play: (i) she knows Trump's a treacherous jackal whose promise of a pardon can't be trusted, (ii) even if Trump could be trusted, his shelf life (physically and politically) is probably short, and (iii) she's impatient.

🧵My take on the Homan story and a general problem in our laws:
Homan's obviously dirty. There were undoubtedly more of these 'transactions' (that's how FBI got onto him originally). He's been revealed as a slimy, dishonest person and a betrayer of the public's trust. But ...

https://twitter.com/davidaxelrod/status/1977402059931480554

The Vance/Bondi line that Homan 'did not commit a crime' and didn't take a 'bribe' rests on the fact that the payoff occurred during the campaign and *before* he held an official position. He was soliciting money in *anticipation* of being in a position, later, to bestow favors.

🧵As @SpeakerJohnson extends the House recess amid a full government shutdown, all to forestall a vote on a discharge resolution that would order the release Epstein files by DOJ, my thoughts turn to August 1974. Bear with me. On Aug. 5, 1974, Nixon's 'secret tapes' leaked, proving he'd directed the Watergate coverup and lied about doing so. It detonated in GOP Senate and House ranks with powerful force.

🧵Trump's demented Peace Prize quest has revealed some interesting things:
1. He really does *not* understand how thoroughly he's despised and disrespected internationally or the reputational damage sustained by any person or institution aligning with him. 2. His neediness is uncontrollable. He grasps desperately for affirmation and adulation, even to the extent of publicly avowing his hunger for an honor in a way that any other statesman would consider demeaning and dishonorable.

🧵More on the Hyundai raid fiasco. Start with this as general background:

bbc.com/news/articles/… Trump has made several statements, including in the Oval Office on Friday, that the almost 500 Koreans detained were here “illegally.” That is almost certainly going to be proven false. Their lawyer has today issued a statement that “every single one” has a valid visa.

🧵There is obviously no help coming from any true-to-their-oaths GOP electeds. They’ve all be spayed, and will answer to history. The judiciary can only do so much, and SCOTUS is in the tank. We’ve got 3 1/2 more years of this coming. What will save us ? Sad to say, I don’t see the current generation of Americans awakening to “the dangers of fascism” or other appeals to their better angels.

In the fall out from Munich-in-Anchorage, something’s being missed. The bristling boasts that our military are “war fighters” seems curiously absent when it comes to Ukraine. Ukraine, where there’s the largest land war on the European continent simce the end of WWII. Where there are actual ‘war fighters’ dealing lethally with the regime that our NATO allies regard as our biggest threat (the regime against which NATO was formed).

I feel Maxwell's transfer clearly indicates that a deal has been done: a pardon will be issued but only after the mid-terms. To keep her 'sweet' until then, the transfer was arranged (i.e., they told her she'd have to sit tight, but would ensure her comfort while doing so).

https://twitter.com/LuisMorenolg/status/1951310983688859832

Implications of the above scenario:
1. Maxwell has dirt on Trump but is not (yet) prepared to ‘exonerate’ him (i.e., she won’t play ball with a whitewash unless a pardon is in the bag).

🧵Interesting convo with an old friend this a.m. Raised in a trailer up a dirt road in rural Missouri. Military officer for 10 years, then successful entrepreneur. Now living a ‘red neck’ life (his description) on a NH mountainside. ‘Libertarian,’ anti-DEI and anti-‘woke.’ Says Dems are “their own worst enemy,” should “stop all this lawfare crap, trying to impeach Trump for made up stuff,” etc. You get the drift.

🧵 The epithet ‘quisling’ is much on my mind. Vidkun Quisling was the Norwegian PM who collaborated with the Nazi invasion of Norway and presided over German occupation of his country. He was executed for treason in Oct. 1945. It was Churchill, in 1940, who introduced ‘quisling’ to the English language as a synonym for ‘traitor.’

