Shakesville: #BlackLivesMatter

Showing posts with label #BlackLivesMatter. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 908

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

The Justice Department will not bring federal charges against any police officers involved in the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man whose recorded takedown in New York in 2014 helped coin a rallying cry for those concerned about law enforcement's treatment of minorities, two people familiar with the matter said.

For Garner's supporters, the decision is a disappointing — albeit long expected — end to a case that had languished for years as various components of the Justice Department disagreed about what to do.

At a news conference Tuesday, Gwen Carr said the Justice Department had "failed us," and called on the New York City police commissioner to fire the officer who was caught on video wrapping his arm around Garner’s neck before he died.

"Five years ago, my son said, 'I can't breathe' 11 times, and today we can't breathe, because they have let us down," Carr said.

Rage. Seethe. Sob.

New York City officer in Eric Garner's chokehold death won't face federal charges

The Civil rights division thought charges could be filed but of course Barr decided not to. This is what happens with a corrupt AG installed by a corrupt regime https://t.co/6cGcx1uIEN
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) July 16, 2019

[CN: War on agency; anti-choicery] AP at the Guardian: Trump Administration to Ban Abortion Referrals at Taxpayer-Funded Clinics. "Taxpayer-funded family planning clinics must stop referring women for abortions immediately, the Trump administration has announced, declaring it will begin enforcing a new regulation hailed by religious conservatives and denounced by medical organizations and women's rights groups. The head of a national umbrella group representing the clinics said the Republican administration is following 'an ideological agenda' that could disrupt basic health care for many low-income women." FUCKING GODDAMMIT.

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[Content Note: Nativism; abuse. Covers entire section.]

Ginger Thompson at ProPublica: A Border Patrol Agent Reveals What It's Really Like to Guard Migrant Children. "Referring back to the grim conditions inside the Border Patrol holding centers, [the Border Patrol agent] said: 'Somewhere down the line people just accepted what's going on as normal. That includes the people responsible for fixing the problems.' ...Most of his colleagues, he said, fall into one of two camps. There are the 'law-and-order types' who see the immigrants in their custody, as, first and foremost, criminals. Then, he said, there are those who are 'just tired of all the chaos' of a broken immigration system and 'see no end in sight.'"

House report: the Trump admin stole at least 18 babies under the age of two—"including nine infants under the age of one"—from families at the border, separating some for as long as six months. https://t.co/vc2072udha #FamiliesBelongTogether
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) July 15, 2019

The government-inflicted trauma is undeniable: "Now more than a year and a half old, the baby still can’t walk on his own, and has not spoken." Another baby, just eight-months-old, was separated from his family for six months. #FamiliesBelongTogether
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) July 15, 2019

Kate Morrissey of the San Diego Union-Tribune at Stars and Stripes: Customs and Border Protection Denies Marine Corps Veteran Entry for Scheduled Citizenship Interview. "A deported Marine Corps veteran who has been unable to come back to the U.S. for more than a decade was denied entry to the country Monday morning when he asked to be let in for a scheduled citizenship interview. Roman Sabal, 58, originally from Belize, came to the San Ysidro Port of Entry around 7:30 on Monday morning with an attorney to ask for 'parole' to attend his naturalization interview scheduled for a little before noon in downtown San Diego. Border officials have the authority to temporarily allow people into the country on parole for 'humanitarian or significant public benefit' reasons." He was denied entry.

ICE told one trans woman that if she didn't participate in a photo op with media, she wouldn't receive food.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗳𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴.https://t.co/91z69k0u3I
— National Center for Transgender Equality (@TransEquality) July 15, 2019

This is hell on earth.

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I'll wrap it up with some good news...

[CN: Death penalty] Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg at the Appeal: Philadelphia D.A. Asks Court to Declare Death Penalty System Unconstitutional.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — who vowed as a candidate not to seek the death penalty — has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to declare that the sentence, as applied, violates the state's Constitution.

"Because of the arbitrary manner in which it has been applied, the death penalty violates our state Constitution's prohibition against cruel punishments," states a brief filed by Krasner's office tonight in the case Jermont Cox v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

"It really is not about the worst offenders," Krasner told The Appeal. "It really is about poverty. It really is about race."

The new brief is part of a broader push that started last August, when lawyers representing Cox and another death row prisoner, Kevin Marinelli, asked the state Supreme Court to weigh in on Pennsylvania's use of the death penalty.

"Pennsylvania administers a system of capital punishment that is replete with error, a national outlier in its design, and a mirror for the inequities and prejudices that plague American society," lawyers for Cox and Marinelli wrote to the court in February.

Fingers crossed that another state will soon outlaw the death penalty.

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

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Police Had — and Concealed — Cell Phone Video Shot by Sandra Bland

[Content Note: Police brutality; misogynoir; alleged self-harm.]

In July 2015, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman from suburban Chicago, who had just relocated to Waller County, Texas, for a job she was about to start, was pulled over by a state trooper for improperly signaling a lane change. The official story of Waller County Sheriff's Department officials has always been that Bland then became "combative" with the trooper, who restrained her, arrested her for assault on a public servant, and took her into custody, where she was later found dead in her cell of a supposed suicide.

Bland's family has always maintained that she would not have killed herself, and the details provided by the sheriff's office do make it seem extremely unlikely. Further, once the police dashcam footage of the arrest was released, it did not show Bland being physically combative, and it had also clearly been edited.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Now, nearly four years later, after WFAA and the Investigative Network worked to get access to it, Bland's own cell phone footage of her arrest has been made public.

New cellphone footage from the now infamous traffic stop of Sandra Bland shows her perspective when a Texas state trooper points a Taser and yells, "I will light you up!"

Bland, 28, was found dead three days later in her Waller County jail cell near Houston. Her death was ruled a suicide.

The new video — released as part of a WFAA exclusive in partnership with the Investigative Network — fuels the Bland family's suspicions that Texas officials withheld evidence in her controversial arrest and, later, her death.

I wouldn't say that the video "fuels" their suspicions as much as it confirms them.

Until now, the trooper's dashcam footage was believed to be the only full recording of the July 2015 traffic stop, which ended in Bland's arrest. The trooper claimed he feared for his safety during the stop.

The 39-second cellphone video shot by Bland remained in the hands of investigators until the Investigative Network obtained the video once the criminal investigation closed.

Bland's family said they never saw the video before and now call for Texas officials to re-examine the criminal case against the trooper who arrested Bland, which sparked outrage across the country.

"Open up the case, period," said Bland's sister Shante Needham said when shown the video.

Yes. The case needs to be reopened. And a new case into why the video was concealed from the family must be opened, too.

It was possibly illegal to conceal the existence of the video, and it was definitely unethical to withhold from Bland's family the last recording she ever made.

