Shakesville: Christian Supremacy

Showing posts with label Christian Supremacy. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 882

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

The Trump administration argued in front of a Ninth Circuit panel Tuesday that the government is not required to give soap or toothbrushes to children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border and can have them sleep on concrete floors in frigid, overcrowded cells, despite a settlement agreement that requires detainees be kept in "safe and sanitary" facilities.

All three judges appeared incredulous during the hearing in San Francisco, in which the Trump administration challenged previous legal findings that it is violating a landmark class action settlement by mistreating undocumented immigrant children at U.S. detention facilities.

"You're really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn't a question of 'safe and sanitary conditions?'" U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department's Sarah Fabian Tuesday.

U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher also questioned the government's interpretation of the settlement agreement.

"Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do anything other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you've got an aluminum foil blanket?" Fletcher asked Fabian. "I find that inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary."

The panel has yet to issue its ruling, but it doesn't look good for the Trump Regime. (Thankfully.) Which, of course, is why Mitch McConnell is stacking the courts with unqualified hacks that will affirm their malice as quickly as he can.

On Twitter, former director of the Office of Government Ethics Walt Schaub notes: "The government attorney, Sarah Fabian, who doesn't think [that] children need soap or toothbrushes, is the same attorney who refused to work over a weekend to address the crisis: 'I have dog-sitting responsibilities that require me to go back to Colorado but I will be back Monday.'"

This is an entire administration of sociopathic wrecks.

[CN: Nativism] At the intersection of the Trump Regime's nativism and trade warring... Neha Dasgupta and Aditya Kalra at Reuters: U.S. Tells India It Is Mulling Caps on H-1B Visas to Deter Data Rules. "The United States has told India it is considering caps on H-1B work visas for nations that force foreign companies to store data locally, three sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, widening the two countries' row over tariffs and trade. The plan to restrict the popular H-1B visa program, under which skilled foreign workers are brought to the United States each year, comes days ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to New Delhi. India, which has upset companies such as Mastercard and irked the U.S. government with stringent new rules on data storage, is the largest recipient of these temporary visas, most of them to workers at big Indian technology firms."

[CN: Nativism; child abuse; homophobia; Christian Supremacy] Scott Bixby at the Daily Beast: Lesbian Couple Barred from Fostering Migrant Kids. "Bryn Esplin and Fatma Marouf knew early into their marriage that they wanted a family. But when early attempts with in vitro fertilization were unsuccessful, the couple started exploring serving as foster parents, opening their home to child refugees held in increasingly draconian conditions by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). ...When they approached a local child-welfare organization contracted by the federal government to help find homes for some of the thousands of migrant and refugee children in the department's care, however, Esplin and Marouf were told that they didn't qualify — not because they couldn't provide a loving home for a child fleeing oppression abroad, but because, as a same-sex couple, their lifestyle doesn't 'mirror the Holy Family.'" (In good news, they sued and won.)

[CN: War on agency] Alice Miranda Ollstein at Politico: Appeals Court Says Trump Family Planning Restrictions Can Take Effect. "A federal appeals court this morning said the Trump administration's family planning rules can take effect nationwide while several lawsuits play out, delivering a major blow to Planned Parenthood and states challenging the overhaul. ...A panel of three judges, all appointed by previous Republican presidents, said the administration will likely prevail in the legal battle over the Title X family planning program since the Supreme Court held up similar Reagan-era rules almost 30 years ago, though they were reversed by the Clinton administration."

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Justice Alito Just Wrote the Most Terrifying Sentence to Appear in a Supreme Court Opinion in Years. "[T]he fifth vote to maintain SORNA's basic structure came from Justice Samuel Alito. His opinion concurring in the result is just three paragraphs long, and it contains this portentous sentence: 'If a majority of this Court were willing to reconsider the approach we have taken for the past 84 years, I would support that effort.' ...Congress' power to delegate regulatory authority to agencies is a backbone of American law. ...Had Congress known that the Supreme Court would pull this rug out from under it, it may have written some of these laws differently. ...But Congress acted on the assumption that the Supreme Court would not someday be held by nihilist revolutionaries."

[CN: Christian Supremacy] Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: Supreme Court Rules That Maryland 'Peace Cross' Honoring Military Dead May Remain on Public Land. "The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a 40-foot cross erected as a tribute to war dead may continue to stand on public land in Maryland, rejecting arguments that it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. ...Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the main opinion and said history and tradition must be taken into account when judging modern objections to monuments on public land. 'The cross is undoubtedly a Christian symbol, but that fact should not blind us to everything else that the Bladensburg Cross has come to represent,' Alito wrote." WHUT.

Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Inquirer: Did Russian Hackers Make 2016 NC Voters Disappear? Why Won't We Stop This for 2020?

In the end, we'll never know how folks went home and didn't vote in North Carolina, a key swing state that Trump won by 173,000 votes — and that's neither the only mystery about what happened in Durham, nor the biggest. Just days before the 2016 voting, Greenhalgh and other activists had heard the first reports that Russian operatives had tried to hack into an election technology company called VR Systems. She wondered that day if VR Systems was Durham's vendor.

It was.

Incredibly, it is just now — 32 long months after North Carolina's Election Day snafus — that officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have finally launched a serious probe into the possibility that Russian hackers crashed the computers or altered data that caused those crushing lines. DHS investigators are launching a forensic analysis of those laptops that crashed in Durham County — an effort that North Carolina officials had requested a year and a half ago.

Even more incredible: We might never have gotten here were it not for the actions of a heroic whistleblower — Reality Winner, who leaked federal intelligence about the VR Systems hack when most key state officials knew nothing about it, and who has been prosecuted, imprisoned, and held incommunicado by the Justice Department for her efforts — and the diligence of special counsel Robert Mueller, who confirmed a successful malware plant by Russian agents.

Now here's the most incredible part: U.S. election systems could be every bit as vulnerable to outside monkey business in the 2020 presidential election, because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP lawmakers are refusing to vote on critical election security bills that would provide federal dollars and support to local election systems to upgrade cybersecurity, as well as requiring paper ballots and audits that would ensure the integrity of the vote.

Republicans are democracy killers. And the entire party, in failing to prevent foreign interference in future elections, is colluding with any foreign interlopers who decide to interfere.

This is a national security nightmare! Is everyone in this admin is a possible Russian intelligence target?! She is compromised. The RUSSIANS knew. We didn’t. https://t.co/r6AhadWyHP
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) June 19, 2019

Josh Kovensky at TPM: FBI Conducting Criminal Probe of Deutsche Bank Money Laundering Lapses. "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has an active criminal probe into whether Deutsche Bank broke anti-money laundering laws, the New York Times reports. Agents have reportedly tried to establish contact with a former Deutsche Bank compliance employee who sounded the alarm about transactions made by Kushner Companies, the family business of [Donald] Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser, Jared Kushner. Those transactions purportedly involved money that was sent to Russian entities. The bank reportedly did not file suspicious activity reports with the Treasury Department, as would have been required by law."

