We Resist: Day 698

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: A Journey of Artistic Comrades. And by me: Michael Flynn to Be Sentenced Today and The Abusive Artist Doesn't Want to Be Separated from His Art. And ICYMI late yesterday: Cassandra's Lament, Part Wev in an Endless Series.

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

I'm going to start out with some good news, care of one of our longtime favorites, Idris Elba. Yohana Desta at Vanity Fair: Idris Elba on the #MeToo Movement. "In a recent interview with The Sunday Times, the actor was asked if it's hard to be a man in Hollywood now due to the #MeToo movement, which has led to a broader reckoning against sexual misconduct. Plenty of actors have been asked something similar, and many have responded with statements that ended up necessitating apologies — from Matt Damon to Henry Cavill. But Elba? He had this to say in response: "It's only difficult if you're a man with something to hide." Simple as that." BOOM.

Because we deserve it, here is a screenshot of Idris Elba and Tom Hardy from RocknRolla. You're welcome!

IrRESISTible. See what I did there?
* * *

[Content Note: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed: The Trump Administration Is Slowing the Asylum Process to Discourage Applicants, an Official Told Congress.

A high-ranking Customs and Border Protection official told Congress earlier this month that border agents were limiting asylum applications along the border because allowing too many migrants to apply would inspire more migrants to come, according to a letter written by senior House Democrats on Monday.

The statement by Jud Murdock, CBP's acting assistant commissioner, contradicted official claims that the practice of "metering" — when officials limit the number of individuals who can make asylum claims at ports of entry on any given day — was due to resource constraints, including a lack of detention space and personnel. When asked about the practice at a Senate hearing last week, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said that it was not meant as a deterrent.

But on Dec. 6, Murdock said in a closed congressional briefing that CBP had chosen to limit asylum-seekers at ports of entries because "[t]he more we process, the more will come," according to the letter.

Murdock's answers to follow-up questions "clearly indicated, given the context, that the Department's decision to limit processing was primarily motivated by its desire to deter migrants from seeking asylum at ports of entry" generally, according to the letter, which was signed by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Bennie Thompson, and Jerrold Nadler, the ranking Democrats on the Immigration Subcommittee, the Homeland Security Committee, and the Judiciary Committee, respectively.

Particularly in light of that confirmation of one of the many observable cruel practices being employed as disincentive, this piece from Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News is so important: Migrants Share Their Vision for a World That Honors and Respects Them. "[N]o matter the deterrents used by governments, no matter the anti-immigrant rhetoric deployed, no matter the risk or cost, people have always migrated and will continue to migrate globally. This is because their lives depend on their ability to move from one place to another — for family, for work, and in many cases for safety."

Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast: Advertisers Ditch Fox News' Tucker Carlson for Saying Immigration Makes U.S. 'Dirtier'. "Last Thursday, Carlson ran a segment arguing against the economic benefits of immigration in which he claimed the influx of low-skilled workers 'makes our own country poor and dirtier and more divided.' ...At least four advertisers were not pleased with Carlson's comments. ...During his show on Monday, Carlson defended his comments, saying various government statistics showed that illegal immigration has damaged natural landscape in the American Southwest. 'We're not intimidated,' he said. 'We plan to try to say what's true until the last day. And the truth is unregulated mass immigration has badly hurt this country's natural landscape.'" This fucking guy.

It's tough to believe that any advertiser has been willing to associate themselves with anyone or anything on Fox News up until this point, but I'm glad that these advertisers finally drew a line somewhere.

* * *

“Trump may emerge as a brazen grifter who, by aspiring to the White House like a wizened, soiled version of Icarus, flew beyond the boundaries of his own luck and abilities and delivered his business, children and well-being into the hands of prosecutors.”https://t.co/3ixzKPjUEI

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) December 17, 2018

Trump may (or may not) have delivered himself into the hands of prosecutors, but, in either case, he's plowing ahead with his 2020 reelection bid. Alex Isenstadt at Politico: Trump Launches Unprecedented Reelection Machine. "Donald Trump is planning to roll out an unprecedented structure for his 2020 reelection, a streamlined organization that incorporates the Republican National Committee and the president's campaign into a single entity. It's a stark expression of Trump's stranglehold over the Republican Party: Traditionally, a presidential reelection committee has worked in tandem with the national party committee, not subsumed it. Under the plan, which has been in the works for several weeks, the Trump reelection campaign and the RNC will merge their field and fundraising programs into a joint outfit dubbed Trump Victory. The two teams will also share office space rather than operate out of separate buildings, as has been custom." Yikes.

David A. Fahrenthold at the Washington Post: Trump Agrees to Shut Down His Charity Amid Allegations That He Used It for Personal and Political Benefit.

[Donald] Trump has agreed to shut down his embattled personal charity and to give away its remaining money amid allegations that he used the foundation for his personal and political benefit, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced Tuesday.

Underwood said that the Donald J. Trump Foundation is dissolving as her office pursues its lawsuit against the charity, Trump, and his three eldest children.

The suit, filed in June, alleged "persistently illegal conduct" at the foundation and sought to have it shut down. Underwood is continuing to seek more than $2.8 million in restitution and has asked a judge to ban the Trumps temporarily from serving on the boards of other New York nonprofit organizations.

Underwood said Tuesday that her investigation found "a shocking pattern of illegality involving the Trump Foundation — including unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing, and much more."

A small but important victory.

Speaking of which... Nicole Lafond at TPM: Stone Forced to Run Apology Ads in Papers as Part of Defamation Settlement. "Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone — who faces scrutiny for his lack of credibility in the Russia probe — has been forced to run apology advertisements in national newspapers as part of a settlement agreement for making false statements on InfoWars, the Wall Street Journal reported. Stone was sued for $100 million for false claims about Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, who is known as a dissident of Beijing. Guo filed the lawsuit in March, after Stone suggested he was convicted of crimes in the U.S. and China and claimed Guo donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign, which is illegal for a foreign national, as the WSJ notes. Stone will also have to retract his comments on social media. He won't have to pay any damages if he complies."

Bill Chappell at NPR: U.S. Space Command Is Revived, as Vice President Pence Unveils Plan in Florida.

America's military operations in space are now back under a single unified command, as the Trump administration revived the once-retired U.S. Space Command on Tuesday. Vice President Mike Pence outlined the plan during his visit to the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday.

"Today, there are more than 18,000 military and civilian personnel working in space operations for our national security, all across the Department of Defense," Pence said.

The vice president added that under [Donald] Trump's order, Space Command will "integrate space capabilities across all branches of the military; it will develop the space doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures that will enable our warfighters to defend our nation in this new era."

"A new era of American national security in space begins today," Pence said.

Okay. Still super thrilled (NOT THRILLED) about the idea of Donald Trump and Mike Pence launching nukes from space. Christ.