They have my condolences, once again, for the ongoing trauma caused by the police who arrested Sandra Bland, whose life ended while in their custody, and have lied about it ever since.

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We Resist: Day 827

The Pentagon is preparing to approve a loosening of rules that bar troops from interacting with migrants entering the United States, expanding the military's involvement in [Donald] Trump's operation along the southern border.

Senior Defense Department officials have recommended that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan approve a new request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide military lawyers, cooks, and drivers to assist with handling a surge of migrants along the southern border.

The move would require authorizing waivers for more than 300 troops to a long-standing policy prohibiting military personnel from coming into contact with migrants.

It's "lawyers, cooks, and drivers" now, but naturally the loosening of this policy is opening the door to a militarization of the border that will result in violence that Trump desperately wants and for which he continually invents justifications.

Caitlin Oprysko at Politico: Rosenstein Defends Russia Investigation, Takes Shots at Obama Administration. "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Thursday [at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association] teed off on the Obama administration's handling of Russian election interference and hit back at critics of the Russia probe in his first public remarks since special counsel Robert Mueller's report dropped last week. ...[H]e defended the investigation and its findings in his speech, as well as DOJ's dedication to the rule of law and staying above the fray of partisanship, declaring that 'today, our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes.'"

This is just a good reminder that Rod Rosenstein has always been a partisan hack.

SMH #RodRosenstein was never a white hat like GOP shills wanted us to believe. Just another Trump/GOP toady
1. W/ Giuliani at the Kavanaugh announcement
2. W/ KellyAnne at the WH egg roll
3. W/ Ted Cruz at Kavanaugh announcement
4. W/ Ken Starr and his team including, Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/G2eTMCZBv2
— Nadine van der Velde (@nadinevdVelde) April 26, 2019

Missy Ryan and John Hudson at the Washington Post: Trump Administration Expected to Distance Itself from Global Arms Treaty. "The Trump administration is expected to curtail U.S. support for a global arms treaty, the latest illustration of its aversion to international pacts and world governance. Arms control advocates, diplomats, and former officials said [Donald] Trump is likely to refer to his decision to revoke the United States' status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty as soon as Friday, when he will speak to the National Rifle Association. The NRA has long opposed the pact."

[CN: White supremacy] Katie Galioto at Politico: Trump Says He Answered Charlottesville Questions 'Perfectly'.

Donald Trump on Friday defended his 2017 statement that there were "very fine people" on both sides of the deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, comments that recently came under fire again after former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Trump for them.

When asked for clarification on his remark about the racially charged clash that left one person dead, Trump stood by his claim made more than one-and-a-half years prior.

"If you look at what I said you will see that that question was answered perfectly," Trump told reporters on the White House lawn ahead of a trip to Indianapolis to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. "I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general."

First of all, no he wasn't. Secondly, even if he had been, describing superfans of Robert E. Lee as "very fine people" isn't acceptable, either!

[CN: White supremacy] Maxwell Tani and Andrew Kirell at the Daily Beast: Fox News Reporter Rips Colleagues over Charlottesville: You Sound Like 'White Supremacist Chat Room'. "A Fox News reporter on Thursday called out two of his colleagues for sounding 'like a White Supremacist chat room' when they attempted to defend [Donald] Trump's infamous 'both sides' comment about white supremacists in Charlottesville, according to internal emails reviewed by The Daily Beast. ...[Wrote Fox News Radio's White House correspondent Jon Decker:] 'Based upon the slew of emails that I've received today, both of you should send an apology to your Fox News colleagues — many of whom are hurt and infuriated by your respective posts. Your posts read like something you'd read on a White Supremacist chat room.'"

[CN: White supremacy] Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: GOP Judges Launch Bizarre Attack on Black Lives Matter and the First Amendment. "An opinion handed down Wednesday by three Republican judges could chill the First Amendment rights of protesters — and potentially allow police to shut down political movements by filing lawsuits harassing movement leaders. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's decision in Doe v. McKesson effectively strips First Amendment protections from protest leaders who commit minor offenses, ignoring longstanding Supreme Court precedents in the process." You've got to head over and read the details of this case, which I can't easily summarize here. This is absolutely absurd and profoundly chilling.

[CN: Trauma] Amanda Holpuch and Hazar Kilani at the Guardian: Hurricane Maria's Lasting Impact on Puerto Rico's Children Revealed in Report.

More than half of young people in Puerto Rico saw a friend or family member leave the island after Hurricane Maria, according to a study published on Friday which reveals the dramatic extent to which young Puerto Ricans were exposed to damaged homes, shortages of food and water and threats to their lives.

In contrast to most comparable disasters, the physical and mental effects of the category four storm which hit the island in September 2017 were "nearly ubiquitous regardless of geographical location or socioeconomic status," according to a study about its impact on young Puerto Ricans published on Friday in the journal Jama Network Open.

"The magnitude was so large that all children were exposed," said Joy Lynn Suárez, a psychology professor at Carlos Albizu University in San Juan and a report co-author.

The death toll from Maria is estimated at between 2,975 and 4,645. The storm cut nearly all communication across the island and destroyed the power grid.

Those who survived still feared for their lives. According to the new study, 30% of children reported that they perceived their lives or the lives of people they loved to be at risk — a strong predictor of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Researchers tied to Puerto Rico government agencies and universities also found:

47.5% of children's family's homes were damaged, while 83.9% of children saw damaged homes

24% of youth helped rescue people

25.5% of youth were forced to evacuate

32% of youth experienced shortages of food and water

16.7% of youth still did not have electricity five to nine months after the storm
The study is one of the largest attempts in US history to survey young people after a major natural disaster. It is also the largest sample ever of Hispanic youth impacted by disaster, a group underrepresented in existing research.

[CN: Climate change; trauma] Brian Kahn at Earther: Cyclone Kenneth Poses a Humanitarian Nightmare as It Slams into Mozambique. "For the second time in a month, Mozambique is dealing with a catastrophic cyclone. On Thursday night local time, Cyclone Kenneth roared ashore on the country's north coast with the strength of a major hurricane. Like its predecessor Cyclone Idai, the storm is expected to linger inland and dump feet of rain. The combination of back-to-back powerful cyclones means that the already underfunded response to Idai will likely be stretched gossamer thin. The timing and strength of the storms will also aggravate food insecurity and could lead to dam breaches in the coming days, unleashing a whole new wave of humanitarian disasters."

[CN: Climate change; creepy-crawlies] Eun Kyung Kim for NBC News at CNYCentral: Deadly "Kissing Bug" Making Its Way North. "Bloodsucking insects known as 'kissing bugs,' because of their tendency to bite people around the mouth, are spreading across the country after working their way north from South America. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed last week that a girl in Delaware was bitten by one of the critters, which are formally known as triatomine bugs. ...The bugs can spread a parasite that causes Chagas' disease through its feces. ...But the CDC said not all triatomine bugs are infected with the parasite that causes Chagas' disease. The disease can be dangerous, but chances of contracting it are low, according to the agency."

