Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 902

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, July 10, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Migrant Children Allege Sexual Abuse and Retaliation and Primarily Speaking.

Let's start out with some GOOD news today!

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jenna Amatulli at the Huffington Post: Women's World Cup Soccer Champs Praised at NYC Parade with Glorious Signs. "The United States Women's National Team was honored in New York City with a parade on Wednesday after they brought home the 2019 Women's World Cup — and the signs did not disappoint." There is a great collection of the signs that greeted Donald Trump's least favorite professional sports team, but this one is defo my favorite:


So, yesterday, Amy McGrath announced that she is challenging Mitch McConnell for his senate seat, and then this happened... Kasie Hunt at NBC News: McGrath Raises a Record $2.5 Million on First Day of Senate Campaign. "Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Amy McGrath raised more than $2.5 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign against Mitch McConnell — over $1 million of it coming in just the first five and a half hours after she announced, according to her campaign. McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said it's the most ever raised in the first 24 hours of a Senate campaign." RIGHT FUCKING ON.

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: California Becomes First State to Give Health Care to Some Undocumented Migrants. "California has become the first state to offer taxpayer-supported health care to some undocumented migrants after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law Tuesday. The new laws...will allow around 90,000 low-income adults below the age of 25 to access the state's Medicaid program, even if they're undocumented. ...Newsom said he plans to further expand coverage to more adults in the years to come." Woot!

* * *

Ann E. Marimow and Jonathan O'Connell at the Washington Post: Appeals Court Dismisses Emoluments Lawsuit Involving [Donald] Trump's D.C. Hotel.
A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with [Donald] Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington.

The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the attorneys general lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution when his business accepts payments from state and foreign governments.
Crap.

[CN: Rape culture]


Nicole Lafond at TPM: DOJ Instructs Two Mueller Deputies Not to Appear for Closed-Door Testimony. "House Democrats are attempting to make arrangements for two of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's deputies to appear for a private, closed-door testimony on the same day that Mueller is set to testify — July 17. But the Justice Department has reportedly instructed the two special counsel staffers, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley, not to appear. According to new reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ's interference could muddy the deal that the department and lawmakers reached last month to get Mueller's testimony." Muddy the deal. That's polite.

Peter Jamison at the Washington Post: Trump's July Fourth Event and Weekend Protests Bankrupted D.C. Security Fund, Mayor Says. "Trump's overhauled July Fourth celebration cost the D.C. government $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation's capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals. In a letter to the president Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) warned that the fund has now been depleted and is estimated to be running a $6 million deficit by Sept. 30. The mayor also noted that the account was never reimbursed for $7.3 million in expenses from Trump's 2017 inauguration." Fucking grifter.

Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Trump's Human Rights Commission Could Undercut Human Rights.
The Trump administration launched an advisory commission this week tasked with examining human rights in foreign policy — but advocates worry it could undermine global reproductive rights.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced the creation of the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights. He said the commission will conduct "an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy" and provide him "with advice on human rights." A notice published in the Federal Register in May said the commission will provide "fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights."

Though the State Department has an office devoted to human rights, the commission was "conceived with almost no input from" it, Politico reported. Officials told the outlet that the commission is "advisory and will not create policy, and maintain that everyone has 'unalienable rights,' including LGBTQ people and other minorities."

Mary Ann Glendon, a professor of law at Harvard University who teaches on human rights, will chair the commission. Glendon's anti-choice activism earned her the "Proudly Pro-Life Award" from National Right to Life in 2009. That year, Glendon turned down a medal from the University of Notre Dame, citing its decision to give President Barack Obama an honorary degree.
Fucking hell.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link; ableist language at link] Jonathan Cohn at the Huffington Post: Obamacare Had Another Bad Day in Court; That's Pretty Alarming. "[T]he mere possibility that the two Republicans would invalidate part, let alone all, of the Affordable Care Act is hard to fathom. The consequences of such a ruling would be devastating, and the underlying argument of the lawsuit is, according to a wide array of respectable legal experts, positively [absurd]. And yet, here we are."

Rishika Dugyala at Politico: Pence Aide Still Refuses to Reveal Why Trip Was Mysteriously Scrapped. "The mystery surrounding Vice President Mike Pence's scrapped trip to New Hampshire last week is still alive, with his chief of staff telling reporters Wednesday morning that he can't yet offer up an explanation. 'I can't talk about that,' Pence chief of staff Marc Short told reporters on the White House driveway. He said the public could expect an answer 'in a few weeks.'" What horseshit. [Background.]

[CN: Nativism] Josh Israel at ThinkProgress: GOP Congressman Claims without Proof That 80% to 90% of Asylum Claims Aren't Legit. "Texas Rep. Michael Cloud (R) falsely stated that few asylum seekers have legitimate claims of political persecution, and that their cases should therefore merit only a very brief evaluation lasting 30 minutes to two hours maximum. The House Freedom Caucus member combined debunked statistics and a misunderstanding of what makes people eligible for asylum in a Fox News interview." These fucking lying assholes.

* * *


Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast: CNN Tells Digital Staff: Take Some Cues from Fox News. "Fox News is already beating CNN on TV. Now, to ensure the conservative news network doesn't start winning online, CNN wants to make sure its employees know what stories Fox News is writing about. In recent months, CNN's newly revamped audience development team has begun highlighting the top daily stories people are searching for online in a widely seen company Slack messaging channel. The network has begun placing small fox emojis next to stories the right-leaning cable outlet covered online that CNN missed." Goddammit.

[CN: Misogyny] Larrison Campbell at Mississippi Today: Robert Foster, GOP Governor Candidate, Denies Woman Reporter Access Because of Her Gender. "In two phone calls this week, Colton Robison, Foster's campaign director, said a male colleague would need to accompany this reporter on an upcoming 15-hour campaign trip because they believed the optics of the candidate with a woman, even a working reporter, could be used in a smear campaign to insinuate an extramarital affair. 'The only reason you think that people will think I'm having a (improper) relationship with your candidate is because I am a woman,' this reporter said. Robison said the campaign simply 'can't risk it.'" Seethe.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 887

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, June 25, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Trump Regime to Move Migrant Children in a Bid to Avoid Accountability for Harming Them and "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free..." and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Donald Trump published a series of tweets directed at Iran this morning, and they are wildly, unfathomably, aggressively inappropriate, which is still a vast understatement. The tweets read:
Iran leadership doesn't understand the words "nice" or "compassion," they never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two years alone...

...The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more...

...Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!
No more people who aren't bellicose sadists who threaten "obliteration" of their enemies. To all decent Americans' grief and regret.

