Shakesville: Islamophobia

Showing posts with label Islamophobia. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 816

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Millions of Americans will put tax checks in the mail today. Meanwhile, the secretary of the treasury and head of the IRS continue to refuse to turn over Trump's tax returns to Congress for reasons even they can't clearly articulate. #TaxDay
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 15, 2019

Donald Trump still has not released his tax returns, and of course he is leveraging the power of his office to ensure that he will never have to release them.

Andrew Desiderio at Politico: Trump Attorneys Warn Accounting Firm Not to Hand Over Financial Records.

[Donald] Trump's attorneys are warning of potential legal action if an accounting firm turns over a decade of the president's financial records to the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Trump attorneys William S. Consovoy and Stefan Passantino are urging Mazars USA not to comply with a subpoena that Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) plans to issue on Monday for Trump's financial documents, calling it a politically motivated scheme to take down the president.

"It is no secret that the Democrat Party has decided to use its new House majority to launch a flood of investigations into the president's personal affairs in hopes of using anything they can find to damage him politically," Consovoy and Passantino wrote to Jerry D. Bernstein, Mazars' outside counsel.

The attorneys said they were formally putting Mazars "on notice" — an implicit threat of legal action. They also urged Bernstein to hold off on providing the documents to Cummings until the subpoena can be litigated in court, suggesting that a protracted legal battle is likely to ensue.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is taking a different tack, by making the novel argument that members of Congress are too stupid to understand Trump's highly complicated taxes. No, really. Via Devan Cole at CNN: "'This is a dangerous, dangerous road and frankly, Chris, I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that [Donald] Trump's taxes will be,' Sanders told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. 'My guess is most of them don't do their own taxes, and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the President has and determine anything,' she said, adding that attempts to obtain the returns are 'a disgusting overreach.'"

But as Eric Levenson at CNN reports, 10 members of Congress are certified public accountants: "In attacking the fight to obtain Trump's tax returns, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders argued that members of Congress aren't smart enough to understand them anyway. But three Democratic members of Congress are trained as certified public accountants — professionals licensed by their states to do just that. The Congressional Research Service said there are 10 accountants in this Congress, including two senators and eight House members."

Which isn't even relevant, as members of Congress have access to professional experts who can help them make sense of things in which they don't have personal expertise. Sarah Huckabee Sanders knows that, of course. She's just a mendacious shitwheel, like every other member of the Trump Regime.

* * *

Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post: Mueller Report's Release Is Expected Thursday, Justice Department Says. But not so fast! It's not the whole report. "The Justice Department expects to release on Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report on [Donald] Trump, his associates, and Russia's interference in the 2016 election, setting the stage for further battles in Congress over the politically explosive inquiry." A redacted version. And no mention of the hundreds of pages of exhibits. I expect what will be released is just enough to neuter calls to #releasethereport.

Meanwhile, the collusion is still happening right out in the open:

wow congratulations mitch mcconnell what are the odds a fuckin russian oligarch would choose your state to dump $200 million what are the odds https://t.co/AnC0r5d45a
— darth™ (@darth) April 15, 2019

There is just so much trash to cover every day, so I don't cover anti-democratic shitstain Mitch McConnell as much as I'd like. Let me just take this opportunity to observe that he is one of the worst people ever to serve in federal government in this nation's history. Ever.

* * *

[CN: Stochastic terrorism; Islamophobia; misogynoir] Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Trump Doubles Down on Islamophobic Attacks as Threats Against Ilhan Omar Rise. "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said this week she's seen a surge in threats against her life in the days since [Donald] Trump targeted her in an Islamophobic video last week. The White House, however, is showing no signs of backing off its attack. ...Monday morning, Trump doubled down on his attacks, once more accusing Omar of being 'anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and ungrateful.' 'She is out of control,' Trump claimed." Now that's projection if ever I've heard it.

[CN: Misogyny; racism] Charles M. Blow at the New York Times: Demonizing Minority Women. "While white supremacy has historically tried to paint minority men as physically dangerous, it has routinely painted minority women, particularly those strong and vocal, as pathological and reprobate. There is a pattern here. It is expressed not only in the attacks on, and in elevation of, Omar, but also on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Before them, Trump and his cohorts demonized Representative Maxine Waters, who Trump dubbed 'Low I.Q.,' and Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida."

[CN: Homophobia; death penalty]

BREAKING: The Supreme Court declined to take up the case of a death row inmate, Charles Rhines. He sought to challenge his sentence based on evidence of anti-gay bias in juror statements. https://t.co/VsS63rhsJx pic.twitter.com/dBkenYDWB2
— Legal Defense Fund (@NAACP_LDF) April 15, 2019

[CN: Nativism; abuse] Justin Glawe and Justin Hamel at the Daily Beast: Border Patrol Holds Hundreds of Migrants in Growing Tent City away from Prying Eyes. "Hundreds of migrants are being held for days in an emerging tent city at a Border Patrol station in a preview of what the Trump administration is reportedly considering to absorb a surge on the border. Five U.S. Army tents meant for battlefield hospitals have been repurposed to hold men, women, and children, including infants. Two of the tents were erected over the past week, expanding the facility's capacity by several hundred people. The tents are tightly surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire, leaving virtually no space for people to roam outside. Inside the tents, according to a congresswoman who was granted access, hundreds languish in fetid conditions."