And finally, in good news...

BREAKING: The Kansas Supreme Court rules the state constitution protects the right to have an abortion #ksleg pic.twitter.com/yP2BGtyPCM
— Jonathan Shorman (@jonshorman) April 26, 2019

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

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We Resist: Day 749

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: The 2020 Election Is Going to Be So Ugly and The Trump Regime Beats the Drums on Venezuela. And ICYMI late yesterday: Virginia Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General Must All Resign.

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

Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco at the Daily Beast: Paul Erickson, Russian Agent Maria Butina's Boyfriend, Indicted for Fraud. "Paul Erickson, the American political operative and boyfriend of admitted Russian agent Maria Butina, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in South Dakota on charges of wire fraud and money laundering. The U.S. attorney for the district of South Dakota is handling the prosecution, which is separate from the case that was lodged against Butina in Washington, D.C. Erickson, 56, was arrested on Tuesday and entered a plea of not guilty at an arraignment, according to the court filings." The charges stem from various schemes in which Erickson engaged to defraud elderly and disabled people.

[Content Note: Nativism; border militarization; video may autoplay at link] Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee at NBC News: Pentagon Moving 250 Active-Duty Troops to Eagle Pass, Texas, Citing Migrant Caravan. "The Pentagon is moving 250 active duty troops to the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, in advance of the arrival of a new caravan of migrants, according to a statement Wednesday by Defense Department spokesperson Capt. Bill Speaks. The move reflects [Donald] Trump's mention of a 'human wall,' but comes amid increasing frustration among Pentagon leaders with the continued border requests from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Under the new directive, the troops will be moved from Arizona to Texas and — in a sign of the Pentagon's frustrations — will not represent an increase in the overall number of U.S. troops assigned to the border mission." Yikes.

Joshua Eaton at ThinkProgress: Trump Forges Ahead with Plans for North Korea Summit, Defying His Security Advisers. "Donald Trump announced plans for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as experts — including his own military and security advisers — warned that the upcoming meeting is likely to yield as few tangible results as the first one. ...'Kim Jong-un has to be extremely pleased that he's been able to get legitimacy on an international front, and has done virtually nothing to change his behavior within his own country,' Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN on Wednesday. 'It is baffling, again, as to what the president expects to achieve by a second summit.'" Regional destabilization and the ability to keep making absurd claims like how he averted war with North Korea, which he said in his SOTU and his dipshit cultists actually believe.

[CN: Sexual violence] Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald: Justice Department Opens Probe into Jeffrey Epstein Plea Deal. "The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta's role in negotiating a controversial plea deal with a wealthy New York investor accused of molesting more than 100 underage girls in Palm Beach. The probe is in response to a request by Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was critical of the case following a series of stories in the Miami Herald. The Herald articles detailed how Acosta, then the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, and other DOJ attorneys worked hand-in-hand with defense lawyers to cut a lenient plea deal with multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2008."

[CN: Guns] Josh Lederman at NBC News: New Trump Rules Make It Easier for U.S. Gun Makers to Sell Overseas. "Semi-automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and even some grenades will become easier for U.S. weapons manufacturers to export overseas under new rules being put in place by the Trump administration and obtained by NBC News. Under the new rules, set to take effect in just under a month, gun makers will no longer need licenses from the State Department to sell dozens of types of weapons to other countries, including the popular AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle that's been employed in many of America's worst mass shootings. Instead, sellers will need only a no-fee license from the Commerce Department, which has a less onerous licensing process and a smaller global footprint, making it harder to track how the weapons are ultimately used overseas."

[CN: Worker exploitation] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: Trump's Administration Considers Rule That Would Make It Easier for Businesses to Exploit Workers. "Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which the Labor Department administers and enforces, there is an economic realities test that asks how dependent someone is on the employer in question. The more dependent the person is, the more likely that person is an employee and not an independent contractor. In January, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the transportation service SuperShuttle was correct to call its airport van drivers contractors instead of employees. The NLRB said it was considered entrepreneurial opportunity since workers set their own schedules and have their own work vans. [Paul Secunda, professor of law at Marquette University] said the ruling was a 'radical departure' from the common law definition of employee that has been used under the NLRA for decades."

[CN: Authoritarianism]

Wow, this bill is EVEN WORSE than I thought. "Harassment is defined as someone who files three or more public records request in a year" and deemed to be abusive by the government agency. So, like, every reporter in the state at one point or another. https://t.co/ScJpOaY4gm
— Cari Wade Gervin (@carigervin) February 7, 2019

So, presumably, they're giving this authoritarian shit a tryout in Tennessee to force a SCOTUS ruling, in the hopes of getting it through on the federal level. JFC.

[CN: Predatory lending] Ken Sweet at the AP/Star Tribune: Financial Watchdog to Gut Most of Its Payday Lending Rules. "The nation's federal financial watchdog said Wednesday that it plans to abolish most of its critical consumer protections governing payday lenders. The move is a major win for the payday lending industry, which argued the government's regulations could kill off a large chunk of its business. It's also a big loss for consumer groups, who say payday lenders exploit the poor and disadvantaged with loans that have annual interest rates as much as 400 percent."

[CN: Descriptions of self-harm at link; institutional neglect of disabled people] Emily Wax-Thibodeaux at the Washington Post: The Parking Lot Suicides.

A federal investigation into Miller's death found that the Minneapolis VA made multiple errors: Not scheduling a follow-up appointment, failing to communicate with his family about the treatment plan, and inadequately assessing his access to firearms. Several days after his death, Miller's parents received a package from the Department of Veterans Affairs — bottles of antidepressants and sleep aids prescribed to Miller.

His death is among 19 suicides that occurred on VA campuses from October 2017 to November 2018, seven of them in parking lots, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. While studies show that every suicide is highly complex — influenced by genetics, financial uncertainty, relationship loss, and other factors — mental-health experts worry that veterans taking their lives on VA property has become a desperate form of protest against a system that some veterans feel hasn't helped them.

...Sixty-two percent of veterans, or 9 million people, depend on VA's vast hospital system, but accessing it can require navigating a frustrating bureaucracy. Veterans sometimes must prove that their injuries are connected to their service, which can require a lot of paperwork and appeals.

Veterans who take their own lives on VA grounds often intend to send a message, said Eric Caine, director of the Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention at the University of Rochester.

"These suicides are sentinel events," Caine said. "It's very important for the VA to recognize that the place of a suicide can have great meaning. There is a real moral imperative and invitation here to take a close inspection of the quality of services at the facility level."