In related news... [Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Saagar Enjeti and Jordan Fabian at the Hill: Trump: I Do Not Need Congressional Approval to Strike Iran. "Trump told Hill.TV in an exclusive interview Monday that he does not need congressional approval to strike Iran. When asked if he believes he has the authority to initiate military action against Iran without first going to Congress, Trump said, 'I do.' ...The president disputed Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) assertion that he would need congressional approval for any 'hostilities' against Iran. 'I disagree,' he said. 'Most people seem to disagree.'" The fuck they do. I'm sure his cadre of sycophants do. Outside that thicket of reprobates, however, most people believe the president is not a fucking dictator.

Did anyone imagine that Putin would stop with just interfering in our election once he got away with that sans consequence? Oh. [CN: Video may autoplay at link] Tom Embury-Dennis at the Independent: Russia Contradicts Trump Administration by Saying Downed U.S. Drone Was in Iranian Airspace. "[Secretary of Russia's Security Council Nikolai Patrushev] spoke to reporters after a three-way meeting with his Russian and Israeli counterparts in Jerusalem. He said Iran — an ally of Russia — had not briefed Moscow about the incident, but that the Russian Defense Ministry had concluded the drone entered Iranian airspace."

Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg: Trump Muses Privately About Ending Postwar Japan Defense Pact. "Donald Trump has recently mused to confidants about withdrawing from a longstanding defense treaty with Japan, according to three people familiar with the matter, in his latest complaint about what he sees as unfair U.S. security pacts. Trump regards the accord as too one-sided because it promises U.S. aid if Japan is ever attacked, but doesn't oblige Japan's military to come to America's defense, the people said. The treaty, signed more than 60 years ago, forms the foundation of the alliance between the countries that emerged from World War II."

So Trump "mused about it privately," and yet here we are reading about it! And of course we're all meant to understand it's because Trump is always pouting about unfair our treaties are, and yet, as Olga Lautman notes on Twitter: "Just what Putin wants! Trump gets all his foreign policy ideas from the Kremlin who wants weaker or no alliances." Huh.

Say, on that note... Steven Erlanger at the New York Times: Council of Europe Restores Russia's Voting Rights.
In a decision opposed by most former Soviet-bloc countries, the parliament of the Council of Europe voted on Tuesday to end Russia's suspension, which began with the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Those voting to restore Russia's full rights in the council, which is separate from the European Union, argued that if Russia left the organization — as it had threatened to do — it would deny Russian citizens the right to bring cases before the European Court of Human Rights, a part of the council.

Opponents argued that Europe was giving in to the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia's support for separatist warfare in eastern Ukraine — and just as important, starting a process of normalizing relations with Moscow.
Does that strategy — holding the safety of marginalized people hostage in order to extort concessions and avoid accountability or any consequences at all for large-scale abuses — sound familiar to anyone else? Because it should.

* * *

[CN: Nativism; child abuse]


Nancy Cook at Politico: Trump Is Tiring of Mulvaney. "In recent weeks, Trump has been snapping at his acting chief of staff with some frequency, and expressing greater frustration with him than usual, according to four current and former senior administration officials. Trump has long said that he prefers the flexibility offered by temporary titles, but Mulvaney's ongoing 'acting' status underscores the uphill battle he faces as Trump's third chief of staff in less than two-and-a-half years. While Mulvaney is not in danger of losing his job any time soon, officials stressed, Trump's treatment of him still signals to aides the slow deterioration of their relationship has begun."


Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: Our Next Election Is Dangerously Vulnerable, a Top Democrat Warns.
[Donald] Trump is set to meet with Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 this week, and one big question is whether Trump will warn the Russian leader against launching another attack on our political system.

We can guess the answer to that — he won't, because he stands to benefit. But that should renew attention to the steps we could be taking to fortify our elections against outside interference, but aren't, largely because Trump doesn't want us to, and because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is blocking many such efforts.

The causes for worry are mounting.

...Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, has played a lead role in studying the threat of more election interference.

...The Plum Line: What do you fear most in elections to come?

Wyden: As of today, the election interference of 2020 by hostile foreign powers — and I'm not just talking about the Russians — is going to make 2016 look like small potatoes.
Shiver.

Paul LeBlanc at CNN: Warren Introduces New Election Security Plan. "Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday released a new election security and voter fraud protection plan aimed to 'secure our elections from all threats, foreign and domestic.' 'Our elections should be as secure as Fort Knox,' the senator from Massachusetts wrote in a Medium post outlining the multi-pronged plan. 'But instead, they're less secure than your Amazon account.'"

A great and necessary idea — which chief Democracy Killer Mitch McConnell will ensure goes absolutely nowhere. Sob.

* * *

[CN: Sexual violence; rape apologia] Cristina Cabrera at TPM: Trump Denies Carroll Sexual Assault Accusation by Claiming 'She's Not My Type'. "Donald Trump denied writer E. Jean Carroll's allegation of sexual assault by stating that 'she's not my type' on Monday. 'I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened,' Trump told the Hill. 'It never happened, okay?'" JFC he is such a foul specimen. I hate him mightily.

[CN: Toxic masculinity; entitlement; gun violence; child abuse] Ben Kesslen at NBC News: California Man Shoots 10-Month-Old Girl in Head After Her Mother Rejects Him, Police Say. "A 10-month-old girl is recovering in Fresno, California, after being shot in the head by a man who made unwanted sexual advances toward her mother. Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said Deziree Menagh, 18, brought her young daughter, Fayth Percy, to a social gathering Saturday night where Marcos Echartea, 23, made advances toward her. Echartea grabbed her hand, tried to pull Menagh into him, and told her to sit on his lap, police said. The two barely knew each other, having met for the first time a week earlier. Uncomfortable with Echartea's advances, Menagh left the party in a car with Fayth and a friend. ...Echartea fired three rounds into the driver's window, one hitting Fayth in the head."

[CN: War on agency] Erin Heger at Rewire.News: Texas GOP Outlaws Local Governments from Having 'Any Transaction' with Abortion Providers. "Senate Bill 22, signed into law this month by Gov. Greg Abbott (R), takes effect September 1. The legislation prohibits cities, counties, and local governments from conducting 'any transaction' with an abortion provider or its affiliates — including leases, sales, and donations of real estate, goods, and services. 'What these statewide leaders are saying is that local entities no longer have the capacity to steward their community resources in the way that they see fit,' Autumn Keiser, director of communications and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, told Rewire.News."

If you don't see the through-line between all three of the above stories, I don't even know what to tell you.

