As a German citizen (I hold dual citizenship) Im disgusted by the ignorance of @JDVance & @elonmusk in promoting AfD as if it's a normal party. Perhaps they aren't just ignorant & AfD actually reflects their viewpoints, but there is a reason its founders resigned, the German.../1

https://twitter.com/JDVance/status/1874894133862769149

...courts have deemed them an extremist organization (which, if you creep 2 far in Germany, can get you banned), why there have been national protests against them, and why the German government's Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz classified Der Flügel, AfD's far-right faction.../2

As someone who has been a journalist for almost 40 year, working as a senior writer at the New York Times, Newsweek, etc, the decision by @WilliamLewis, a Murdoch alum, to cripple the @washingtonpost by abandoning endorsements, is one of the most craven actions I've ever seen../1 ...taken in the industry. Make no mistake, this wasn't just cowardice. It was @WilliamLewis and perhaps @JeffBezos dragging a now-once great paper into the sewer because of their own political beliefs. If Lewis et al wanted to abandon endorsements, fine. But you don't do it.../2

Make no mistake: The "Haitians are stealing your pets to eat them" lie is a variant of the blood libel that Jews have faced for centuries: In that, Jews are stealing Christian babies to use their blood bake food (Matzah).

Trump and Vance are lying about legal residents..../1 ....accusing them of stealing beloved members of the family, and eating them. The point of the Haitian Blood Libel is the same as the original Blood Libel: To create an "other," to unify the hateful and ignorance against an imaginary enemy in their midst, all to seize power.../2

The appeal filed by Jack Smith on Judge Cannon's dismissal of the classified documents cased underscores an embarrassment that should not exist in modern times, things that were evident in her ruling. Cannon is clearly either stupid or corrupt..../1
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… ...there are SO many elements to her nonsense in her ruling that have been just jaw dropping (ruling that past participles are the same as past tense, and on and on) but Smith thankfully points out the two that most annoyed me: She described what was the central finding in.../2

I have been holding my tongue for a long time, but I am SICK of self-identified evangelicals saying they read things in the Bible that 1. Aren't there or 2. Are being massively misrepresented and 3. DO happen to be garbage appearing on Facebook posts. I am writing this only.../1 ...because these are the same kinds of people who misquote or cherry pick the Bible to justify their hatreds and self-worship. Worse, they say it with such self-confidence that other evangelicals (who are constantly found in polls to be the most Biblically illiterate, worse..../2

Trump's lies sometimes involve a series of events from his past blended together into one where he is the center of the universe. His lie about going down in a helicopter with Willy Brown:
1. Three of his executives went down in a helicopter in 1988 and died. (Trump lied that...1 ...he was supposed to be on that flight but backed out at the last second.)
2. He met with Willie Brown in the 1980s.
3. He flew in a helicopter with Jerry Brown (and Gavin Newsom) during his presidency, during which he fretted that the helicoptercopter would go down.

While..2

That SCOTUS overruling ANOTHER precedent - this one that established the Chevron doctrine, which has been cited in literally thousands of federal cases - was signaled by the court in 2022. Then I said the ruling in West Virginia v. EPA was the most important in decades.../1 ...because it showed that the conservatives were gearing up to take regulatory administration out of the hands of experts and place it in the hands of the political hacks that now occupy our courts . It is an obscene power grab by this court, which has already ripped away.../2

I know lots of gun enthusiasts and collectors (I grew up in Texas.) And I have never met one who isn't horrified by bump stocks. "You can't aim the damn things," one said to me a few years back. "They're good for only one thing: Spraying lots of unaimed bullets into a crowd."...1 ...make no mistake: Gun nuts who demand them have no interest in shooting *at* a target. They just shoot in the general direction. These are nothing more than machine guns that can't be aimed. Yet SCOTUS, in its new role as an adjunct to the GOP policy committee, breaks down.../2

Unsurprisingly, @RealPNavarro has no idea what the Mayo Clinic actually said. And the idea that doctors in ICUs are going to make medical decisions with critically ill pts based on CNN reports is crazy. But what do studies actually say, and why is hydro use so limited? Well...

https://twitter.com/RealPNavarro/status/1706023686346571814

..In 2020, FDA (under Trump), NIH and World Health Organization stopped studies evaluating hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 due to a lack of benefit. Current NIH and US guidelines recommend its use for COVID-19 treatment in hospitals only in clinical trials...

Media who interview CEO Barra of @GM need to understand: When asked about difference between how much of an increase she receives to reach her compensation ($30 mill - higher than all but Tesla) compared to workers, she says "It's performance based." What a croc. Here's why.../1 ...For most, it's hard for average person to understand because the compensation standards in GM's proxy is loaded with undefined acronyms - TSR, LTIP, NEO, etc. But when you know the meaning, you see that her compensation is rigged. A good percentage of her comp is based on...