[CN: Anti-choicery; abortion stigma] T.S. Mendola at Rewire.News: When Your President Calls You a Murderer. "It's a hell of a thing to hear your president call you a murderer. That's not quite the whole picture, though, of what [Donald] Trump did to later abortion patients during the State of the Union speech Tuesday night. ...It wasn't an accident that his plea for the control — the security — of the nation's wombs got shoved up next to the legacy of the military-industrial complex. We are mere ciphers of mothers, of women, of humans to be secured in the fight for an 'America First' jingoism that has members of Congress chanting 'USA! USA! USA!' like deluded fascist schoolboys, stars in their eyes."

[CN: Police brutality; white supremacy] Shani Saxon at Colorlines: Protests Erupt After the Alabama Cop Who Fatally Shot Emantic Bradford Jr. Isn't Charged.

An unidentified police office in Hoover, Alabama, won't face charges in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Black man, according to a report released by State Attorney General Steve Marshall on Tuesday (February 5).

"The Hoover police officer who shot and killed Emantic 'E.J.' Bradford Jr. at the Riverchase Galleria mall on November 22, 2018, did not commit a crime under Alabama law and thus will not be criminally charged for his actions," the document reads.

As Colorlines previously reported, the incident started when two men began fighting inside Birmingham's Riverchase Galleria Mall last year on Thanksgiving night (November 22). One man shot the other twice, which caused chaos as shoppers ran for their lives. During the melee, an off-duty officer shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. According to his family, Bradford stood outside the mall and pulled out his gun in an attempt to protect frightened customers when he was killed.

The attorney general's report says the officer "identified E.J. Bradford as an immediate deadly threat to innocent civilians and thus shot Bradford to eliminate the threat." It also states the officer "reasonably exercised his official powers, duties, or functions when he shot E. J. Bradford."

That conclusion did not sit well with protestors who burned two American flags outside Hoover City Hall, NBC news reports. According to the outlet, the words "BLACK LIVES DON'T MATTER" were spray painted in the flags.

[CN: Racism; nativism]

What a cool lie to encourage people to harass interracial families. https://t.co/w5q6Sgz64A
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 7, 2019

Lena H. Sun and Maureen O'Hagan at the Washington Post: 'It Will Take Off Like a Wildfire': The Unique Dangers of the Washington State Measles Outbreak. "Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Wash., a suburb of Portland, Ore., go to school without measles, mumps, and rubella immunizations, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control. Measles outbreaks have sprung up in nine other states this winter, but officials are particularly alarmed about the one in Clark County because of its potential to go very big, very quickly. ...'You know what keeps me up at night?' said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick. 'Measles is exquisitely contagious. If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like a wildfire.' To date, at least 55 people in Washington and neighboring Oregon have gotten sick with the virus, with new cases tallied almost daily. All but five are in Clark County."

Leticia Miranda and Ryan Mac at BuzzFeed: Amazon Recorded Video of a Seller's Face for Identification Purposes. "An Amazon seller based in Vietnam told BuzzFeed News that he was prompted to take a five-second video of his face using his computer's webcam in January as he signed up for a seller profile. Amazon seller consultants told BuzzFeed News they believe the company may be testing video to verify seller identities to prevent the creation of multiple seller profiles, a major issue for Amazon and its ongoing battle with fake sellers and counterfeit goods. ...Reached for comment by BuzzFeed News, Amazon disputed neither the authenticity of the facial verification process it required of the seller, nor the screenshot. The company, however, refused to explain its collection of sellers' faces. 'Amazon is always innovating to improve the seller experience,' a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in response to a detailed list of questions."

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

Open Wide...

Black History Month

black and white image featuring President Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Serena Williams, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Maya Angelou, with text reading: BLACK HISTORY IS AMERICAN HISTORY

Today begins Black History Month, and I wanted to open a space for people to share resources — books, films, interviews, music, collections of poetry, art, blogs, speeches, links to events, anything explicitly associated with Black History Month or any content created by Black people that has been meaningful to you.

Head to comments with your recommendations!

As a white USian who grew up in a predominantly non-black community, Black history, especially as told by Black people, was largely concealed from me.

What Black history I did get, at school and at home, was almost exclusively filtered through the lens of white supremacy and white privilege — and I very nearly reached adulthood without ever encountering the idea that that was a problem.

It is a colossal problem that overwhelmingly white media get to shape the news, get to the tell the stories, get to choose whose voices are heard, get to define what Black lives look like, and get to redefine the effects of White Supremacy as Black Failure.

It is a problem in the historical record, and it is a problem in the record being created today. The Black perspective, the truth, was written out of history documented and controlled by white people, and it is critical that a diversity of Black perspectives are centered to avoid replication of the same silencing and whitewashed revisionism.

Pushing back against this erasure is especially urgent in the Age of Trump, a white supremacist president who has repeatedly engaged in overtly anti-Black rhetoric.

Black history is living history. To mark the beginning of this month, I want to reaffirm my commitment to supporting and amplifying the voices of Black people who are telling their stories, to regard them as authorities on their own lives and lived experiences, to listen to them and believe them, to respect Black people as the definitive sources of their own history.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 561

[Donald] Trump delivered a nearly 90-minute-long speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Thursday night in which he suggested he may yet lock up Hillary Clinton and smeared immigrants as violent murderers.

When Trump mentioned Clinton, the crowd broke out in "Lock her up!" chants. Trump responded by saying, "Some things just take a little bit longer." He then complained that his Justice Department "only wants to go after Republicans. You look at the kind of criminal actions and crime — they only want to go after the Republicans."

Trump focused much of his speech at Thursday's campaign-style rally on immigration, touting his border wall and taking his familiar fearmongering about supposedly criminal immigrants to the extreme.

Trump disclosed that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have been advising him to shut down the government unless he gets more than $20 billion in funding for his border wall before the 2018 midterm election.

Trump then lied about the wall, falsely claiming "we're building it." In reality, Trump hasn't received any money to build the structure, which he promised during his campaign that Mexico would fund.

Alluding to a possible shut down, Trump said, "We are going to start to get very nasty over the wall."

At another point, Trump sought to scare people about the risks posed by immigrants by referring to MS-13 as "slicers" and "animals" and mimicking the motions of a person being stabbed.

He is a disgusting human being, and I am relentlessly angry all day every day that he is this nation's president.

Susan B. Glasser at the New Yorker: It's True: Trump Is Lying More, and He's Doing It on Purpose. "The recent wave of misstatements is both a reflection of Trump's increasingly unbound presidency and a signal attribute of it. The upsurge provides empirical evidence that Trump, in recent months, has felt more confident running his White House as he pleases, keeping his own counsel, and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. The fact that Trump, while historically unpopular with the American public as a whole, has retained the loyalty of more than eighty per cent of Republicans — the group at which his lies seem to be aimed — means we are in for much more, as a midterm election approaches that may determine whether Trump is impeached by a newly Democratic Congress. At this point, the falsehoods are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the 'Make America Great Again' slogan."