Miranda Bryant at the Guardian: Ivanka Trump's 2020 Tweet Violated Hatch Act, Watchdog Says. "Ivanka Trump has been accused of violating the Hatch Act, which bans government workers from speaking out on political campaign issues, over a tweet she wrote before her father's 2020 presidential campaign launch. The influential Washington-based watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint against Donald Trump's daughter, a senior presidential aide who works in the White House as an adviser, albeit unsalaried." It would be great if this mattered. It won't.

* * *

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: U.S May Have to Spend over $400 Billion on Seawalls by 2040 to Protect Itself from Rising Seas. "A new report has predicted that the U.S. will have to spend $416bn on seawalls in the next 20 years in order to protect itself from rising seas. The report comes from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI.) Florida is likely to face the highest bill of $76bn by 2040, according to the research, followed by Louisiana which has a projected bill of $38bn, then North Carolina which stands to pay $35bn. 'I don't think anybody's thought about the magnitude of this one small portion of overall adaptation costs and it's a huge number,' said Richard Wiles, executive director of the CCI. 'So the question is: Who's going to pay for that? Is it really going to be taxpayers? The current position of climate polluters is that they should pay nothing, and that's just not tenable.'" Build those walls.

[CN: Water insecurity; video may autoplay at link] Jessie Yeung and Swati Gupta at CNN: India Is Running Out of Water. "Millions of people are running out of usable water in the southern Indian city of Chennai, which is currently experiencing major droughts and a rapidly worsening water crisis. At least 550 people were arrested Wednesday in the city of Coimbatore for protesting with empty water containers in front of the municipal government's headquarters, accusing officials of negligence and mismanagement. Meanwhile, four reservoirs that supply Chennai, the state capital and India's sixth largest city, have run nearly dry."

Maram Ahmed at the World Economic Forum: How Climate Change Exacerbates the Refugee Crisis — and What Can Be Done About It. "Climate-induced displacement is on the rise. Last year, climate-related factors resulted in the displacement of around 16.1 million people. It is estimated that, by 2050, between 150 to 200 million people are at risk of being forced to leave their homes as a result of desertification, rising sea levels, and extreme weather conditions. ...It is the world's most vulnerable people who are made to bear the brunt of climate change, though they are the least responsible for causing it, and are ill-equipped to deal with the consequences. ...Climate change induced migration is adding a new layer of complexity to the area of gender, as women and girls are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change impacting education, maternal health, and gender-based violence."

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We Resist: Day 840

It was a day like any other at the West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa. In a nondescript office park, abortion clinic escorts shielded incoming patients from the graphic signs and verbal abuse of anti-choice protesters gathered across the clinic’s private parking lot.

On Tuesday around 8:15 a.m., a Toyota SUV that had been spray-painted black pulled into the lot. There, the driver exchanged words with a volunteer escort before backing the SUV into her side. She yelled at the driver to get away from her. He yelled back, threatening to hit her a second time, then put the car in reverse again to do so. She moved out of the way; the driver swung the vehicle around and left.

...[Helmi Henkin — chair of the clinic escort group West Alabama Clinic Defenders and Alabama's only statewide abortion fund, the Yellowhammer Fund] recognized the suspect as an anti-choice person who had previously threatened clinic escorts. But Tuscaloosa police did not take their previous reports seriously, Henkin said.

...The attack comes as Alabama Republicans are trying to pass HB 314, a bill to criminalize abortion providers. Dubbed the "Human Life Protection Act," the bill passed the GOP-controlled house last Tuesday. Nearly all Democratic house members walked out in protest.

The anti-choice bill would make it a crime for doctors to perform abortions at any stage of pregnancy, unless the person's life is in danger. A doctor caught performing an abortion would face up to 99 years in prison; attempted abortion would carry a sentence of up to ten years.

Anti-choice terrorism is one of the most common forms of terrorism in the United States, and it's also one of the least discussed. The political press renders it almost entirely invisible, despite the fact that it is brazenly waged, the coordination and orchestration done right out in the open. It is an inherently violent ideology, backed by a decades-long campaign of intimidation, harassment, and violence directed at abortion providers and abortion seekers. And the sitting president is actively stoking the flames.

* * *

Paul Farhi at the Washington Post: White House Imposes New Rules on Reporters' Credentials, Raising Concerns About Access.

The White House has implemented new rules that it says will cut down on the number of journalists that hold "hard" passes, the credentials that allow reporters and technicians to enter the grounds without seeking daily permission.

The new policy has been met with some confusion and even worry among journalists, some of whom suspect that the ultimate aim is to keep critics in the press away from the White House and [Donald] Trump.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders explicitly denied that, saying the changes were prompted by security concerns, not to punish journalists. "No one's access is being limited," she said Wednesday night.

Yeah, well, she's a professional liar, so.

I guess now that it's clear there are no penalties for GOP lawbreaking, they think it's safe for Don Jr. to come and lie under oath. https://t.co/YIKUsgVPZI
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 8, 2019

Wesley Morgan at Politico: McMaster Blasts Former Colleagues as 'Danger to the Constitution'. "Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster accused some of his former White House colleagues on Wednesday of being 'a danger to the Constitution' because they are either trying to manipulate [Donald] Trump to push their own agenda or see themselves as rescuing the country from what they view as the commander in chief's bad policy choices." Looks like someone has a book to sell!

Funny how all these Trump sycophants are supposedly great patriots who totes care about what's best for the country once they're looking for new sources of income.

* * *

Courtney Kube at NBC News: U.S. Officials: Iran Official Okayed Attacks on American Military. "The U.S. decision to surge additional military forces into the Middle East was based in part on intelligence that the Iranian regime has told some of its proxy forces and surrogates that they can now go after American military personnel and assets in the region, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. ...Among the specific threats the U.S. military is now tracking, officials say, are possible missile attacks by Iranian dhows, or small ships, in the Persian Gulf; attacks in Iraq by Iranian-trained Shiite militia groups; and attacks against U.S. ships by the Houthi rebels in Yemen." As I noted yesterday, this intel is being inflated by warmongering pigshits who want a war with Iran.

Tim Kelly at Reuters: U.S., Japan, India, and Philippines Challenge Beijing with Naval Drills in the South China Sea. "In fresh show of naval force in the contested South China Sea, a U.S. guided missile destroyer conducted drills with a Japanese aircraft carrier, two Indian naval ships, and a Philippine patrol vessel in the waterway claimed by China, the U.S. Navy said on Thursday. While similar exercises have been held in the South China Sea in the past, the combined display by four countries represents a fresh challenge to Beijing as [Donald] Trump threatens to hike tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods."

Choe Sang-Hun at the New York Times: North Korea Fires Two Short-Range Ballistic Missiles, South's Military Says. "North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles on Thursday, the South Korean military said, an escalation from the North's most recent weapons test just five days ago. The two missiles were launched eastward from the country's northwest, with one flying 260 miles and the other about 170 miles, the military said in a statement. ...The statement did not say where the missiles had landed, but the reported distances would put them in the sea between North Korea and Japan."

Pete Williams, Tom Winter, and Dan De Luce at NBC News: U.S. Seizes North Korean Ship Suspected of Violating U.N. Sanctions. "The Justice Department asked a federal judge Thursday to give the U.S. ownership of a North Korean freighter that was caught shipping coal in violation of U.N. sanctions. ...[T]he U.S. sought a civil forfeiture action — the same thing prosecutors do when they seek to take ownership of planes or boats used by drug smugglers. The Justice Department says the U.S. is entitled to take this action because payments to maintain and equip the vessel were made through American banks."