🧵 IN MEMORIUM. It grieves me to share that ‘Harry Godwyn,’ @harrygod, one of Twitter's brightest lights, died on August 17th in Ohio. Because of the privacy with which ‘Harry’ treated his illness and hospice care, his closest Twitter friends learned of his passing after a slight delay.

🧵 I believe these are objective facts:
1. Trump is a life long malignant narcissist and sociopath. As part of that, he is an inveterate liar and cheat.
2. Trump is a career criminal, closely tied to organized crime (which is why he may have been an FBI informant). 3. Trump has entered into deeply corrupt and treacherous relationships and transactions with foreign governments, for personal gain.

A 🧵about this election, in historical context:

I’m under no illusions: a significant minority of our citizens are desperately unhappy with our system of government and our inclusive values of equality and justice for all. They make it plain, and I get it. They include evangelicals who’ve always hated church/state separation. Racists pining for Jim Crow. Paternalists who want to re-establish the ‘traditional’ role of women and make decisions for them. Corporate chieftains eager to slip free of the ‘administrative state.’

🧵 The Biden mantra, “building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up,” has borne fruit. It’s real. And it has implications for the distribution of wealth and resources in the country.

joebiden.com/bidens-biparti… The Dem party’s current convulsions are directly related to these policies. Fervent support for Biden is rooted, I believe, in support for these policies and an understanding that Biden is ‘walking the Democratic talk’ like no other POTUS since FDR.

🧵As a practical matter, taking campaign finance and ballot access laws and rules into account as well as everything else, I see only two plausible scenarios now:

1. Biden insists on running (for all the right reasons, not ‘ego’ or ‘obstinacy’) and doubters get on board, or 2. Biden stands aside, and annoints Harris. Any thoughts of a different candidate in the top spot are fanciful in my view. People pressuring Biden to withdraw should be ready for and supportive of this scenario. If they’re not, we’ll have chaos and will lose.

🧵Brief thoughts on speculation about Biden’s possible ‘cognitive impairment’ (as distinct from stuttering/cluttering etc.): (1) if he is ‘cognitively impaired’ to a degree that affects his job performance, it’s a relevant fact I’d like to know; (2) I haven’t seen or read anything yet that persuades me that that is the case; (3) those in regular contact with him have offered their personal accounts to the contrary and I’d be surprised if they’re lying; and

🧵A lot of history will get looked at in a new light after today’s immunity ruling. Interesting, for example, to look at Watergate under the new rubric. 22 henchmen, including the AG, were convicted on charges related to a break-in and coverup authorized and directed by Nixon. When Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman, Krogh, Liddy and the rest did time, they at least had the small comfort of knowing that, but for the Ford pardon, their Individual-1 would have been right beside them (Nixon had been indicted by a GJ). “No man above the law.”

A D-Day related 🧵on one of my father’s closest friends, Lt. William (“Bill”) Hamilton Shaw, USN. Born to Methodist missionaries in Pyongyang in 1922, Bill finished high school there and spoke native Korean. He was exactly two years older than my father. Bill enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan in 1939. When the U.S. entered the war, he enlisted in the Navy and was commissioned. He served as the XO of PT-518 in Operation Overlord. Two weeks after D-Day, Bill (at helm below) piloted Eisenhower on his first cross-Channel visit to Normandy.

🧵A pair of my posts earlier today prompted *many* to opine that Judge Cannon must be receiving 'coaching.' Here's background on the rules regarding 'ex parte communications' with federal judges. The Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, effective Mar. 12, 2019, governs all federal judges other than Supreme Court Justices (a subject for another day !). uscourts.gov/sites/default/…

Some thoughts on the Turkish local elections, in which center-left opposition party CHP won sweeping victories nationwide:

1. I doubt repudiation of ‘political Islam’ was a powerful factor outside secular bastions like Izmir (see below).

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1774549079214694528

2. “All politics is local.” These were local elections. People voted for more efficient, less corrupt local administrations and services. AKP’s corruption at local level has seriously damaged them.