Camila Domonoske at NPR: China Announces Retaliatory Tariffs on $60 Billion in U.S. Goods. "China has announced a plan to impose new tariffs on $60 billion of American goods, in retaliation for the latest tariff threats from the Trump administration. Earlier this week, the White House said it was considering boosting tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, raising those tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent. That particular set of tariffs has not yet taken effect. China promptly promised it would take countermeasures of its own. On Friday, the Ministry of Commerce described its planned response: Four different types of tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. The Chinese government did not specify what types of American products would be affected or when those tariffs would take effect."

Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: We've Finally Learned Trump's Grand Plan for Fixing Health Care. "During his presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump promised to replace Obamacare with 'something terrific.' For a long time, that 'something terrific' was left unspecified. Now, more than a year and a half into Trump's presidency, we have finally learned his grand plan for reducing Americans' health-care costs. It is: Don't get sick. Ever. That, at least, was the message of the administration's new rule expanding the availability of junk insurance plans, finalized Wednesday."

Sophie Weiner at Splinter: Trump Donor Promised Michael Cohen $10 Million to Push for Nuclear Power Plant. "In April, Trump donor Franklin L. Haney apparently agreed to pay Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen a $10 million fee for successfully lobbying for the building of an unfinished nuclear power plant in Alabama, according to the Wall Street Journal. The contract also asked Cohen to secure a $5 billion loan from the government for the project. This new information is part of the investigation into Cohen’s unregistered lobbying efforts which he undertook after Trump took office."

[CN: Image of gun at link] Nicole Lafond at TPM: Butina Bragged She Was a Spy When Drunk. "According to people who knew her at American University where she attended graduate school, on at least two occasions [alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina] bragged about her Russian government connections after she had imbibed and even said the Russian government was connected to her Moscow gun rights group. According to CNN, classmates were unnerved by her comments and reported her to law enforcement twice. Other classmates told CNN that in classes she was a constant defender of Vladimir Putin and claimed that she was a middleman between [Donald] Trump's campaign and the Russian government."

❗️❗️❗️"With the midterm elections just three months away, campaigns are largely on their own in the increasingly challenging task of protecting sensitive information and countering false or misleading content on social media." https://t.co/iuewdt1UEN
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 3, 2018

[CN: Nativism; sex abuse of children; descriptions of sexual assault] Topher Sanders and Michael Grabell at ProPublica: Worker Charged with Sexually Molesting Eight Children at Immigrant Shelter. "A youth care worker for Southwest Key has been charged with 11 sex offenses after authorities accused him of molesting at least eight unaccompanied immigrant boys over nearly a year at one of the company's shelters in Mesa, Arizona, federal court records show. The allegations against Levian D. Pacheco, who is HIV-positive, include [assaults which] are alleged to have taken place between August 2016 and July 2017, according to a court filing last week that laid out the government's case."

[CN: Misogynoir; violence] Sam Levin at the Guardian: 'Justice Is Never Served': Nia Wilson and the Fear of Racial Violence. "'It's impossible and unreasonable for people to expect black folks to take the murder of Nia Wilson outside of white on black violence dynamic,' said Cat Brooks, a longtime Oakland activist and mayoral candidate who helped organize a vigil the day after the murder. 'Black bodies have been under attack by agents of white supremacy for over 400 years.' Diamond Rogers, a 19-year-old cousin of Wilson, said it was important to 'call it what it is ... a hate crime to black women.'"

[CN: White supremacy; class warfare]

"Despite all the ways that the government provided welfare programs to help them, white Americans are willing to cut such programs if they believe that African-Americans and other nonwhites may benefit." A must-read by @chaunceydevega. https://t.co/Ax0yOYbSQm
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 3, 2018

[CN: Violent anti-Blackness] Sameer Rao at Colorlines: See Trayvon Martin's Parents Get Real on Resilience. "Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin survived the 2012 killing of their teenage son, Trayvon Martin, by George Zimmerman — only to see their child's name dragged through the press and the trial that exonerated his the killer. His death and the legal aftermath pushed the pair into the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement. Speaking at actions around the country allowed them to build solidarity with other parents of Black children slain by police or vigilantes, as well as with the thousands of demonstrators demanding accountability for such violence. As Fulton told the hosts of 'Ebro in the Morning' radio show [on July 31], their activism remains inextricably tied to their grief and healing."

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

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We Resist: Day 524

"North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the U.S. and a pledge to denuclearise." Shocking. 😐 https://t.co/jGpEEo5nom
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 27, 2018

Everything is going great. (Everything is not going great.)

* * *

Derek Kravitz, Alex Mierjeski, and Gabriel Sandoval at ProPublica: We've Found $16.1 Million in Political and Taxpayer Spending at Trump Properties.

Since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in late 2015, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses, and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations, and government agencies. Because Trump's business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals, and meals.

...The vast majority of the money — at least $13.5 million, or more than 84 percent of what we tracked — was spent by Trump's presidential campaign (including on Tag Air, the entity that operates Trump's personal airplane). Republican Senate and House political committees and campaigns have shelled out at least another $2.1 million at Trump properties. At least $400,000 has been spent by federal, state, and local agencies. (For example, the Florida Police Chiefs Association held its summer conference last year at the Trump National Doral Miami.) The state and local tally appears to be a gross undercount because of the agencies' spotty disclosures and reporting.

...When asked about cheaper nearby hotels and the parking costs, [Matthew Snyder, who works for the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado and traveled to D.C. for 11 days last year for managerial training] wrote in an email: "I could offer clarity, but I choose not to." In the end, Snyder charged about $2,740 to a government charge card at the Trump International over five days, including room service and valet parking.

Fucking grifters.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: The FEC Complaints About the NRA's Russia Ties Keep Piling Up. "A new complaint filed [by the American Democracy Legal Fund (ADLF)] with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) urges the commission to investigate a string of revelations regarding the National Rifle Association's (NRA) ties to sanctioned Russian officials, as well as the gun lobby's shifting answers about just how much money it received from Russian nationals. ...The new filing details reports about previously undisclosed trips and meetings — including sit-downs between NRA officials and those connected directly to the Kremlin — and raises fresh questions about how the NRA managed to donate over $30 million to the Trump campaign without disclosing its donors."