* * *

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Christina Zdanowicz at CNN: A Student Sued Because He Didn't Want the Chickenpox Vaccine; Then He Got Chickenpox. "Jerome Kunkel sued the local [Walton, Kentucky] health department because of a policy temporarily barring students who aren't immune against chickenpox from coming to classes and extracurricular activities... The high school senior refused the vaccine, citing his faith. Kunkel's father, Bill, told CNN affiliate WLWT they object to the particular vaccine because he believed it was derived from 'aborted fetuses.' The chickenpox vaccine was created using cells descended from those of a fetus terminated in the early 1960s. ...Kunkel contracted chickenpox last week and has recovered [and returned] to school on Wednesday [after being out since mid-March]. 'Jerome is in a catch-up mode,' [his attorney] said. 'He feels like they kind of ruined his senior year.'" Whooooops!

Deanna Paul at the Washington Post: GOP State Legislator Attacks Vaccine Scientist on Twitter, Accusing Him of Self-Enrichment, 'Sorcery'. "A Texas state legislator unleashed a vilifying attack on a leading vaccine scientist Tuesday, accusing the doctor of 'sorcery.' ...[Peter Hotez, professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine] took his concerns about [a report published Monday by the Texas Department of State Health Services that noted the state recorded a 14 percent rise in parents opting out of their children's vaccinations] to Twitter. And then he received an unexpected, seething personal attack from the Republican state legislator, Rep. Jonathan Stickland." JFC.

Meanwhile... [CN: Christian Supremacy] Julie Zauzmer at the Washington Post: A Conservative Christian Group Is Pushing Bible Classes in Public Schools Nationwide — and It's Working. "Activists on the religious right, through their legislative effort Project Blitz, drafted a law that encourages Bible classes in public schools and persuaded at least 10 state legislatures to introduce versions of it this year. Georgia and Arkansas recently passed bills that are awaiting their governors' signatures. Among the powerful fans of these public-school Bible classes: [Donald] Trump. 'Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible,' Trump tweeted in January. 'Starting to make a turn back? Great!'" Seethe.

Trump literally *just* threatened to veto H.R. 986, the "Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019," the other day. https://t.co/6DTR4YX0qk
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 9, 2019

Adam Gabbatt at the Guardian: Facebook Co-Founder Calls for Company to Break Up over 'Unprecedented' Power.

A co-founder of Facebook has called for the government to break-up the company, warning that Mark Zuckerberg's power is "unprecedented and un-American."

Chris Hughes, who helped established Facebook after meeting Zuckerberg at Harvard University, wrote in the New York Times that Facebook's acquisition of rival platforms had given Zuckerberg unparalleled power over speech.

"Mark's influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government. He controls three core communications platforms — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — that billions of people use every day," Hughes wrote.

"We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook."

Yep.

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

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We Resist: Day 834

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: This Is Extremely Bad News and Primarily Speaking.

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

Eric Beech and David Alexander at Reuters: Trump Says He's Not Inclined to Let Former Counsel McGahn Testify to Congress. "Donald Trump said on Thursday he did not believe he would allow former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify to committees in Congress, saying McGahn had already spoken to the special counsel on the Russia probe. ...'I've had him testifying already for 30 hours,' Trump said, referring to McGahn's testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team. Trump said allowing McGahn to testify would open the gates for others to be called."

This is just the President of the United States openly admitting that he is obstructing justice, and no one who objects can do a fucking thing about it, because his party retains the majority in the Senate and is eager to abet his authoritarianism.

House Democrats are doing (mostly) what they can, but they can't really do anything of consequence without Senate support.

Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb at CNN: Nadler Threatens to Hold Barr in Contempt If DOJ Doesn't Comply with New Democratic Offer on Mueller Report. "Nadler sent Barr a new letter proposing that the committee could work with the Justice Department to prioritize which investigative materials it turns over to Congress, specifically citing witness interviews and the contemporaneous notes provided by witnesses that were cited in the special counsel Robert Mueller's report. ...Nadler set a deadline of 9 a.m. ET Monday for Barr to respond and said he would move to contempt proceedings if the attorney general does not comply."

Great. Except what's doing to happen when Barr doesn't comply? Nothing. And Barr knows it and Trump knows it and we all know it.

Which is why Democrats should quit faffing around and just go straight to impeachment at this point. Calling for Barr's resignation (for example) is a waste of time. He's not going to resign. Impeach him. Let's go.

In other Barr news... Mark Joseph Stern at Slate: William Barr's Justice Department Just Filed the Most Nakedly Political Brief in the Agency's History. "On Wednesday afternoon, after Attorney General William Barr finished his truculent and mendacious testimony before the Senate, the Department of Justice filed perhaps the most embarrassing, illogical, and nakedly political brief in the history of the agency. With Barr's assent, the DOJ argued that the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because Congress zeroed out the individual mandate's penalty in 2017."

I am old enough to remember when Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee brought in outside counsel Rachel Mitchell to question Christine Blasey Ford during the Kavanaugh hearings because they were all dudes. That was "pretty pathetic." https://t.co/sV2hohDo2r
— Abigail Tracy (@abigailtracy) May 2, 2019

Paul Waldman at the Washington Post: Trump Is Already Set to Use the Government to Destroy the Democratic Nominee.

The 2020 election is going to be ugly in many different ways. If you thought Donald Trump ran a rancid campaign when he was trying to make it to the White House, just you wait until he's fighting to preserve his power. It has been obvious for some time that [Donald] Trump is planning to promote hatred and division, but one thing we haven't yet focused on is how he will use the resources of the federal government to make sure he wins reelection.

...[D]o you think Trump would hesitate for an instant before telling Barr to open an investigation of the Democratic nominee for president? And given everything we've seen from Barr, do you think he’d refuse that order?

Trump may already be preparing to mobilize the federal government's resources to destroy his opponent, whoever that turns out to be. The New York Times has a new piece featuring what is sometimes called an oppo drop: a news story about a politician initiated by a political rival passing damaging information to reporters. It happens all the time, and it's not necessarily illegitimate as journalism, because the information itself may be relevant and the journalist does his or her own investigation to verify what they've been told.

But in this case, the Times acknowledges the story's provenance right in the headline: "Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies."

...[W]hat we have here is the president's lawyer, with the direct involvement of the president himself, pushing a foreign official to open an investigation for the obvious purpose of embarrassing a potential rival, while the president is pushing the Justice Department to act in ways that could harm that rival as well.

That should be a scandal in and of itself. And I can't say this strongly enough: This is only the beginning.

Absolutely correct. And of course much of the political press is going to assist Trump in leveraging the power of the U.S. federal government to destroy his opponent(s), under the auspices of "campaign coverage," without clear indication of the role they are playing in undermining the integrity of both U.S. elections and the very U.S. government itself.

