We Resist: Day 538

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, July 11, 2018
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.

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Earlier today by me: Trump Opens NATO Summit by Blasting Germany and Meanwhile, in North Korea... and Trump's War on Immigrants: The Latest.

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

[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse] Esmeralda Bermudez at the LA Times: 'You Don't Love Me Anymore?': A Son Is Separated from His Father at the Border, Then Comes a Wrenching Call.
For 25 days, [Hermelindo Che Coc, who came from Guatemala in late May seeking asylum] had no news about his son. He was given a phone number to call, but the calls wouldn't go through.

He finally connected with Jefferson once he reached Los Angeles by bus in late June.

He learned his son was in New York City at Cayuga Centers, an agency that has housed several hundred kids separated from parents in foster care.

That first phone call quickly went from joyful to unbearable.

"Papa, I thought they killed you," Jefferson told his father, crying. "You separated from me. You don't love me anymore?"

"No, my son," Che Coc told him. "I'm crying for you. I promise, soon you will be with me."

Each day since, Che Coc waits anxiously to hear from two caseworkers, a woman and a man he knows simply as Nancy and Guario.

They tell him that Jefferson is in school, that he's clothed, fed, and cared for.

This brings the father little comfort. He worries he won't be with his boy for his birthday, which is next Friday. He also worries his son may feel even more isolated than other children because he mostly speaks Mayan Q'eqchi'.

The last time Che Coc spoke to Jefferson, about a week ago, he saw his son's face via video. There was a prominent bruise on his forehead.

"I fell off the bed," the boy said, crying.
This is not fucking okay. None of this is fucking okay. This is intolerable. I am so angry and so heartsick and so ashamed of my country. People wonder how things like the Holocaust could have happened. This is how. A government treats a population with systemic bigotry and institutional dehumanization and eventually eliminationism, and the majority of the population doesn't fucking care.


Editors of the Salt Lake Tribune: Our Treatment of Refugee Children Is a National Disgrace. "If you want to make people believe a lie, the experts taught us, make it big. And, apparently, if you want to make people sit still for an atrocity, make it just big enough to have no personality, no individual human face. And, of course, prepare the ground by spending years telling lies about how many people are crossing the border illegally, how many of them are gang members and drug dealers and rapists, basically dehumanizing them in the eyes of many Americans so we don't become concerned with those victimized in our name and with our money."

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Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: Anti-Antifa Bill Would Punish Masked Protesters with up to 15 Years in Prison. "Republican Congressmen have introduced legislation that would make it a crime, punishable by more than a decade in prison, for protesters to cover their faces during demonstrations. The 'Unmasking Antifa Act,' introduced in June by Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY) and co-sponsored by Reps. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Ted Budd (R-NC), states anyone who 'while wearing a mask, injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates any person' could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison." ...What makes this latest piece of legislation so troubling is that it specifically targets the constitutionally protected rights of leftist counter-protestors to free assembly rather than, say, the neo-Nazi who killed one and injured dozens more during last year's Unite the Right white supremacist rally. The legislation also ignores the massive disparity in violence between Antifa and far-right groups."

Caroline O. has an important Twitter thread on the Unmasking Antifa Act beginning here:


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Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: There Is No Liberal Case for Brett Kavanaugh. "Donald Trump had barely left the White House Monday night with his pick to replace the retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, before the 'liberal's case for Brett Kavanaugh' pieces started to run, including assurances that he was the greatest carpool dad in town. Let me be blunt: There is no liberal case for Brett Kavanaugh. None. So let's stop this nonsense right now. I don't care how good the man is at managing a carpool; his beliefs are dangerous. And he is about to be handed the keys to the most powerful Court in the land."


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Graeme Wearden and Nick Fletcher at the Guardian: Markets Rattled as Trump Escalates China Trade War with Tariffs on $200bn of Imports. "Global markets are rattled this morning after America escalated the deepening trade war between the two countries. Overnight, Donald Trump began the process of slapping 10% tariffs on a further $200bn of imports from China, on top of the $34bn (soon to be $50bn) imposed last week. The move is a significant escalation of the trade war between Washington and Beijing, further raising the dangers of a major economic shock."

As I noted in comments earlier: "Anyone who believes that Trump is truly trying to build a bridge with North Korea while simultaneously slapping $200 billion worth of tariffs on China is living in a fantasyland. You don't provoke the country best placed to work with you to put diplomatic pressure on North Korea if you're really interested in effective diplomacy."

Meanwhile, in Russia...


And Russia is just making announcements about U.S. policy now cool cool cool everything is fine:


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Natasha Korecki at Politico: Pence Launches Midwest Damage Control Mission. "Vice President Mike Pence begins a campaign swing through the Midwest on Wednesday designed to fire up the base in three battleground House districts. But there’s also a secondary mission: damage control. In the face of a trade war that intensified just four days ago, Pence is quietly setting up one-on-one meetings with major Midwestern donors where he is prepared to blunt concerns over an escalating situation that's beginning to wreak havoc on markets, farmers, and employers across the region."

Kate Riga at TPM: Flynn's New Consulting Gig Turns into Circus Hours After Announcement. "Mere hours after the announcement was published introducing former national security adviser Michael Flynn as the global strategies director of new consulting firm Stonington Global LLC, Flynn's lawyers swooped, insisting that the announcement was a product of a 'misunderstanding' and that Flynn was not a part of the new firm — at least not yet."

[CN: Racism] Nicole Hensley at the New York Daily News: Woman Calls Cops on Black 12-Year-Old Boy Delivering Newspapers in Ohio Neighborhood. "A fledgling paperboy working alongside his mother in suburban Columbus, Ohio, came face-to-face with a cop after a neighbor thought he was up to no good. The nosy neighbor spied the 12-year-old boy, who is Black, hop out of a van and walk up to a handful of Upper Arlington homes Friday. She initially assumed he was delivering newspapers, she told authorities, but soon thought otherwise. 'I noticed they were walking up to houses with nothing in hand and one of them came back with something,' the 911 caller said, according to WSYX-TV. 'It seemed kind of suspicious.' The mother explained to the officer dispatched that her youngest son, Uriah Sharp, had delivered his papers to the wrong home and was picking them up. The cop 'quickly determined' that's exactly what the Sharps were doing, according to police." STOP CALLING THE POLICE ON BLACK PEOPLE FOR LIVING THEIR LIVES.

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