[CN: Nativism; disablist language] Kate Riga at TPM: Sessions Turns Family Separations into Well-Received Punchline at GOP Event. "During a speech to a conservative criminal justice organization in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called critics of the Trump administration's family separations 'the lunatic fringe' and joked about the policy to laughter and applause... 'And what is perhaps more galling is the hypocrisy,' he continued. 'These same people live in gated communities, many of them, and are featured at events where you have to have an ID to even come in and hear them speak. They like a little security around themselves. And if you try to scale the fence, believe me, they'd be even too happy to have you arrested and separated from your children,' he said. The room erupted into laughter and cheers."

Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Plan to Mine Near Popular Minnesota Wilderness Area Sparks Multiple Lawsuits. "Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in an effort to stop plans to allow mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. The lawsuit was filed in a federal district court on June 25 in Washington, D.C. by The Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Izaak Walton League of America, and represented by Earthjustice. Together, the organizations join nine local Minnesota businesses that filed a similar, separate lawsuit last week. The legal challenges come after [Donald] Trump announced during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota last week that he wanted to keep large portions of land within the state's Superior National Forest — where the Boundary Waters recreation area is located — open to mining."

* * *

[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] I've previously noted that police with records of abuse often get moved from department to department like priests with records of abuse. The officer who killed Antwon Rose has moved around a whole lot already in his short career.

Rosfeld "had previously worked in Harmarville and Oakmont. He also worked for the University of Pittsburgh PD and was reportedly dismissed for cause... He was formally sworn in [in East Pittsburgh] about 90 minutes before the fatal shooting." https://t.co/Q5nhvAT9Pu
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 27, 2018

[CN: Racism; harassment; threats] Breanna Edwards at the Root: Former Firefighter Arrested for Hanging Doll with Noose Outside His Black Neighbor's Apartment. "When 28-year-old Dante Petty moved to Grapevine, Tx., with his young daughter in June 2017, he says they immediately began to have issues with his white neighbor who lived in the apartment beneath him. Back in January, Petty made a Facebook post describing the torment he has been put through, the acts of aggression that started with the neighbor throwing eggs and dog feces on his car. He filed a police report, according to the post, but officers told him there was nothing he could do as there was no proof. Petty then decided to install a camera outside of his apartment that captured the neighbor, 64-year-old Glenn Halfin, tying a rope around the neck of a doll and hanging it from a railing." Fucking hell.

[CN: Misogyny] You know how women have been told over and over that we need to be better advocates for ourselves in the workplace if we want equality? Welp.

“The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results...we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful. “ https://t.co/QarD2CFWUR
— Andrea Matwyshyn (@amatwyshyn) June 25, 2018

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

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We Resist: Day 522

BREAKING ⁦@AP:⁩ Immigrant children as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in Virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells. https://t.co/ffw0bBcYrH
— Michael Biesecker (@mbieseck) June 21, 2018

"In the Navy document, military officials propose a 60-day timeline to build the first temporary tent facility for 5,000 adults. After that, military officials suggest they could add room for 10,000 additional individuals each month."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 23, 2018

On a plane, so signing off. After visiting the Tornillo child internment camp, it’s clear America has crossed a line. I think the authoritarianism will now accelerate. The danger is that many will be afraid to respond proportionately for fear of enablers calling them alarmist.
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 25, 2018

"Online calls for violence against immigrants have surfaced in recent weeks as the border crisis continues to dominate the national conversation." Of course it has. That's the inevitable result of Trump's obscene policies & use of eliminationist rhetoric. https://t.co/E6sSmywNH5
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 25, 2018

And a pointed reminder that this is all manufactured outrage to justify a nativist, white supremacist agenda:

As we observe the horrors of our government separating families and incarcerating infants, @paulkrugman reminds us of a fundamental truth: none of this is a response to an actual problem. “They’re just sick fantasies being used to justify real atrocities.” https://t.co/A5bhhsuQXo
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) June 22, 2018

Much of Trump's rhetoric around MS-13 is also rooted in lies. Hannah Dreier at ProPublica: I've Been Reporting on MS-13 for a Year: Here Are the 5 Things Trump Gets Most Wrong. "This all matters because the gang really is terrorizing a portion of the population: young Latino immigrants in a few specific communities." It matters hugely that Trump gets this wrong, deliberately so, because he uses his mischaracterization of MS-13 to stoke fear among his white base and justify his reactionary policies.

The truth is, MS-13 is mostly a danger to young Latinx immigrants — and less so than Trump himself is.

* * *

[CN: Racism; misogyny; threats]

Racism. Misogyny. Lies. And a thinly veiled threat against a sitting member of Congress. https://t.co/2sogcW1Mzv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 25, 2018

Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee at NBC News: Mattis Is out of the Loop and Trump Doesn't Listen to Him, Say Officials. "The president is relying less and less on the advice of one of the longest-serving members of his cabinet, the officials said. 'They don't really see eye to eye,' said a former senior White House official who has closely observed the relationship. ...'He's never been one of the go-tos in the gang that's very close to the president,' a senior White House official said. 'But the president has a lot of respect for him.' In recent months, however, the president has cooled on Mattis, in part because he's come to believe his defense secretary looks down on him and slow-walks his policy directives, according to current and former administration officials."

1. So much for that much-lauded "moderating influence" Mattis was going to provide. 2. How many of those "current and former administration officials" were named Tronald Dump and Beve Stannon?

Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: Supreme Court Sends Case on North Carolina Gerrymandering Back to Lower Court. "The Supreme Court on Monday sent back to a lower court a decision that Republicans in North Carolina had gerrymandered the state's congressional districts to give their party an unfair advantage. The lower court will need to decide whether the plaintiffs had the proper legal standing to bring the case. The Supreme Court recently considered the question of partisan gerrymandering in cases from Wisconsin and Maryland. The court has never found a map so infected by politics that it violated the constitutional rights of voters."

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Gorsuch Says He'll Repeal and Replace the Fourth Amendment with Something Terrific. "As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump offered a vague promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with 'something terrific.' On Friday, Neil Gorsuch, who occupies the seat on the Supreme Court that Senate Republicans held open until Trump could fill it, brought a similar amount of thoughtfulness and coherence to the question of when police should be allowed to conduct a search without a warrant. Gorsuch's dissenting opinion in Carpenter v. United States is an odd piece of writing. It reads less like a judicial opinion and more like the sort of essay that an overworked law professor might toss off after they suddenly realize that they have a symposium paper due at the end of the week." (Just go read the whole piece, because YIKES.)

Nicole Lafond at TPM: Restaurant That Trump Called 'Filthy' Actually Has a Glowing Health Record. "Despite [Donald] Trump's dubious claim that a restaurant's exterior appearance will unfailingly mirror its interior cleanliness, the restaurant in Lexington, Virginia that gave White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders the boot over the weekend actually has a glowing health record, according to county health department documents. ...Red Hen's last inspection was completed on Feb. 6, 2018, when it received a clean bill of health with no violations or required follow up visits. ...While much larger than the Red Hen, by contrast, the kitchen of Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort was hit with 13 health violations in April 2017 and was slapped with 15 violations in the club's two kitchens in a follow-up visit in November 2017."