* * *

[CN: Climate crisis; class warfare] Damian Carrington at the Guardian: 'Climate Apartheid': UN Expert Says Human Rights May Not Survive. "The world is increasingly at risk of 'climate apartheid,' where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger caused by the escalating climate crisis while the rest of the world suffers, a report from a UN human rights expert has said. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the impacts of global heating are likely to undermine not only basic rights to life, water, food, and housing for hundreds of millions of people, but also democracy and the rule of law."

This speaks to my Ark Theory, in which oligarchs are using the climate crisis as their own modern-day "Noah's Ark" to escape the threat of overpopulation.


Douglas MacMillan at the Washington Post: Data Brokers Are Selling Your Secrets: How States Are Trying to Stop Them. "A state law passed last year required all businesses that trade data on Vermont's residents to register publicly and share some basic information about how they operate. ...The experiment in Vermont is being closely watched at a time when regulators across the country are trying to address growing concerns over online privacy. A California law set to take effect at the beginning of next year will allow the state's residents to opt out of having their data sold. Maine passed a law this month barring Internet service providers, including AT&T and Verizon, from selling broadband customers' information. State legislatures in New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts are all considering measures to give residents more control over data."

One wee fly in the ointment... Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Federal Agencies Left Private Data Open to Cyberattacks for a Decade, Says Senate Report. "Multiple federal agencies kept up an outdated security system over the past decade that left Americans' personal information vulnerable to theft, according to a damning new Senate report out Tuesday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found the failures came from the Departments of State, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, and the Social Security Administration." Terrific.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 816

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, April 15, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by Fannie: Dispatches From the Queer Resistance #8 — A Pete Buttigieg Special. And by me: Trump's Relentless Campaign of Stochastic Terrorism: Rep. Ilhan Omar Edition and Primarily Speaking.

Here are some more things in the news today...


Donald Trump still has not released his tax returns, and of course he is leveraging the power of his office to ensure that he will never have to release them.

Andrew Desiderio at Politico: Trump Attorneys Warn Accounting Firm Not to Hand Over Financial Records.
[Donald] Trump's attorneys are warning of potential legal action if an accounting firm turns over a decade of the president's financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Trump attorneys William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are urging Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to issue on Monday for Trump's financial documents, calling it a politically motivated scheme to take down the president.

"It is no secret that the Democrat Party has decided to use its new House majority to launch a flood of investigations into the president's personal affairs in hopes of using anything they can find to damage him politically," Consovoy and Passantino wrote to Jerry D. Bernstein, Mazars' outside counsel.

The attorneys said they were formally putting Mazars "on notice" — an implicit threat of legal action. They also urged Bernstein to hold off on providing the documents to Cummings until the subpoena can be litigated in court, suggesting that a protracted legal battle is likely to ensue.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is taking a different tack, by making the novel argument that members of Congress are too stupid to understand Trump's highly complicated taxes. No, really. Via Devan Cole at CNN: "'This is a dangerous, dangerous road and frankly, Chris, I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that [Donald] Trump's taxes will be,' Sanders told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. 'My guess is most of them don't do their own taxes, and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the President has and determine anything,' she said, adding that attempts to obtain the returns are 'a disgusting overreach.'"

But as Eric Levenson at CNN reports, 10 members of Congress are certified public accountants: "In attacking the fight to obtain Trump's tax returns, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that members of Congress aren't smart enough to understand them anyway. But three Democratic members of Congress are trained as certified public accountants — professionals licensed by their states to do just that. The Congressional Research Service said there are 10 accountants in this Congress, including two senators and eight House members."

Which isn't even relevant, as members of Congress have access to professional experts who can help them make sense of things in which they don't have personal expertise. Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows that, of course. She's just a mendacious shitwheel, like every other member of the Trump Regime.

* * *

Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post: Mueller Report's Release Is Expected Thursday, Justice Department Says. But not so fast! It's not the whole report. "The Justice Department expects to release on Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on [Donald] Trump, his associates, and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, setting the stage for further battles in Congress over the politically explosive inquiry." A redacted version. And no mention of the hundreds of pages of exhibits. I expect what will be released is just enough to neuter calls to #releasethereport.

Meanwhile, the collusion is still happening right out in the open:


There is just so much trash to cover every day, so I don't cover anti-democratic shitstain Mitch McConnell as much as I'd like. Let me just take this opportunity to observe that he is one of the worst people ever to serve in federal government in this nation's history. Ever.

* * *

[CN: Stochastic terrorism; Islamophobia; misogynoir] Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Trump Doubles Down on Islamophobic Attacks as Threats Against Ilhan Omar Rise. "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said this week she's seen a surge in threats against her life in the days since [Donald] Trump targeted her in an Islamophobic video last week. The White House, however, is showing no signs of backing off its attack. ...Monday morning, Trump doubled down on his attacks, once more accusing Omar of being 'anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and ungrateful.' 'She is out of control,' Trump claimed." Now that's projection if ever I've heard it.

[CN: Misogyny; racism] Charles M. Blow at the New York Times: Demonizing Minority Women. "While white supremacy has historically tried to paint minority men as physically dangerous, it has routinely painted minority women, particularly those strong and vocal, as pathological and reprobate. There is a pattern here. It is expressed not only in the attacks on, and in elevation of, Omar, but also on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Before them, Trump and his cohorts demonized Representative Maxine Waters, who Trump dubbed 'Low I.Q.,' and Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida."

[CN: Homophobia; death penalty]


[CN: Nativism; abuse] Justin Glawe and Justin Hamel at the Daily Beast: Border Patrol Holds Hundreds of Migrants in Growing Tent City away from Prying Eyes. "Hundreds of migrants are being held for days in an emerging tent city at a Border Patrol station in a preview of what the Trump administration is reportedly considering to absorb a surge on the border. Five U.S. Army tents meant for battlefield hospitals have been repurposed to hold men, women, and children, including infants. Two of the tents were erected over the past week, expanding the facility's capacity by several hundred people. The tents are tightly surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire, leaving virtually no space for people to roam outside. Inside the tents, according to a congresswoman who was granted access, hundreds languish in fetid conditions."

[CN: Nativism] Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Admin to Threaten Countries Whose Nationals Often Overstay Visas. "Trump is planning to launch broader efforts to curb legal immigration by threatening countries whose nationals often overstay their visas, The Wall Street Journal reported. An administration official who spoke to the WSJ said the plan is to put countries 'on notice,' by threatening that it'll be harder for their citizens to obtain visas, or the visas will be shorter, if they don't reduce their rates of overstay. The countries impacted include Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone." Those are all African countries.

