William & Mary ‘89
Williamsburg, Virginia
Joined May 2013
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Monty Mason retweeted
"Hope built this place...and hope still lives here."
This is a beautiful, impactful message and video from @JamesTalarico.
He is playing against the hateful tenor of our times, and betting on Texans to reject an onslaught of hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads, paid for by @ElonMusk, @MAGA Inc. and others on behalf of Ken Paxton.
Monty Mason retweeted
Stop what you are doing because you need to read this.
Billions of dollars in oil trades were perfectly timed to Trump’s decision to back off attacking Iranian power plants.
Trump announced the reversal just 15 minutes after those trades were placed. Stocks surged while oil prices plummeted, setting up whoever placed those bets to make a fortune.
Career analysts at the CFTC, the agency responsible for policing these markets, did exactly what they were supposed to do: they started digging.
And what they found was serious enough to refer the trades for a potential insider trading investigation. That is, until a senior advisor to a Trump appointee shut it down.
Congress needs answers about who made these bets, who had advanced knowledge of Trump’s decision, and why political leadership at the CFTC stepped in.
CFTC staff analyzing oil trades for insider trading around the U.S.-Iran war were told to retract their referral to the agency's enforcement division | h/t @CGorrivan bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Monty Mason retweeted
Opposition to Trump's vanity arch is growing.
I applaud Arlington County’s legal challenge, which rightly confronts the Administration’s illegal attempts to bypass legally required processes to assess the project’s impacts on the local community.
Trump wants to avoid these assessments because everyone knows what an honest study would say: this arch is a costly boondoggle that would increase traffic and decrease air safety for the local community.
Breaking news: Arlington County sued to block construction of President Trump’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch, arguing that the administration failed to adequately evaluate potential environmental impacts of the project as required by federal law. wapo.st/3TSCDgG
Monty Mason retweeted
It’s funny how the people who say we’ll never have Sharia law in the United States are the ones banning books, taking away women’s reproductive healthcare access, trying to control the media, and are salivating for public executions.
Monty Mason retweeted
You don't have to be a @ChicagoBears fan to find something to love about Mike Ditka.
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From Jim Nantz on the This is Football podcast on @OmahaProd talking to @bykevinclark
Monty Mason retweeted
Scott Bessent, at his confirmation hearing in Jan/2025 to be Treasury Secretary: "the tragedy going on in Ukraine is one of the greatest tragedies of my adult life ... I believe that the sanctions [on Russia] were not fulsome enough. I believe that the previous administration was worried about raising US energy prices during an election season... if I'm confirmed and if President Trump requests ...I will be 100% on board for taking sanctions up."
Mark Warner (D-VA): "I very much appreciate your willingness and I hope you will be an advocate for keeping those sanctions on and actually advancing them even further."
rev.com/transcripts/scott-be…
Monty Mason retweeted
Another way to think about Trump announcement today: If he increased US diesel imports from Canada by 4%, he would gain as much fuel as from this Russia deal. But the Canadians are global super-villains, so who wants to buy from them when you could enrich Putin instead?
Monty Mason retweeted
This is the least surprising and most outrageous story.
@POTUS ORDERED the government to run ads during the final weeks of the Midterms, extolling HIM as a crusader against "socialists, "communists" and other miscreants.
$20 million in taxpayer money on THAT, just as his cuts in health care, food assistance and other programs that will raise costs kick in.
Smart? No. Legal, probably not.
But the ego must be fed!
nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/po… via @NYTimes
”He said, 'You know what, Abraham? This is not who we are as a country, with everything going on. Despite all our flaws, there are good people in this country.'
"Jim Ukrop was the testament to the goodness of the people in this country," Ackah said.
richmond.com/opinion/columni…
Thank you Jim Ukrop for the many lessons in how to be. So many of us will never forget what you shared and expected from us. We won’t let you down.
Jim Ukrop’s legacy: He helped build Richmond — and thanked it at the end | Guest column richmond.com/opinion/column/… via @RTDOpinions
Monty Mason retweeted
President Trump is now offering Iran sanctions relief and access to frozen funds in exchange for concrete steps on its nuclear program.
