T.J. Stiles
@TJStiles_Author
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American biographer, historian, author. Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction and Pulitzer Prizes for Biography and History.
Berkeley, CA
Joined April 2015
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"But are there not many fascists in your country?"
"There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes."
—Ernest Hemingway, "For Whom the Bell Tolls"
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NPR reports that Arlington staff have “never seen the level of disrespect” that they got from Trump campaign goons.
In a campaign photo, Trump showed a headstone from a combat vet who committed suicide. He did not get the family’s permission. Yeah. Read that again.
An outrage.
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SCOTUS says you can arrest someone for sleeping on the ground, you can arrest a pregnant woman for seeking necessary medical care, but you can’t arrest a public official for taking a bribe, or ex-presidents for “official acts” aimed at overturning an election. Worst. Court. Ever.
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Just for fun, let's take Trump's disquisition on the Battle of Gettysburg seriously. 🧵
1st, why does he bring it up? To flatter the Pennsylvania audience. Hey, you've got Gettysburg. I like Gettysburg! "Gettysburg, wow."
2nd, he decides he has to explain. Hoo boy.
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Worse than that, Lee issued orders on the Gettysburg campaign for his troops to enslave all the Black people they could find—not just "runaways" but those born free. A system was set up for processing them. Of the many things the campaign was, it was also a big slave raid.
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Another footnote: To clarify, when I say "history without revision is political as well," I don't mean to imply that the vast majority of revising history is political. We are constantly finding new evidence and rethinking context. That takes us to unexpected places—all good.
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Back to the first thing Trump says about Lee: "who's no longer in favor, you ever notice that?" It's an allusion to complaints that leftists want to "erase" history. But let's think it through: How can saving the Union be good—but the guy who tried to destroy it be good too?
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This has been my favorite
@atrupar
tweet for a while now. Trump is running a campaign that’s a caricature of what Republicans long accused Democrats of doing: Impossible promises of free stuff for everyone—promises that can never be fulfilled. He doesn’t care. It’s a grift.
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Footnote: Obviously Trump doesn't know anything about history. He mentions Lee "losing his great general," which is probably an echo of a memory of hearing that Stonewall Jackson was killed—at Chancellorsville, not Gettysburg. But it doesn't matter in the neo-Confederate appeal.
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A lot has been said about politicized "revisionist" history. But history *without* revision is political as well. Many still have a vague notion in their heads of Civil War history written by segregationists a century ago to serve an agenda. It serves Trump's agenda too.
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Trump says it's "where our Union was saved by the immortal heroes," adds a string of random adjectives, and clarifies that he thinks it was a good thing: "such a big portion of the success of this country." Inarticulate, reductive, but sure, why not?
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But back to the passive-observer angle: Trump's rambling, unhinged depiction of Lee is that of a great general betrayed by his stupid troops. You'd never know he gave the orders for the campaign and battle. He said after Pickett's charge that it was all his fault. It was.
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Lee is not known to have spoken like a stereotype of an Irishman, nor to have issued downslope-only orders. Fighting uphill *could* work. Troops above often shot too high. That may be a reason why the Union charge up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga succeeded gloriously.
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Trump says, "The statement of Robert E. Lee, 'Never fight uphill on me boys, never fight uphill.' They were fighting uphill. He said, 'Wow. That was a big mistake.'"
First off, Lee was not a big "wow" guy. Southern gentry and all that. But Trump makes him a passive observer.
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This guy was president when we set the absolute number of representatives in the House. It has not changed since 1912. Since then, not only has the population grown by 3.5 times, but women & people of color vote. Also, gerrymandering is rampant. Triple the House seats. It’s OK!
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Then Trump turns to Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. That was the Confederate army, the one trying to break up our union. Let's skip over his initial comment for now, and consider his analysis of Lee's failure.
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I haven’t been hitting the “Trump’s brain is pudding” theme much, because underestimating the opposition is a mistake. But really now, listen to this. It’s honest-to-God gibberish.