On that note... Matt Gertz and Rob Savillo at Media Matters: Study: Major Media Outlets' Twitter Accounts Amplify False Trump Claims on Average 19 Times a Day. "Major media outlets failed to rebut [Donald] Trump's misinformation 65% of the time in their tweets about his false or misleading comments, according to a Media Matters review. That means the outlets amplified Trump's misinformation more than 400 times over the three-week period of the study — a rate of 19 per day. The data shows that news outlets are still failing to grapple with a major problem that media critics highlighted during the Trump transition: When journalists apply their traditional method of crafting headlines, tweets, and other social media posts to Trump, they end up passively spreading misinformation by uncritically repeating his falsehoods."

* * *

[Content Note: Christian Supremacy] At Rewire.News, Jessica Mason Pieklo has more on the new HHS rule (about which I wrote yesterday): Trump Administration Finalizes Health-Care Discrimination Rule. "Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement, 'Once again, this Administration shows itself to be determined to use religious liberty to harm communities it deems less worthy of equal treatment under the law. This rule threatens to prevent people from accessing critical medical care and may endanger people's lives. Religious liberty is a fundamental right, but it doesn't include the right to discriminate or harm others.'"

[CN: Nativism; death]

"In Hidalgo County, part of the Rio Grande Valley sector, sheriff's officials reported 27 migrant waterway deaths last year, an increase from 13 in 2017. 'We pull out one to two bodies a month from the river,' said Hidalgo County Sheriff J.E. Guerra." https://t.co/ADLu4aWoMS
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 3, 2019

[CN: Nativism]

Immigration lawyer Lily S. Axelrod has an important Twitter thread on an appalling decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals:

1/ The Board of #Immigration Appeals issued a surprise decision in direct contradiction of Supreme Court authority today. An unusual en-banc decision, the vote was 9-6 with a strong dissent: https://t.co/9zZhyxmr3k
— Lily S. Axelrod (@LilySAxelrod) May 1, 2019

[CN: Climate change] Jonathan Watts at the Guardian: Biodiversity Crisis Is About to Put Humanity at Risk.

The world's leading scientists will warn the planet's life-support systems are approaching a danger zone for humanity when they release the results of the most comprehensive study of life on Earth ever undertaken.

Up to one million species are at risk of annihilation, many within decades, according to a leaked draft of the global assessment report, which has been compiled over three years by the UN's leading research body on nature.

The 1,800-page study will show people living today, as well as wildlife and future generations, are at risk unless urgent action is taken to reverse the loss of plants, insects, and other creatures on which humanity depends for food, pollination, clean water, and a stable climate.

The final wording of the summary for policymakers is being finalised in Paris by a gathering of experts and government representatives before the launch on Monday, but the overall message is already clear, according to Robert Watson, the chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

"There is no question we are losing biodiversity at a truly unsustainable rate that will affect human wellbeing both for current and future generations," he said. "We are in trouble if we don't act, but there are a range of actions that can be taken to protect nature and meet human goals for health and development."

Grim.

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This Is Extremely Bad News

[Content Note: Christian Supremacy.]

The Trump Regime issued a new rule today giving health care workers — and entire hospitals — the right to refuse to provide any healthcare services to which they have "a religious or conscientious objection."

Alison Kodjak at NPR reports:

The rule, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, is designed to protect the religious rights of health care providers and religious institutions.

..."This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won't be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life," OCR Director Roger Severino said in a written statement.

Yeah, people who expect healthcare providers to provide healthcare are the bullies. Sure.

And let us all take a moment to appreciate the bitter irony of these shitwheels wringing their hands over being forced to "take human life" when the whole point of this trash is to allow them to legally refuse to provide life-saving healthcare to anyone whose choices or needs they find distasteful.

As part of that change in focus, HHS in the last week also changed the Office for Civil Rights' mission statement to highlight its focus on protecting religious freedom.

Until last week, the website said the office's mission was to "improve the health and well-being of people across the nation" and to ensure people have equal access to health care services provided by HHS. But the new statement repositions the OCR as a law enforcement agency that enforces civil rights laws, and conscience and religious freedom laws, and "protects that exercise of religious beliefs and moral convictions by individuals and institutions."

..."This rule allows anyone from a doctor to a receptionist to entities like hospitals and pharmacies to deny a patient critical — and sometimes lifesaving — care," said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, in a statement.

One thing that must be understood here is that these laws will absolutely not be equally applied. They will not protect anyone from a minority religion who claims a religious objection — unless, perhaps, that objections happens to align with the toxic bigotries (e.g. reproductive coercion or queer hatred) of the conservative evangelical Christians this law is designed to empower.

I'll reiterate what I wrote when this rule was first proposed by the Trump Regime more than a year ago: This was a constant fight during the Bush administration. (One against then-Senator Hillary Clinton fought vehemently. Cough.) And no matter how sophisticated the language — Republicans have since largely abandoned the term "conscience clause" and have significantly toned down the religious rhetoric on this subject — it's still a garbage position that privileges a very specific brand of conservative Christianity in direct violation of the mandate to "do no harm."

For more than a decade, healthcare providers who subscribe to the particular iteration of Christianity that gives them religious cover for their existing bigotries, have insisted that not being able to refuse to provide care to certain patients — abortion-seeking women, transgender people, gay/bi people — leaves them with "no choice," complaining that "the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills, or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible."

(And what they find "morally reprehensible" will ever expand to include people of whose "lifestyle choices" they don't approve: Fat patients, addicts, alcoholics, smokers, people with chronic pain they decide are "pill-seeking.")

Only in an environment where "freedom of religion" is deliberately misconstrued to mean "the right of a single strand of conservative Christianity to not have to follow the rules everyone else does" could an expectation to provide legal healthcare services constitute religious discrimination. Only in this atmosphere could not being able to pick and choose which patients you want to serve, thusly redefining your entire profession on your own terms, be considered tantamount to having no choice at all.

Here's your choice: Do what you were hired to do or get another fucking job.

(Note: If a huge — and ever-increasing — number of our hospitals weren't run by the Catholic Church, we might have healthcare services that make the people they hire commit to performing every procedure.)

This culture of victimhood among conservative Christians is ridiculous in the extreme. It is predicated on the flawed assertions that their version of Christianity is the only version, and that it is the exclusive source from which morality can be derived.

The morality of all other Christians, all people of other religions, and all irreligious people must be diligently ignored — particularly those traditions in which there is an obligation to provide care to all people.

If those equally valid beliefs were not erased from all public conversation, the barking dipshits who equate oppression with a requirement of compliance with one's basic job description might have to face the reality that there's not some insidious siege upon religious freedom, but instead just a minority group whose religious beliefs make them intrinsically unfit to hold positions as healthcare providers.

They want to have their cake (opposition to certain healthcare procedures) and eat it, too (be healthcare providers free to decline patients of their choosing). But it just doesn't work that way.

A marketing exec for Phillip Morris who's lost a parent to lung cancer and decides that hawking smokes is "morally reprehensible" doesn't get paid to sit in her office doing nothing. She finds a way to navigate doing a job that she finds objectionable but provides a living, or she finds another job.

If you sign up to be a healthcare provider, you bloody well provide healthcare.

It's no one else's responsibility to indulge your conscience — especially not a patient whose very life might depend on your fulfilling the functions you were hired to do.