[CN: Misogyny; racism; harassment]

"Female politicians & journalists were abused on Twitter every 30 seconds in 2017, according to the largest-ever study into how women are targeted w/hate speech online. ...Black women were almost twice as likely as their white counterparts to be targeted." https://t.co/ukthh89EJb

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 18, 2018

[CN: Wildfires; carcerality; injuries] Yessenia Funes at Earther: Two California Inmates Suffered Severe Burns Fighting the Camp Fire. Why Were They There at All? "No firefighters' lives were lost fighting the Camp Fire, but five suffered serious burn injuries on November 8... Among those injured were two incarcerated people, who suffered burns to the face and neck. ...These incidents once again raise the question of how ethical and just this conservation camp program — which bills itself as voluntary — really is. California has 44 conservation camps sprinkled throughout the state that house nearly 4,300 incarcerated people. At these camps, prisoners earn a mere $2 a day with an additional dollar per hour when they're fighting an active fire — which is higher than other prison jobs but dramatically lower than the $40,000 to $56,00 annual salary firefighters outside prison earn."

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

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

A Journey of Artistic Comrades

[Content note: Sexual harassment]

Yael Stone, of Orange is the New Black, has accused Geoffrey Rush of sexual harassment. Stone and Rush worked together in 2010 on The Diary of a Madman.

Via IndieWire:

"Stone told The Times that Rush’s inappropriate behavior included sending her sexually explicit text messages, exposing his penis to her in the dressing room, joining her uninvited as she took a nap backstage, using a mirror to watch her shower, and touching her in a 'very sexual manner' at an awards show. Yael said, 'There was no part of my brain considering speaking to anyone in any official capacity. This was a huge star. What were they going to do? Fire Geoffrey and keep me?'"

Rush has responded by calling Stone's accusations “incorrect" and, well, there's a lot going on in his statement in addition to the bit I've highlighted, below:

“'...[C]learly Yael has been upset on occasion by the spirited enthusiasm I generally bring to my work,' Rush said in a statement. 'I sincerely and deeply regret if I have caused her any distress. This, most certainly, has never been my intention. When we performed in ‘The Diary Of A Madman’ 8 years ago, I believe we engaged in a journey as artistic comrades. Over the years we have shared correspondence that always contained a mutual respect and admiration. As I have said in the past, I abhor any behavior that might be considered as harassment or intimidation to anyone – whether in the workplace or any other environment.'”

What could that possibly mean, that a man said he was engaged on a "journey as artistic comrades" with a woman who accused him of sexual harassment? The "comrades" suggests equality, light-heartedness, and togetherness, but unequal power dynamics are built into every workplace and it's clear that Stone did not have the same sense of shared power and camaraderie that Rush suggests existed.

It's always a strange thing when men use rape culture tropes within their shitty #MeToo responses, but the notion that an abuser and a target are equally-witting conspirators in the target's debasement has long been one of rape culture's most enduring deceptions. When a response uses a trope, nonetheless, it at least demonstrates which crowd the accused is playing to - those who don't question the trope.

But here's a fun fact you won't see in any famous man's sorry-not-sorry-if-anyone-was-hurt letter:

Rape culture exists, in part, to grant ugly, powerful old dudes sexual access to young attractive people under the lie that such men are hot, sexually-desirable studs, rather than just possessive of some financial, physical, emotional, professional, and/or cultural power over their targets. And, a target's accommodation to this reality the man perceives as willingness (unless they're of the type that gets off on the unwillingness, which many are), when it's really just a need to exist within the parameters of whatever rape culture shithole the man has power.

In the #MeToo era, as women (primarily) continue to shine a light on the abuser who is also an artiste, and usually also a man, we keep having to have national conversations about the vital need to separate the art from the artist lest, perhaps, men become banned from creating art altogether or something. Don't forget, after all, lost artistic potential in men is a human rights violation of the first order. Lost potential in women is just another ho-hum day ending in a "y."

As men experience temporary or no consequences for their behavior unless, say, like Larry Nassar the tally of human beings they victimize numbers into the hundreds, I am increasingly disturbed by the backlash to #MeToo that demands a collective pretense that a man mistreating a woman is irrelevant to his professional character, competence, and integrity.

As women bare detail after detail of their traumas, the backlash crowd starts first from the assumption that cushy jobs are certain men's birthright and second from the assumption that even if women might have "experienced distress," the men's pain is simply the more compelling pain for us to concern ourselves with.

Of course, in that department, the men get a huge assist from the reality that, quite likely, women sharing their sexual traumas is jerk-off material for millions of men in this country who consume pornography centered around the degradation of women, including in all likelihood those who are helping shape public opinion about the "excesses" of #MeToo. Consider, that many of the high-profile #MeToo cases involve attractive, thin cishet white women is a reflection of the complicated reality that the pain of attractive, thin cishet white women matters more in the court of public opinion than other women's pain, that no woman is safe, and that a lot of misogynistic sadists exist in the US who love nothing more than reading about "hot" powerful, uppity women being humiliated.

So tell me, how, exactly, is art separate from the human beings who both create it and live, love, breathe, eat, sleep, laugh, fuck, rape, and terrorize within rape culture?

Rape culture rigs systems against women and is one of the most significant labor issues in the nation. If an artist isn't aware of, contemplating, and interrogating the power dynamics within the culture in which they live, then I believe they are infinitely more susceptible to replicating those power dynamics in their work and process, and because of that, I highly doubt such an artiste would be any woman's fucking comrade.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

I Write Letters

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

Dear Men Who Are Incessantly Whining That Holding Men Accountable for Sexual Harassment and Assault Is Making Life Too Difficult and Scary for Men:

I will make a deal with you.

I will start giving a single tiny fuck about your trembling fear of being falsely accused at any moment by a hysterical lying woman, who inexplicably wants to shove herself into the meat grinder of making a rape allegation, when you start caring, even a little, that women spend our lives vacillatingly suspended somewhere between conscious and subterranean terror by the ever-present threat of actually being sexually assaulted — and, further, that we are tasked with the aggressively unfair and genuinely impossible role of preventing said threat by obsessively following ever-changing and often contradictory rules we have no input in conceiving or enforcing, which are structured to govern and control every aspect of our existence, including what we wear; how we wear it; how we carry ourselves; where we walk; when we walk there; with whom we walk; whom we trust; what we do; where we do it; with whom we do it; what we drink; how much we drink; if we take drugs; what kind of drugs we take; making sure to monitor our drinks so no one can slip us drugs; whether we make eye contact; whether we smile; whether we respond to overtures; whether we rebuff overtures; the tone in which we reject advances; the facial expressions we use; being alone; being with a stranger; being in a group; being in a group of strangers; being out after dark; being in unfamiliar areas; whether we're carrying something; how we carry it; what kind of shoes we're wearing in case we have to run; what kind of purse we carry; what we carry in that purse; what jewelry we wear; what time it is; what street it is; what environment it is; whether we cross the street when we are being followed by a man we don't know; making sure we cross the street without suggesting we're "profiling" him and thus grievously insulting him with our inability to magically discern whether he's a danger to us; not taking any shit from our teachers, bosses, boyfriends, husbands, upstairs neighbors, mail carriers, police we called for help, judges determining our future, senators, president, random dudes on the bus, but also not doing anything that threatens the manhood of our teachers, bosses, boyfriends, husbands, upstairs neighbors, mail carriers, police we called for help, judges determining our future, senators, president, random dudes on the bus; how many people we sleep with; what kind of people we sleep with; who our friends are; to whom we give our number; what we post on social media; to whom we send private images; who's around when the delivery guy comes; getting an apartment where we can see who's at the door before they can see us; checking before we open the door to the delivery guy; owning a dog or a dog-sound-making machine; getting a roommate; taking self-defense; always being alert always paying attention always watching our back always being aware of our surroundings and never letting our guards down for a moment lest we be sexually assaulted and if we are and didn't follow all the rules it's our own fault.