Trump: "Disgusting illegal alien who was let into the United States by Kamala and her lax law-- she, they, every one of my killer -- we had the, she had the, he had the, he would've never been able to get in. She stopped every single one of them."
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Trump is no better as a historian of the 1890s than he is of the Civil War. No, it wasn’t America’s wealthiest time. No, McKinley wasn’t a businessman. His first big tariff bill, which he wrote in Congress, in part cost Republicans the House & White House. Didn’t make us rich.
Trump: In the 1890's, our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs. We had a president, you know McKinley. Remember Mount McKinley?
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We’re living through three simultaneous apocalypses: a pandemic, climate collapse, and the downfall of American democracy. The Republican Party is doing all it can to make each one worse. If we survive, there will be many books asking how anyone could be a Republican in our era.
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Let's replace presidential debates with an essay question. Let's make it three: Each time it's sixty minutes in a room with a bluebook or a laptop with no Internet connection and no spellcheck. One on foreign policy, one on climate & economic policy, one on social issues. Live.
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Here’s an intuition for you:
People terrified of contact with government because they don’t want their lives destroyed by deportation don’t register to vote illegally and then vote illegally for the reward of having a tiny tiny influence on federal electoral outcomes.
Speaker Mike Johnson: "We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that's easily provable. We don't have that number."
Sounds legit.
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When my bio of Jesse James came out, some were upset at my portrait of a pro-slavery terrorist in the Civil War who seized the role of Confederate hero in Reconstruction politics in Missouri. I besmirched a folk hero!
Why is that? It says something about white supremacy.
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This can’t be stressed enough: Trump wants to smash one of the great achievements in American governance: civil service reform. It was Theodore Roosevelt’s great cause before his presidency. Merit-based hiring gives government the capacity to act effectively & stifles corruption.
Raskin: If you want Donald Trump and his sharpie to determine where the hurricane is going to hit then you would be for Schedule F
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Let's be clear:
It's impeachable if POTUS simply asks a foreign government for an act that benefits him personally.
—It's worse if it's to help him win an election.
—It's worser if it's concocting a lie about an opponent.
—It's worst if he uses official actions & aid as leverage.
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This is a blatant attempt to destroy the professional nonpartisan civil service. With guaranteed unemployment, highly skilled people will shun the civil service. Only partisan hacks will sign up. Or no one will test food safety, monitor weather, be flight controllers, TSA, FBI...
Under
#TheFreedomPlan
, we won’t just have term limits for politicians—we will limit bureaucrats too. No bureaucrat should hold the same position for more than five years.
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When Fort Sumter was attacked, my great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Dillon, was repairing Lincoln's watch. He passed down a story, which he told to
@nytimes
on April 30, 1906, that he left an inscription inside it. My grandfather told the tale around the dinner table. 1/4
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What excites them:
• History enthusiast: Wars!
• Professional Historian: The Post Office!
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Texas HB 3979 blocks Critical Race Theory in public schools. It's hard to imagine any prosecutions resulting. But it makes teachers vulnerable to parents' complaints—especially of the hot-take variety. And it could have unintended consequences.
Let's take a look, shall we?
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Great thread on a terrific event. I am certainly biased toward Harris, but she is fielding a range of questions with empathy and aplomb. There is no ranting, complaining about the press, bragging about the support of various dictators, and rambling digression.
I'm going to put together a thread covering Kamala Harris's Univision town hall. Follow along for clips and commentary.
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This is key. The story of Trump’s term is that the economy was stronger than his policies’ capacity to hurt it—until COVID, which Trump was utterly unable to deal with. Biden may have added some to inflation, but his aggressive action saved an economy that had crashed & burned.
again, the argument that Trump's economic stewardship was better than Biden's is just complete BS. The facts don't back it up. The country was in ruins when Trump left office.