[CN: Nativism] Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Admin to Threaten Countries Whose Nationals Often Overstay Visas. "Trump is planning to launch broader efforts to curb legal immigration by threatening countries whose nationals often overstay their visas, The Wall Street Journal reported. An administration official who spoke to the WSJ said the plan is to put countries 'on notice,' by threatening that it'll be harder for their citizens to obtain visas, or the visas will be shorter, if they don't reduce their rates of overstay. The countries impacted include Nigeria, Chad, Eritrea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone." Those are all African countries.

[CN: Nativism] Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: ICE Now Aided by 'Enhanced' Spy Powers. "Under [Donald] Trump, ICE — the law enforcement agency that arrests and deports undocumented immigrants — has quietly grown closer to at least one of America's intelligence agencies, according to a letter from a top American intelligence official reviewed by The Daily Beast. The change, which came behind closed doors and without fanfare, has concerned civil liberties advocates. And the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), isn't answering questions about it."

And finally, in good resistance news... Tiarra Mukherjee at Colorlines: Yo-Yo Ma Performs at Border: 'Build Bridges, Not Walls'.

The renowned musician, whose Bach Project seeks to bring unity to 36 cities worldwide, performed Johann Sebastian Bach's six cello suites at the foot of the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, which connects Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in Mexico.

"I've lived my life at the borders. Between cultures. Between disciplines. Between musics. Between generations," Ma told CNN. "In culture, we build bridges, not walls. A country is not a hotel and it's not full."

In an statement about the tour, Ma said there would be days of action in each city, giving him a chance to link with community organizers.

I love everything about that, including the reminder that resistance will look different for each of us, according to our own talents and abilities. Every one of us has something we can do, even if it takes awhile to figure it out, even if it's just to survive.

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

Open Wide...

Trump's Relentless Campaign of Stochastic Terrorism: Rep. Ilhan Omar Edition

[Content Note: Islamophobia; misogynoir; stochastic terrorism.]

On Friday, Donald Trump tweeted a video that interspersed clips of Rep. Ilhan Omar speaking about 9/11 at an event hosted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and footage of the Twin Towers burning on 9/11. Alongside the video, Trump tweeted the text: "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!"

Omar's speech had been the focus of manufactured conservative outrage for days by the time Trump issued his disgusting and incendiary tweet. (For more on that, see Eli Rosenberg and Kayla Epstein at the Washington Post), so Trump, always the opportunist, saw a chance to throw some Islamophobic red meat to his deplorable base.

It was also another opportunity for Trump to further his campaign of stochastic terrorism against marginalized people and/or his critics. I shared my thoughts about that on Twitter over the weekend:

What Donald Trump is doing is stochastic terrorism. The president is targeting a member of Congress in a way that not only makes her unsafe, but makes every Muslim (and other non-Muslims frequently targeted by violent Islamophobia, like Sikhs) unsafe.

Here is a piece I wrote last year about Trump's campaign of stochastic terrorism.

It's critical to understand the president's despicable, dangerous strategy.

Stochastic terrorism is "the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf."

That is: Leverage visibility and influence to dehumanize your enemies and cast them as threats, then sit back and wait for your most radical and/or unstable supporters to take violent action. It helps significantly if you've also leveraged your power to give access to deadly weaponry to as many people as possible.
As I have said many times, Trump did not invent bigotry. But he amplifies it, and he empowers its most vicious purveyors (including himself), every chance he gets.

* * *

Sometimes lost in all the technical analysis of what a corrupt and radical and dangerous president Donald Trump is, is the fact that he's an extraordinarily awful human being. Just a toxic, bigoted, vengeful, dishonest, sadistic piece of shit. There is an abuser at the wheel.

It's increasingly problematic for the press to avoid straightforwardly addressing that Trump is an awful human being, b/c his nature is why this isn't going to get better. The fewer checks on his power, the worse it will get. His unfettered cruelty is terrifying to contemplate.

That the press persists with the obscene pretense that it's somehow impolite to bluntly call someone a bad person — even if he is demonstrably a white supremacist, nativist, patriarchal, authoritarian pigshit, who publicly mocks disabled people for laughs — will kill us all.

This has been my pinned tweet since two days after the election, when it was all the rage to admonish me to "give Trump a chance." And it will stay pinned until he is gone, because I know exactly who he is.

Not going to "give him a chance." I'm going to resist every single thing he tries to do, b/c he's used every chance he ever got to hurt ppl.

I've seen a number of people saying that Trump attacked Omar despite the fact a Trump supporter was recently arrested for making a direct threat on her life — but Trump isn't attacking Omar in spite of the existing threats to her life; he's attacking her because she is already vulnerable, so that threats against her will increase.

And so they have:

Rep. Ilhan Omar says she's faced increased death threats since President Trump spread around a video that purports to show her being dismissive of the 2001 terrorist attacks. "This is endangering lives," she said, accusing Mr. Trump of fomenting right-wing extremism. "It has to stop."

Yes, it does. Donald Trump has to be disempowered immediately, because he is not going to stop out of the goodness of his heart. He has none.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 797

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: Justice Dept. Defends Trump's Twitter Blocking in Court and Primarily Speaking.

