Month: January 2020

Reality bites. And it’s biting Trump right where it hurts.

Michael Tomasky makes what should be an obvious observation by the media but isn’t. He tells the story of the American Ambassador to France offering then President Charles DeGaulle the evidence that the Russians had put nuclear weapons in Cuba and DeGaulle pushing the documents away saying: “I don’t need to see these photos. If the president of the United States says it, that’s good enough for me.”

He asks if anyone can imagine a foreign leader saying that about an American president today? Not bloody likely …

All of them from Johnson up to Bush had wide “credibility gaps” that eventually dissolved any trust foreign governments have in the US Government on issues of war and peace. Trump, of course, has taken it to a totally different level. He doesn’t have a credibility gap. He simply has no credibility at all.

Tomasky writes that he originally thought the Iran strike on Suleimani would be a plus for Trump. He took out a bad guy yadda, yadda, yadda. And just as it has been in the past Americans backed Trump’s move by a narrow plurality.

But boy are they skeptical of his competence:

Then came that stunning USA Today poll. It showed that yes, an unimpressive plurality approved of the strike (42 for and 33 against, with 25 percent not sure). But when respondents were asked whether the attack made the United States more or less safe, people said less safe by a whopping 55 to 24 percent. The biggest single chunk, 28 percent, said “much less safe.” Also, by 52-to-34, people called Trump’s behavior toward Iran “reckless,” and by a slam-dunk 52-to-8, they said the killing would make it more likely that Iran develops nuclear weapons.

Rest assured, Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have come out of last week with numbers like that. Neither would any other president. But Trump did.

Tomasky points out:

It turns out that when you lie 16,000 times in three years, it kinda hurts your credibility. Also jumping from this idea to that one like a frog hopping between stones during a storm, that doesn’t help much either. Also saying well, it was one embassy that had been threatened, then that it was four. Also those disastrous briefings for House members and senators, where the briefers said absolutely nothing specific about these threats and everyone in the room (everyone not drunk on Trump Kool-Aid anyway) smelled the steaming horseshit from a mile away. ..

But mostly it’s the lies. The blanket of lies, the cloud of lies, the ceaseless parade of lies, lies, lies that come out of Trump’s mouth literally every time he opens it. Outside of MAGAmerica, everybody has long since figured out not to rely on a word he says.

It is not good when a president is totally mistrusted on this level. Sure, we should always be skeptical. And it’s perfectly fair for foreign governments to demand that they see the US evidence of any threat. We haven’t always been on the up-and-up, needless to say. But the level of dishonesty that comes out of this White House and the president’s own mouth means that the US is now in the position of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. That is not a good position for a Superpower to be in.

They might not care if he shreds the constitution and destroys America but it looks like there might be 10 GOP senators who think it might not be a good idea for Trump to start WWIII. Not enough to override a veto, of course. That would make Trump very angry. But they want to be on record — if there are any records after it’s all over — against Trump having an emotional breakdown and deciding to unleash nuclear war.

How very comforting:

As many as 10 Republican senators are considering bucking President Trump on a resolution that would limit his ability to take military action against Iran. The increasing number is the latest sign of growing GOP frustration over the Trump administration’s justification for the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is circulating a bipartisan resolution that would direct Trump to remove U.S. forces from any hostilities against Iran within 30 days of its enactment.

GOP Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) have already voiced their support for the measure, and Kaine says about eight more Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Todd Young (Ind.) and Mitt Romney (Utah), are reviewing it.

“Probably about 10,” Kaine said when asked about the number of Republicans who could vote to rein in Trump’s powers. “There’s good discussion going on.” Lee said several Republicans are carefully weighing whether to back the measure, adding that it “would not be unreasonable to say that there might be a group of 10 who should be considered potential candidates to vote for it.”

It is good to see that there area few Senators who aren’t so deep into the Trump cult that they can’t buck him even after this shocking Iran wag-the-dog debacle (not that they’ll ever admit to that part.) Perhaps they just don’t want to die.