The vile irony of this trash is that asking for on-the-job exemptions from primary duties based on religious beliefs is nothing less than the "special rights" conservatives are incessantly accusing the LGBTQ community, women, and other marginalized populations of seeking.

But we just want baseline equality. Christians who want to use their interpretation of the Bible to rewrite their job descriptions want an inequality that caters to their personal whims.

It's bad enough when it's some asshole who doesn't want to issue marriage certificates to same-sex couples or bake a cake for their wedding, but "conscience clauses" in the field of medicine, where lives depend on people who don't hesitate, who put patients' needs before their own desires, such a willful dereliction of duty is thoroughly contemptible.

It is immoral. It will be deadly.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 826

John Gore, who heads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, will defy congress and not appear for a deposition with the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, according to a letter the DOJ sent the committee chairman https://t.co/nbfLeYU9Ul
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) April 25, 2019

Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Trump's Defiance Puts Pressure on Congress's Ability to Check the President. ("Defiance" is not the word I'd use. "Lawlessness" is.)

Since taking office, Trump has consistently treated Congress as more of a subordinate than an equal — often aided by the tacit approval of congressional Republicans who have shown little interest in confronting the president.

But tensions between Trump and Capitol Hill have escalated in recent days as the White House refuses to comply with subpoenas from newly empowered House Democrats eager to conduct aggressive oversight of his administration.

Trump's decision not to cooperate with House committees, coupled with reluctance from Republicans in control of the Senate to cross him, has left Congress struggling to assert itself as a coequal branch of government — most likely leaving it to the courts to settle a series of power struggles that could define the relationship between the executive and legislative branches for years to come.

The fact is that there's very little House Democrats can do if Trump refuses to comply as long as Senate Republicans, who hold the majority, refuse to do their fucking jobs. And Trump knows that.

Let me reiterate once again that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the worst, most destructive politicians ever to hold elected office in this nation's history.

Senate Democrats are doing what they can, of course. Case in point: Senator Mark Warner at USA Today: Trump and Russia Threatened Our Democracy. What Are We Going to Do About It? "The special counsel's investigation now confronts us with an important choice. We can overlook the president's morally outrageous behavior; we can ignore the deep deficiencies in our laws and our defenses against foreign interference; or we can do everything in our power to make sure that what happened in 2016 can never happen again."

Unfortunately, Senate Republicans are going to ignore his plea just as hard as Trump is ignoring House Democrats' subpoenas.

In minimally more hopeful news...

Cristina Alesci at CNN: Deutsche Bank Begins Process of Providing Trump Financial Records to New York's Attorney General.

Deutsche Bank has begun the process of providing financial records to New York state's attorney general in response to a subpoena for documents related to loans made to President Donald Trump and his business, according to a person familiar with the production.

Last month, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas for records tied to funding for several Trump Organization projects.

The state's top legal officer opened a civil probe after Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress in a public hearing that Trump had inflated his assets. Cohen at that time presented copies of financial statements he said had been provided to Deutsche Bank.

...The bank is in the process of turning over documents, including emails and loan documents, related to Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC; the Trump National Doral Miami; the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago; and the unsuccessful effort to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

I don't expect that this investigation will result in any accountability for Trump, either, but I hope I'm wrong.

* * *

[Content Note: Eliminationist violence] Will Sommer at the Daily Beast: Rhode Island Man Threatened to 'Eradicate' All Democrats, Eat Pro-Choice Professor. "Matthew Haviland, a 30-year-old resident of North Kingstown, threatened to murder and eat the professor in a series of March 10 emails, according to prosecutors. Haviland was arrested on Wednesday after an FBI investigation, and faces federal cyberstalking and threat charges. ...Haviland threatened Democrats in other emails, saying that people wearing 'pink fucking hats' — an apparent reference to the 'Pussy Hats' worn by Women's March participants — 'should all be slaughtered,' according to his indictment. He also allegedly wrote that all Democrats 'must be eradicated.'"

And what precipitated this violent rage, which also included a threat to "kill every Democrat in the world," bomb threats, the call for a second civil war, transphobia, racism, and anti-feminism?

A friend of Haviland's told law enforcement that his political views had recently become "more extreme," according to the FBI affidavit, because he was angry over media coverage of Trump.

"[Haviland's friend] believes this is at least in part because of the way the news media portrays [Donald] Trump," the affidavit noted.

...On his YouTube channel, Haviland praised a number of right-wing media personalities. He encouraged his handful of viewers to check out specific videos from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, former Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich, and cartoonist Scott Adams, the Dilbert comic-strip creator who has reinvented himself as a vociferous Trump booster.

Haviland also used YouTube to praise Trump, saying the president does "good things," and accusing reporters of being out to destroy his presidency. In one video, taken just days before his arrest, Haviland screamed into the camera about the prospect of Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress, shouting that Trump "did nothing fucking wrong."

Trump continually positioning himself as a victim, waging war on the press, and casting Democrats as dangerous enemies of the state are all parts of his campaign of stochastic terrorism. And here we see every piece of it represented in Haviland's violent, eliminationist thinking. I cannot put this more plainly: The president is trying to get his political and cultural opponents killed.

* * *

[CN: Transphobia] Dan Diamond at Politico: HHS Nearing Plan to Roll Back Transgender Protections. "The Trump administration is preparing to roll back protections for transgender patients while empowering health care workers to refuse care based on religious objections, according to three officials with knowledge of the pending regulations. ...One rule would replace an Obama administration policy extending nondiscrimination protections to transgender patients, which have been blocked in court. A second rule would finalize broad protections for health workers who cite religious or moral objections to providing services such as abortion or contraception, a priority for Christian conservative groups allied with the administration."

[CN: Rape culture; sex abuse; video may autoplay at link] Jason Hanna, Elizabeth Joseph, and Kristina Sgueglia at CNN: The List of Boy Scouts Leaders Accused of Sexual Abuse Has Nearly 3,000 More Names Than Previously Known. "The Boy Scouts of America believed more than 7,800 of its former leaders were involved in sexually abusing children over the course of 72 years, according to newly exposed court testimony — about 2,800 more leaders than previously known publicly. The Boy Scouts identified more than 12,000 alleged victims in that time period, from 1944 through 2016, according to the testimony, which was publicized Tuesday by attorney Jeff Anderson, who specializes in representing sexual abuse victims. ...'We care deeply about all victims of child abuse and sincerely apologize to anyone who was harmed during their time in scouting,' the BSA said Wednesday in a statement." That seems...inadequate.

In good news... Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade: Lesbian Candidate Wins Big in Tampa Mayoral Race. "Jane Castor won big Tuesday night in Tampa, Fla., when by a landslide she achieved victory in the race to become the city's next mayor, making her the first out person elected mayor of top 100 city in the Southeast. Castor, the city's former police chief, won 72.5 percent of the vote against her opponent... Annise Parker, CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the first openly lesbian mayor of Houston, commended Castor in statement for her victory, saying 'a lavender ceiling was shattered in Florida Tuesday night.' ...According to Equality Florida, Castor wins the distinction of being the first openly LGBT person to lead one of Florida's three largest cities."

And in more good news... Destiny Lopez at Rewire.News: Delaying Trump's Latest Abortion Coverage Restriction Shows That When Women Speak Out, We Win.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed a new restriction to dissuade private insurers from offering abortion coverage. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it had so received many comments on the proposal that it is unable to put its plan into action.