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Great piece on Trump’s TIME interview. “Reading the whole interview, though, it’s clear that Trump does not know anything about anything. His mind is a series of hazy orange corridors.” He thinks tariffs—& NATO memberships—are bills to foreign governments.
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This is an excellent response.
Kamala Harris on Springfield: "When you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand how much your words have meaning. I learned at a very young stage of my career that the meaning of my words could impact whether someone was free or in prison."
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I’m sorry when anyone dies a preventable death. In a larger sense—not speaking of this individual specifically—I again worry that those who are willing to die for lies might be willing to kill for lies.
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No notes. I’ll add that it’s incredible that they even pretend that Trump, the most hostile and unlikeable president ever, who mishandled the worst natural disaster in history, who had no clue how to save the economy as it cratered, could only have lost through fraud. Really?
Sunday show hosts keep asking Republicans if they'll accept the election results, and their answers indicate they won't unless Trump wins. It's just not a sustainable situation for democracy.
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One more thing about this dumb-assery. The Presidential Records Act states that records generated by a presidency DO NOT BELONG TO THAT EX-PRESIDENT. You've got no right to them after your term. You have to hand all of them over. Presidential libraries, BTW, are NARA facilities.
Because those are his presidential records.
He received them as the President.
He's allowed to have them under the Presidential Records Act.
Classified or not.
Congress can amend the PRA, if it doesn't want former presidents to have their presidential records.
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There’s no better example of Trump’s Big Lie technique. He invents a completely false accusation and repeats. In this case, it’s that Democrats kill children after birth. He just made that up. But he says it over and over. There’s never a self-limiting sense of decency. Poison.
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Yes! Unless you’re pregnant. Or a woman. Or a non-approved gender category. Or write the wrong kind of books. Or read the wrong kind of books. Or want to hire a diverse work force. Or protest what a Republican state government does. Or…
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I grew up in dairy country in central Minnesota.
So. Much. Winning.
From
@washingtonpost
:
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Donald Trump launches into a frenzy of scorched-earth attacks on any critic, even his own appointees. He demands adulation. That’s weakness.
Joe Biden just invited onto the ticket the candidate who made the most effective attack on him in the Democratic debates. That’s strength.
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Dump the electoral college, an 18th-century fossil designed to empower slaveholders. Twice in 16 years it has denied Americans their choice.
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Imagine getting picked as a juror. You never asked for it. You sit through a trial. Everyone is VERY serious. There’s a lot of evidence and arguments. You deliberate conscientiously & find Trump guilty. Then a bunch of GOP hacks go on TV to say all your work is a political sham.
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Trump’s pattern in the White House:
1) By some wild chance, he appoints a competent person. Usually a military man. As our first cosplay POTUS, he liked generals saluting him.
2) Trump’s ignorance & incompetence disgusts person.
3) Trump fires person.
4) Trump calls him stupid.
Trump goes on deranged rant against America’s military generals: “Stupid person. Very stupid. One of the dumbest people I've ever met”
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This clip, posted by
@atrupar
today, makes one ask: Why would a president denounce testing for a rampant, deadly infection? Because he didn't want to treat the disease and save people; he only cared about appearances. Testing made him look bad.
He's monstrous. We can't go back.
TRUMP: "When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing we would have very few cases."
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I cannot express how angry this thing makes me as a biographer & historian. Original records at NARA are precious, irreplaceable, necessary. In the reading room we are all equal—professor, non-academic writer, genealogical researcher.
Trump. Does. Not. Own. Government. Records.
Cannon knows what she’s doing is lawless. She knows her reasoning is outrageous and indefensible. She just doesn’t care. And legal commentators’ brilliant analyses of her many errors won’t change a thing. From
@Dahlialithwick
and me last week:
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Another priceless Daniel Dale thread on Trump's comments. Dale notes, "Trump's hingedness level was not high today."
UNESCO should declare Dale a World Heritage Reporter. (He's Canadian, so I think they can do that.)