The rest are either welcoming the Rapture or think war is terrific and we just need some more of it. Either way, it’s terrifying that they would trust this psychologically impaired president and his incompetent D-list ideologues to handle such lethal decisions without even consulting them.

He’s a stable genius too.

According to the Daily Beast, he’s been heavily lobbying Trump to be made a member of the defense team in the Impeachment trial. And Trump’s people are madly trying to prevent it:

Giuliani, who has acted as Trump’s attorney for free since early 2018, has been “working Trump hard” to be included among the lawyers who will defend him on the floor of the Senate, according to an informal adviser close to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity. […]

The former New York City mayor has, however, made it clear in recent public statements that he would enjoy arguing Trump’s case before the Senate. “I’d try the case. I’d love to try the case,” Giuliani told reporters at Trump’s New Year’s Eve party for paying guests at his Palm Beach resort. “I don’t know if anybody would have the courage to give me the case. But if you give me the case, I will prosecute it as a racketeering case.”

It’s been a while since Rudy was in a courtroom but you’d think he’d at least understand that he would be the defense lawyer not the prosecution. But then, he’s also a constitutional expert these days, so perhaps he thinks he’d be the judge as well.

And Saturday night, Giuliani told Fox News host Jeanine Pirro he would ask for the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss the case against Trump, which, in his view, would have the effect of expunging the impeachment from Trump’s record. “I would say if it’s nonconstitutional, it’s null and void,” he said.

Trump responded by posting a tweet of the interview with the statement: “Thank you Rudy!”

The interview was demented. Rudy had clearly had a few:

Thank you Rudy! @JudgeJeanine pic.twitter.com/hk9yuQo4Nm

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020

If you can’t stand to hear either of them, Daily Beast had a rundown of the lunacy:

Claiming that the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges against Trump are essentially made up, Giuliani said, “The remedy is to go before the Supreme Court of the United States and have it declared unconstitutional.”

Acknowledging that “there’s nothing in the Constitution that would allow the Supreme Court” to do that, Giuliani said: “There’s also nothing in the Constitution … that allows the Supreme Court to declare a law of Congress unconstitutional. Marshall made it up.”

“Suppose somebody charged me with not looking nice tonight … and brought me on trial before the New York Supreme Court. … It would be dismissed,” he said.

“The rules are set by the Senate. Then the Chief Justice interprets the rules. The Chief Justice will be given the power to dismiss,” Giuliani argued.

If the impeachment trial is not blocked, he said, Trump would be “acquitted” but there would be no limits on impeachment and then “the next group of maybe crazy Republicans are going to go after some Democrat.”

I guess he was too busy shutting down art museums for showing art he found offensive to remember when the Republicans impeached a president over an inappropriate but consensual affair.

“I can even argue that politically it would be better to go to trial! They’ll find out about Biden, they’ll find out what a big crook Biden is,” Giuliani said.  

Apparently forgetting about Ukraine entirely—the country where his own crusade to expose Biden’s supposed corruption has proven central to the impeachment proceedings—Giuliani said a trial means that “they’ll find out that Biden just didn’t make money in Iran, but he made money in China, and he made money in Iraq.”

I really don’t think Trump should go to trial without his trusted sidekick, do you? And if he’s right there in the “courtroom” it will make it easy for the Senators to ask him personally (in the period where they get to ask questions) about his own involvement in the crimes the president is accused of. Very convenient.

Rudy Giuliani’s role in this administration will be remembered as one of the most batshit crazy elements of a batshit crazy time.

If we survive, of course.