* * *

[CN: White supremacy]

Sebastian Murdock at the Huffington Post: White Woman Threatened to Call Cops on 8-Year-Old Girl Selling Water. "An apparent competition over who can threaten to call the police on people of color for no good reason is really ramping up. In a video posted to Instagram on Saturday, a white woman in San Francisco was captured apparently calling the police on a nonwhite girl who's 8 years old. The child's supposed crime? Selling water 'illegally.' But the woman...said that 'this has no racial component to it' and claims she only 'pretended' to call the police. ...'I have no problem with enterprising young women. I want to support that little girl. It was all the mother and just about being quiet,' she said."

White People: Pull yourself up by the bootstraps!

Black Girl: Okay.

White People: *calls police*#PermitPatty
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 23, 2018

Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani at Think Progress: White Woman Who Threatened to Call Cops on 8-Year-Old Black Girl Says She's 'Discriminated Against'. "She added that she has been getting threats online and now 'feels discriminated against.' 'It was stupid,' she said. 'I completely regret that I handled that so poorly. It was completely stress-related, and I should have never confronted her. That was a mistake, a complete mistake. Please don't make me sound horrible.' ...Ettel is the latest in a long list of white women calling the police on people of color for ordinary things, like holding a barbecue in a public park, napping in their dormitory's common room, and wearing black clothes during a university campus tour."

Fellow white women: Please stop calling police on people of color, except in cases of extreme emergencies. You are risking their getting arrested, harassed, harmed, and/or killed. Stop.

* * *

Gabriel Debenedetti at NYMag: Where Is Barack Obama? Good question. "Obama is monitoring the destruction, but he spends the bulk of his time on two projects, building his foundation and writing a memoir." Oh.

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

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We Resist: Day 481

As [Donald] Trump's campaign aides quietly launch his reelection campaign, they're eyeing two states as possible pickups for 2020: Minnesota, where Trump came close in 2016 without even trying; and Colorado, where his hands-off approach to marijuana enforcement is a possible selling point.

What's happening: The addition of those states is part of a plan that's coming together in a basement suite at the Republican National Committee, where the Trump campaign has moved from Trump Tower. The campaign, now fewer than 10 people, eventually will number hundreds.

The reelection campaign will mostly work under the radar until after midterms, providing Trump assets (volunteers, fundraising, rallies) to other campaigns.

But we got a first look at campaign manager Brad Parscale's plans to build what amounts to a massive marketing machine, selling the world's most prominent product.

Why it matters: In 2016, Trump Tower campaign staffers were proud of their pirate-ship ambush of the Republican establishment, then of the U.S.S. Clinton. But this time they won't have the advantage of surprise.

So the Trump team has to build a longer range, more systematic plan, without suffocating Trump's improvisational essence.

Parscale, who considers past presidential campaigns archaic, is emphasizing digital innovation, technological streamlining, and corporate efficiency.

Parscale told us: "We're crushing it in prospecting."

There is no way to NOT read this planted item at Axios as a communication with Russia about where and how to direct their resources on behalf of Trump. "Colorado. Weed. Get on it, Vlad."

Further, the entire piece — which also includes this helpful piece of info: "Parscale had no history in politics before the 2016 campaign, and doesn't plan to work in politics beyond the 2020 campaign." — is setting up the narrative that will be used to explain Trump's 2020 victory, despite being a wildly unpopular president.

It won't be that the Russians intervened again to assist him, but that his "unconventional" campaign manager with his "innovative" ideas figured out a way to again "ambush" the establishment.

The collusion (and the narrative-creation to obfuscate it) is happening right out in the open.

* * *

Trump's web of lies is getting more tangled.

Today is the deadline for Trump's financial disclose form.

Trump must decide how much to disclose in liabilities to Michael Cohen.

There's no good way out, and Trump has Rudy to thank for it.

My new post:https://t.co/yQy8tLiQXH
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) May 15, 2018

I mean, in theory, yes, Trump does have to decide that. But, in reality, I'm guessing Trump will just let the deadline pass without filing anything at all, or file it but full of lies, because who's gonna hold him accountable?

* * *

Robert Maguire at McClatchy: $1 Million Mystery Gift to inauguration Traced to Conservative Legal Activists. "One of the largest contributions to [Donald] Trump's inaugural committee in 2016 appears to have been orchestrated by a set of powerful conservative legal activists who have since been put in the driver's seat of the administration's push to select and nominate federal judges. ...While the source of the money used to make the gift was masked from the public, a trail of clues puts the contribution at the doorstep of some of the same actors — most notably Leonard Leo, an executive vice president at the conservative Federalist Society — who have helped promote Trump's mission, and that of his White House counsel, Don McGahn, to fill judicial vacancies as quickly as he can with staunchly conservative, preferably young jurists." And that of his Vice President Mike Pence.

Ed Pilkington at the Guardian: How Rightwing Groups Wield Secret 'Toolkit' to Plot Against U.S. Unions. "Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that a network of radical conservative thinktanks spanning all 50 states is planning direct marketing campaigns targeted personally at union members to encourage them to quit. The secret push, the group hopes, could cost unions up to a fifth of their 7 million members, lead to the loss of millions of dollars in income, and undermine a cornerstone of U.S. progressive politics. ...The anti-union marketing drive is the brainchild of the State Policy Network, a coast-to-coast alliance of 66 rightwing thinktanks that has an $80m war chest to promote Donald Trump-friendly regressive policies such as low taxes and small government."

Unintended? 🤨 https://t.co/o0zmgLhYbR
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 15, 2018

[Content Note: Police brutality; death; racism] Breanna Edwards at the Root: A Black Man Died During an Arrest in Louisiana; a Local Coroner Has Ruled the Death as Homicide by 'Asphyxia'.

On Thursday, 22-year-old Keeven Robinson died shortly after a chase and "brief struggle" with narcotics detectives from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana.

At first, authorities hinted that his death may have been related to his medical history of asthma, the Washington Post reports, noting that an air-quality alert had warned residents of unhealthy ozone levels that day.

However, when a young black man dies at the hands of police, tensions and suspicions run high. Robinson's family was not convinced.

On Monday, a Jefferson Parish coroner vindicated some of those suspicions, confirming that an autopsy had concluded that Robinson's death was a homicide.

To be precise, the cause of death was ruled as "compressional asphyxia" with an autopsy Saturday showing "significant traumatic injuries to the neck, the soft tissue of the neck," the coroner, Gerald Cvitanovich, announced in a news conference.