Fox is now showing Trump's comments at Cabinet. He begins the clip by saying he's "heard numbers as high as $275 billion" for how much the U.S. loses per year from illegal immigration. That's a number he himself made up in the last month.
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Ask any political consultant: “Shoots puppies” is pretty much at the top of the list of popular candidate credentials.
"We love animals," she says in response to a story about her shooting to death in a gravel pit a 14-month-old dog and a goat, while also announcing that she recently "put down" 3 horses
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I think the midterm election can be won by Democrats, if the
@DNC
embraces the reality that it will be a national election. Each candidate should run a local campaign, but there should be a major national campaign that focuses on the threat with stark ads roughly like this:
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Looking back 4 years, we see the U.S. in a catastrophe while Trump was focused solely on making himself look good. He attacked nurses. He attacked governors. He blamed Obama. And he’s the one who eliminated the office on pandemic preparedness & promised COVID would disappear.
Trump rebukes a nurse who says "PPE has been sporadic, but it's been manageable."
"Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people," Trump replies. "That was fine, but I have heard we have a tremendous supply to almost all places."
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Another Republican denies history happens. If we're still in the 1860s & '70s, I expect Cruz to demand a more progressive income tax, federal infrastructure spending, federal intervention in states that limit voting rights, & higher-ed aid—all 19th-century Republican principles.
Impressive candor for Senate Dems to hold a hearing on the history of Jim Crow laws.
- Bull Connor
- Nathan Bedford Forrest (founder of KKK)
- George Wallace
- Robert Byrd
ALL Democrats.
Dems wrote Jim Crow. Sadly, they’ve got a lot of expertise in bigotry & discrimination.
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Just to add: Black historians, journalists, and leaders have been writing the truth about Black history all along. They were often marginalized by the academy—and even now, less by fellow scholars than by political pressure on institutions from donors or legislators.
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Wow. I didn’t know how racist Megyn Kelly is. After the Civil War, institutions of higher learning were established to offer higher education to those long banned from learning to read & write. Today these HBCUs play a key role in the Black community. Kelly scorns that community.
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“Every day I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in America? How can people like these be in charge of our country? If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I’d think I was having a hallucination.”
—Herman Roth in “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth
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Trump says he’ll save us from a record-setting number of months with unemployment under 4%, the stock market reaching record levels, sustained growth, biggest climate-change legislation ever, biggest infrastructure act ever, saving Ukraine, radically slowing the pandemic. Oh joy.
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Ron DeSantis is everything conservatives fretted about for years. He embodies the unprincipled, demagogic abuse of government power. He throws out elected officials, attacks business corporations, assails free speech, and arrests people for his own political advantage.
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Let’s break down J.D. Vance’s attacks on Walz’s military record.
1) He seizes on a single comment by Walz in 2018 that civilians should not have “weapons of war that I used in war,” suggesting this is “stolen valor” because he never served in combat.
Vance is wrong.
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I know this is not a good strategy for persuasion, but people take for granted the jobs that have been so plentiful. Biden went big to bring the economy back, and it worked. With supply chain issues, we easily could’ve had stagflation—inflation, high interest rates, & no jobs.
That the question "are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" has become a gotcha for the Harris campaign is just bizarre to me. Four years ago we were quarantining at home amid mass death, a mismanaged pandemic, and widespread unemployment. We are better off now and it's
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Texas HB 3979 specifically bans the 1619 Project. Not only is that censorship, it's counterproductive. "An understanding of The 1619 Project," I note, is required if you want to argue against it, or to know why some historians disagree with parts. The law mandates ignorance.
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Aaron Rupar’s ongoing review of Trump’s behavior four years ago highlights how Trump never cared about governing, about the impact on people’s lives. He spent his life talking himself out of problems and talking himself up. A world of spin, excuses, & lies. It got people killed.