Would reporters *please* stop saying RICO law in Georgia is intended to be applied to organized crime. That is *false.* In fact, it is wrong on so many levels that it is shocking reporters keep saying it. They are clearly referring to federal RICO - where they are also wrong.../1 ...federal RICO (not part of the Georgia case) has been and - according G. Robert Blakey, the man who wrote the statute - was intended both to apply to the activities of organized crime *and* other criminal enterprises, including white collar crime. From Blakey in 1989:.../2

Florida wants to teach about "skills" slaves obtained in the antebellum south because "beneficent" slaveholders taught their slaves to read, write, blacksmithing, etc. They say this is supported by "scholars." Well, let's see what the scholars really say.../1 ...first, let's start with blacksmithing, since this is specifically what DeSantis mentioned yesterday. This, more than anything, underscores the brutal ignorance of the GOP on history, and their apparent belief that Africans arrived here as ignorant, incompetent savages.../2

Wow. This is the biggest pile of nonsense I have ever read. A few problems:
1. Viktor Shokin never conducted a criminal investigation of Burisma. There was a criminal investigation in *Britain* of Mykola Zlochevsky, founder of Burisma, for purportedly laundering money stolen.../1

https://twitter.com/GOPoversight/status/1682067528242151427

...when Zlochevsky served as Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources in Ukraine through British banks. Britain attempted to get documents for its case from Ukraine and Shokin *blocked* it.

2. Shokin also blocked all investigations of Ukranian oligarchs, which is what led.../2

I've long said, despite the criminality depicted in Bragg's statement of facts, the linkage to tax fraud was weak and the most damning part - the AIM coordination - was a federal crime, so not charged. IOW, I wouldnt be surprised if it didn't survive a motion to dismiss. But.../1 ...the classified documents case is in another stratosphere. The magnitude of the crimes depicted are deeply serious and per se illegal. There is no "linkage" required. Plus, the witnesses are all from Trump world...unlike Michael Cohen, it would nearly impossible to argue.../2

...and to those saying Watermark is just one (huge) church. How about these other big ones?...

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1665362763881783298

....both of these churches that were added to the list of hate groups are in the DFW metroplex (yes, that is the horrible word they use for it)....

...this is a classic. It throws out both homosexuality and hell in the same sentence. Usually they just choose one or the other..../4 ...and then there was the lovely pastor near Fort Worth who called for gay people to be shot in the head..../5

As a flood of details of the Trump MaraLago case come out, Trump, commentators etc say Smith's team is leaking. As someone who has covered these kinds of cases many times, that is almost certainly not true. And the fact that this much is coming out is a bad sign for Trump.../1 ...as investigations near their close, there are scores of people who know what is going on. Every witness has a lawyer, and all the lawyers speak to each other to make sure that their clients have not made an error in their testimony to the grand jury. Reporters always have../2

I wasnt able to get on Twitter for weeks after the CNN/Trump town hall. So this comment is delayed. The event was an abominable journalistic failure not because they hosted Trump. He is important & newsworthy. But they let him set terms that no real journalist would accept.../1 ...first, comes stacking the audience. Doing that and pretending it's "news" is bad enough. Telling the audience only to clap is worse. But not disclosing to viewers that this is what they did? That is journalistic lying. That is no different than a news fotog posing a photo.../2

I have been writing since 2014 that there has never been a worse SCOTUS Justice than Alito. Even as a lower court judge, he ignored facts he didn't like, dismissing them with a "that's ridiculous" response, has ignored law and precedent to reach the outcome he wants. He has.../1 ...to my knowledge never ruled on any issue that contradicts what is found in the GOP platform. He has attended/been keynoter *as a Justice* for fundraisers to benefit GOP causes. He is unfit. My mouth dropped when he was confirmed *because* his lower court decisions were.../2

These also constitute illegal in-kind campaign contributions (and they later became in cash.) And this relationship with AMI is bizarre. I really am interested in hearing the testimony about how that was going on to begin with. ...illegal cash contribution (the child out of wedlock story was false)....

We attended our first gay wedding of a dear friend who was basically our fourth son growing up. It was so so celebratory, with so much love & support from a huge crowd. And I could not help but think of all the ppl who have nothing to do with this couple who would deny them.../1 ...their love and lifelong happiness. One of the older gay men there spoke about how delighted he was to see this loving couple having this opportunity, given how hard the community fought for this for years. So to those whose lives this does not affect, but who rage & scream...2