The Trump administration thought it could get away with another attack on abortion coverage by quietly proposing this rule and burying it in a 300-page document. Those of us who understand the serious harm insurance restrictions can cause didn't let them.

People across the reproductive justice movement answered our call to submit comments opposing the rule, and now HHS is still reviewing the more than 25,000 comments it received.

Thanks to our collective resistance, the rule won't go into effect until at least 2021 — that is, if it is ever finalized.

I'll take it!

* * *

[CN: Climate change and environmental harm; covers entire section.]

Oliver Milman at the Guardian: North American Drilling Boom Threatens Major Blow to Climate Efforts. "More than half of the world's new oil and gas pipelines are located in North America, with a boom in U.S. oil and gas drilling set to deliver a major blow to efforts to slow climate change, a new report has found. ...In the U.S. alone, the natural-gas output enabled by the pipelines would result in an additional 559 million tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide each year by 2040, above 2017 levels, according to Global Energy Monitor, citing International Energy Agency figures. This surge in emissions is set to take place at a time when scientists have warned of punishing heatwaves, floods, and economic damage if greenhouse gases are not drastically cut."

Yessenia Funes at Earther: Five Years After the Lead Crisis Began, Flint Residents Still Can't Trust Their Tap Water. "Five years. That's how much time has passed since the City of Flint switched its water source, exposing nearly 100,000 people to lead-tainted water. That crisis continues today and has traumatized the city in a way that will take more than another five years to fix. The legacy will likely last for generations. ...That tainted water no longer runs into homes as the city switched back to Detroit water in 2015, but that doesn't mean the crisis is over."

"Private wells used for drinking water in Iowa face widespread contamination due to agricultural practices, according to a new report out Wednesday, highlighting the latest in a series of major drinking water issues unfolding across the country." https://t.co/IhDEVykl8Z
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 25, 2019

Damian Carrington at the Guardian: 'Death by a Thousand Cuts': Vast Expanse of Rainforest Lost in 2018. "Millions of hectares of pristine tropical rainforest were destroyed in 2018, according to satellite analysis, with beef, chocolate, and palm oil among the main causes. The forests store huge amounts of carbon and are teeming with wildlife, making their protection critical to stopping runaway climate change and halting a sixth mass extinction. But deforestation is still on an upward trend, the researchers said."

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 812

Ronald Vitiello, acting director of U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), announced Wednesday that he will leave his post effective Friday, becoming the latest in a string of top-level officials to resign from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The recent departures leave DHS in a state of disrepair just months before apprehensions on the southern border are expected to reach their yearly peak. According to CBP data, apprehensions historically reach their apex in May.

Vitiello's resignation comes one week after [Donald] Trump pulled his consideration for ICE director, reportedly because senior adviser Stephen Miller believed Vitiello was not tough enough on immigration enforcement.

This as there are (unconfirmed) reports of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) engaging in shooting drills on the border. I am really frightened about what the next escalation in Trump's vile nativist agenda will bring.

Not unrelatedly, Aphra_Behn is live-tweeting her reading of Benjamin Carter Hett's The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise of Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic, and it is a thread you should definitely read.

* * *

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: William Barr's Highly Questionable Use of Trump's 'Spying' Talking Point. "At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday morning, Barr confirmed that he is looking into what he called 'spying' on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. 'I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016,' Barr said. 'I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.' When pressed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) on whether he indeed viewed it as 'spying' on Trump's campaign, Barr said, 'I think spying did occur.' ...That is a highly disputed term when it comes to what the FBI did relative to the Trump campaign in 2016." To put it mildly!

Barbara McQuade at the Daily Beast: Barr Sounds More and More Like Trump's Roy Cohn. "Although the FBI's conduct should not be immune from scrutiny, government officials typically refer to intelligence activities as 'surveillance' or 'collection.' The use of the loaded term 'spying' raises skepticism of his impartiality. In addition, Barr stated, 'I think there was probably failure among a group of leaders there at the upper echelon.' He has reached this conclusion even though he hasn't 'set up a team yet' to investigate. Barr's testimony revealed a mindset that is consistent with the Trump narrative of an FBI that is out to get him. This is the attorney general appointed by Trump after Trump criticized Barr's fired predecessor, Jeff Sessions, for failing to protect him. Does Trump finally have his Roy Cohn?"

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Caroline Kelly at CNN: Ex-DNI: 'Stunning and Scary' that Barr Would Raise Spying Allegation. "Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday it was 'both stunning and scary' that Attorney General William Barr would tell lawmakers that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was spied on. 'I thought it was both stunning and scary,' Clapper, who served under President Barack Obama, told CNN's Anderson Cooper. 'I was amazed at that and rather disappointed that the attorney general would say such a thing. The term 'spying' has all kinds of negative connotations and I have to believe he chose that term deliberately.'"

I have been writing about Trump's war on the intelligence community since (GOOD GOD) December of 2016, before he was even inaugurated, and in May of 2017, I shared a piece by Michael J. Glennon, a professor of international law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a former counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who outlined a scenario in which Trump emerges victorious in his battle with the intelligence community, and "a revamped security directorate could emerge more menacing than ever, with him its devoted new ally." And here we are, with Trump emerging not just as an ally of a malicious security directorate, but as its unchecked and unaccountable leader.

Meanwhile, as Trump and Barr lay the groundwork to have show trials of investigators who rightly viewed him as a security risk to the nation:

"Mar-a-Lago may present the worst counterintelligence nightmare the country has faced since the Cold War." Besides Trump himself, of course. https://t.co/ZhmA49CEqD
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 11, 2019

* * *

Kathryn Kranhold at NBC News: Twice as Many Companies Paying Zero Taxes Under Trump Tax Plan. "At least 60 companies reported that their 2018 federal tax rates amounted to effectively zero, or even less than zero, on income earned on U.S. operations, according to an analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The number is more than twice as many as ITEP found roughly, per year, on average in an earlier, multi-year analysis before the new tax law went into effect. Among them are household names like technology giant Amazon.com Inc. and entertainment streaming service Netflix Inc., in addition to global oil giant Chevron Corp., pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co., and farming and commercial equipment manufacturer Deere & Co."

As I noted in comments on today's Primarily Speaking thread, Senator Elizabeth Warren is not happy about this state of affairs and has announced a plan that would force these companies to start paying at least part of their fair share: The Real Corporate Profits Tax would apply "to the profits very large American companies report to their investors — with no loopholes or exemptions. ...This new tax only applies to companies that report more than $100 million in profits — about the 1200 most profitable firms in the country last year. That first $100 million is left alone, but for every dollar of profit above $100 million, the corporation will pay a 7% tax. ...That means Amazon would pay $698 million in taxes instead of paying zero."

Speaking of tax evasion... Kate Riga at TPM: Under Pressure from Tax Probe, Trump's Older Sister Steps Down from Judgeship. "Donald Trump's older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has stepped down from her role as a federal appellate judge and thus ended the scrutiny into whether she and her siblings' fraudulent tax schemes constitute a breach of judicial conduct. According to a Wednesday New York Times report, the investigation was launched due to the Times reporting that Barry and her siblings financially benefited from chicanery and fraud committed in the 1990s."