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

Chris Kahn at Reuters: Despite Report Findings, Almost Half of Americans Think Trump Colluded with Russia. "Nearly half of all Americans still believe [Donald] Trump worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after [Attorney General Bill Barr claimed that] Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump of that allegation. ...Among those familiar with Barr's summary, only 9 percent said it had changed their thinking about Trump's ties to Russia and 57 percent said they want to see the entire report." MAKE THE REPORT PUBLIC.

Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post: 'Undoubtedly There Is Collusion': Trump Antagonist Adam Schiff Doubles Down After Mueller Finds No Conspiracy. Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff "refuses to let the matter go until lawmakers can assess the investigative materials that informed Mueller's findings. 'Undoubtedly there is collusion,' Schiff said in an interview this week, after Attorney General William P. Barr submitted a four-page letter to Congress summarizing key aspects of Mueller's report. 'We will continue to investigate the counterintelligence issues. That is, is the president or people around him compromised in any way by a hostile foreign power? ...It doesn't appear that was any part of Mueller's report.'"

Thank Maude for Adam Schiff. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has no intention of letting this shit go, either — and neither do I. I categorically refuse to gaslight myself and pretend I haven't seen what I have indeed seen with my own goddamned eyes.

And once again, I just want to make the point that there is a very important bit of fuckery going on re: the definition of collusion. Special Counsel Bob Mueller limited his investigation of "collusion" to Russian government officials, ignoring that figures like Maria Butina and Oleg Deripaska, though not members of the Russian government, are agents of Vladimir Putin. That's a big fucking loophole. There was also no investigation of whether the sitting president is currently compromised, so if anyone thinks that I'm about to "move on" from this subject with those galactic caverns unexplored, they don't know my tenacious ass very well.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Russia's Influence Efforts Had Plenty of American Help Outside of the Trump Campaign.

Special counsel Robert Mueller may not have found the Trump campaign colluding with Russia, but plenty of Americans — wittingly or otherwise — have helped Moscow's election meddling efforts in recent years...

According to Barr, Mueller's report found that Russian operatives reached out to Trump's campaign, but that no member of the campaign actively colluded with the Russian government. However, Barr wrote that Mueller also "determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election." Both of these efforts — social media interference, and stealing and disseminating internal Democratic documents and emails — were widely known before the report's conclusion.

From fake Facebook pages to networks of Twitter bots, from posing as Romanian hackers to transferring stolen emails to Wikileaks, the details of these operations have been previously reported or described by intelligence analysts. And they've already resulted in numerous criminal indictments, for everything from illegally accessing emails to stealing Americans' identities.

But those weren't the only ways the Kremlin tried to put its fingers on American scales in 2016.

Michel goes on to discuss Russian cultivation of American secessionists, the cozy relationship between Russia and the NRA, Christian fundamentalists' bridge-building to Russia, and the far-left and third-party candidates with ties to Russia. Read and bookmark this one.

Julia Ainsley at NBC News: James Comey Says He Is Confused by Mueller's Decision on Obstruction. "Former FBI Director James Comey told an audience in Charlotte on Tuesday that he is confused by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's decision to neither charge nor exonerate [Donald] Trump on obstruction of justice. 'The part that's confusing is, I can't quite understand what's going on with the obstruction stuff,' Comey told an audience of roughly 2,000 people gathered at the Belk Theatre for an event sponsored by Queens University. 'And I have great faith in Bob Mueller, but I just can't tell from the letter why didn't he decide these questions when the entire rationale for a special counsel is to make sure the politicals aren't making the key charging decisions,' the former FBI chief said."

Well, I don't understand your flaming trash decision to throw the election to Trump, James Comey, so welcome to the Confused Club!

* * *

In good news... Matthew S. Schwartz at NPR: Federal Judge Blocks North Carolina Ban on Abortions Later Than 20 Weeks. "A law making it harder for women in North Carolina to get an abortion after 20 weeks is unconstitutional, a federal judge has declared. The law, which had been on the books since 1973, banned abortion after 20 weeks with only certain exceptions to protect the life of the mother. A 2015 amendment tightened those exceptions, criminalizing abortion unless the woman's life or a 'major bodily function' were at immediate risk. Pro-abortion rights groups challenged the law, and on Monday U.S. District Judge William Osteen sided with them. ...'The Supreme Court has clearly advised that a state legislature may never fix viability at a specific week but must instead leave this determination to doctors,' Osteen wrote." RIGHT ON.

[Content Note: Guns; domestic violence]

NRA opposes because the bill would prevent people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or stalking from access to firearms. They think that is too low of a bar.
— Daniel Newhauser (@dnewhauser) March 26, 2019

Despite the fact that domestic violence is a precursor to virtually every act of mass gun violence, the NRA thinks that it's "too low a bar" to take away someone's access to firearms. Fucking assholes.

Doha Madani at NBC News: Betsy DeVos Grilled in Congress over Proposed Elimination of Special Olympics Funding.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos struggled before a congressional subcommittee on Tuesday to defend at least $7 billion in proposed cuts to education programs, including eliminating all $18 million in federal funding for the Special Olympics.

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan pushed DeVos on her proposed cuts to the Special Olympics and other special education programs during her testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee.

When Pocan asked whether she knew how many children would be affected by the elimination of federal funding to the Special Olympics, DeVos said she did not know.