And, on top of all of that (which is, regrettably, hardly a comprehensive compendium), we are meant to understand that it's an immense and unreasonable imposition on men to ask them to engage in sexual assault prevention by not sexually assaulting people.

Once you start caring about all that, then I'll care about your fee-fees.

J/k. I won't. I will never give an infinitesimal fuck that you feel squirmy because men who have done terrible things to women are being publicly exposed as the abusive sadists that they are, even in the event that you profess to care about the oppressive lives women are obliged to lead because of shitwheels like you.

I guess I'm the cunt you always said I was after all.

I'm good with that.

Contemptuously,
Liss

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 606

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: Brett Kavanaugh, Consent, and Listening to Survivors and Hurricane Florence, Part 5.

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

[Content Note: Sexual assault. Covers entire section.]

John Wagner and Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Kavanaugh Accuser Willing to Testify, Her Attorney Says; Judge Offers Fresh Denial. "An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh assaulted her when the two were in high school, said Monday that Ford is willing to testify about the allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'She is. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth,' lawyer Debra Katz said on NBC's Today show when asked whether her client would speak publicly about [Donald] Trump's Supreme Court nominee."

Asawin Suebsaeng, Gideon Resnick, and Sam Stein at the Daily Beast: Trump Believes There Is a 'Conspiracy' to Torpedo the Kavanaugh Nomination.

In the hours after a 51-year-old California professor came forward to publicly allege that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school, the White House signaled no interest in slowing Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

Instead, the president's team and his allies on and off the Hill began to mount a vigorous defense against the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, questioning why she had identified herself only now, and framing Kavanaugh's alleged behavior as almost commonplace in nature.

A senior White House official told The Daily Beast that, as of Sunday evening, things are still "full steam ahead" for Kavanaugh. On Friday afternoon, a different White House official confirmed that [Donald] Trump had been made aware of the earlier reports involving the Kavanaugh sexual-misconduct allegation — reports that did not name the accuser.

The president has told those close to him in recent days that he believes there is a "conspiracy" or organized effort by Democrats to smear Kavanaugh and try to derail the nomination of a "good man." One Trump confidant said Sunday that they "can't imagine that" Ford coming forward will change the president's position, and that it will far more likely cause Trump to dig in and attack those going after Kavanaugh.

*crawls into giant cannon; fires self directly into the sun*

The rotten crabapple, of course, does not fall far from the fetid tree:

I didn’t think this was real. The president’s son posted this on Instagram yesterday. The “🤣🙌” comment at the bottom is from senior HUD official @LynnePattonHUD. pic.twitter.com/nzRqMN0sIG

— andrew kaczynski🧐 (@KFILE) September 17, 2018

In other horrible rape culture news, Charlie Rose is the latest serial sex abuser who's getting the rehabilitation treatment, and now he's getting an assist from his good pal Michael Bloomberg, who has publicly questioned the veracity of the accusations against him.

Remember this shit if Michael Bloomberg thinks it's a good idea to run for president. "'The stuff I read about is disgraceful — I don’t know how true all of it is,' Mr. Bloomberg said of the #MeToo movement." https://t.co/nBFPK1nXyF

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 17, 2018

In fine (cough) company:

Sean Penn joins the ranks of dudes whose #MeToo hot take is that survivors are man-hating harpies. https://t.co/LL0XbtbSjA

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 17, 2018

And just as a reminder that misogyny is everywhere in politics, on both sides of the aisle, much to our collective chagrin:

Think of this the next time you hear a woman say we need women leaders. It's not because we hate men; it's because even the men who profess to be our allies hate us. https://t.co/y1RWZw1K0e

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 16, 2018

*jumps into fully one million Christmas trees*

* * *

Dennis Romero at NBC News: FEMA to Test 'Presidential Alert' System Next Week. "Next Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will do its first test of a system that allows the president to send a message to most U.S. cellphones. More than 100 mobile carriers, including all the major wireless firms, are participating in the roll out, FEMA stated in a message on its website posted Thursday. 'The EAS [Emergency Alert System] is a national public warning system that provides the President with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,' FEMA said." Fuck no. FUCK NO.

Danielle McLean at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Planning Further Trade War Escalations with China. "The Trump administration is planning to escalate the U.S. trade war with China by targeting around $200 billion in Chinese goods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move is expected to draw a reciprocal response from China, which will likely impose new retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exporters, especially farmers, the newspaper reported. ...The move is intended to give the U.S. leverage in planned high-level discussions with Beijing over its practice of demanding American companies turn over technology to do business in China. However, the new tariffs are expected ahead of the midterm elections and the holiday shopping season and will likely result in the increased costs on thousands of products for American consumers."

Raphael Satter at the AP: Leaked Docs Show Assange Bid for Russian Visa. "[In 2010, Assange] wrote to the Russian Consulate in London. 'I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to my friend, Israel Shamir, to both drop off and collect my passport, in order to get a visa,' said the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press. The Nov. 30, 2010, missive is part of a much larger trove of WikiLeaks emails, chat logs, financial records, secretly recorded footage, and other documents leaked to the AP. The files provide both an intimate look at the radical transparency organization and an early hint of Assange's budding relationship with Moscow. The ex-hacker's links to the Kremlin would become increasingly salient before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when the FBI says Russia's military intelligence agency directly supplied WikiLeaks with stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman and other Democratic figures." Yeah, that sounds about right.

* * *

[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Andrew Sheeler at the Sacramento Bee: Study Finds Undocumented Immigrants Have Less Reported Chronic Disease Than Documented Americans. "A new study challenges the political notion that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the U.S. health care system — in fact, they're much less likely to seek medical care at all, the study found. The four-year study, from Drexel University in Philadelphia and published in the journal Medical Care, relies on a California health survey and finds undocumented immigrants are using health care services at a lower rate than they did 15 years ago. 'There are significant disparities in access to and utilization of health care by legal authorizations status,' Alex Ortega, of Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health, said in a statement. 'And given the current political climate that is very hostile to immigration — especially from Latin America — we can only expect the disparities to get worse.'"