I’m going to post these tweets by New Yorker writer Adam Davidson for posterity. The Trump-Azerbaijan Tower project is a notoriously shady deal and for some reason nobody seems to care. If only they had used a private email server…

For reporters needing to convince editors they can safely mention Trump’s prior financial ties to the IRGC, here are the receipts: The Trump Org proudly announced its Baku, Azerbaijan project in 2014 (the deal began in 2010, signed in 2011): prnewswire.com/news-releases/… 1/

Ivanka Trump led the effort: facebook.com/watch/?v=10152… Her official partner was Anar Mammadov, son of Ziya Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s transportation minister. US state dept officials referred to Mammadov as “is notoriously corrupt even for Azerbaijan” search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/0… 2/

That same cable explained that Kamal and Keyoumars Darvishi ran “an alleged Revolutionary Guard-controlled business in Iran” and “developed a close business relationship/friendship with Azerbaijan Minister of Transportation Ziya Mammedov” 3/

A Swedish prosecutor filed a case against Bombardier for a corrupt rail contract in Azerbaijan. The documents the prosecutor uncovered showed the corrupt case implicated the IRGC’s Darvishi brothers and Mammadov. occrp.org/en/agentsofinf… 4/

Swedish prosecutor Thomas Forsberg has a lot of documentation that shows a tie between Mammadov and the Darvishis in this scam. Taken together, this evidence shows the Mammadovs and Darvishis were almost certainly making 100s of millions of dollars … 5/

Through corrupt rail and road contracts precisely when the Trump Org was doing business with them. The Trumps say they didn’t know until 2015, though a simple google search would have revealed most of it. But they CONTINUED doing business after they learned all this. 6/

The next key bit is to show that the Darvishis were not independent Iranian businessmen but were a front for the IRGC, doing the bidding of Qasem Soleimani. That’s actually the easiest part. Start with a Farsi translation of their own web page: azarpassillo.com/?lang=en 7/

Note that most of their Iran projects were ones controlled by the IRGC’s Khatam Al-Anbia construction entity. Also note that during the same period Trump was working on the project, the Darvishi brothers both took leaves from their business to work for … 8/

Tehran’s mayor, Mohamed Bagher Ghalibaf, a lifelong senior IRGC official and close ally of Soleimani. Ghalibaf–with the Darvishis as his key deputies–previously ran the IRGC air force and its efforts to acquire WMD missile guidance systems. 9/

Look at the Tehran Metro construction project–it was under Ghalibaf’s control, he gave much of the work to the Darvishis, and — we can safely assume — they pocketed huge amounts of corrupt money. Again: at the same time they were partnering with Mammadov …

Who was using the Trump Tower to launder his money. While we can’t say for sure, it is certainly compelling that THE major IRGC money laundering operation had one major external partner (Mammadov) who had one major business partner… Trump. 11/

Once again: Alan Garten, chief legal officer of the Trump Org, says they learned all of this in Summer 2015. They had a contractual right to audit the financial books of the Mammadovs. They clearly could have alerted authorities. They did nothing until Dec. 2016. 12/

Here’s something crucial: Trump did not just profit from the IRGC, he was materially helpful in their efforts. The goal of $-laundering is to spread huge amounts of money around the world without detection. Without Trump, this project would have been stymied. 13/

Mammadov and the Darvishis are international pariahs. They would have been flagged by banks and SWIFT and other transfer services. But, by calling this a Trump project, it was far easier to send large amounts of money through the banking system around the world. 14/

We don’t know precisely how much money was involved or how it was used, but the evidence suggests it was a lot of money–possibly in the billions–and that these are very bad people who use their money for very bad things: WMD acquisition, terror financing, etc. 15/

In short: while running for President, Trump was knowingly providing material help to an enemy of the united states for about $5 million. At a minimum, we should report that Trump’s concern about Soleimani and the IRGC is a very recent development. 16/

There is a ton more investigative meat on this bone. Lots to uncover about Trump, Mammadov, Azarpassillo, etc. And this is just ONE of many shady projects the company was doing at the time. Consider his work with Hary Tanoesoedibjo–which is ongoing now–in Indonesia 17/

Hary Tanoe is tied to some ISIS linked groups: theintercept.com/2017/04/18/tru… Trump Org defense is: we were just licensing our name. But that IS the problem. They are selling a shiny American brand to evildoers so they can do their evil more easily. 18/

There is more to be done. But the core story is bulletproof, fully ready to pass a fact check and legal review. And it’s also very simple: When responding to Trump and Iran, include: “”Until recently, Trump knowingly participated in an IRGC front operation to launder money.” 19

Reporters: feel free to DM me or write me at mail@adamdavidson.com I don’t need any credit. I just think we’re doing a disservice to our audiences if we don’t report the Iran story with full context. Oh, and of course read my story on all this: newyorker.com/magazine/2017/… END

“Until recently, Trump knowingly participated in an IRGC front operation to launder money.” Think about that.