Four years ago today the president was just out there riffing about unproven drugs he was hoping would solve all his problems👇
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I just wrote this long thread on the Texas law that tries to ban "Critical Race Theory." The authors of such wacky bills often say, "read the bill." So I did. It's a perfect example of how politically motivated legislation to control the details of teaching can only be bad law.
Texas HB 3979 blocks Critical Race Theory in public schools. It's hard to imagine any prosecutions resulting. But it makes teachers vulnerable to parents' complaints—especially of the hot-take variety. And it could have unintended consequences.
Let's take a look, shall we?
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Just reposted by
@atrupar
: 4 years ago OTD.
Trump’s handling of the pandemic was never about giving the American people hope. It was all about giving himself hope that it wouldn’t affect his presidency. We went on to 1,200,000 deaths. And still counting.
TRUMP tries deflection: "We have a very active flu season ... It's looking like it's heading to 50k or more deaths ... You look at automobile accidents which are far greater than any numbers we're talking about. That doesn't mean we're going to tell everybody no more driving."
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Democracy only works if participants accept that others disagree—if participants try to win, compromise when necessary, accept defeat, & try again next election. Public policy only works if we accept provable facts & act on them. Today's GOP accepts none of this. That's a crisis.
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Trump is saying that Obama was corrupt, a liar, and bent government power to personal, political ends.
Wow.
You know how dirty politics has gotten when Trump accuses Obama of being Trump.
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Just a side note: These are extemporaneous comments from the president, without a teleprompter. It’s sickening how Republicans push a “Biden has dementia” lie with brief clips of him stuttering, a lifelong struggle, whereas he actually expresses complex thoughts with clarity.
President Biden speaks on the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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Four of the most stunning, most damning paragraphs ever written about a U.S. president. And two of them simply cite one example.
@nytimes
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What’s worrisome is that the Republicans have identified no metric or mechanism that will allow them to stand down. Claiming mass fraud without regard to evidence means evidence of no fraud won’t make a difference. They will accept no result that goes against them. That’s a coup.
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Aaron Rupar is doing a daily look back at how Trump bungled the single deadliest disaster in American history. For Trump, it was all about him. Experts have found that hundreds of thousands needlessly died (and still do) because of his lies, misleading statements, & incompetence.
"I'm sure people are enjoying it ... they can't get enough of it": 4 years ago today, as officials braced the country for 100k covid deaths in the month to come, Trump held one of his disaster-conferences & discussed the pandemic like it was a gameshow 🧵
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Your reminder that the Democratic House impeached Trump for distinct acts he performed as president. The Republican House tried to impeach Biden for acts he did not actually perform when he held no office.
The GOP theory of impeachment could be troublesome for Trump if he wins.
I'm going to do a thread on today's impeachment hearing featuring Tony Bobulinski and the imprisoned Jason Galanis. Follow along for clips 👇
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I’m happy to explain:
Anti-government fanatics invented a digital commodity that worsens global warming when it is created, is incapable of functioning as a legitimate currency, and whose only use is gambling on its value and facilitating cyber crime.
Teach it in schools.
But when "asked if he could explain Bitcoin, he laughed, saying that’s a challenge even for experts."
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The wording of Texas HB 3979 clearly shows its main motivation is to protect white children from any sense of the moral weight of history. But it's also aimed at a non-existent threat: teachers who are telling kids they are to blame as individuals for racism writ large.
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But there’s more. In American history, when there’s a fight to assert white supremacy, racism is usually blatant during the conflict. Once white supremacy wins (or fights back from defeat), race gets written out. Black people disappear. Sometimes they get drafted.
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HB 3979 bans teaching "slavery and racism are anything other than...betrayals of...the authentic founding principles." This forces teachers to say the Constitution's framers betrayed our founding principles. They have to call the slaveholding Texas Republic anti-American.