"I'll answer it for you, that's okay, no problem," Pocan said. "It's 272,000 kids that are affected."

...Pocan wasn't the only House member to criticize DeVos over the proposed cuts to special education.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., noted that past proposed budgets also attempted to eliminate federal funding for the Special Olympics.

"I still can't understand why you would go after disabled children in your budget," Lee said Tuesday. "You zero that out. It's appalling."

It certainly is.

McDonald’s is paying $300 million to eliminate its workers. https://t.co/pRzQchy1xk
— April Wolfe (@AWolfeful) March 27, 2019

[CN: Islamophobia] Stephen Caruso and Elizabeth Hardison at the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Pennsylvania Legislature's First Muslim Woman Calls Prayer Delivered by Fellow House Member Blatant Islamophobia. "A first-year member of the Pennsylvania House on Monday offered a prayer laden with political and Christian imagery shortly before the swearing in of the chamber's first Muslim woman. ...[Movita Johnson-Harrell, the first Muslim woman elected to the General Assembly] said the prayer was 'highly offensive to me, my guests, and other members of the House.'" It is also highly offensive to me as a Pennsylvania resident.

* * *

[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Christina Goldbaum at the New York Times: Trump Crackdown Unnerves Immigrants, and the Farmers Who Rely on Them. "It has long been an open secret in upstate New York that the dairy industry has been able to survive only by relying on undocumented immigrants for its work force. Now, this region has become a national focal point in the debate over [Donald] Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their role in agriculture. ...The pressures here reflect broader challenges facing farmers across the country who rely on undocumented workers. The farmers are struggling with a shrinking labor pool as fewer migrants cross illegally into the country and migrants who are long-term residents become too old for field work. This year the labor shortage has been compounded by Mr. Trump's trade war and extreme weather, forcing some small farmers to switch to higher-value crops, to reduce their acreage and to consider selling their farms." Is it enough that farmers who supported Trump won't support him again, though?!

Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: Hundreds of Activists Protest Florida Lawmakers' Secret Immigration Deal. "Senate Bill 168, and its sister legislation HB 527 in the House, would prevent municipalities from designating themselves as sanctuary cities — despite the fact that no sanctuary cities currently exist in the state of Florida. Nearly every municipality already shares information with federal immigration authorities, but the new bill would require local law enforcement to comply with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants for potential deportation proceedings. Immigration activists worry that the bill will incentivize racial profiling and fracture the fragile trust between immigrant communities and local police."

Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: Exclusive: Immigration Agencies Communicated Prior to Arrest of Sanctuary Leader.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), once considered the services arm of federal immigration agencies, is engaging in immigration enforcement under the Trump administration to what advocates fear is an unprecedented level.

Confirming what advocates had suspected, the agency communicated with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) about an upcoming appointment for Samuel Oliver-Bruno, a former member of North Carolina's immigrant community, in early November, according to documents obtained by Rewire.News through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

At that appointment three weeks later — the existence of which ICE officials sought to verify with USCIS after seeing a social media post, as the FOIA documents show — plain-clothed immigration officials ultimately took the husband and father into custody. Soon after he was deported to Mexico.

Oliver-Bruno was a member of Colectivo Santuario, comprised of people in sanctuary nationwide who were organizing together to one day move out of their churches without fear of deportation.

This is a very big deal. It's a big deal for the immigrant community, and it's a big deal for the rest of us, because, as I warn continuously, the Trump Regime is using undocumented immigrants as their canary in the coalmine. If they get away with this, you can bet that the government will start coordinating to target dissidents of all types.

Resist mightily everything you see happening at the intersection of the Trump Regime's war on immigrants and its war on dissidents.

* * *

Tom Phillips at the Guardian: Venezuela Hit by Fourth Massive Blackout in Less Than Three Weeks. "Venezuela has suffered its fourth massive blackout in less than three weeks, leaving at least of 12 of its 23 states without electricity and reinforcing the sense of crisis in the country. Many of the cities and regions affected by Wednesday's outage had yet to recover from two other crippling blackouts on Monday that forced the government to close schools and businesses and left the country's biggest airport in the dark. ...[T]here was anger and on the streets of Venezuela's capital — where many citizens are now living without water as well as light — as citizens faced up to another period of profound uncertainty and deprivation. Despite government claims, many people suspect the blackouts are the result of crumbling infrastructure caused by years of corruption, incompetence, and under-investment. 'I feel hopelessness and despair,' said Nohelia van Praag, a 43-year-old preschool teacher from Caracas."

Staff at the Daily Beast: Cholera Confirmed in Mozambique After Cyclone Idai. "Five people in Mozambique have tested positive for cholera, just two weeks after a brutal cyclone left tens of thousands of people without consistent clean water and sanitation, The Guardian reports Wednesday. The cases of the deadly waterborne disease all came from Munhava, an impoverished enclave of Beira. Many of Beira's nearly 500,000 residents still lack access to clean water in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, stoking authorities' fears that it will spread. The cyclone killed approximately 700 people when it struck on March 14. ...The World Health organization is planning to send 900,000 doses of the vaccine later this week to help stop the outbreak."