Then think about the fact that his daughter, who works in the White House, led the effort and Trump has gone to obscene lengths to taint Joe Biden with his son’s Ukraine sinecure. As Pelosi says, everything he accuses others of is projection.

If only the members of the media cared as much about all the various truly criminal Trump operations as they did about the ridiculous “emails” story in 2016, the public might know about this.

Two-thirds of Americans want former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial. Then again, a poll last April showed that many wanted to preserve the Affordable Care Act’s protections for pre-existing medical conditions . Popular opinion has not dissuaded Republicans from trying to drive a stake through the ACA’s heart.

About that trial. The president argued for months he was eager for his inevitable acquittal in the Senate. He declared as recently as New Year’s Eve, “I look forward to it.” Now Trump has second thoughts. The White House is urging Senate Republicans to retain the option of dismissing the charges after opening arguments . For now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky lacks the votes for immediate dismissal. Dismissal might also put members of his caucus up for reelection this fall in a difficult spot:

McConnell has made clear to his colleagues that he wants Trump to emerge victorious in the trial and is not willing to hold a vote that could fail, sources said. He’s also keenly aware of what a vote to dismiss would look like politically, according to Republican senators, and has shepherded his conference away from the idea for several weeks.

On Monday, however, indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas turned over “photos, dozens of text messages and thousands of pages of documents to House impeachment investigators.” Parnas attorney Joseph A. Bondy called on Attorney General William Barr to recuse himself “so that Lev can be properly evaluated as a witness in the impeachment inquiry.”

After our trip to DC, we worked through the night providing a trove of Lev Parnas’ WhatsApp messages, text messages & images—not under protective order—to #HPSCI, detailing interactions with a number of individuals relevant to the impeachment inquiry. #LetLevSpeak #LevRemembers pic.twitter.com/HdHaCyZXIm

— Joseph A. Bondy (@josephabondy) January 13, 2020

And with the announcement those documents might be produced, the mercurial president has changed his mind about having that trial.

Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, “no pressure” Impeachment Hoax, rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank snarks:

“Many believe,” of course, is Trump-speak for “I believe.” And I understand why “many believe” a fair Senate trial would hurt Trump, if it means producing the documents and witnesses Trump refused to provide to the House. His defenses would wither faster than his explanations for the assassination of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani.

[…]

Trump, after expressing his newfound belief that a Senate trial wouldn’t help his case, moved on to sharing other beliefs Monday with his Twitter followers, including a belief that “I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare” and a belief that “the corrupted Dems [are] trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue.” His evidence for the latter belief: a doctored picture of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing Muslim garb in front of an Iranian flag.

Trumpublicans, Milbank suggests, are like characters from the musical “The Book of Mormon.” (“I believe that God lives on a planet called Kolob! … And I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri.”)

For the Trump and Trumpers, Milbank explains, the truth is whatever Donald says it is, “much as when he said his net worth was based on how he feels.” Did Donald Trump really save pre-existing conditions? Did he have evidence of attacks by Soleimani on four U.S. embassies and that they were “eminent”? Do his defenders really believe Trump has done “NOTHING wrong“? Is he really in “very good health,” 243 pounds and 6′-3″? Milbank’s assessment: “A Republican just believes.”

That, is what makes Trumpism a cult.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide election mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.

Some people have too much fucking time on their hands:

A conservative activist group is blasting Burger King for using what it calls a profane word to sell meatless Whoppers.