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Reversing HB 3979 would require a very brave teacher to treat it literally. Teach that all the Founders, Abraham Lincoln, etc., deviated from & betrayed our founding principles. Discuss the Weather Underground or Al Qaeda with an all-sides-deserve-fairness approach. Crazy.
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Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, says Biden is “choking” families and energy production.
The U.S. is producing more energy, including oil, than it ever has. That includes the Trump administration. Unemployment remains below 4% on a record streak.
Doug Burgum, warming up for Trump in St. Paul, Minnesota, calls the Biden administration "the real dictatorship." Incredible projection.
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In today’s look back, Aaron Rupar reminds us again of how Trump performs in a real crisis:
1) It’s all about him.
2) Flailing for a magical answer.
3) Disregard of science and the impact of his words on people’s lives.
4) Pursuing petty vendettas against the press at all times.
four years ago today Trump was using the White House briefing room to promote unproven and potentially dangerous covid drugs, saying "what do you have to lose?"
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This thread on Trump’s rant to Bartiromo by
@altrupar
is classic Trump. It’s not exactly right to say every word out of his mouth is a lie, because “lie” implies deliberation & coherence. He blathers fantasy—an imaginary world in which he’s a genius and everyone else is an idiot.
Trump to Bartiromo on prisoners coming home: "Well, as usual it was a win for Putin, or any other country that deals with us. But we got somebody back so I'm never gonna be challenging that. It wouldn't have happened with us" (One of the prisoners was taken while Trump was POTUS)
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Aaron Rupar does another of his daily reviews of what Trump was doing four years ago. A reminder that he met the deadliest disaster in United States history with thin-skinned hucksterism, anger, and self-praise. All presidents err, but this one was incapable of managing a crisis.
4 years ago today, Trump held one of his fraught covid press conferences and told people worried about losing their health care during a pandemic that they shouldn't sweat it because he would give them something "better" -- a one-time cash payment 🧵
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My mother, Carol Stiles, died this morning at the age of 84. No indication of COVID-19. She was extraordinary, with a relentless intellect & force of will, a sweetness & unflinching honesty, & unerring judgment. Most of all, she grew—ever more humane & respectful. I miss her.
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Biden said, “Government isn’t some foreign force in a distant capital. It’s us.”
What a simple, essential message. We’re in this mess because one party found it convenient to attack fellow Americans in civil service, even democracy itself. It’s long past time we heard the truth.
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Trump is so untethered from reality that he *simultaneously* blames Biden for not implementing a nation mask mandate (during Trump’s presidency), AND tries to discredit masks. It doesn’t get any crazier than this.
Wait, sorry, it’s Trump. It will get crazier. And deadlier.
The President attempts to blame Joe Biden for not implementing a national mask mandate
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My point: Censoring teachers, especially for political reasons, sets a bad tone & has vile unintended consequences.
If I've made a mistake in the foregoing discussion of Texas HB 3979, I regret the errors. I looked at the legislature's website here.
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I just can’t believe I’m living in an America where one of the debate questions is about the President’s refusal to accept the election & to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Aaaand now the Vice President is spreading a false conspiracy theory about the FBI spying on Trump.
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Trump's brazenly contradictory, shifting lies—intended to give himself all credit and deny all blame—pose the great historical question of our era.
It's not, "Can you fool all of the people all of the time?"
It's, "Can you fool enough of the people enough of the time?"
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Don’t overlook this today.
Those arrested DeSantis' voter fraud crackdown were registered and were sent voter cards. The government told them they could vote, so they voted
One man was arrested by armed SWAT team at 6 a.m. He was in his underwear and was taken to jail that way
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This is the real sign of how broken the confirmation process is. Jackson is super-qualified and well within the legal mainstream. Sasse didn’t partake in the ugly personal attacks. But even non-QAnon Republicans refuse to allow ANY Democratic appointment to SCOTUS. It’s doctrine.
GOP Sen. Ben Sasse says he’s a NO on confirmation of Judge Jackson. That is another sign that the committee is likely to deadlock 11-11. The nomination would still advance to the floor if there were a tie vote.