Dianne Solis at the Dallas News: ICE Is Ordering Immigrants to Appear in Court, But the Judges Aren't Expecting Them. "The orders to appear are not fake, but ICE apparently never coordinated or cleared the dates with the immigration courts. It's a phenomenon that appears to be popping up around the nation, with reports of 'fake dates' or 'dummy dates' in Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami. Some immigrants have even been given documents ordering them to be in court at midnight, on weekends, and on a date that doesn't exist: Sept. 31. The result, immigrant advocates say, is more 'chaos' in the heavily backlogged immigration court system. ...Neither ICE nor the court agency offered an explanation for the confusion."

[CN: Misogynist violence] Adolfo Flores and Grace Wyler at BuzzFeed: A Border Patrol Agent Has Been Arrested for Killing Four Women. "A US Border Patrol agent suspected of killing four women was arrested Saturday after a fifth woman escaped and notified law enforcement, who referred to the agent as a 'serial killer.' Juan David Ortiz, a supervisor for the Border Patrol, was arrested by the Texas Rangers early Saturday morning in relation to multiple homicides in and around Laredo, Texas. Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar confirmed in a statement that the 35-year-old had murdered the four victims within the past two weeks. Ortiz, a Navy veteran, had been with the US Customs and Border Protection agency for 10 years. ...Ortiz is the second Border Patrol agent from the Laredo sector accused of multiple murders this year. Ronald Burgos-Aviles, a 28-year-old Border Patrol agent, was arrested in April on two counts of capital murder, after reporting that he found the bodies of his girlfriend, 27-year-old Grizelda Hernandez, and her 1-year-old son Dominick Hernandez near a park in South Texas."

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[CN: Environmental toxins] Michael Biesecker at NBC4 Washington: Toxic Waste Sites in Florence's Path Under Close Watch. "Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Florence have caused a slope to collapse at a coal ash landfill at a closed power station outside Wilmington, North Carolina, Duke Energy officials confirmed. Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said Saturday evening that about 2,000 cubic yards (1,530 cubic meters) of ash, enough to fill roughly 180 dump trucks, have been displaced at the Sutton Plant and that contaminated storm water likely flowed into Sutton Lake, the plant's cooling pond. The company hasn't yet determined if the weir that drains the cooling pond was open or whether any contamination may have flowed into the swollen Cape Fear River."

[CN: Wildfires] Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Wildfires in Utah Rage On, Displacing More Than 6,000 People. "As of Saturday afternoon, the two fires had grown to cover a combined 86,107 acres, wreaking havoc on air quality around the state. The two fires — at Pole Creek and Bald Mountain in Utah and Juab counties, respectively — could be the most destructive in an already dangerous fire season, according to Gov. Gary Herbert (R). Among Herbert's concerns were the multitude of homes directly in the paths of the wildfires. As of Saturday evening, the fires were reportedly within half a mile of residences."

[CN: Death; displacement] Yessenia Funes at Earther: The Strongest Storm of the Year Shook Southeast Asia This Weekend.

Tropical Storm Mangkhut was on the move Monday as it made its way through Southeast Asia. The former Super Typhoon, which at its peak became the strongest storm to form on Earth this year so far, has been pummeling Hong Kong, Macau, and the Philippines all weekend.

Heavy rainfall from has triggered landslides throughout northern regions of the Philippines where Mangkhut struck on Saturday, and the government is blaming the mining industry — namely, small-scale mines that operate illegally. At least 34 miners who sought refuge in a bunker were discovered dead; another 30 are still missing, reports the Guardian. Now, President Rodrigo Duterte is calling for the halt of all mining activities, per Reuters.

In total, at least 64 people are dead in the Philippines, but Hurricane Maria in the U.S. taught us that death tolls can increase dramatically weeks or even months after a storm passes through.

Mangkhut's trail of destruction didn’t stop in the Philippines, however. The storm continued its way north, going on to strike Hong Kong and Macau on Sunday with 100 mph gusts.

...For the rest of the week, the China Meteorological Administration is forecasting heavy rains along the storm's projected path inland from the southeastern coast. Anywhere between four to six inches are expected to pour onto southern Chinese regions as the storm deteriorates.

As a reminder, I include extreme weather news in the We Resist thread, because all of these events are exacerbated by climate change, which is a human-made disaster that we must continue to fervently resist.

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

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

Brett Kavanaugh, Consent, and Listening to Survivors

[Content Note: Sexual assault; rape culture.]

On Friday, I wrote about the anonymous allegation that had been made against Brett Kavanaugh that he attempted to rape someone in high school. The story was that Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein had gotten a letter from the woman who had been assaulted by Kavanaugh but had not made it public, and the implication was that she concealed it because she didn't want it used against him, for some inexplicable reason.

A lot of people decided to immediately go after Feinstein, based on zero actual evidence of this nefarious plot — and despite all evidence to the contrary, given that Feinstein has generally been a reliable advocate for survivors. (For example.)

I was not convinced it went down the way far too many people reflexively believed that it did, not only because it seemed out of character for Feinstein to me, but also — and primarily — because I hadn't heard from the woman herself, and I had no idea what her actual wishes were regarding coming forward in a formal way.

And having spent a damn lot of years of working with and listening to survivors, I suspected that it did not go the way that people were keen to presume, because of their own various agendas, none of which had anything to do with actually caring about the human being who alleged that she had been harmed by Kavanaugh.

In a private conversation with colleagues on Friday, I wrote: "My guess — and it is entirely a guess, but based on many interactions I've had with survivors over the last 14 years — is that the woman reached out in good faith, and then when Feinstein told her what it would require for them to use the information, and what the Republicans would do in retaliation, she backed off. I don't see why else Democrats were meeting with her attorney."

Because that was my guess, I wrote the piece I did, urging people to consider that we hadn't heard from the woman, whose name we now know is Christine Blasey Ford, and urging caution about making assumptions about what happened.

Well, unfortunately, because this issue was made public without her consent, Ford has been obliged to publicly share her story about what happened then, and what happened now, and my guess was not far off, it seems.

Emma Brown at the Washington Post reports [please note there are descriptions of assault at the link]:

She contacted The Post through a tip line in early July, when it had become clear that Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of possible nominees to replace retiring justice Anthony M. Kennedy but before Trump announced his name publicly. A registered Democrat who has made small contributions to political organizations, she contacted her congresswoman, Democrat Anna G. Eshoo, around the same time. In late July, she sent a letter via Eshoo's office to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

In the letter, which was read to The Post, Ford described the incident and said she expected her story to be kept confidential. She signed the letter as Christine Blasey, the name she uses professionally.

Though Ford had contacted The Post, she declined to speak on the record for weeks as she grappled with concerns about what going public would mean for her and her family — and what she said was her duty as a citizen to tell the story.

She engaged Debra Katz, a Washington lawyer known for her work on sexual harassment cases. On the advice of Katz, who said she believed Ford would be attacked as a liar if she came forward, Ford took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent in early August. The results, which Katz provided to The Post, concluded that Ford was being truthful when she said a statement summarizing her allegations was accurate.