In August, the fast-food giant rolled out an ad promoting its plant-based Impossible Whopper. In the minute-long segment, one customer scarfs down a patty and between bites mumbles, “Damn that’s good.”

Enter One Million Moms, which says its mission is to “stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media.” It’s the same group that recently pressured the Hallmark channel to pull a commercial featuring same-sex couples getting married, though the network later apologized and said it had made the “wrong decision.”

In a news release Friday, One Million Moms said the ad was “damaging” to impressionable children, who tend to repeat what they hear. “The language in the commercial is offensive, and it’s sad that this once family restaurant has made yet another deliberate decision to produce a controversial advertisement instead of a wholesome one.”

The group then asked objectors to sign a petition calling on Burger King to cancel the commercial or edit out the word “damn.” Burger King did not immediately respond to questions about whether it would alter or remove the ad, or if it had responded to the group.

Timothy Jay, a professor of psychology emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and who has closely studied profanity, said words like “damn” would have been censored a century ago under the influence of the Catholic Church. But now, even as cursing has become more mainstream, “the religious right is obviously more empowered by the conservative climate we have right now, so that’s why it hits a nerve,” Jay said.

Yeah, “wholesome.” I assume One Million Moms is (are?) going after this language, too:

Donald Trump is the first president to make C-SPAN unsuitable viewing for children. “The president used language that some may find offensive,” reads a disclaimer on C-SPAN’s website for a speech he gave in July. In that speech, President Trump said, “If you don’t support me, you’re going to be so goddamn poor.”

Taking the Lord’s name in vain is mild compared with the president’s recent statements. On Friday, he called Beto O’Rourke a “poor bastard.” On Sunday, he retweeted a video of a UFC fighter calling him “a bad motherf—er.” On Monday, he called Gov. Matt Bevin (R-Ky.) “a pain in the ass.”

Trump is so obscene that the country’s newspapers and websites, including this one, have had to change their rules about publishing profanity just to keep up. Thanks to him, you can now read “shithole” in The New York Times.

Wholesome. We need more wholesome. Fuck, yeah.

13 former press secretaries wrote an op-ed asking that the White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham to hold press briefings. She has never held even one.

They write:

“The process of preparing for regular briefings makes the government run better. The sharing of information, known as official guidance, among government officials and agencies helps ensure that an administration speaks with one voice, telling one story, however compelling it might be.

Regular briefings also force a certain discipline on government decision making. Knowing there are briefings scheduled is a powerful incentive for administration officials to complete a policy process on time. Put another way, no presidents want their briefers to say, day after day, we haven’t figured that one out yet. …

Using the powerful podiums of the State Department, Pentagon and White House is a powerful tool for keeping our allies informed and letting our enemies know we are united in our determination to defeat them both on the battlefield and in the world of public diplomacy.”

That would be really powerful if there was even the slightest hope that the administration cared about any of that.

The fact is that they have simply moved the “briefing” to state TV where the Press Secretary sings Trump’s praises and responds to friendly softball questions. Here’s she is today. If you don’t watch Fox you may never have seen what she looks like:

Stephanie Grisham on Trump retweeting an image mocking how Muslims dress: "I think the president is making clear that Democrats are parroting Iranian talking points and almost taking the side of terrorists and those who were out to kill Americans." 😳 pic.twitter.com/zCY6xUUj9p

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 13, 2020

She should watch some North Korean TV. She could use some tips on how to present Dear Leader’s perfection in glowing shining light at all times. This just isn’t good enough.

….and, if Republicans win in court and take back the House of Represenatives, your healthcare, that I have now brought to the best place in many years, will become the best ever, by far. I will always protect your Pre-Existing Conditions, the Dems will not!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2020

Fergawdsakes.

He is actually telling the cult that he’s responsible for their protection for pre-existing conditions in Obamacare when, in fact, he is, as we speak, trying to overturn the ACA in its entirety, which is the law that provides that protection.

