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***Dave Hill Profile picture
***Dave Hill
@Three_Star_Dave
Husband, father, magpie, gamer, writer, pedant, techie, Woke SJW, theist, progressive, trans ally, quotation collector, Oxford Comma fan, he/him, nice guy
Sep 24, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Just to be clear, Donald Trump has decided his lie that mail-in ballots are, on the face of it, fraudulent, means he can challenge them in Republican-controlled state legislatures and in federal courts stuffed with his appointees, including the Supreme Court. 1/ He has long asserted that he will clearly, obviously, massively win any election, even the last one he was in. Thus, if he loses, it's because his opponents are cheating, and so he should be made President, anyway. 2/
Sep 21, 2020 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
There seems to be this weird myth going along amongst the anti-maskers, anti-distancing, anti-treating-#COVID19-as-a-serious-public-health-threat crowd, that their "opposition" are getting some special joy out of seeing people do all this stuff. 1/ Image This is not just wrong, this is not just insulting, but this is maddeningly offensive. 2/
Sep 11, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Pretty sure Churchill didn't declare the Luftwaffe a Liberal hoax, insist he had shut them down before they could enter England, or demand Londoners bring their kids *back* from the countryside as bombs were falling. 1/ Churchill, while insisting victory would come, pulled no punches about how powerful and menacing the enemy were, or what it would take to defeat them. He didn't deny that bombings were all that bad, or that, someday, miraculously, the Reich would just disappear. Image
Sep 9, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
It's absolutely appropriate that Joe Biden not pre-announce a short list of SCOTUS nominees, if only to not look like a dangerous radical like Donald Trump, who just short-listed Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz on his own list. 1/ Image Tom Cotton's first comment after the mention by Trump, by the way. 2/

Sep 9, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
2020 would, in fact, be perfected as a dumpster fire with the awarding of a Nobel Prize to Donald Trump. 1/

thehill.com/homenews/admin… The Trump Administration's work in cobbling together a brief respite in the Middle East, twisting the arms of two close allies that owe him a lot of favors to make at least temporary nice is not nothing, but it's also an example of a bare minimum of effort. 2/
Sep 7, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
So the story here appears to be that (1) there are insufficient Catholic priests in the Chaplain Corps, (2) the Navy has in the past spent money to contract for additional Catholic priests, but (3) they have decided not to do so any more for US bases. 1/

sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/… This is not discrimination against Catholics. The US Navy is not obliged to provide ministers of any given faith or denomination to its sailors, particularly those based at US bases where there are presumably civilian resources for them to go to. 2/
Sep 4, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The question to ask is not has Trump given performative support to the troops, but has he shown any real sign of personal, emotional support for them? Has he made sacrifices in time and effort toward them? Has he spent political capital on them? 1/ Or has he just signed off on std pay raises? Signed an EO encouraging federal agencies to hire military spouses? Implemented an Obama-era VA reform bill? Spent a shit-ton of money on new weapons? Pulled money from military bases & schools to spend on his Vanity Wall? 2/
Sep 4, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Trump is, of course, denying the entire Atlantic story, because his only hope of re-election is seeming to be the Dear, Strong Leader and get the support of, if not troops, then jingoists who LURVE a strong military.

We know at least 3 facts that back the story up: 1/ 1. His on-the-record comments about John McCain not being a hero because he was captured.
2. His not visiting the military cemetery in France, though every other leader managed to in the terrible drizzle.
3. His lies about dead service members he's welcomed home from overseas. 2/
Sep 2, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
There's a massive segment of the economy that's built around white collar salarymen commuting to and from offices every day.

#COVID19 has had a huge impact on that -- but that's not necessarily a compelling reason for folk to return to the office. 1/

marker.medium.com/remote-work-is… Don't get me wrong -- I miss my lunches at fun eateries around the office. And there are a lot of folk in all those coffee shops and shoe shine stands and printer supply companies who are hurt by shutdowns.