[CN: Nativism] Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: ICE Now Aided by 'Enhanced' Spy Powers. "Under [Donald] Trump, ICE — the law enforcement agency that arrests and deports undocumented immigrants — has quietly grown closer to at least one of America's intelligence agencies, according to a letter from a top American intelligence official reviewed by The Daily Beast. The change, which came behind closed doors and without fanfare, has concerned civil liberties advocates. And the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), isn't answering questions about it."

And finally, in good resistance news... Tiarra Mukherjee at Colorlines: Yo-Yo Ma Performs at Border: 'Build Bridges, Not Walls'.
The renowned musician, whose Bach Project seeks to bring unity to 36 cities worldwide, performed Johann Sebastian Bach's six cello suites at the foot of the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, which connects Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in Mexico.

"I've lived my life at the borders. Between cultures. Between disciplines. Between musics. Between generations," Ma told CNN. "In culture, we build bridges, not walls. A country is not a hotel and it's not full."

In an statement about the tour, Ma said there would be days of action in each city, giving him a chance to link with community organizers.
I love everything about that, including the reminder that resistance will look different for each of us, according to our own talents and abilities. Every one of us has something we can do, even if it takes awhile to figure it out, even if it's just to survive.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 718

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, January 07, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Trump Threatens National Emergency and Years-Long Shutdown over Border Wall and No, Joe.

Here are some more things in the news today...


It was quite reasonably assumed that Pentagon Chief of Staff Kevin Sweeney had resigned in protest, and the Pentagon released a statement from Sweeney saying he had "decided the time is right to return to the private sector," but, according to Gordon Lubold at MarketWatch, his sources tell him that Sweeney was "forced out of his post by the Defense Department's new acting head."

The acting head, following Jim Mattis' resignation, is Patrick M. Shanahan.

Relatedly: Amanda Becker at Reuters: Trump Says Acting Cabinet Members Give Him 'More Flexibility'. "Donald Trump said on Sunday he was in no hurry to find permanent replacements for one-quarter of his Cabinet currently serving in an acting capacity because it gives him 'more flexibility.' 'I am in no hurry,' Trump told reporters as he departed for Camp David... 'I like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting. So we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great Cabinet,' Trump said. He did not elaborate on why they give him more flexibility." Because they are more likely to be ideological lackeys who do whatever he says and share his contempt for the rule of law, that's why.

* * *

David E. Sanger, Noah Weiland, and Eric Schmitt at the New York Times: Bolton Puts Conditions on Syria Withdrawal, Suggesting a Delay of Months or Years. "[Donald] Trump's national security adviser, John R. Bolton, rolled back on Sunday Mr. Trump's decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave American forces there for months or even years. Mr. Bolton, making a visit to Israel, told reporters that American forces would remain in Syria until the last remnants of the Islamic State were defeated and Turkey provided guarantees that it would not strike Kurdish forces allied with the United States."

When John Bolton is the voice of reason, you have totally derailed and landed in a bubbling earth-cauldron of scorching lava.

No sooner had Bolton made this "clarification" than Trump took to Twitter to undercut him. Rebecca Morin at Politico: Trump Claims Syria Withdrawal Plan Hasn't Changed. "[Donald] Trump on Monday pushed back against reports that national security adviser John Bolton had contradicted the president's initial plans to quickly withdraw troops from Syria, saying the U.S. will leave the war-torn country at 'a proper pace.' 'The Failing New York Times has knowingly written a very inaccurate story on my intentions on Syria,' the president wrote in a tweet. 'No different from my original statements, we will be leaving at a proper pace while at the same time continuing to fight ISIS and doing all else that is prudent and necessary!.....'"

Naturally, Trump had to launch yet another attack on the media, for accurately reporting that some members of his administration are trying to stop him from handing the world's destiny over to Vladimir Putin. [Content Note: Disablist language; stochastic terrorism] John Wagner at the Washington Post: 'Crazed Lunatics': Trump Again Attacks the News Media as 'the Enemy of the People'. "[Donald] Trump launched a fresh attack Monday on the news media, writing in tweets that it consists of many 'crazed lunatics,' and he again invoked the derogatory term 'enemy of the people.' 'With all of the success that our Country is having, including the just released jobs numbers which are off the charts, the Fake News & totally dishonest Media concerning me and my presidency has never been worse,' Trump said in the first of the tweets. 'Many have become crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!'"

As long as this guy remains in office, we are so doomed.

* * *

Speaking of which...

Harmeet Kaur and Christina Kline at CNN have compiled people's stories about "How the government shutdown is affecting Americans," and the submissions are typically grim: "Cynthia Letts writes: 'I moved and began my new federal job one week before the shutdown. I spent most of my savings getting here and can't pay the rent without a job. I'm looking at homelessness.'"

I guess homelessness is just one of the "adjustments" Trump expects federal workers to make. As is hunger.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Grace Segers at CBS News: Millions Could Face Severe Cuts to Food Stamps Due to Government Shutdown. "The partial government shutdown glided into its third week Saturday with no end in sight. If the government is not reopened before February, millions of Americans who receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the nation's food stamp program — could have their assistance disrupted. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees SNAP at the federal level, is one of the agencies unfunded during the partial government shutdown. Although SNAP is automatically renewed, it has not been allocated funding from Congress beyond January. Congress has appropriated $3 billion in emergency funds for SNAP distribution, but that would not cover all of February's obligations."

Also: Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: How the Government Shutdown Is Making the U.S. Immigration System Even Worse. "While cases for immigrants in government custody are proceeding, immigration courts are not holding hearings for non-detained immigrants during the shutdown, meaning immigrants re-authorizing work visas, applying for permanent residency, or contesting government charges on deportability are in a precarious situation. Missing even a single day of hearings could add hundreds to the current backlog of 800,000 cases — over a million if you include the ones the U.S. Attorney General wants on the docket. ...'There is no benefit that is gained here,' [Ashley Trabbador, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges] said. 'The irony is not lost on us that immigration court is shut down over immigration.'"

* * *

[CN: Misogyny] Matthew Choi at Politico: Hillary Clinton: 'Likability' Discussion Around Female Candidates 'Takes Me Back'.
Talk of whether or not the U.S. is prepared to elect women leaders "takes me back," 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told an audience in New York on Monday, praising the resolve of that state's female elected officials for getting legislation passed to protect women's reproductive rights.

..."There's been a lot of talk recently about whether our country is ready for women leaders. Now that really takes me back," Clinton said, eliciting laughter from the audience.