And speaking of crooks...

When someone announces they are going to run for office.... any office no matter the party. Red or Blue they need to be VETTED! People flocked to Avenatti when he said he would run in 2020. This is the kind of candidate that like Trump is compromised and can be manipulated. https://t.co/UAyF5aeY9L
— Nadine van der Velde (@nadinevdVelde) April 11, 2019

* * *

[CN: Christian Supremacy] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: The Supreme Court Considers Giving Conservative Christians a License to Discriminate…Again. "The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision most certainly did not grant the plaintiffs the broad-scale license to discriminate against LGBTQ people that they had asked for during oral arguments. That's why it took less than four months for evangelicals to return to the Court with another case involving a baker turning away a same-sex couple because of a religious objection to marriage equality. On Friday, the Supreme Court will consider whether to grant review. If it does, Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries could be one of the next term's most important cases."

[CN: War on agency] Laura Hancock at Cleveland.com: 'Heartbeat' Abortion Ban on Its Way to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. "The Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday afternoon that would ban abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The House passed the bill 56-40, mostly along party lines, as people on both sides of the abortion debate loudly protested outside the chamber. Shortly after, the Ohio Senate voted 18-13, also largely on party lines, to agree to changes made in the House to Senate Bill 23. DeWine has said he would sign a heartbeat bill."

[CN: Nativism] Amanda Holpuch at the Guardian: U.S. Immigration Police Broke Facebook Rules with Fake Profiles for College Sting. "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violated Facebook policy by creating fake social media profiles tied to the University of Farmington, a sham university it created to identify people committing immigration fraud. More than 600 students, nearly all Indian citizens, were caught up in the scheme, which the Guardian has found included fake Facebook profiles created by the nation's second largest federal investigative agency, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division. 'Law enforcement authorities, like everyone else, are required to use their real names on Facebook and we make this policy clear on our public-facing Law Enforcement Guidelines page,' a Facebook representative told the Guardian."

[CN: Privacy violations; sexual assault] Matt Day, Giles Turner, and Natalia Drozdiak at Bloomberg: Amazon Workers Are Listening to What You Tell Alexa.

The work is mostly mundane. One worker in Boston said he mined accumulated voice data for specific utterances such as "Taylor Swift" and annotated them to indicate the searcher meant the musical artist. Occasionally the listeners pick up things Echo owners likely would rather stay private: a woman singing badly off key in the shower, say, or a child screaming for help. The teams use internal chat rooms to share files when they need help parsing a muddled word — or come across an amusing recording.

Sometimes they hear recordings they find upsetting, or possibly criminal. Two of the workers said they picked up what they believe was a sexual assault. When something like that happens, they may share the experience in the internal chat room as a way of relieving stress. Amazon says it has procedures in place for workers to follow when they hear something distressing, but two Romania-based employees said that, after requesting guidance for such cases, they were told it wasn't Amazon's job to interfere.

Holy shit.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 789

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: Social Media and Disinformation Watch, #2. And by me: Corruption and Malice: A Day in the Trump Presidency and Supreme Court Rules Immigrants Can Be Detained without Bond Hearing Even Years After Release.

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

Jim Mustian and Larry Neumeister at the AP: Records Show FBI Was Probing Michael Cohen Long Before Raid. "The FBI was investigating [Donald] Trump's former personal attorney and fixer for nearly a year before agents raided his home and office, documents released Tuesday show. The search warrant, while heavily redacted, offered new details about the federal inquiry of Cohen's business dealings and the FBI raids of his Manhattan home and office. It shows the federal inquiry into Michael Cohen had been going on since July 2017 — far longer than had previously been known." Welp.

Kate Riga at TPM: Rosenstein Extending Stay at DOJ Indefinitely. "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is extending his stay at the Department of Justice for at least 'a little longer,' according to Tuesday NBC reporting. Slated to leave in mid-March, Rosenstein has reportedly spoken to Attorney General William Barr about staying for an indefinite amount of time." Hmm.

Sara Fischer at Axios: Another Trump Facebook Election. "While Democrats' campaign launches have sucked up national attention, [Donald] Trump's re-election campaign has quietly spent nearly twice as much as the entire Democratic field combined on Facebook and Google ads, according to data from Facebook and Google's political ad transparency reports, aggregated by Bully Pulpit Interactive. Why it matters: Political advertising strategists say that this level of ad spend on digital platforms this early in the campaign season is unprecedented." (Emphasis mine.)

Relatedly:

"The High Court in London heard on Monday that Cambridge Analytica was up to its old tricks from beyond the grave — by surreptitiously trying to halt investigations that could expose allegedly nefarious tactics before the company was shut down for good." https://t.co/Cobx4BDPgL
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 19, 2019

This election is going to be so ugly. Unregulated social media is the authoritarian's dream and the democrat's nightmare.

* * *

Kenneth P. Vogel and Katie Benner at the New York Times: Lobbying Case Against Democrat with Ties to Manafort Reaches Key Stage. "A decision about whether to prosecute Mr. Craig, who was White House counsel for President Barack Obama during his first year in office, is expected in the coming weeks, people familiar with the case said. The investigation centers on whether Mr. Craig should have disclosed work he did in 2012 — while he was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom — on behalf of the Russia-aligned government of Viktor F. Yanukovych, then the president of Ukraine. The work was steered to Mr. Craig by Paul Manafort, who was then a political consultant collecting millions of dollars from clients in former Soviet states."

So, after working for Obama, this guy went on to do work for Putin's pal Yanukovych, which means that every major opponent of Hillary Clinton's in both the 2016 and 2008 elections have ties to someone who worked for Yanukovych, including Bernie Sanders (Tad Devine) and Donald Trump (Paul Manafort). And so did Obama's 2008 Republican opponent, John McCain (Manafort and Rick Gates).

The question I now need answered is whether Gregory Craig had anything to do with establishing the back channel communication between the Kremlin and the Obama administration treasury officials during the 2016 election.

* * *

WHAT NOW https://t.co/MXNxeYyhS7
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 18, 2019

Now: The State Department won't release any transcript of Pompeo's briefing with "faith-based media only," nor a list of who was invited, who attended, and whether a range of faiths was included.
— Michelle Kosinski (@MichLKosinski) March 19, 2019

I don't even know what to say about that, other than: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.

Well, I'll also note that this shit sounds a lot more like Mike Pence than it does like Donald Trump.

* * *

Brian Stelter at CNN Business: Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan Joins Board of Fox Corporation. "Former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is joining the board of the newly slimmed-down Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News." Yeah, that sounds about right. "Ryan and Rupert Murdoch have been friendly for many years. In 2014, he named Ryan as a presidential contender he had 'particular admiration for.' Some observers said Ryan's appointment reflected the cozy relationship between Fox and the modern-day Republican Party." Haha ya think?!