By late August, Ford had decided not to come forward, calculating that doing so would upend her life and probably would not affect Kavanaugh's confirmation. "Why suffer through the annihilation if it's not going to matter?" she said.

Her story leaked anyway. On Wednesday, the Intercept reported that Feinstein had a letter describing an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman while they were in high school and that Feinstein was refusing to share it with her Democratic colleagues.

...As the story snowballed, Ford said, she heard people repeating inaccuracies about her and, with the visits from reporters, felt her privacy being chipped away. Her calculation changed.

"These are all the ills that I was trying to avoid," she said, explaining her decision to come forward. "Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation."

Katz said she believes Feinstein honored Ford's request to keep her allegation confidential, but "regrettably others did not."

"Victims must have the right to decide whether to come forward, especially in a political environment that is as ruthless as this one," Katz said. "She will now face vicious attacks by those who support this nominee."

Emphases mine.

I am absolutely furious and deeply sad that Ford's story was made public without her consent, by an outlet whose editors don't give a single fuck about Ford, but were eager to dunk on Senator Feinstein. Fuck the Intercept forever, for not caring about Ford's consent any more than Brett Kavanaugh did.

And I am equally rageful and grieving that Ford ultimately made the entirely understandable calculation to not come forward, because she knew that it probably wouldn't have mattered — which is the consequence of being governed by a Republican majority whose members are as eager to tolerate sex predators in their ranks as they are to legislatively undermine women's consent and agency at every turn.

It doesn't say anything good about the GOP that their response to credible allegations against Kavanaugh is not to say, "No problem. We'll find you a candidate whom no one alleges to be an attempted rapist." That's because 1. They don't really GAF and 2. They might not have any.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 17, 2018

The thing is, men who make careers out of denying women their agency tend not to give a drip about our consent in interpersonal situations, either.

See, for example: The current Republican president.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 17, 2018

And now the Republican Party and their deplorable base will commence tearing Ford alive in the press, not only to try to discredit her, but also as a warning shot across the bow to any other women who Kavanaugh has harmed, who might consider coming forward to tell their stories.

This is what will happen to you if you dare.

I am sorry that Ford was put into this position without her consent, and I take up space in solidarity with her. I will do the same if there are any other women who will risk the gauntlet to tell their truth.

And I will listen to them. Not just to their stories, but to what they want and need from their fellow countrypeople.

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Quote of the Day

"If standing up for women who have been wronged makes George Soros mad, that's on him. But I won't hesitate to always do what I think is right. For nearly a year, we have seen countless acts of courage as women and men have spoken hard truths about sexual assault and sexual harassment and demanded accountability. I stand with them in this new watershed moment of important change in our society on what we deem as acceptable. It is clear that we must put our morals and the valuing of women ahead of party loyalty." — Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, quoted by Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post, in her terrific but infuriating piece, "Kirsten Gillibrand Pays the Price for Speaking out Against Al Franken."

Relatedly, my pal Dianna E. Anderson, who is a Minnesotan, published a great Twitter thread on this subject: "What this is, really, is a lot of people grasping for a reason to justify their misogyny. Plain and simple."

Indeed. What a depressingly familiar refrain.

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Trump Launches Racist, Sexist Attacks on Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren

[Content Note: Racism; sexism; rape joke.]

Last night, at another one of his Make America Clap for Me Again rallies in Great Falls, Montana, Donald Trump launched vile attacks against two of his most persistent critics: Rep. Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Not for the first time, Trump went after Waters by taking a dig at her intellect:

At another Make America Clap for Me Again rally, Trump launched yet another sexist, racist attack on @RepMaxineWaters. This is a horrendous debasement of the office of the presidency, and this is why @TheDemocrats should be ashamed of having lecturing Rep. Waters about civility. https://t.co/peY68yZP41

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) July 6, 2018

Transcript: I said it the other day, yes, she is a low IQ individual, Maxine Waters. I said it the other day. High — I mean, honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe.

[The crowd roars with laughter.]

And, also not for the first time, Trump went after Warren by taking a dig at her heritage, then amped it up by making a reference to sexual assault which mocks survivors:

Transcript: [to audience laughter throughout] So who's gonna cover — they're gonna cover Bernie? Hey! They're gonna cover, like, Sleepy Joe Biden? They're gonna cover Pocahontas?! Think of it. Think of it. She of the great tribal heritage. What tribe it is? "Uh, let me think about that one." Meantime, she's based her life on being a minority.

Pocahontas! They always want me to apologize for saying it. And I hereby — oh no, I want to apologize; I'll use tonight. Pocahontas, I apologize to you! I apologize. To you, I apologize. To the fake Pocahontas, I won't apologize.

No, it's causing her problems. You know, that name's good. Because now even the liberals are saying, "Take a test! Take a test!" You know, I'll tell ya — I shouldn't tell ya, 'cause I like not to give away secrets, but this one: Let's say I'm debating Pocahontas, right? I promise you I'll do this. I will take — you know those little kits they sell on television for two dollars? "Learn your heritage!" Guy says, "I was born in Scotland." It turns out he was born in Puerto Rico! That's okay. It's good. You know. Guy says, "I was born in Germany." Well, he wasn't born in Germany; he was born someplace else.

I'm gonna get one of those little kits, and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she's of Indian heritage, because her mother said she has high cheekbones — that's her only evidence; that her mother said she has high cheekbones — we will take that little kit and say — But we have to do it gently. Because we're in the Me Too generation. So we have to be very gentle.

[mimes tossing a DNA kit at Warren] And we will very gently take that kit, and we will slowly toss it, hoping it doesn't hit her and injure her arm. Even though it only weighs probably...two ounces!

And we will say, "I will give you a million dollars, to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an Indian." You know. [audience cheers] And let's see what she does, right? I have a feeling she will say no. But we'll hold that for the debates.

Do me a favor — keep it within this room? 'Cause I don't want to give away any secrets. And the press is very honorable; they won't — [points at press] Please don't tell her what I just said. [laughter]

I don't have anything to say in response to this vile man and his gross attacks beyond what I already said on Twitter: How about no one lectures me about civility ever the fuck again.

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And the Award for Worst Take on #MeToo Goes to...

JOHN TRAVOLTA! Who, presumably, would like to thank his family and whatever heavy object knocked him on his head before this trash fell out of his face. [Content Note: Rape apologia.]

John Travolta doesn't do a lot of interviews. But at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of his mob drama Gotti, in which he plays embattled mafia don John Gotti, the Oscar-nominated actor sat for a two-hour conversation as part of the festival's master class series, dubbed "Rendez-vous with."

The event was moderated by a French journalist who largely asked fawning questions about Travolta's résumé, asking the actor to go into detail about what it was like to become famous after Saturday Night Fever and whether or not he knew Pulp Fiction was going to be a hit.

The moderator did, however, ask Travolta about his feelings on the #MeToo movement and "what's happening in Hollywood right now" — a conversation, of course, that has been a big topic at Cannes, where 82 women marched on the festival's red carpet to highlight the lack of female filmmaker representation over the years and festival director Thierry Frémaux signed a charter pledging the festival would, among other things, take steps toward gender parity on its executive board.