[CN: Genocide] Tiemoko Diallo at Reuters: U.N. to Investigate Massacre of 157 Malian Villagers. "The United Nations has dispatched human rights experts to central Mali to investigate a weekend massacre of at least 157 villagers seen as one of the worst acts of bloodshed in a country beset by ethnic violence. The attack, in which women and children were burned in their homes by gunmen, escalated a conflict between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders that killed hundreds of civilians in 2018 and is spreading across the Sahel, the arid region between the Sahara desert to the north and Africa's savannas to the south."

[CN: Islamophobia; human rights abuse] Reuters Staff at the Guardian: Xinjiang Crackdown Must Continue, Top China Leader Says. "Xinjiang needs to 'perfect' stability maintenance measures and crack down on religious extremism, the ruling Communist party's fourth-ranked leader has said on a tour of the region where China is running a controversial deradicalisation programme. Critics say China is operating internment camps for Uighurs and other Muslim peoples who live in Xinjiang, though the government calls them vocational training centres and says it has a genuine need to prevent extremist thinking and violence. The government has not said how many people are in these centres. Adrian Zenz, a leading independent researcher on China's ethnic policies, said this month an estimated 1.5 million Uighurs and other Muslims could be held in the centres in Xinjiang, up from his earlier figure of 1 million."

I remember when the United States had a president who might have said something about these things. Smart and decent things. That time has passed. I hope not permanently.

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

Open Wide...

Suspected Arson Attack at California Mosque

[Content Note: Islamophobia; terrorism; arson.]

The Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido was attacked by an unknown arsonist who "left behind graffiti referencing the deadly New Zealand terrorist attacks."

No arrests have yet been made, and authorities "have launched investigations into suspected arson and a hate crime."

Yusef Miller, a member of the Muslim community in Escondido, said: "We're not surprised by this incident... But, we're very on edge right now." Police revealed the suspect left a message in graffiti in the mosque's parking lot that referenced the New Zealand shooting, but didn't say exactly what it said. Seven people were inside the mosque at the time of the fire and were able to put it out with a fire extinguisher before firefighters arrived. "We're going to stay vigilant. We're not going to close down this mosque yet. People are still going to come pray," said Miller.

Just awful. I'm so glad no one was hurt.

And I'm so scared that things are going to get much worse.

That Donald Trump responded to what he claims is an "exoneration" by Special Counsel Bob Mueller by doubling down on his campaign of stochastic terrorism, braying in an email to supporters that "Democrats and the Fake News Media have proven that there is no line they won't cross, so we need to fight back BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE," is absolutely chilling. When he loses, he lashes out. When he wins, he lashes out. Any excuse to lash out, and to urge his cultists to "fight back."

I take up space in solidarity with everyone who is the target of Donald Trump's ire.

Open Wide...

Social Media and Disinformation Watch, #2

[Content Note: Eliminationist Islamophobia; gun violence.]

In light of the role that disinformation, particularly on social media, played in the U.S. 2016 presidential election, this post is a semi-regular roundup of news items related to disinformation and social media as we look toward 2020.

1) Amazon's "White Man Problem"

At Medium, Maya Kosoff has written about the lack of diversity at Amazon. From her piece:

Amazon's diversity problems extend well beyond Bezos' closest confidantes: A 2018 Bloomberg piece found that according to numbers the company submitted to the government, 73 percent of Amazon's corporate employees — those who do not work as contractors or in the company's warehouses — are men, as are 78 percent of senior executives and managers.

Kosoff then delves into the business case for increasing diversity, and how research shows that diversity boosts productivity. I suppose that research would matter if hiring managers made hiring decisions rationally. To me, the more compelling argument, at least morally (which Kosoff also mentions) is that when white men are disproportionately creating platforms and technology, its features will likewise reflect the flawed, limited perspectives, biases, and safety concerns (or lack thereof) of white men.

2) Apropos of Nothing

They're coming out with a vibrator that you can control via Alexa. Having Amazon know when you're having an orgasm seems a but much.
— Dr. Ruth Westheimer (@AskDrRuth) March 12, 2019

3) Facebook's Free Speech Philosophy

Vanity Fair ran a profile, written by Simon Van Zuylen-Wood, of the high-level employees who contemplate free speech issues for Facebook. The focus is largely on Head of Global Policy Management and former federal prosecutor Monika Bickert, who leads Facebook's team that sets free speech norms. From the piece:

In general, Bickert would rather not censor content that's part of the national discourse, even when it's blatantly hateful. A prime example: in 2017, just before Facebook began re-writing its hate-speech policies, U.S. representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana posted a message on his Facebook wall demanding that all "radicalized Islamic suspects" be executed. "Hunt them, identify them, and kill them," he wrote. "Kill them all." People were obviously outraged. But Facebook left the message up, as it didn't violate the company's hate-speech rules. ("Radicalized Islamic suspects" wasn't a protected category.) Post-revamp, that outburst would run afoul of the Community Standards. Yet Facebook has not taken the message down, citing an exemption for "newsworthy" content. "Wouldn't you want to be able to discuss that?" Bickert asks, when I point to Higgins's post. "We really do want to give people room to share their political views, even when they are distasteful."