And meanwhile...

Trump warns of ‘dangerous anti-police prejudice’ https://t.co/4vKkphOEcJ pic.twitter.com/bQVXeIttcv
— POLITICO (@politico) May 15, 2018

[CN: Nativism] Relatedly:

Trump renews call for immigration crackdown as he continues to pursue his white nationalist agenda... https://t.co/zxPcZ5Z7qy
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) May 15, 2018

And finally: [CN: War on agency] Brie Shea at Rewire.News: The Weekly Roundup of State-Based Anti-Choice and Anti-LGBTQ Legislation. With an overview of the bills Rewire.News is watching at the moment in Louisiana, South Carolina, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, and Utah.

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

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We Resist: Day 475

Why the warning sign? Why all the red?

We're down to the wire on saving #NetNeutrality. @SenateDems are forcing a vote to make sure the Internet stays free and open, and the countdown clock starts today. pic.twitter.com/62LECByStL
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) May 9, 2018

MAKE YOUR CALLS.

* * *

[Content Note: Anti-Blackness; white supremacy. Covers entire section.]

Today in Shopping While Black: Kia Morgan-Smith at the Grio: Nordstrom Under Fire after Police Called on Black Teens Falsely Accused of Shoplifting Prom Clothes. "High school students Mekhi Lee, Dirone Taylor and Eric Rogers II were reportedly shopping for prom clothes and noticed that several employees started following them around the store. 'I was nervous the whole time,' Lee recalled. 'Every time we move, they move. When we looked up, they looked up.' Feeling uneasy about the situation, the teens decided to leave the store by were immediately surrounded and confronted by Brentwood Police in the parking lot. CBS News reports that police then informed the teens they were called to the scene because the store accused them of stealing. The police investigated and found the claims to be false and released them without charges."

Today in Working While Black: Katie Jane Fernelius at Indy Week: A Duke University VP Walked into the Campus Joe Van Gogh, Heard a Rap Song, Demanded That the Employees Be Fired. "On Friday, [vice president for student affairs Larry Moneta] came in during an afternoon rush. The baristas had a habit of playing music from Spotify over the speakers, usually on playlists curated by the service. When Moneta walked in, 'Get Paid' by Young Dolph was playing. The song's titular refrain included the n-word, as Young Dolph raps, 'Get paid, young nigga.' Britni Brown, who was manning the register, was in charge of the playlist that day. When he approached the counter, Moneta, a white man, told Brown, an African-American woman, that the song was inappropriate. ...She says she shut the song off immediately. She grabbed him a vegan muffin and offered it free of charge. ...On Monday morning, Brown and [Kevin Simmons, the other barista on duty] were called into Joe Van Gogh's Hillsborough office and asked to resign."

Today in Graduating While Black: Alex Harris and Madeleine Marr at the Miami Herald: Black UF Students Were 'Manhandled' off Graduation Stage. "It's a tradition for culturally black sororities and fraternities to 'stroll' across the graduation stage and perform their Greek organization's signature dance, but that tradition was interrupted Saturday at the University of Florida by an 'aggressive' graduation marshal. Video footage showed the orange-and-blue clad marshal physically hustling the celebrating students off the graduation stage — at one point bear-hugging a male student and dragging him away. The videos have spread widely on social media, with many critics calling the actions racist. On Tuesday, the school announced the faculty member serving as a marshal has been placed on paid administrative leave 'pending a review of the appropriate administrative steps.' He was not identified."

To realize the plea inherent in the call #BlackLivesMatter, Black people's lives must matter in all spaces and at all times. The relentless double standards that mean Black people are subjected to harassment and humiliation just for fucking existing as Black human beings must end.

* * *

I would be interested to hear @MichaelAvenatti's assessment of whether he thinks it should have taken a year to make this case, cough. https://t.co/KqpRfRgSzD
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 9, 2018

That said, if the actual objective is stalling for time to allow the authoritarians to consolidate power, then a year is definitely not long enough. *side-eye*

Here is a piece of good news: Carol Morello, Anna Fifield, and David Nakamura at the Washington Post: North Korea Frees 3 American Prisoners Ahead of a Planned Trump-Kim Summit. "Three American men who had been imprisoned by North Korea are on their way to the United States, [Donald] Trump announced Wednesday after they were released to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to Pyongyang."

I'm very glad indeed for Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak-song that they are no longer imprisoned in North Korea.

I am also very angry that Donald Trump continues to say that President Obama failed to secure freedom for the three men, when two of the men were taken into custody in 2017, after Trump had taken office.

[CN: Class warfare] Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: Health Insurers Say higher Obamacare Premiums Are Coming, and It's Republicans' Fault. "Health experts warned this would happen. In fact, insurers who set the premium rates cautioned that costs would rise if lawmakers continued to undermine the Obamacare exchanges and not shore up the market. A letter issued to lawmakers in November from major health industry players said '[e]liminating the individual mandate by itself likely will result in a significant increase in premiums, which would in turn substantially increase the number of uninsured Americans.' Now the public at large is learning what it meant for Congress to repeal the individual mandate, the tax penalty for not having insurance, and then not doing anything to improve a fragile market."

Speaking of Republicans being unfathomable assholes...

Comparing yourself to Pablo Escobar to own your political opponent pic.twitter.com/Ca00vZWnVX
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) May 9, 2018

[CN: Misogyny; queer hatred; child abuse] Samantha Schmidt at the Washington Post: Mormon Church Breaks All Ties with Boy Scouts, Ending 100-Year Relationship. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it will sever all ties with the Boy Scouts of America, ending a century-old tradition deeply ingrained in the religious life of Mormon boys. ...Church officials did not cite specific Scouts policy changes that spurred the split, but the two groups have increasingly clashed over values in recent years, particularly after the Boy Scouts' move to include openly gay troop leaders. The announcement also came less than a week after the Boy Scouts announced it would be changing its flagship name to Scouts BSA, promoting its decision last year to welcome girls into the program for the first time."

Listen, a dozen or so abuse scandals is one thing, but tolerance of queers and girls will not be tolerated! https://t.co/QF1AvTqzmf
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 9, 2018

[CN: Sexual assault and harassment] And speaking of turning an indifferent eye toward sex abuse:

Perhaps the ultimate example of Not Knowing What You Don't Want to Know. https://t.co/i0pkussW6b pic.twitter.com/6CNrLzAK6C
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 9, 2018

Does NBC imagine that this reflects well on them? Because it doesn't.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 908

Police Had — and Concealed — Cell Phone Video Shot by Sandra Bland

We Resist: Day 827

We Resist: Day 749

Black History Month

We Resist: Day 561

We Resist: Day 524

We Resist: Day 522

We Resist: Day 481

We Resist: Day 475

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