We Resist: Day 221

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, August 28, 2017
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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.

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Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: Trump Isolates Us from Allies and Militarizes the Police and Two New Suits Will Immediately Challenge Trump's Trans Military Ban.

Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger, and Rosalind S. Helderman at the Washington Post: Trump's Business Sought Deal on a Trump Tower in Moscow While He Ran for President.
While Donald Trump was running for president in late 2015 and early 2016, his company was pursuing a plan to develop a massive Trump Tower in Moscow, according to several people familiar with the proposal and new records reviewed by Trump Organization lawyers.

As part of the discussions, a Russian-born real estate developer urged Trump to come to Moscow to tout the proposal and suggested that he could get President Vladimir Putin to say "great things" about Trump, according to several people who have been briefed on his correspondence.

The developer, Felix Sater, predicted in a November 2015 email that he and Trump Organization leaders would soon be celebrating — both one of the biggest residential projects in real estate history and Donald Trump's election as president, according to two of the people with knowledge of the exchange.

Sater wrote to Trump Organization Executive Vice President Michael Cohen "something to the effect of, 'Can you believe two guys from Brooklyn are going to elect a president?'" said one person briefed on the email exchange.
Felix Sater again. When is this guy going to publicly testify? We need some answers from him in a major way.

Although the project never went forward because the Trump organization and its investors "lacked the land and permits to proceed," the heretofore undisclosed details of the deal nevertheless "provide evidence that Trump’s business was actively pursuing significant commercial interests in Russia at the same time he was campaigning to be president — and in a position to determine U.S.-Russia relations."

"White House officials declined to comment for this report." I'll bet they did.

Even the fact that they didn't immediately deny the allegation is pretty damning, though. Time to impeach this guy. Way past time.

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Julian Borger at the Guardian: White House 'Pressuring' Intelligence Officials to Find Iran in Violation of Nuclear Deal. "U.S. intelligence officials are under pressure from the White House to produce a justification to declare Iran in violation of a 2015 nuclear agreement, in an echo of the politicisation of intelligence that led up to the Iraq invasion, according to former officials and analysts. ...Intelligence analysts, chastened by the experience of the 2003 Iraq war, launched by the Bush administration on the basis of phony evidence of weapons of mass destruction, are said to be resisting the pressure to come up with evidence of Iranian violations."

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas; it's probably in Tennessee — that says, "Fool me once, shame on — shame on you... Fool me can't get fooled again.
You know whose name is nowhere in that report? Mike Pence. Despite the fact that, as I've been saying since he joined the ticket during the campaign, he is incredibly likely to support (or start himself, if he is elevated to the presidency) a war precisely like the one Bush started in Iraq.

In fact, I talked about that just earlier this month on the Hellbent podcast.

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Something else that Trump has done is repeatedly tweet about Hurricane Harvey with a wildly inappropriate tone, as I've been noting on Twitter.


I am just profoundly sorry for all the people affected by the storm who have to deal with their president behaving like a sociopathic jackass on top of everything else they're dealing with at the moment.

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Jonathan Swan at Axios: Trump Frustration with Tillerson Rising Fast. "Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with his Secretary of State. One time recently, after Trump had returned from a meeting on Afghanistan, a source recalled Trump saying, 'Rex just doesn't get it; he's totally establishment in his thinking.'" Welp.

Already, no one competent wants to work for or with this garbage administration. (Further to that point, Trump's cybersecurity advisors just resigned en masse, following in the footsteps of a number of his other advisory teams.) If Trump ends up shitcanning Tillerson, following a string of other departures, it's going to make finding competent people willing to work for or with Trump even more difficult than it already is.

And that's really a no-win situation for the American people, because Tillerson is a shitty Secretary of State. Keeping him is bad; getting rid of him is bad for a different reason.

That's the Trump administration for you: No good option anywhere you look.

Molly Redden at the Guardian: 'The President Speaks for Himself': Rex Tillerson Distances Himself from Trump. "Asked if [Trump's 'many sides' remarks about Charlottesville] made it harder for him to represent America abroad, Tillerson said: 'I don't believe anyone doubts the American people's values or the commitment of the American government or the government's agencies to advancing those values and defending those values.' 'And the president's values?' asked Chris Wallace, the Fox news anchor. Tillerson replied: 'The president speaks for himself.' Asked if he was 'separating' himself from the president, Tillerson said: 'I've made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech I gave to the state department this past week.'"

What's most notable about this isn't that Tillerson is trying to cynically distance himself from Trump; it's that Tillerson imagines that no one "doubts the American people's values." Actually, Dude Who Is in Charge of Our Global Diplomacy, I think it's fair to say that many people are quite rightfully doubting the values of a large swath of the American people these days. Including the rest of the American people.

Our Secretary of State should be aware of that. And not pretending it could be otherwise.

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[Content Note: White supremacy] Matt Shuham at TPM: New Confederate Monument Erected in Alabama. "A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans told reporters Sunday it was just a coincidence that he unveiled a new monument to the Confederacy in Alabama so soon after a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 'This was planned several months ago,' David Coggins, on whose private land the monument to 'Unknown Alabama Confederate Soldiers' was unveiled Sunday, told NBC News. 'Matter of fact, the monument was ordered last year, and it's taken this long to get it in the ground and ready to unveil,' he added." But nothing says it had to be unveiled right now, or at all, so fuck you, buddy.

Rosie Gray at the Atlantic: What Steve Bannon's Return Means for Breitbart. "Steve Bannon was always supposed to return to Breitbart News. When he left his job as executive chairman of the site to join the Trump campaign in August 2016, the move was presented as a temporary leave of absence, his return to Breitbart after the election a fait accompli. ...[Bannon] is back at Breitbart, which welcomed him home as a 'populist hero' last week (and has been selling fidget spinners with his face on them). The former chief strategist has axes to grind and a place where he can grind them; no longer chained to the internal drama at the White House, he's free to go after his enemies in the administration and in the Republican party as much as he chooses.

Brad Reed at Raw Story: Pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio Considers Running Against GOP Sen. Jeff Flake. "Disgraced ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio was officially pardoned by [Donald] Trump last week — and now he might help the president exact revenge against one of his rivals within the GOP. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, the 85-year-old Arpaio said he's weighing several options for what to do next now that he's been pardoned by the president. 'I could run for mayor, I could run for legislator, I could run for Senate,' Arpaio explained. Arpaio said that a lot of people asked him to challenge Flake in a primary race next year, although he hasn't made any firm commitment either way yet."

Of course. What I find fascinating and terrifying about that is how you can see Trump's thinking outlined in neon lights. "Joe, I'm gonna turn you into a star by pardoning you, and then you can destroy Flake bigly!" Ugh.

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