"But today I want to thank all of you for your persistence," Clinton said of several women officials at the event. "I know many of you and can attest as to how smart, determined, effective, and, dare I say, likable you all are."
♥ ♥ ♥

This likeability horseshit — and the attendant "debates" about whether it's misogynist (it is) — are something we are going to have to continually resist throughout the 2020 campaign. And probably far beyond, sob.

* * *

Lachlan Markay at the Daily Beast: Top Trump Backer Financed Supreme Court Confirmation Fights Through Shadowy Network. "Previously unreported documents obtained by The Daily Beast provide the first glimpse into the finances of a key node in that network [of interconnected groups who funded Trump's inauguration and helped pave the way for the confirmation of his Supreme Court nominees], traced to Federalist Society Executive Vice President Leonard Leo, a major player in Washington's wars over the makeup of the federal judiciary. Those documents, like others revealed over the last few months, provide a deeper glimpse into the expanding role that Leo's played in advancing the Trump administration's agenda on legal matters in particular. And they underscore the degree to which anonymous, high-dollar donors have bankrolled the advocacy behind Trump's highly successful efforts to reshape the federal judiciary."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Speaking of the Supreme Court... Eli Watkins and Ariane de Vogue at CNN: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Not on Bench for Supreme Court's First Day of Arguments in 2019, Court Says. "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will not be at the Supreme Court Monday morning as it meets for its first day of oral arguments in the new year. The court's public information officer said Ginsburg, who is still recovering from surgery last month to remove two cancerous nodules from her lung, would still be able to vote on the cases by reviewing the transcripts of oral arguments." I hope the Notorious RBG is feeling stronger soon, and I resist, continually, the entire premise of a profoundly ideological Supreme Court where the fate of the nation can rest on the health of a single person.


Imagine, of all the things we can be in this world, choosing to be an Assange defender. And dying on the hill of his delicate fee-fees!

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 508

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, June 11, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Trump's Border Patrol Replicates Actual Nazi Tactic and Trump Is — Still and Increasingly — Out of Control and How Much of the NRA's Money Funding Republicans Came from Russia?

Here are some more things in the news today...


April Glaser at Slate: Day 1 of a Worse Internet.
Monday, June 11, is the first day of the post-net neutrality internet. In December, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the Obama-era rules that prohibit internet companies from slowing down or speeding up access to certain websites, but it took about six months for the repeal to get a sign-off from the Office of Management and Budget and for the new rules to be published in the federal register. Beginning, well, now, your internet access could — emphasis on could — feel dramatically different than it did yesterday.

Under the new network neutrality rules, internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are allowed to throttle traffic that travels over their network or even block access to entire websites as long as the companies alert their subscribers in their terms of service that they reserve the right to do so. But since most people in the United States don't have more than one or two internet providers to choose from for broadband service, that means if users don't wish to accept those terms, many won't have anywhere else to go for their internet. Without net neutrality rules stopping them, internet providers will also be able to charge websites a fee to reach users faster.

Those internet providers stand to win the most from the net neutrality repeal, since they'll be able to operate what is essentially a two-way toll, collecting money from both subscribers and websites that want priority access to users.
At the New York Times, Keith Collins notes: "As of late May, 29 state legislatures had introduced bills meant to ensure net neutrality, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Still, several of these measures have failed, some are still pending, and not every state has taken such actions." So be sure to contact your local and state legislators in addition to your federal Senators and representative. Bother everyone you can. It's only too late if we give up.

* * *

[Content Note: Misogynist slur] Kate Riga at TPM: Trump's Foreign Policy Doctrine: 'We're America, Bitch'. "Amid the international upheaval after the G-7 summit, an unnamed senior White House official summed up the Trumpian foreign policy doctrine: 'We're America, bitch.' According to a Monday Atlantic report, a 'senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking' explained: 'Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.' The official said that Trump 'doesn't feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.' Another distillation of Trump's doctrine came from a senior national security official: 'Permanent destabilization creates American advantage,' the official said, arguing that leaving everyone else on shaky ground makes America the sole strong power."

That is essentially Putin's view. His objective has been to seize and consolidate power from vacuums created by destabilization and chaos.

Trump has spoken about his admiration for Putin — and how smart he is, especially compared to the likes of Obama and Clinton — openly and repeatedly, right from the launch of his campaign, and even before. That he would adopt Putin's exact strategy, which he's been enthusiastically praising for years, shouldn't come as any surprise.

Nor should the fact that he is constitutionally incapable of executing it with a smidgen of Putin's patience, concealment, or efficacy.

Trump is not stupid, but he isn't sophisticated, either. He has all the precision of a wrecking ball, and lacks utterly the competence to exploit the chaos he creates.

Which is why, whether or not he realizes it, Trump is ultimately just doing the dirty work for Putin, who knows what to do with his own power. And any that anyone else gives him, intentionally or otherwise.

* * *

The Democracy Killers are at it again, with the help of the Supreme Court majority:


Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress: The Supreme Court Just Cleared the Way for the Mass Disenfranchisement of Voters. "With its ruling Monday upholding Ohio's practice of removing infrequent voters from its rolls, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the mass disenfranchisement of low-income, minority voters across the country. In a 5-4 ruling, Justice Samuel Alito found that the National Voter Registration Act does not prevent Ohio from purging from the rolls voters who do not participate in federal elections for two years. If inactive voters do not respond to a mailer asking them to verify their address and do not vote for two more years, they are purged from the rolls. The ruling will have implications beyond Ohio. 'Today's decision threatens the ability of voters to have their voices heard in our elections,' said Stuart Naifeh, senior counsel at Demos, which challenged the state's practices." Seethe.

* * *

[CN: Nativism; child abuse]


This is a policy explicitly designed to discourage parents from claiming their own children, after they have been forcibly separated at the border.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions says that asylum-seeking people are "abusing the system."


I hate this administration so fucking much.

* * *

[CN: Human rights abuses] Ken Dilanian at NBC News: U.S. Won't Bring Up North Korea's Human Rights Issues at Singapore Summit. "When Trump meets Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday, he will be sitting down with the leader of one of the most brutal and repressive regimes in modern history — a country that has committed 'unspeakable atrocities' on a vast scale in a manner reminiscent of Nazi Germany, according to a 2014 United Nations investigation. But two administration officials tell NBC News the U.S. has decided not to bring up human rights at the summit." Of course not. Because Trump doesn't GAF about human rights abuses, and further has no leg to stand on, given what's happening along the United States' southern border at his command.

In other Trump news...

Annie Karni at Politico: Meet the Guys Who Tape Trump's Papers Back Together. "Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails, and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records. But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn't violating the law." JFC. He's so resistant to even the most minor suggestion or correction or advice, and so hostile to the rule of law, that this is what it's come to. And he's so proud of being such a petty tyrant that he's probably the one who leaked it.