"I honestly don't know a ton about it, because I try my best to keep people equal — men, women, races," Travolta responded. "My father was brilliant at it. He had a global viewpoint. I'm a citizen of the globe, and I'm a citizen of groups and people."

He segued into the topic of protest, saying he typically viewed it as a "last resort," and questioned its usefulness.

"Protest is valid. But how do you measure — how do you differentiate the moment where it becomes invalid?" Travolta asked. "It's an art, almost, to say, 'OK, let's protest, but we've achieved that here and these particular rights. Now, let's get smart about how we use that … protest so it doesn't get into an irrational perspective.' If we go back to the humanities of being each other's friends and wanting and caring at a deep level, then we'll make it. But it's a dwindling spiral out there."

There was no follow-up.

HOW WAS THERE NO FOLLOW-UP TO THAT?! How does a journalist hear that arble-garble word salad of ignorant nonsense and NOT HAVE A FOLLOW-UP?!

Like: "Wait a moment, Mr. Travolta. Are you suggesting that (mostly but not exclusively) women protesting endemic sexual violence could reach the point of invalidity, even while sexual violence remains endemic?"

Or: "Pardon me, Mr. Travolta, but can I clarify that you just suggested 'being each other's friends and wanting and caring at a deep level' is the solution to sexual harassment and sexual assault, and is that suggestion exclusively directed at THE PERPETRATORS OF HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT?"

Or maybe: "Johnny Trav, what in the love of Xenu's volcanoes are you even talking about?"

The only acceptable words that could have followed "I honestly don't know a ton about it" are "therefore, I'm not going to say anything. But thank you for the question, which is a reminder that I should really take the time to educate myself, so I don't sound like a dipshit the next time I'm asked about this incredibly sensitive and important subject."

[H/T to Kaiser.]

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"I don't have enough for a lawsuit, but I do have enough for a broken heart/spirit."

[Content Note: Rape culture; misogyny; objectification; body policing; fat hatred; diet talk.]

This essay by Ally Sheedy, "Stasis," from the new book Not That Bad: Dispatches From Rape Culture, a collection of essays edited by Roxane Gay, is a must-read. Following is just a brief excerpt:

It did not matter that I did a good job on auditions, that I was smart, that I had natural ability. My thighs were the "thing."

So I dieted. All. The. Time. I learned that whatever I might contribute to a role through talent would be instantly marginalized by my physical appearance. I learned that my success would be dependent on what the men in charge thought about my face and my body. Everything I had learned back home had to go out the window as I adapted to these new requirements: what I looked like was paramount.

It wasn't even just whether I was pretty or thin; it was that I wasn't sexy. When I managed to land my first part in a big movie, I was given a ThighMaster as a welcome present and told to squeeze it between my legs at least a hundred times a day. A director of photography told me he couldn't shoot me "looking like that" when I walked on set one day. He said it in front of the whole crew. I was too wide, I guess, in the skirt they had given me to wear.

A few years later, I was told point-blank that my career was moving slowly because "nobody wants to fuck you."

...I'm still navigating the sexual appearance standard in professional work. When I am called to consider a role or audition for a role in TV/Hollywood Land, my talent is never in question. The "studio" or the "network" wants me on tape to see what I look like now.

I was never alone in a hotel room with Harvey Weinstein, but I've been at "dinners" that felt like come-ons and I've walked into rooms where I've been sized up and then received phone calls or "date" requests that I've turned down.

Today, if the producer or executive or male director in charge finds me sexually attractive, then I'm on the list. This is how it goes. This is how it IS. If the Harvey Weinstein disaster illustrates anything at all, it illustrates the entirety of the power structure. The lurid details of his rapes are disgusting and yet a shield, in a way, for the greater toxicity of that power structure.

There is so, so much more at the link, and I highly recommend heading over to read the whole thing.

One of the most heartbreaking things about reading this essay is knowing that @allysheedy1 was being demeaned for not being "sexy" enough, while I was a kid watching War Games, Breakfast Club etc. & finding in her work a place where I belonged and a way to value myself as a girl.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 12, 2018

What did I care how sexy Ally Sheedy was when I was watching her be cool and tough and weird and sweet? It didn't escape my notice that she was frequently cast as the girlfriend of the person who got to be the star, and it didn't escape my understanding, even as a child, that that was not a choice she could control. Virtually all the girls I liked were the girlfriend.

But if the Men Who Make Movies were casting her for her thighs, Sheedy imbued her characters with a complex humanity that captivated me. Not that it matters. Girls being captivated by other girls and women onscreen has never been the reason that men make movies.

Which is the cost of objectification to us all — the girls and women who act in movies, and the girls and women who watch them.

We all deserve better.

We all deserve to live in a world in which girls and women are genuine equals of men, in screen-time and complexity and pay and respect; where they are given characters of consequence to play; where they are cast in those roles for their talents alone; where they have equal opportunity to create and write and direct characters of consequence; where we are given abundant chances to watch them; where we all get to see ourselves represented onscreen, in characters who are more than objects or plot devices or sidekicks or tokens.

We all deserve to live in a world where girls and women feel safe participating in any industry that utilizes our labor.

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NY AG Schneiderman Accused of Assault; Resigns

[Content Note: Descriptions of assault.]

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has doggedly pursued Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump, among others, was accused last night by four women of assault.

Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow at the New Yorker report:

As his prominence as a voice against sexual misconduct has risen, so, too, has the distress of four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters. They accuse Schneiderman of having subjected them to nonconsensual physical violence. All have been reluctant to speak out, fearing reprisal.

But two of the women, Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam, have talked to The New Yorker on the record, because they feel that doing so could protect other women. They allege that he repeatedly hit them, often after drinking, frequently in bed and never with their consent. Manning Barish and Selvaratnam categorize the abuse he inflicted on them as "assault."

They did not report their allegations to the police at the time, but both say that they eventually sought medical attention after having been slapped hard across the ear and face, and also choked. Selvaratnam says that Schneiderman warned her he could have her followed and her phones tapped, and both say that he threatened to kill them if they broke up with him. (Schneiderman's spokesperson said that he "never made any of these threats.")

A third former romantic partner of Schneiderman's told Manning Barish and Selvaratnam that he also repeatedly subjected her to nonconsensual physical violence, but she told them that she is too frightened of him to come forward. (The New Yorker has independently vetted the accounts that they gave of her allegations.)

A fourth woman, an attorney who has held prominent positions in the New York legal community, says that Schneiderman made an advance toward her; when she rebuffed him, he slapped her across the face with such force that it left a mark that lingered the next day. She recalls screaming in surprise and pain, and beginning to cry, and says that she felt frightened. She has asked to remain unidentified, but shared a photograph of the injury with The New Yorker.

In a statement, Schneiderman said, "In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross."

As Andi Zeisler noted on Twitter: "This shouldn't even need to be said but: Kink is a two-way street. It's not just whatever you decide it is." Exactly so.