I’m sure you all remember what it was like before the ACA. Insurance companies could deny insurance to anyone with a medical condition. If they did decide to insure you, they could charge outlandish premiums making it impossible to buy insurance in any case. That is what will happen if the law is repealed and the Republicans pass some garbage law that tells insurance companies they have to cover pre-existing conditions. They’ll say fine. And then they’ll charge people who have them 485,000 a year and say they’ve complied.

Mother Jones explains:

A 2019 Kaiser Health News fact check found Trump’s repeated claims to protect patients with preexisting conditions false.

Instead, the Obamacare repeal bills Trump has supported, including 2017’s “skinny repeal” bill, would have gutted coverage for preexisting conditions to varying degrees. Trump has also extended the duration of short-term “junk insurance” plans that do not have to comply with the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting conditions.

And while Trump did have a hand in getting rid of the individual mandate, the end result was not to improve health care. In 2017, Congress used a tax cut law to set the financial penalty for going uninsured to $0. Because the Supreme Court upheld the ACA in 2012 on the grounds that the individual mandate counted as a tax, the $0 penalty is now at the center of a Trump-backed lawsuit that aims to strike down Obamacare in its entirety.

I wish I understood why Republicans want people to die from lack of affordable health care but after all this time I just have to accept that they do and judge them accordingly. They know very well what they re doing and they don’t care.

Trump is too ignorant to know what he’s talking about. He says whatever he thinks will make his cult happy and I think he probably even convinces himself that it’s true.

I told you he was getting more and more hysterical. Anyone who thinks they might be on his hit list would be wise to take cover.

Check out these tweets:

“Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!”

“Many believe that by the Senate giving credence to a trial based on the no evidence, no crime, read the transcripts, “no pressure” Impeachment Hoax, rather than an outright dismissal, it gives the partisan Democrat Witch Hunt credibility that it otherwise does not have. I agree!”

And CBS reports:

The White House is preparing for some Republican senators to join Democrats in voting to call witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, which could get underway in the coming days.

Senior White House officials tell CBS News they increasingly believe that at least four Republicans, and likely more, will vote to call witnesses. In addition to Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and possibly Cory Gardner of Colorado, the White House also views Rand Paul of Kentucky as a “wild card” and Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee as an “institutionalist” who might vote to call witnesses, as one official put it. 

Oh my.

I don’t trust Bolton as far as I can throw him but he’d have to be willing to call a whole bunch of people liars if he decides to lie for Trump about the Ukraine scheme. I could see him doing it but I doubt it will help the president much.

And keep in mind that Trump treated Bolton like shit and he left under very unpleasant terms. I don’t know about you but if I had to guess if there’s one person among the Trump discarded who believes in revenge as much as Trump does, I’d guess it’s him.

The Democrats should be hammering Trump with “what are you so afraid of?” He’s clearly scared to death.

The Daily Beast has the story:

Only two days ago, President Trump wrote in Farsi on his Twitter feed to tell Iranians how he was “inspired” by their courage. He clearly couldn’t keep up his respectful tone for long. On Monday, he retweeted a badly photoshopped image of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer in traditional Islamic clothing, along with the caption: “The corrupted Dems trying their best to come to the Ayatollah’s rescue.”

The two were shown standing in front of an Iranian flag. The original tweet came from an anonymous Twitter account that has been pumping out pro-Trump and anti-Iranian government material.

The other day I tweeted that I got a chill down my spine when I watched Trump rallies and saw the ecstatic cheering from his crowds over the basest insults. Some of his followers obviously saw it and called me a snob and worse. They were defensive, telling me I refused to see all the “good” he’s done and just want to hate him for no reason.

They know. They are just unwilling to admit it, even to themselves.

I’ll just leave this here:

On this same subject, I did a @realTrumpcast with @CultExpert Steven Hassan, the former Moonie who has a profound understanding of cults *and* the way out. His insights were a revelation. https://t.co/Fz0zwjqZvJ https://t.co/cVBwNbX9be

— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) January 10, 2020