* * *

[CN: White supremacy; eliminationism] James LaPorta at the Daily Beast: Marine Veteran Trains White Supremacists in Military Tactics. "A leader of an emerging white-supremacist group is a Marine veteran who uses his military experience to train other extremist recruits in military tactics, leaked messages show. Erik Sailors is the head of a Texas chapter of Patriot Front, a white-supremacist group that splintered from one of the main groups at the deadly white-power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year. Sailors gives 'hip-pocket classes' (short, informal military class) to white nationalists, from the 'gear list' of what members should bring to protests (Marine Corps-issued combat boots and decontaminate wipes) to lessons in mixed martial arts and hand-to-hand combat techniques, the leaked messages reveal."

[CN: Racism] Meanwhile: Jay Scott Smith at the Grio: Charlottesville Flamethrower Who Held Off White Supremacists Sentenced to Jail. "One of the most memorable photos of last year's Charlottesville protest was that of a young man lighting an aerosol can on fire to keep armed white supremacists at bay. That community activist's name is Corey Long and he was among those arrested in the aftermath of the violent protests last August. Long, 24, was convicted of disorderly conduct for using the improvised flamethrower on the raging racists on Friday. Long was sentenced to 360 days, with all but 20 suspended." Rage.

[CN: Environmental racism] Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Activists, Attorneys Say Government Ignored Data on Negative Impact of Pipeline on Natives, Blacks. "Nearly one year ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), stating that it posed no environmental justice concerns. Now, a group of academics and attorneys say that FERC used data from unreliable statistical methods in an effort to disregard the impact that the pipeline will have on Black and Indigenous communities. ...'It's going to be a lot of pollution in our community,' says Robie Goins, a Lumbee Native American who lives in the evacuation zone of the pipeline's proposed route. 'The people who are in low-income, poverty-stricken areas are targets for these types of projects. It's like we're being targeted by the big corporations. It's like they want to kill us all.'" Sob.

And finally... [CN: Misogyny; rape culture]


Unremarkable indeed. Totally fucking typical, more like.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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On the Death of Stephen Hawking

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, March 14, 2018
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Cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and author Stephen Hawking has died at his home in Cambridge at age 76. Ian Sample's obituary for Hawking at the Guardian is very good.

My condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and admirers around the world. And, to be fair, possibly in other worlds. Should there be intelligent life out there watching, I feel it's safe to say they were fans of Professor Hawking, if they are fans of any humans at all.

It seems trite to say there were many things to admire about Professor Hawking: He was an extraordinary physicist, an accomplished author, and a disabled person with a transgressive body whose very willingness to be visible and heard was a radical act, regardless of whether he desired it to be so.

He was a man of science who was certain of some things and eminently willing to change his mind, when additional information warranted it. I was always deeply admiring that he changed his position on assisted death for terminal ill people, carefully caveating his support with respect to consent.

[Content Note: Misogyny] But if I'm to be entirely honest, for the past six years, the thing — at least one thing — I always thought of when I encountered Hawking's name was this:

In an interview to mark his 70th birthday this weekend, Stephen Hawking, the former Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, admitted he spent most of the day thinking about women. "They are," he said "a complete mystery."
Misogyny is never neutral; I am never indifferent to encountering it. But there was something particularly troubling to me, hurtful, about a man who spent a lifetime contemplating the universe and endeavoring to make it accessible to people without his innate talents or superior education, only to declare women "a complete mystery."

To be somehow more unknowable than the universe is distressing. To be known is to be safe. Thus, to be unknowable is to be permanently unmoored; forever in a state without the comfort and security — and justice — that being scrutable, being accepted, provides.

It can be a cruel thing to tell someone they cannot be deciphered, can never be understood.

I realize that men who say women are a mystery often intend it as a compliment, or at least not a devised harm. (And I realize that many women receive it as a compliment, as we are encouraged to do.) But it is alienating, at best. Not just different, but other.

Hawking was inspiring to countless scientists. I can only imagine how much that comment must have rattled many female scientists who looked up to him.

I suspect that many of those female scientists are having complicated feelings today, about a man who both invited them to explore the vastness of the universe and also made them feel small.

There are places all over the internet today that will be celebrating Hawking without acknowledging such complications, where any woman who wanted to talk about the loss of someone who simultaneously awed her and diminished her would be accused of shitting all over the legacy of a great man or speaking ill of the dead.

This is not one of those places. Professor Hawking was a complicated human being, like all others, and you may have complicated feelings here.

Open Wide...
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On the Stormy Daniels Story

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, March 07, 2018
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[Content Note: Misogyny.]

So, there's another twist in the saga of Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who alleges she had an affair with Donald Trump and was paid by his attorney Michael Cohen to keep quiet about it, leaving the president vulnerable to blackmail.

Judd Legum at ThinkProgress reports: "In a new lawsuit filed in a California court, the adult film star, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, claims her agreement with Donald Trump to keep their alleged affair secret is not binding because Trump never signed it. The lawsuit provides embarrassing new details about the nature of her relationship with Trump and the elaborate effort to keep it under wraps."

I care about this story for two reasons:

1. Because Donald Trump's vast corruption matters, and this is yet another incident of corruption.

2. Because lots of people (example) are slut-shaming Daniels, either to try to discredit her or just for laughs, and I am very angry about that.

But even though I personally care about this story, I can barely muster two fucks about covering it. Like many other items about Donald Trump these days, it matters to me, but it still doesn't matter. I cannot imagine that the Stormy Daniels story will ever make a shred of difference.

If video surfaced of Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels having sex, it wouldn't even matter, because his base doesn't care. I don't even think the people who call her a liar actually believe she's lying. We all know she isn't lying. It's just that no one cares. Even 99% of the people who ostensibly care about the story don't really care, except insofar as they believe it might ruin Trump, which it never will.

I despair that nothing matters anymore. At least not in the broadest sense.

But it still matters to me.

And if it still matters to you, you are not alone.

Open Wide...
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Free, Unsolicited Advice to White Male Democratic* Politicians

Posted by Fannie Wolfe at Thursday, February 22, 2018
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Dear Sirs,

If you are perceptive, you might have noticed that a lot of women are angry.

We've had a couple of marches, in fact, at least one of which was the largest single-day protest in US history. These acts of political labor were comprised of millions of people, broadly speaking, who are resisting the current Republican Administration, which you might have noticed is quite hostile to many people, particularly women.