[Content Note: Homophobia; misogynoir] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Anti-Gay Flyers Target Lesbian Chicago Mayoral Candidate Lori Lightfoot with Lies and Hate. "Lori Lightfoot would make history as Chicago's first black female mayor and the city's first openly gay mayor should she be elected in the April 2 run-off election. This week, anti-gay flyers targeted Lightfoot outside black churches in the city, the Sun-Times reports. The flyers feature photos of Lightfoot and her wife Amy Eshelman with the words, 'The Gay Equality Act!!! It's Our Turn' with another line that reads 'The Feminist and Gay Movement Have Come Full Circle.'" For fuck's sake.

And last but certainly not least... [CN: Flooding; displacement] E.A. Crunden at ThinkProgress: The Midwest's Flooding Crisis Is a Terrifying Preview of Climate Impacts to Come.

Deadly and historic flooding is plaguing states across the Midwest, isolating entire towns and upending the region in what experts worry is an ominous preview of future climate change impacts.

National media has been slow to cover the tragedy, which has left several states, including Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa, all reeling from turbulent weather conditions. As of Sunday, nine million people across 14 states were under a flood advisory.

...In a statement Friday, Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) said, "Nebraska has experienced historic flooding and extreme weather in nearly every region of the state."

Nebraska is experiencing its worst flooding in half a century. At least three people are dead after several major rivers in the state rose to record levels. The Missouri, Platte, and Elkhorn rivers all crested over the weekend to record-shattering levels in the aftermath of last week's "bomb cyclone" — a massive weather event that brought high-speed winds, snow, and heavy rain to the region.

The historic flooding is the result of rain coupled with a considerable amount of pre-existing water on the ground. February brought a record-setting 30 inches of snow to the state, which locked in several inches of water. With eastern Nebraska's rivers already higher than usual following the state's fifth-wettest season in 124 years, the bomb cyclone unleashed a mountain of water, submerging parts of the region.

...Other states are preparing for flooding impacts. In Iowa, nearly 2,000 people at eight different locations have been evacuated in the past seven days. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota are also bracing themselves for flooding, along with Missouri and Kansas.

Goddamn.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 761

I’m returning from Munich, Germany where they understand that this is the language of dictators. 20 months to vote this guy out. Start organizing now. https://t.co/np31u9TzNo
— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) February 17, 2019

Ken Dilanian at NBC News: Flynn-Backed Plan to Transfer Nuclear Tech to Saudis May Have Broken Laws, Say Whistleblowers. "Whistleblowers from within [Donald] Trump's National Security Council have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear Trump is still considering it, according to a new report obtained by NBC News. The House Oversight Committee has formally opened an investigation into the matter, releasing an interim staff report that adds new details to previous public accounts of how Flynn sought to push through the nuclear proposal on behalf of a group he had once advised." JFC.

Laura Jarrett at CNN: Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein Expected to Leave Justice Department in Mid-March. "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department in mid-March, according to a Justice Department official who spoke to CNN Monday. The No. 2 official at the department has become one of the highest profile figures in the Trump administration given his oversight of the Russia investigation and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller in 2017. CNN had previously reported that Rosenstein was planning to step down after Bill Barr was confirmed as attorney general, but the precise timing was fluid. A departure next month could potentially serve as another signal that Mueller's work is coming to a close." Okay.

Natasha Bertrand at the Atlantic: Andrew McCabe Couldn't Believe the Things Trump Said About Putin. "Bertrand: Do you think we'll ever hear from Mueller? Do you think he'll come out and explain his findings once all this is over? McCabe: He'll explain his findings in the report, and then if he's called upon to testify about it, he'll certainly do that. But he is always the guy who will say less than more. He'll seek less attention than more attention. He is perfectly happy to do his job and to do it fully and completely. And then, when it's all said and done, he'll lock the door behind him and go home." Cool.

McCabe says the FBI, in the days after Comey's firing, told the Gang of 8 that the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump.

GUTHRIE: Did anyone object?

McCABE: No one objected. Not on legal grounds not on constitutional grounds and not based on the facts.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 19, 2019

In case I haven't already said it ten million times, I'm really over these dudes who hold their tongues about Trump until they have books to sell.

[Content Note: Threats; stochastic terrorism] Ryan Mac and Zoe Tillman at BuzzFeed: Roger Stone Posted a Photo of the Judge Presiding over His Case Next to Crosshairs. "Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative and adviser to [Donald] Trump who was charged with lying to Congress, posted a photo Monday on Instagram of a judge presiding over his case in which she appears to be next to a crosshairs symbol. The post comes days after the judge, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, rejected Stone's effort to get his case reassigned to a new judge. Jackson also previously ruled that Stone couldn't talk to news outlets in front of her courthouse."

The judge was not amused. Andy Towle at Towleroad: Judge Orders Roger Stone to Court After He Mocks Her with Crosshairs Photo. "Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is overseeing Trump ally Roger Stone's criminal case, ordered Stone to court on Tuesday after he posted a number of Instagram posts about her, one of which featured the judge's photo next to a set of crosshairs. The posts have since been deleted."

Tanya Snyder at Politico: Emails Reveal Coordination Between Chao, McConnell Offices. "A trove of more than 800 pages of emails sheds new light on the working relationship between Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the most potent power couples in Washington — including their dealings with McConnell supporters from their home state of Kentucky. Chao has met at least 10 times with politicians and business leaders from the state in response to requests from McConnell's office, according to documents provided to Politico by the watchdog group American Oversight. In some cases, those people later received what they were hoping for from Chao's department, including infrastructure grants, the designation of an interstate highway, and assistance in getting state funds for a highway project — although the documents don't indicate the meetings led to those outcomes." Oh.

Jessica Donati and Peter Nicholas at the Wall Street Journal: With Evangelicals Behind Him, Vice President Mike Pence Takes Prominent Role in Foreign Policy. That's a distressingly benign-sounding headline for what is, in reality, perhaps the most powerful vice president in the nation's history wielding U.S. foreign policy to entrench global Christian Supremacy.

In the first two years of the Trump presidency, Vice President Mike Pence has worked to put religion at the heart of key diplomatic efforts, steering hundreds of millions in U.S. aid toward Christians and other minorities who were victimized by Islamic State.

Among the measures he has favored, Mr. Pence pushed to redirect U.S. money that would have been distributed by the United Nations widely in Iraqi areas targeted by Islamic State toward Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities. He also advocated last year for the imposition of sanctions on officials in Turkey — a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally — over a detained U.S. pastor.

Both were causes championed by the administration's evangelical supporters, who represent a key constituency for [Donald] Trump. They view Mr. Pence as an important ally in the White House. His foreign policy actions — he also has played a leading role in the effort to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and criticizing Europe for helping Iran circumvent U.S. sanctions — contrast with the low profile he has kept on domestic issues.

...Underpinning Mr. Pence's aid prioritization is his own faith. He has famously called himself a Christian first, conservative second, and Republican third. Mr. Pence also serves, in effect, as a White House ambassador to evangelicals, many of whom viewed Mr. Trump's candidacy with skepticism but have embraced his policies and Mr. Pence's foreign priorities.

"He is a strong voice within the Trump administration who is concerned about the persecution of all religious groups — but particularly Christian religious groups," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, N.C.

That last bit is, of course, a total lie. Pence is not at all concerned about "the persecution of all religious groups," including and especially people who are not religious at all and do not share his enthusiasm for using religion as a cudgel to deny people their agency, bodily autonomy, and right of consent.

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