Mark

Longtime GOP in mourning.
#nevertrump

Of course I'm a globalist, are you a cubist?

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@douglasrar @DavidAFrench Most minority Democratic voters support police funding, are generally supportive of the military, do not think supporting the working class means pulling out the guillotine, etc.

But yes they also tend to be more socially conservative.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

He won the Civil War, broke the Klan, went bankrupt at 62, got terminal throat cancer, and wrote one of the greatest books in American literature in the final year of his life. He finished it 5 days before he died.

Ulysses S. Grant was born 204 years ago today.

His name wasn't even Ulysses S. Grant. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. The congressman who nominated him to West Point wrote down the wrong name. Grant kept it. The "S." stands for nothing.

He hated his father's tannery and loved horses. Graduated 21st of 39 at West Point. Fought in the Mexican-American War, then came home convinced it was an unjust war designed to expand slavery. He later said he believed the Civil War was divine punishment for it.

He married Julia Dent in 1848, into a slave-owning Missouri family. His abolitionist father refused to attend the wedding. In 1859, broke and desperate, Grant freed the one enslaved man he'd briefly owned instead of selling him. He could have gotten a year's wages.

In the Civil War he became what no other Union general was: relentless. Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) split the Confederacy in half. Lincoln then gave him every Union army. His Appomattox surrender terms: officers kept sidearms, men kept horses for spring planting, no one prosecuted.

As president (1869 to 1877) he did something no president would do again until LBJ: used federal troops to crush the Ku Klux Klan. He suspended habeas corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, prosecuted Klansmen before predominantly Black juries, and broke the first Klan.

His presidency was also rocked by scandal: Black Friday 1869. Crédit Mobilier. The Whiskey Ring. Belknap. Grant himself never took a dime. He was just disastrously loyal to corrupt friends. The pattern damaged his reputation for a century.

After the White House, he toured the world for 2 years. Dined with Queen Victoria. Met the emperor of Japan. Then in 1884, a Wall Street partner named Ferdinand Ward ran what we'd now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant was wiped out. 62 years old. Penniless.

Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Mark Twain offered to publish his memoirs. Grant wrote in agony, sometimes 50 pages a day, racing the disease to leave Julia an inheritance. He finished the manuscript July 18, 1885. He died July 23.

The book made Julia $450,000, about $14M today. It's now considered one of the finest memoirs in the English language. For decades historians ranked Grant a failure. Since 2000 he's jumped 13 spots in the C-SPAN survey, the biggest rise of any president.

Happy birthday, General 🇺🇸

[Governor Abigail Spanberger @GovernorVA]

Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress.

As we watched other states go along with those demands without voter input, Virginians refused to let that stand. We responded the right way: at the ballot box.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@shannonrwatts @RpsAgainstTrump For whatever reason, Platner is sky high in the polls right now.

BUT, while "who has the best chance to win the general" is a legitimate question, there are lots of reasons to think the answer is NOT Platner despite polls in February.

[Third Way @ThirdWayTweet]

For Democrats to secure the House, Senate, and White House it takes winning +60% of moderates.

“We need so many more moderates, it is such a major part of our general election coalition,” remarked @ThirdWayKessler.

[Ann 🦁🕊🌞 @914Ann]

Cato Institute analyses (using the same SIPP data) find immigrants consume significantly less welfare per capita than native-born Americans (e.g., ~21–27% less in 2020–2023), with immigrants (14–15% of population) accounting for only ~11–12% of total means-tested welfare/entitlement spending. Non-citizens use far less per capita.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@SirGimmis @allenanalysis Exact most of America's 1000 billionaires are nice, hard-working people who earned their money doing good things.

Even Musk, who does a lot of reprehensible things, greatly expanded roof-top solar and EVs.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@GuntherEagleman If a Texan murdered someone, would you want is to arrest all Texans?

Why do you want to penalize millions for the crimes of a few?

[Republicans against Trump @RpsAgainstTrump]

Back in 2011, George W. Bush warned about isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. MAGA today is exactly what he was warning about.

[@Ima 🇺🇸💙🔬🔭 @imatweet25]

Here’s the full 60 Minutes segment on CECOT that Bari Weiss and CBS censored.
#BoycottCBS

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@ClassicLearner How exactly was it "required"???

By most measures (gains in English, income increase, etc) modern immigrants assimilate FASTER now, not slower.

[Eric Levitz @EricLevitz]

The idea that Democrats can dispense with persuading heterodox swing voters -- by moving left to mobilize its progressive base -- rests on nothing but bad intuitions, per @simon_bazelon's report https://t.co/PV1ELJkam5

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

Want to see how far right the Republican Party has gone?

Watch George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan answer a question about illegal immigration during a 1980 debate.

They wouldn’t even be allowed in today’s Republican Party.

[Pete Buttigieg @PeteButtigieg]

JD Vance is back in Indiana today, personally pressuring GOP lawmakers to ignore their conscience and enact an extreme gerrymandering plan.

The fact that they have to send in the VP tells us something important and encouraging: our political pressure against this plan is working, even in deep red places.

Let's keep it up.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@DELTAEAGLE1MAGA @theliamnissan "Saving the Country" from taxpaying workers?

[NFAPResearch @NFAPResearch]

It turns out Stephen Miller was incorrect. “The significant drop in foreign-born workers to the United States in 2025 has not made U.S. workers better off and instead has contributed to concerns about a stagnating economy.” @David_J_Bier @JuliaDavisNews https://t.co/SteDkq1WqE

[Barbara Comstock @BarbaraComstock]

Great message from @SpanbergerForVA and why she is leading by 12 points at 53% in latest poll.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@mattklewis I dislike it when the left insists upon mentioning race when it is not relevant, and it is just as bad when the right does it.

[Mark @mindvirus2010]

@thomaschattwill Also, while I strongly agree that moderates out-number the left in the Democratic Party, I don't think it is right to describe them as "marginal" either.

[John Nevelten @NeveltenJohn]

249 yrs ago today:

"He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither . . ."

IMMIGRATION: AN AMERICAN LIBERTY FROM THE BEGINNING