Bickert is articulating not just the classic Facebookian position that sharing is good, but also what used to be a fairly uncontroversial idea, protected by the First Amendment, that a democratic society functions best when people have the right to say what they want, no matter how offensive. This Brandeisian principle, she fears, is eroding. "It's scary," she says. "When they talk to people on U.S. college campuses and ask how important freedom of speech is to you, something like 60 percent say it's not important at all. The outrage about Facebook tends to push in the direction of taking down more speech. Fewer groups are willing to stand up for unpopular speech."

"Offensive" and "unpopular" are interesting word choices that, in my opinion, downplay what's going on here. Generally, I think it's more apt to say that people might be offended by, say, a bad movie review, whereas they are terrorized by speech that promotes genocide.

My take-away is that Bickert (and thus Facebook) seems to err on the side of "tolerating" hateful, exterminationist speech, under the general liberal principle that blanket tolerance is a social good. Zuylen-Wood sums this up pretty well:

If the left wing of the Internet generally wants a safer and more sanitized Facebook, and the right wing wants a free-speech free-for-all, Bickert is clinging to an increasingly outmoded Obamian incrementalism. Lead from behind. Don't do stupid shit. Anything more ambitious would be utopian.

4) Also Apropos of Nothing

At the New York Times, Kevin Rouse discussed last week's murderous, Islamophobic rampage in the context of Internet culture:

[W]e do know that the design of internet platforms can create and reinforce extremist beliefs. Their recommendation algorithms often steer users toward edgier content, a loop that results in more time spent on the app, and more advertising revenue for the company. Their hate speech policies are weakly enforced. And their practices for removing graphic videos — like the ones that circulated on social media for hours after the Christchurch shooting, despite the companies' attempts to remove them — are inconsistent at best.

Christchurch Shooting: Thread for Discussion

[Content Note: Gun violence; Islamophobia; white supremacy.]

On Friday, a 28-year-old white male Australian citizen named Brenton Tarrant, who was a virulent white supremacist, killed 50 people and injured dozens more at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Two homemade explosives were found in his car.

I don't have adequate words to convey my sorrow and rage for the survivors of this massacre, for the loved ones of those who died, for the members of the community attacked, for everyone across New Zealand and beyond who has been traumatized by this heinous act of violence. I am so sorry, and I am so angry.

I will not recount any further details of the shooting here, because they are already everywhere, and if I can offer anything it is a respite from having to encounter those details for people who need that space.

The only thing I will mention is this: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today that there would be an inquiry into what law enforcement knew or should have known about the attack and whether it could have been prevented, and, further, that her government would immediately overhaul the nation's gun laws, saying at a press conference that "within 10 days of this horrific act of terrorism we will have announced reforms that I believe will have made our community safer."

I admire and envy a government who will do something more than offer "thoughts and prayers" in the wake of such devastating violence. I hope the steps they take are both quick and effective. I hope it brings New Zealanders some comfort in the wake of this horror.

As with any thread about public acts of violence, let's keep it image-free. Thanks.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 739

The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, reflecting lost output from federal workers, delayed government spending and reduced demand.

The report, which was released Monday, estimated a hit of $3 billion, or 0.1 percent, to economic activity during the fourth quarter of 2018. The impact was projected to be greater during the first quarter of 2019: $8 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP.

Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as federal workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost after a quarter of the government was closed for nearly 35 days.

"Among those who experienced the largest and most direct negative effects are federal workers who faced delayed compensation and private-sector entities that lost business," the report said. "Some of those private-sector entities will never recoup that lost income."

Devan Cole and Kevin Bohn at CNN: State of the Union Will Not Take Place Tuesday, Pelosi Aide Says. "Donald Trump's second State of the Union address will not take place on Tuesday, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN. The aide confirmed that the address, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, will not happen — answering a key question about the address's fate in the wake of the reopening of the federal government. ...Trump's director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp said Monday that the White House has been in discussions with Pelosi's office about rescheduling the address and that 'we should have a response soon.'"

Good for Pelosi for not just letting everything "go back to normal" and proceed as planned. Trump shouldn't get what he wants when he's still threatening to hold the country hostage again. The SOTU continues to be a point of leverage in Pelosi's pocket, and she knows it.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: GOP Moves to Block Anyone from Running a 2020 Primary Challenge Against Trump. "Amidst collapsing poll numbers and an unmitigated defeat in his standoff with House Democrats, one contingent still has [Donald] Trump's back: the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is planning to stonewall any efforts from potential GOP challengers for the 2020 nomination. As ABC reported, the RNC passed a resolution on Friday that threw their 'undivided support' behind the president as he gears up for the 2020 race — a resolution that effectively undercut any other Republicans thinking of running."

Thank you to the Republican National Committee, (the RNC), who voted UNANIMOUSLY yesterday to support me in the upcoming 2020 Election. Considering that we have done more than any Administration in the first two years, this should be easy. More great things now in the works!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019

Democracy killers. The entire Republican Party isn't even pretending they aren't authoritarians anymore.

[Content Note: Child abuse] Irwin Redlener at the Daily Beast: The Trump Administration Is the Worst for Children in the Country's History. "It was already clear that Donald Trump's policies, actions, and words have put millions of children at risk. But although the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end, this nearly 40 day financial crisis added a whole new dimension to the challenges facing children living in poor, working poor, and even many middle-class families. It has become undeniable that after only two years, the Trump administration is already showing itself to be the most anti-child of any presidency in memory."