But maybe we need to reconsider if all that is really necessary. 2/
Aug 19, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
So the slide that was waved around by an employee appears to be not anything from Goodyear corporate -- but Goodyear's disclaimer makes it clear that "racial justice and equity issues" are allowed expressions, any (other) political items are not. 1/ Image So, really, the slide isn't exactly wrong, even if, yes, tilted in the examples of "political" items it talked about. 2/

fox8live.com/2020/08/18/goo…
Aug 11, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A consideration in any VP pick -- alongside helping/not-hurting the ticket, successability, and compatibility -- is the impact of yoinking that person from their position. 1/ So Whitmer and Warren are valuable in-place, both because of risks of losing the seat to a GOPer and because they are doing good stuff where they are. 2/
Aug 11, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The corruption that Trump has been sending through our government are increasingly pervasive and accelerating. Precedents and norms ignored. Leadership replaced by lackeys. There are four paths forward in the fight to fix our democracy. 1/ Option 1: Trump wins. I am not one be a conspiracy theorist, but, honestly, if he wins in 2020, I don't think he'll ever leave office. So that's a dead end (for far too many people). 2/
Aug 10, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
So Donald, in his unilateral magnaminity, had figured out a way to make #COVID19 Relief even worse. Thanks, Donald! 1/

cnn.com/2020/08/09/pol… We have back (some of) the Unemployment Bonus. But cash-strapped states (for whom Dems were negotiating direct aid) are now on the hook for a quarter of the cost. If they don't pony up their part, the Trump won't give anything. 2/
Aug 7, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The #COVID19 pandemic is giving airports the (low crowds) opportunity and (labor saving as a benefit of social distancing) incentive to rejigger their operations and technology. 1/
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… Lots of touchless interfaces (self service! use your phone!), changes in security (biometrics=no crushing TSA lines), and lots of hopeful thinking (people will instead hang out and dine and shop in the main concourse at high end destination locations). 2/
forbes.com/sites/alexleds…
Jul 31, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
As a former Catholic, and a guy who went to a high school named after (then just Fr.) Damien, I respect the work and faith and sacrifice he put into tending the lepers in Molokai.

That said, AOC is not wrong here, though she's not altogether right. 1/

mediaite.com/politics/aoc-d… Hawaii has two statues at the US Capitol. Kamehameha I and Fr Damien. Both statues were given by the state in 1969. The Kamehameha statue was a copy of an existing 19th C piece (commissioned by a successor king of HI). 2/

aoc.gov/explore-capito…
Jul 30, 2020 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
This 4 minutes of interview with Donald Trump is gobsmacking. 1/ Donald has not talked to Vlad on his most recent call, or the others preceding it, about reports that Russia is paying bounties to the Taliban for attacking US etc. troops. The most recent phone call was about "other things." Well, then. 2/
Jul 29, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This was one of the goofier parts of #WilliamBarr's testimony. "Well, duh, we have cabinet meeting and there's an election coming."

So Trump is focusing on the election as an integral part of his cabinet meetings. Vs., I dunno, conducting govt business? Yeesh. 1/ Other Barr hits:

The lack of #PPE for an impending pandemic was all *Obama's* fault. That Trump was in office 3 fricking years before the pandemic hit apparently means nothing. 2/
Jul 28, 2020 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The USPS is not a for-profit company. It it provides a service as a quasi-governmental agency. Running as a for-profit (intentionally) misses the point. 1/

fortune.com/2020/07/24/usp… The USPS could easily operate in the black (or non-profit gray), if it could raise its 1st class rates without Congressional approval, and wasn't forced, unlike all those for-profit companies, to pre-fund 75 years worth of retirement benefits for all employees. 2/
Jul 27, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Swen. Tom Cotton wants to punish any schools that include "1619 Project" materials in their teaching of US history by blocking any federal teacher training funding. 1/

arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jul/… As an amateur historian and former teacher, I would not build my curriculum on any single perspective, particularly at the secondary level. That includes both "1619" and the normal triumphalist "Enlightenment Values Win!" view of American history. But both are useful. 2/
Jul 25, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Fascinating 1990 interview of Donald Trump by Barbara Walters. While she gets kinda celebrity-fawning in the framing pieces, and all the tabloid marriage soap opera feels, understandably, dated, there's still a lot of interesting bits. 1/ First, Donald then is a lot like Donald now. Constant exaggeration about his assets, his success, his prospects. Constant victimhood from the press, from the recession, from the press. A glib story for everything. Veering between bombast and sulk.

And an utter lack of taste. 2/
Jul 23, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Donald's failure to even *try* to lead nationally around #COVID19, plus his unwillingness to bend the federal gov't's power to support the states, were a huge problem in our response nation-wide.

But ... 1/ ... our federal model has turned out to be a weakness as well. Even if Clinton had been president, would TX, or MS, or FL's governors been willing partners in a national strategy?

I strongly suspect not. 2/