Schneiderman resigned after publication of the allegations last night, issuing a brief statement: "While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office's work at this critical time. I therefore resign my office, effective at the close of business on May 8, 2018."

The old "these false allegations have become a distraction" chestnut. Oh.

Schneiderman is the latest in a long line of liberal men who have publicly championed women's rights and safety while privately harming women, including fellow New York public servants Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner.

It is profoundly disappointing that yet another man who invited women to trust him betrayed that trust.

I'm having a lot of thoughts about this. Among them are: GODDAMMIT. And: We can't trust men to fix this. And: The fact that this is coming out at the same time as the Black Cube stuff seems like a message: We've got dirt. We'll release it. https://t.co/WjR3WfGMeK

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 7, 2018

Anyone who positions themselves as a pursuer of Donald Trump and/or his family and/or his associates has to be a better person than Trump. If they can't even manage even that low bar, they need to get the fuck out of the way for people who can.

I take up space in solidarity with Schneiderman's victims.

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Junot Diaz Accused of Sexual Assault

[Content Note: Sexual assault/harassment.]

Last month, writer Junot Diaz wrote a widely-shared piece for the New Yorker about having survived childhood sexual violence. I linked the piece here, without comment, because I thought it was an important piece, but I also struggled with what I thought was suggestion, without acknowledgment, that Diaz had been sexually abusive himself in his adulthood.

And, unfortunately, my suspicions were correct.

As a grad student, I invited Junot Diaz to speak to a workshop on issues of representation in literature. I was an unknown wide-eyed 26 yo, and he used it as an opportunity to corner and forcibly kiss me. I'm far from the only one he's done this 2, I refuse to be silent anymore.

— zinziclemmons (@zinziclemmons) May 4, 2018

Many people will be quick to make the point that survivors of childhood abuse sometimes abuse others, because they have been entrained to regard abuse as normal. This is a true thing. But.

Most survivors of sexual violence don't violate other people. And those who do are still responsible for their own harmful actions, even if their abusers are simultaneously responsible for the reverberating harm they caused.

And Diaz did not own his assault(s) in his piece. That is a critical point. To the contrary, there is now the appearance that he confessed his own abuse as a preemptive deflection of accusations against him he may have rightly suspected were imminent.

Indeed, when Bina Shah asked, "Do you think he was trying to pre-empt this from coming out with the essay he wrote in the New Yorker about being raped as a child? Like Kevin Spacey's 'I'm gay' diversion?", Zinzi Clemmons replied frankly: "Yes. And so do many of my colleagues."

That preemption also, of course, created a context in which his victims now have to face all the regular blowback faced by any person publicly alleging abuse against a prominent figure, and additionally will have to weather the criticism of levying allegations against someone who is himself a victim.

Which brings me to this: I take up space in solidarity with Clemmons, and the others, those who will tell their stories and those who won't, who were victimized by Diaz. I am so desperately sorry he was abused; I am so angry he abused others.

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Charlie Rose: 27 More Women Report Harassment

[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault.]

In November of last year, eight women came forward with allegations that newsman Charlie Rose had sexually harassed and/or assaulted them.

After the story broke, I noted that an allegation against Rose was first made in 2007:

It was fully 10 years in between a single victim coming forward and multiple victims. Something to consider for the "I'll only believe it when there are multiple victims" brigade. Ten years is a lot of time to hurt a lot of women. pic.twitter.com/oRqJL4HJFK

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 20, 2017

As I have previously written, one of the costs of disbelieving survivors is that their abuser will be left free to create more victims.

The Charlie Rose story, it turns out, is a perfect, terrible example of that very dynamic.

Amy Brittain and Irin Carmon at the Washington Post report:

Incidents of sexual misconduct by Charlie Rose were far more numerous than previously known, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post, which also found three occasions over a period of 30 years in which CBS managers were warned of his conduct toward women at the network.

An additional 27 women — 14 CBS News employees and 13 who worked with him elsewhere — said Rose sexually harassed them. Concerns about Rose's behavior were flagged to managers at the network as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017, when Rose was co-anchor of "CBS This Morning," according to multiple people with firsthand knowledge of the conversations.

...The first instance identified by The Post in which a CBS News employee said a manager was told of Rose's conduct was in 1986, when he was filling in as an anchor on "CBS Morning News."

There, Annmarie Parr, a 22-year-old news clerk, delivered a script to Rose. He had made "lewd, little comments" about her appearance before, Parr said, but that day Rose took it further. "Annmarie, do you like sex?" she said he asked her. "Do you enjoy it? How often do you like to have sex?" She said she laughed nervously and left.

Parr said she reported Rose's comments to her boss — a senior producer whom she declined to name — and said she didn't want to be alone with Rose. The producer laughed, Parr said, and told her, "Fine, you don't have to be alone with him anymore."

Although 1986 was the earliest year Brittain and Carmon could identify that an official report was made to a manager about Rose's behavior, they found that his harassment and assault dated back at least a decade earlier: "The new allegations against Rose date to 1976, when, according to a former research assistant, he exposed his penis and touched her breasts in the NBC News Washington bureau where they worked."

Rose was allowed to harass and assault female colleagues with impunity for 42 years.

I am 43 years old. This man has been abusing women with whom he works for nearly the entire time I've been alive, and yet every single executive at CBS incredibly claims they had no idea.

Rose, meanwhile, responded to the new allegations via email with a single sentence: "Your story is unfair and inaccurate."

The story is not unfair. Its subject matter, however, is breathtakingly so.

I take up space in solidarity with Charlie Rose's victims.

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America Hates Honest Women

[Content Note: Misogyny; white supremacy.]

When I say honest here, I don't mean it in the idiomatic sense of "married." I mean it in the sense of "tells it like it is." You know, that trait that many people claim to revere, but in actuality only applaud it when certain people look like they're doing it?

In 1983, in her social critique How to Suppress Women's Writing, Joanna Russ wrote about the informal ways used to erase women's writing, opinions, and, more broadly, women themselves from the public sphere:

If certain people are not supposed to have the ability to produce 'great' literature, and if this supposition is one of the means used to keep such people in their place, the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which such people are prevented from producing any literature at all. But a formal prohibition gives the game away — that is, if the peasants are kept illiterate, it will occur to somebody sooner or later that illiteracy absolutely precludes written literature, whether such literature be good or bad; and if significant literature can by definition be produced only in Latin, the custom of not teaching Latin to girls will again, sooner or later, cause somebody to wonder what would happen if the situation were changed.

...In a nominally egalitarian society the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which the members of the 'wrong' groups have the freedom to engage in literature (or equally significant activities), and yet do not do so, thus proving that they can't. But alas, give them the least real freedom and they will do it. The trick thus becomes to make the freedom as nominal a freedom as possible and then — since some of the so-and-so's will do it anyway — develop various strategies for ignoring, condemning, or belittling the artistic works that result. If properly done, these strategies result in a social situation in which the 'wrong' people are (supposedly) free to commit literature, art, or whatever, but very few do, and those who do (it seems) do it badly, so we can all go home to lunch.