At the same time, women are also leading a reckoning with respect to sexual assault and harassment, which are pervasive life and workplace experiences that disproportionately impact women across the political spectrum.

Politicians, advocates, and pundits talk a lot of populism these days, but rarely do so in the context of ordinary, everyday women. To be blunt, populism is most commonly used in association with white male anger. As purported default human beings, it is often assumed that the white male life experience is the universal, with everyone else's being particular.

Yet, if we accept that women are people, we are better able to understand that today's revived feminist movement is very much also a populist movement. You might not immediately recognize it as such because an angry white man is not leading it and angry white men are not at the center of it.

Instead, it's one that, I believe, has been borne of many women's deep pain from the confluence of our lived experiences with both rape culture and witnessing an unqualified, white male predator sexually harass and bully his way to the highest office of the land while being enabled by "powerful, lecherous men" who helped narrate the whole scenario into being via their establishment platforms.

And yet.

I get the sense that some white male Democratic politicians, at least at the national level, do not fully grasp our discontent or view this movement as a Serious Thing they should take into account when speaking publicly or making policy.

So, let me spell it out:

  • It is no longer enough just to say, "Sure, I'm for equality for women!" As legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon has famously noted, "Equality guarantees are everywhere, but nowhere is there equality." For instance, pay discrimination is illegal, but wage disparities exist. Gender discrimination is illegal, but in a multitude of industries men still hold the top, highest -paying jobs. Rape is a crime, yet rape happens all the time. It is, in fact, but one outcome in an entire culture that disproportionately rigs systems against women. In light of these realities, don't utter a soundbite. Demonstrate that you understand the barriers to substantive equality and will work with us to eradicate them.
  • Since pundits love asking this one, in the event you are asked to speculate on whether you or any other white man would have beaten Trump in the 2016 election (cc: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Joe Kennedy):
In case you need a refresher, the United States has never had a female president. That is not because of a lack of qualified women, but because, in part, our political system long excluded women from both suffrage and political office. It doesn't inspire confidence that you understand, let alone care about, systemic misogyny and this history if you answer this fave bro-question without referencing either phenomenon.
  • In the event you become aware of another man's sexual misconduct, instead of immediately maligning the nearest woman who is in any way adjacent to the abuser, it would be a better use of your standing and privilege to express sympathy for the survivors(s), express your disappointment in the man's behavior, and tell us what specific actions you are doing to help end rape culture. Because it is so rare, it means a lot to many survivors simply to hear that other people care about their experiences.
  • Stop throwing Hillary Clinton under the bus. Seriously. Just stop. We're so, so tired. Forget about the bro-points that shit-talking Hillary might win you, and think for once about the millions of people who actually do like her.
  • Listen to women. If you think you already do a good job at this, just try doing it more just in case you're not actually doing it enough. One of the more frustrating aspects of watching the horrors of the current Republican Administration unfold is that so much of it was anticipated, by women (and yes, including Hillary Clinton, who was largely mocked and maligned for speaking these truths). Melissa, in fact, has referred to Donald Trump's electoral college win as a "catastrophic failure to listen to women." She was correct.
I hope this helps clarifies some of the angry tweets, emails, and phone calls some of y'all might have been getting for the past year or so.


*By Democratic, I mean Democrats and Independent/Democratic Socialist/Democratic-When-Convenient Persons.

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 274

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, October 20, 2017
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: John Kelly Got It Very, Very Wrong.

Robert Windrem and Courtney Kube at NBC News: Pentagon Sends Team to Niger to Find Out What Happened.
The U.S. military is still searching for answers on what happened in Niger two weeks ago when four U.S. soldiers were killed during an ambush, apparently by a branch of ISIS.

Now the Pentagon's Africa Command (AFRICOM) has sent a team to the African nation to conduct a "review of the facts," according to two U.S. defense officials. The officials are careful not to call the inquiry an investigation, but admit they simply don't know what happened on Oct. 4.

"We need to collect some very basic raw facts," one defense official said.

...The official said the level of confusion during and after the mission was "tremendous." The fourth soldier's body wasn't found until nearly two days after the ambush.

...One indication of the level of confusion after the attack is that the U.S. military has provided three different answers for who flew the medevac helicopter – first U.S. military officials said it was French military, then that it was the U.S. military. Now, they're saying it could have been a U.S. contractor.
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] There is also some question, as reported by Barbara Starr at CNN, that Sgt. La David Johnson may have been alive when he was left behind: "Is it still accurate that a 'beacon' was emitting from the battlefield, leading to some indication he might have been alive for a period of time?" And whether he was left alive or dead may be attributable to the possibility that a contractor who rescued the soldiers under siege, as they wouldn't have had or done a headcount the way a military rescue presumably would have.

There are a lot of important questions that need answers here. One would hope Congressional Republicans, following their exhaustive investigations of Benghazi, are interested in getting those answers.

Cough.

* * *

Speaking of Congressional Republicans who take their jobs seriously...

Here's Speaker Paul Ryan making some terrific jokes at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York last night:

Enough with the applause, all right? You sound like the Cabinet when Donald Trump walks in the room. [edit] I don't think I've seen this many New York liberals, this many Wall Street CEOs, in one room since my last visit to the White House. [edit] I wanna thank Patricia Heaton. Patricia and I do go way back a long ways, because you know what? Patricia Heaton — she is a Hollywood Republican. A Hollywood Republican. That is an oxymoron. Which clearly was the word Rux — Rex Tillerson was searching for. [edit]

I know last year that Donald Trump offended some people. I know his comments, according to critics, went too far. Some said it was unbecoming of a public figure, and they said that his comments were offensive. Well, thank god he's learned his lesson. [edit] A lot of people, they ask me, you know, guy from Wisconsin, what's it like to work on a daily basis with an abrasive New Yorker with a loud mouth? But, you know, once you get to know him, Chuck Schumer's not all that bad. [edit]

And when you read the papers tomorrow, everyone's gonna report this thing differently: Breitbart's gonna lead with "Ryan Slams the President Amongst Liberal Elites." New York Times is gonna report "Ryan Defends the President in a State Hillary Won." And the president will tweet "300,000 at Al Smith Dinner Cheer Mention of My Name." [edit]

My primary opponent in 2016 was endorsed by Sarah Palin. I'm really not that mad about it, because Sarah and I actually have a lot in common. We both lost for vice president; we both debated Joe Biden; and, given the current investigations, I, too, can see Russia from the House. [edit] When people ask me if I believe everything I see on Facebook, I answer, "Nyet." [edit]

Every morning, I wake up in my office [???!] and I scroll Twitter to see which tweets that I will have to pretend that I did not see later on.