We could have had a president who had dedicated her life to improving the lives of children. Instead, we are stuck with this piece of shit.

[CN: Nativism; violent misogyny] Katie Mettler at the Washington Post: Trump Again Mentioned Taped-Up Women at the Border; Experts Don't Know What He Is Talking About. "Trump has a new favorite anecdote, one that fixates on tape. Specifically, in public remarks at the White House, at the border and at farming conventions, the president has been talking about tape on the mouths of migrant women. On at least eight occasions over a period of 12 days this month, the president has argued publicly for his proposed wall on the southern border by claiming without evidence that traffickers tie up and silence women with tape before illegally driving them through the desert from Mexico to the United States in the backs of cars and windowless vans."

And at TPM, Kate Riga notes: "Soon after the Washington Post questioned where he got that information, acting Border Patrol Assistant Chief Armando Sianez asked agents if they had any evidence to backup Trump's claims." Gross.

Justin Wise at the Hill: Graham Says Trump Floated Using Military Force in Venezuela. "Trump reportedly broached the idea of using military force in Venezuela in a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this month. Graham recounted the exchange to Axios, telling the news outlet that Trump asked him what he thought about using military force in a nation where the U.S. is pushing for regime change. ...Graham added that Trump is 'really hawkish' when it comes to Venezuela."

Meanwhile...

US, Canadian fighter planes scramble to escort Russian bombers

Russia now using intimidation tactics by coming near the North American coastline https://t.co/1xaPXBsma2
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 27, 2019

[CN: Homophobia] Speaking of Russia being terrible... Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: Protestors Wrap Russian Embassy with the Rainbow Flag to Protest the Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya. "About a hundred people protested the Russian Embassy in London 'to raise awareness of and call for an end to the persecution of the LGBTQ community in the Chechen Republic' according to Gay Times. The protest was intended to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The protest had four demands according to Gay Times: 'For Theresa May to publicly condemn Chechnya's atrocities; for governments to shelter refugees from Chechnya; for a United Nations investigation on Russia; and for Russian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.'"

[CN: Right-wing terrorism; Islamophobia]

"Three Kansas militia men sentenced over plot to kill Somali Muslims." Build that wall or whatever. 🤨 https://t.co/ZRZrcjvJaP
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 26, 2019

[CN: Gun violence; misogynist violence; death; toxic masculinity] Madeline Holcombe and Kelly McCleary at CNN: Suspect in Five Louisiana Shooting Deaths Captured in Virginia.

[Dakota Theriot, 21, is] accused of killing his parents, his girlfriend, and her father and brother in two separate shootings Saturday in Louisiana.

Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50, were at their home near Baton Rouge when the suspect killed them, Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

When authorities arrived at the scene, Keith Theriot was still alive and told them his son shot them, authorities said.

Dakota Theriot's girlfriend, Summer Ernest, and her relatives were found dead in a home 30 miles away. The other victims included her father, Billy Ernest, 43, and her brother Tanner Ernest, 17, according to authorities.

Theriot was dating Summer and had lived with the Ernests for several weeks, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said. He was recently asked to leave the residence and not return, according to authorities.

...Authorities believe the shootings stemmed from a "boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute," CNN affiliate WAFB reported.

"This is probably one of the worst domestic violence incidents I've seen in quite a while," Webre said. "For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with."

There were no red flags ahead of the two shootings Saturday morning and other than a simple possession of drug paraphernalia charge, Theriot had no other run-ins with the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, Ard said.

My condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims.

A couple of points:

1. I am enraged that Summer Ernest is being identified as her murderer's "girlfriend" here, despite the fact that she and/or her parents kicked him out of their residence recently, and it is very likely that her decision to not be his girlfriend anymore is why he murdered her.

2. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that police would suggest there were "no red flags" ahead of the shootings, given that the "dispute" between Ernest and Theriot was enough that he was asked to GTFO. Just because police don't know what precipitated that incident doesn't mean that there were no red flags.

3. Again, this is another mass shooting by a young white man who is somehow taken into custody alive, while young Black men and women are killed by police during altercations following suspected crimes like selling loose cigarettes or breaking traffic laws.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 729

Let's be very blunt about this: Trump is willing to starve his own people, which is something that only the most brutal dictators in history have done. https://t.co/qaGtFU8Gm4
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

Indeed he doesn't. But that doesn't make them *not* his own people. Other dictators also othered their own people before and as a rationale for starving (and/or in other ways harming) them. That this is his view also puts him right in line with other vicious authoritarians.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

American Exceptionalism is making far too many people complacent about what is already happening here. Don't believe it couldn't happen here. It's happening.

* * *

After Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not allowed to go on her diplomatic mission to see NATO leaders and visit the troops, Donald Trump has now decided that no one in Congress will be allowed to go anywhere without his approval:

JUST IN: White House issues a directive to executive branch agencies that bars congressional delegation travel on any government aircraft, as well as use of travel expenses, during the shutdown without White House approval. pic.twitter.com/LmtMoWDIVX
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 18, 2019

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is meeting with North Korea and Senator Lindsey Graham is in Turkey meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

And the United States is doing nothing as Russia deploys nuclear-capable ballistic missile launchers near Ukraine's border.