Sound familiar?
It’s a lot like the nuclear deal President Obama negotiated, which I worked on and which Trump tore up in his first term and replaced with nothing.
A big reason we ended up in this failed war of choice.
Monty Mason retweeted
Trump UN speech was brutal. Crude. Send them to Hell? Who talks like that? He believes he is without the legal and political constraints of our democracy. A dangerous man. History will excoriate those who allowed this to happen.
Monty Mason retweeted
Barack Obama at his last press briefing with reporters, 2017:
"I have enjoyed working with all of you. That does not, of course, mean that I've enjoyed every story that you have filed, but that's the point of this relationship. You're not supposed to be sycophants. You're supposed to be skeptics. You're supposed to ask me tough questions. You're not supposed to be complimentary, but you're supposed to cast a critical eye on folks who hold enormous power."
Monty Mason retweeted
This is an important fact check
The Kennedy Center was financially stable until Trump took over: "In the fiscal year ending in 2024, when the center was led by President Deborah Rutter and a bipartisan board of trustees, it brought in about $40 million more than it spent"
theatlantic.com/culture/2026…
Monty Mason retweeted
Twenty-five years ago today, we lost 2,977 souls and in the years since, thousands more to illnesses caused by the attack on our country.
This morning, Jill and I hold close the families who carry that loss every day. We honor the heroes of September 11th: the firefighters and police officers who rushed into the towers and the Pentagon, the passengers who fought back over Shanksville, and the generation that stepped up to serve in the aftermath.
Even now, we remember the greatest lesson of one of our nation's darkest days: at our most vulnerable, unity is our most powerful strength.
We will never forget.
Former President Barack Obama, former President Joe Biden, former President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton and their wives are at Friday morning’s New York City 9/11 ceremony.
9/11 25th anniversary live updates: abcnews.visitlink.me/Pgvg7u
Monty Mason retweeted
Make this make sense, otherwise I can only conclude that this administration is pure EVIL.
I would add that yesterday, the US deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in Iran destroying all bridges, roads and rail links that lead from the Iranian port town of Bandar Abbas. This will now unquestionably lead to a humanitarian disaster in Iran. PEOPLE WILL STARVE.
The IRGC won’t care because they don’t give a damn about the Iranian people, but Trump was supposed to be liberating them not starving them. We are now into war crime territory AGAIN.
I would add that bombing rail and road links in the region was a tactic deployed by Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s.
My thanks to Sen Tim Kaine for making this very important point and to Millennial Report for the clip
🎥 TikTok - vm.tiktok.com/ZN81DRPcf/
Monty Mason retweeted
Route 66, the "Mother Road" stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles, was also a place for drivers to "get their kicks." Though long bypassed by interstates, the historic highway, home of scenic vistas and roadside curiosities, continues to attract travelers searching for an America of yesterday. Correspondent Lee Cowan takes a drive along Route 66, which is now marking its centennial.
Monty Mason retweeted
Admiral (ret.) William H. McRaven: "In recent months, President Trump, upon advice from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has relieved or forced the retirement of some of the finest officers that have ever served this nation."
Read the whole piece:
theatlantic.com/national-sec…
Monty Mason retweeted
It's actually mind-boggling that @JDVance would say Watergate would be a "10 hour story" today.
Just to review, Nixon's aides authorized a break-in of the DNC HQ to install bugging equipment--in a caper foiled by a night watchman, who called police. They then enlisted the CIA to mislead the FBI that the break-in was related to a probe of malign foreign actors.
The entire operation was paid for by a slush fund controlled by the WH.
The WH also enlisted the IRS to probe hundreds of Nixon's political enemies.
The AG, the WH COS and several other top aides all were convicted and served time for their involvement in the crimes and coverup.
Nixon was caught on his own secret tape system conspiring with them but was pardoned a month after he resigned by his successor, Gerald Ford.
That Vance thinks this would be a "10 hour story" today speaks volumes about the moral and ethical degradation of the Trump era.