"Thank you! I'll be here all — FOREVER BECAUSE IT'S A COUP HAHAHAHAHAHA."

Just so we're clear: The Speaker of the House of the United States Congress, third in line to the presidency, believes it's hilarious that the president is a gross authoritarian bully; that Russia is meddling in the nation's elections and politics; and that he and his party are disloyal scoundrels who are abetting the demise of our democratic norms and systems.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

* * *

Andrew Restuccia and Nahal Toosi at Politico: Trump Nominees Show Up for Work Without Waiting for Senate Approval. "The Trump administration is pushing the limits of an obscure federal law that restricts nominees from serving in federal positions before they're approved by the Senate. A Politico review has identified four officials at three different agencies doing substantially similar work to the position for which they have been nominated — despite not yet getting a green-light from the Senate. ...[L]awyers and other experts said the moves — including by the Environmental Protection Agency, the State Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget — to have unconfirmed nominees show up for work appears to skirt the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which prohibits most people who have been nominated to fill a vacant government position from performing that office’s duties in an acting capacity." Coup-coup-cachoo.

Ally Boguhn at Rewire: Meet Trump's Reported Top Choice for Health and Human Services Secretary. "Alex Azar, whose resume includes stints as a pharmaceutical executive, working in George W. Bush's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and clerking for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, is reportedly being considered by the Trump administration to lead HHS. Trump 'is leaning towards' nominating Azar to replace Tom Price after the HHS secretary resigned last month, according to a Tuesday report from Politico. ...Azar has donated to Vice President Mike Pence's campaigns, including a $2,950 donation to his 2012 gubernatorial campaign, $1,000 to his gubernatorial re-election efforts in 2016 prior to becoming the nominee for vice president, and another $500 to Pence's successful 2010 bid for the U.S. House of Representatives." That's really all I need to know about him. Boo.

Jamie Grierson at the Guardian: Trump Links UK Crime Rise to 'Spread of Islamic Terror'. "Donald Trump has erroneously linked a rise in recorded crime in England and Wales to the 'spread of radical Islamic terror' in his latest outburst on Twitter. 'Just out report: 'United Kingdom crime rises 13% annually amid spread of Radical Islamic terror.' not good, we must keep America safe!' wrote the US president. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), in its quarterly update on crime on Thursday, reported a 13% increase in all police-recorded offences across England and Wales." (Which is not the same as "United Kingdom," by the way.) "The report barely mentions terrorism other than to refer on one occasion to the impact recent terrorist attacks in Britain had on the headline murder rate." So wrongity-wrong as usual, in a very specific way as usual.

Greg Miller at the Washington Post: CIA Director Distorts Intelligence Community's Findings on Russian Interference. "'The intelligence community's assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,' Pompeo said at a security conference in Washington. His comment suggested — falsely — that a report released by U.S. intelligence agencies in January had ruled out any impact that could be attributed to a covert Russian interference campaign that involved leaks of tens of thousands of stolen emails, the flooding of social media sites with false claims, and the purchase of ads on Facebook." Liars. Every last one of them.

Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: White House Staff Was Unprepared for Trump's Surprise Opioid Announcement. "An impromptu remark from [Donald] Trump on Monday that he would make an announcement next week declaring the opioid crisis a national emergency sent staff at the White House scrambling, as they were unprepared for such a move, Politico reported Friday morning, citing White House and agency officials. 'We are going to have a major announcement, probably next week, on the drug crisis and on the opioid massive problem and I want to get that absolutely right,' Trump said on Monday. Staffers were 'blindsided' by the comments, according to Politico."

All the best presidents know that the way to get policy "absolutely right" is to have no real plan at all, put as little thought into it as possible, and scramble at the last minute to throw some shit together.


[CN: White supremacy] A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston, and Darwin BondGraham at ProPublica: Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group's Campaign of Menace. "ProPublica spent weeks examining one distinctive group at the center of the violence in Charlottesville: An organization called the Rise Above Movement, one of whose members was the white man dispensing beatings near Emancipation Park Aug. 12. The group, based in Southern California, claims more than 50 members and a singular purpose: Physically attacking its ideological foes. RAM's members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have boasted publicly of their violence during protests in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino, and Berkeley. Many of the altercations have been captured on video, and its members are not hard to spot. ...Despite their prior records, and open boasting of current violence, RAM has seemingly drawn little notice from law enforcement. Four episodes of violence documented by ProPublica resulted in only a single arrest — and in that case prosecutors declined to go forward." Huh.

[CN: White supremacy; homophobia; misogyny] Sharona Coutts at Rewire: New Analysis Shows Supporters of Family Research Council Embrace White Supremacy and Neo-Nazism. "The FRC's stated purpose is to advance and defend Christian 'family values,' but its stance on LGBTQ people has earned it a designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which cites a long history of vilification... A social media network analysis performed by Rewire, however, shows the FRC's messages are resonating with other factions of the far right that explicitly endorse and advocate extremist views on white supremacy, women's rights, and even espouse neo-Nazi views." Confirming what we already know intuitively: Someone who expresses rank hatred of one marginalized group typically isn't tolerant of any marginalized people at all.

[CN: Homophobia] Damien Sharkov at Towleroad: Russia Eyes Criminalizing 'Gay Propaganda'. "Russia's much criticized law that fines anyone expressing support for LGBT rights in public could get even harsher after a senior official in the Ministry of the Interior suggested making it a criminal offense. ...'Today administrative consequences exist for this but they are not very effective, as the fines are anticipated,' [deputy head of the ministry's anti-sex crime department, Sergei Alabin] complained. 'If we were to raise this, for example, to the rank of criminal offense, then I hope we will protect our offspring, which should not grow up leaning towards pedophilia, non-traditional relations and so forth,' he said, according to state news agency RIA Novosti." This is the administration of the government we're allowing to meddle in our country's future. Which is to say nothing of how our administration is abandoning LGBTQ Russians to horrific oppression and abuse.

[CN: Sexual abuse] Cora Lewis at BuzzFeed: A Top Labor Executive Has Been Suspended After Complaints About His Relationships with Female Staffers. "A top labor movement figure who led the Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign was suspended this week after complaints from staffers about his conduct toward women, BuzzFeed News has learned. The Service Employees International Union suspended Executive Vice President Scott Courtney after 'questions were raised...relating to our union's ethical code and anti-nepotism policy,' Sahar Wali, a spokesperson for the powerful union, said in a statement Tuesday. ...The complaints about Courtney had been an open secret among women in the high-profile Fight for $15 campaign within the union, which is itself led by one of the most visible women in American labor." Goddammit.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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