In this quote, Russ makes the salient point that mechanisms of suppression are often effective and persistent precisely because of their informal nature. The very informality shields these mechanisms from intense scrutiny and critique because, after all, people can point to a law that technically does not prohibit an action and say, "You already have equality, so what's the problem?"

Meanwhile, informal pressures act as barriers to actual equality. These informal mechanisms are, oftentimes, the readymade cultural narratives which are at people's disposal — many of which (in Russ' view) don't even require active, conscious bigotry — to use in service of subordinating others.

Inequality is and has been the status quo in the United States of America, since its founding. A closely related thought, to borrow a phrase from Melissa, is that "There is no neutral in rape culture." 

This status quo was built by men who founded a political system premised on equality but imbued with contradictions in which certain groups were specifically excluded from participation and enslaved, killed, and kept in a state of subordination. The status quo, despite equality laws being on the books, was maintained not just by our government's consistent failure to acknowledge and atone for past wrongdoing, but by widespread public resentment at the very notion of acknowledging these wrongdoings, as well as politicians and pundits who coddle that resentment. See, for instance, a new lynching memorial in Alabama that leaves some locals "seething" because, per one resident, "It's bringing up bullshit."

When it comes to "telling it like it is," a significant portion of the citizenry would simply prefer that we not, at least when it comes to injustice.

A particular narrative about honesty and injustice exists for women, one that proves to be quite the riddle:

• On the one hand, women are deceptive shrews and should be more honest;
• On the other hand, when women are honest, they're selfish, uppity, reputation-destroying hags.

It's not difficult to grasp the resulting conclusion to this unsolvable dilemma: A woman should probably not speak at all, particularly in the public sphere, about politics, and/or in subversion of white male dominance. Speech that is not honest, but that works in collusion with injustice, is a path of lesser resistance, for many.

Looking first at the feminist revival/backlash we're currently in, let's take #MeToo, which has been an important cultural moment for survivors of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. Some survivors find that speaking one's truth can, itself, confer dignity and help with the healing process. What is less clear at the moment is the extent to which the consequences for rapists, abusers, and predators will or will not be significant and lasting.

I suppose it was inevitable for "men these days are scared of even being alone with women, man" opinions to be a thriving genre of opining, never-you-mind the stories of millions of women who have lived in actual terror of male predators for millenia. (See also, "there is no neutral in rape culture.") But, thus far, a handful of wealthy and high-profile men have been fired and retreated to their mansions to endure temporary(?) reputation blemishes, as they seemingly plot their redemption arcs.

Editor Tina Brown, for instance, has stated that Charlie Rose, whom eight women accused of sexual harassment, approached her to produce a #MeToo series starring himself, interviewing other men accused of sexual misbehavior. (Per Brown, she declined).  And yet, why in a multiverse already saturated with pro-rape devil's advocacy would anyone care about such a TV show but for the readymade, culturally-ingrained narrative that men's feelings matter much, much more than women's actual truths?

More recently, when Tom Brokaw was accused of sexual harassment, he released a rant against his accuser that somehow manages to be almost as bad as the actual allegations. And, in one of the worst and more stupid genre of letters ever conceived ("the collusion letter of support"?), 115 women from NBC signed a letter supporting Brokaw, some of whom reported having felt pressue to sign it.

Because, well, of course.

Authenticity and honesty are often demanded from women, but only if it coddles male power. If a woman can't authentically do that, she is pressured to fake it and then she's rewarded for doing so. Not legally, usually. But informally, so that it looks entirely of her own volition, even though with every predator exposed comes with it a status-quo, cultural whisper, "How about now? Has #MeToo — has this woman's truth — gone too far this time?" Because, for too long such things have been measured not by the pain of those who have been raped or harassed, but by the anxiety, fear, and pain of abusers.

This past weekend, as another example, the press was ass-over-heels on its collective fainting couch because a woman, Michelle Wolf, made subversive, critical jokes about a grotesque, startlingly dishonest, immoral, bigoted, and incompetent Republican administration. What really induced some prominent pundits to get a bad case of the vapors was this joke:

I actually really like Sarah [Huckabee Sanders]. I think she's very resourceful. Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like, maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies.

It's probably lies.

The joke was widely, disingenuously portrayed as Wolf "mocking" Sanders' appearance, but it was actually a riff on a make-up company slogan combined with the objective fact that Sanders lies to the American people, a lot, on behalf of a president who lies an average of 5.5 times per day.

Wolf told it like it was and she shouldn't have!

Mika Brzezinski, of MSNBC (which Trump has called "fake news"), tweeted that she "hurt" for Sanders. Kyle Cheney at Politico called Wolf "unnecessarily cruel." Jeff Zeleny, of CNN (which Trump has also called "fake news"), called the performance "an embarrassment." And, to top it off, the White House Correspondents Association released a statement bemoaning Wolf's lack of civility at an event at which politicians, the media, and pundits are routinely and historically roasted.

There is something so absurd — so Orwellian — about the political press on which we informally rely to hold power to account bemoaning a comedian's purported lack of civility toward a remarkably dishonest presidential administration that it almost defies definition. I keep coming back to misogyny and, specifically, American's hatred for honest women. And that seems to fit well enough.

Finally, no piece about America's hatred of honest women would be complete without referencing the asinine trend of "Hillary go away" pieces that have been published with clockwork regularity since the 2016 election.

I don't know what can be said that hasn't been said in this space already about this genre of misogyny, but for now, just compare, contrast, and keep in mind that it's now May of 2018.

Via The Atlantic:

And, via The Week, regarding the man who was defeated by the above-referenced woman:

The line to do a cannonball into the nearest volcano begins right here, folks. For, the gist of the Clinton piece is that, while, yes, Clinton is warning us about ongoing threats to our national sovereignty (i.e., being honest), it really is time for her to "stop whining." Yes. Really.

And why? Because American fucking hates honest women.

History is not going to look kindly on reporters and publications who couldn't tell (or refused to acknowledge) the difference between @HillaryClinton "whining" and warning us urgently about the threats to our national sovereignty. https://t.co/rGwEUGaee3

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 1, 2018

Now, yes, it is true that women in this country are hated for a never-ending, ever-shifting list of reasons. But a common thread that I see in all of the above recent news items is a very specific hatred of women who tell the truth. (Clinton, if you remember, was rated as objectively more honest than both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, although widely viewed as more dishonest than both. And, I still maintain that there's no lie in her widely-reviled "deplorables" comment.)

All of this is to say that a woman may be legally free to accurately charge a man with rape, roast dishonest public officials, or have the temerity to warn her nation about ongoing threats to democracy, but when she does so, it's made abundantly clear to them — and all the women and little girls watching — that she shouldn't have.

In fact, the readymade narrative goes, if a woman won't collude, she ought to be silenced so we can focus back in on the men in the story.

And, hey, I hear there are going to be some good ones come 2020.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!