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Here’s the thread. It amazes me that so many voters think Trump is better on the economy, when his policies caused a manufacturing recession last time, and his current “plans” for isolation would spike inflation & bring ruin. Listen to the moderator, please.
I am going to put together a thread covering Trump's interview with the Economic Club of Chicago. Follow along for clips and commentary.
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Agree. Kerry ran when Iraq invasion was the central issue. Kerry’s heroic service was a cornerstone of his campaign. This time Walz is not at the top of the ticket, his NG service is just part of a resume, and he’s not claiming valor—only empathy for veterans & their families.
"'Swiftboating' was especially effective against John Kerry because it neutralized one of his strengths. But this reboot actually reinforces a damning narrative about Vance — that he’s a dishonorable opportunist who cynically attacked a fellow veteran."
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Note that I am not attacking the framers or the founding of the United States. To have any real understanding of history, you have to see contradictions. People commit evil with one hand & do good with the other. Some made a better world possible—yet we see the evil.
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Now that I live in California, I find this framing hilarious. We stocked up on N95s long before COVID because of fires.
Sadly, I must note N95s *still* protect against COVID, which kills around a thousand Americans a week, inflicting long COVID on a hundred or more a week.
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Secessionists were not subtle about race & slavery. The Ku Klux Klan and political foes of Reconstruction were proudly racist. As were lynch mobs, the attackers in Tulsa, Dixiecrats, segregationists, etc. But when the guns go silent, the erasers & rewrite pencils go to work.
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And then there's this: HB 3979's authors are very concerned that teachers should feel free to avoid any controversy. If they do, they must teach all sides "without giving deference to any one perspective." Equal time for mass murderers of Sand Creek? Or the Holocaust? Nuts.
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As a friend remarked, “Well, that was a super great use of around $300 million.”
Fortunately California has no ongoing natural disasters where we could have better spent the Dumb-Ass Election money. So that’s a big relief for everyone.
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If there’s anything good in this rewriting of American memory, it’s that the underlying assumption is that racism is shameful. The principle that we’re all created equal haunts white supremacy, especially since the Civil Rights Movement. Can’t be proud of slavery—so erase it.
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Critical Race Theory is a specific academic analysis/school of thought originating in legal studies.
American historians find the centrality & ubiquity of race are undeniable, but haven't deal much in CRT itself.
Conservatives figure "Critical" & "Race" & "Theory" sound scary.
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Postal Office fun facts:
• The Constitution specifies establishing post offices & roads as a power (implicitly a duty) of Congress. It doesn't say a U.S. Postal Service has to pay for itself.
• Congress makes the rules of governance for USPS. It could make DeJoy fireable today.
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A paperwork violation. Like cheating on your taxes. Or writing a bad check. Or hiding top-secret documents from the FBI.
Vance: What that indictment suggests is that Trump committed a paperwork violation. Is that 34 counts? Not in the country that I want to live in
Blitzer: So, you don’t want to live in the United States?
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Thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg for bringing up the media’s double standard with Harris and Trump. As he said, if Harris went from talking about bacon to wind as Trump did in a weird ramble, she’d be booted off the Democratic ticket. But Trump gets a shrug.
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Trump begins a speech under a banner that reads “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” with an extended attack on the FBI and micromanaging criticisms of its investigations. Nothing in the world matters to him but himself. Certainly not law-enforcement.
Trump begins his speech by alleging an Iranian connection to the assassination attempts against him and calls for Apple to "open the six phones from the second lunatic."
"They had no problem breaking into the apps of the J6 hostages," Trump adds
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I don't think HB 3979 is meant to call our founders betrayers. But it's not a fine point. From the 3/5ths clause to free states that barred free Black people, from Washington hunting escapees to Texas's ban on anyone freeing enslaved people, slavery & racism was everywhere.
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