So, Lindsey Graham is with Erdogan, Mike Pompeo's with North Korea, John Bolton is asking the Pentagon for plans to go to war with Iran, Russia is moving nukes to Ukraine's border, and Trump stopped Pelosi from meeting with NATO.

How much more urgent does it have to get, folks?
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

Everything is fine. (Everything is not fine.)

* * *

[Content Note: Nativism; Islamophobia] Caitlin Oprysko at Politico: Trump Touts Story About Finding 'Prayer Rugs' Along Border. "Donald Trump on Friday sought to prop up his administration's claims that migrants who enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border don't come from only Mexico and Central America, in an attempt to justify his demands for a border wall. Trump cited a story from conservative news outlet the Washington Examiner in which an unnamed rancher living in New Mexico claimed to have found 'prayer rugs,' or pieces of carpet used by Muslims for prayer, near her property. The story does not include any first-person accounts of seeing such migrants, however. U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona said recently that it had arrested migrants from seven countries trying to enter the U.S. illegally there, but none of the countries it named were majority Muslim."

In other words, that rancher is lying, and Trump is repeating the lie.

[CN: LGBTQ hatred] Carla Herreria at the Huffington Post: Vice President Says Outrage over Wife Karen Pence's Discriminatory School Is 'Offensive'. "Vice President Mike Pence defended second lady Karen Pence's decision to take a teaching job at a school that discriminates against LGBTQ individuals and families, suggesting that the uproar over it is an attack on Christianity. During an interview with the Catholicism-focused Eternal World Television Network on Thursday, Pence said that the attacks on the Immanuel Christian School, which bans LGBTQ employees, students, and families, were offensive to his family. 'To see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us,' Pence said. 'We'll let the critics roll off our backs,' the vice president continued. 'But this criticism of Christian education should stop.'"

1. Fuck you. 2. It's not an attack on Christianity; it's a condemnation of bigotry. 3. Not all Christian denominations are homophobic and transphobic, so it can't possibly be an attack on Christianity. 4. Running to the media and demanding that criticism stop is the polar opposite of letting the criticism roll off your backs. 5. Fuck you.

[CN: Anti-choicery] Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Senate GOP Prioritizes Abortion Funding Restrictions over Ending Shutdown. "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) advanced legislation that would codify a ban on federal abortion funding in a nod to anti-choice activists rallying this week in Washington, D.C. But the bill's progress was halted Thursday afternoon when it failed to pass the 60-vote threshold needed to proceed. Meanwhile, McConnell continues to block legislation to end the partial government shutdown." PRIORITIES.

[CN: Anti-choicery; class warfare] Emma Platoff at the Texas Tribune: Federal Appeals Court Lifts Order Blocking Texas from Kicking Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid. "A federal appeals court has lifted a lower court order that blocked Texas from booting Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid, potentially imperiling the health care provider's participation in the federal-state health insurance program. A three-judge panel on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Sam Sparks, the federal district judge who preserved Planned Parenthood's status in the program in February 2017, had used the wrong standard in his ruling. The appeals court sent the case back to him for further consideration." JFC.

[CN: Homophobia] Tim Fitzsimons at NBC News: Judge Rules Against Elderly Lesbians Rejected from Retirement Home.

A federal court on Wednesday ruled against a lesbian couple who brought a lawsuit against a Missouri retirement home that rejected the women's apartment application because their marriage is not "understood in the Bible.”

Bev Nance, 68, and Mary Walsh, 72, married a decade ago in Massachusetts and have been in a committed relationship for roughly 40 years.

When they applied to move into the Friendship Village senior living facility, they did so "because it is in their community, they have friends there, and it offers services that would allow them to stay together there for the rest of their lives," said Julie Wilensky, an attorney representing the couple.

But once Friendship Village staff found that Nance and Walsh are married, they told the couple that they were not allowed to move in, because the home did not condone homosexuality. The letter they received said that the only married couples they accepted were those in unions between "one man and one woman."

The couple sued, alleging "discrimination on the basis of sex," and their case was finally decided this week by a federal court in Missouri, which found "sexual orientation rather than sex lies at the heart of Plaintiffs' claims."

LGBTQ groups decried the outcome, and the couple's lawyers said "we disagree with the court's decision, and our clients are considering next steps."

Goddammit. Rage seethe boil.

* * *

Staff at the Daily Beast: DNC Says It Was Hit by a Russian Cyberattack Days After the Midterms. "The Democratic National Committee claims it was hit by a Russian cyberattack in the days after the 2018 midterm elections. According to court documents filed late Thursday, the DNC says 'dozens of DNC email addresses were targeted in a spear-phishing campaign' on Nov. 14, but that the attack appears to have failed to gain access to any information. The committee believes the attack was part of a phishing campaign that cybersecurity firms previously linked to a Russian hacking group known as Cozy Bear. Cozy Bear is linked to Russian intelligence and is said to have broken into the DNC's systems ahead of the 2016 presidential election." Fucking hell.

Erin McCormick at the Guardian: Recalls of 'Potentially Lethal' U.S. Meat and Poultry Nearly Double Since 2013.

The number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.

These "Class 1" recalls — for conditions the USDA deems "a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death" — are up from 53 in 2013, the report by the US PIRG Education Fund said.

"The most dangerous types of meat and poultry recalls are on the rise," said Adam Garber, who co-authored the report. "Whether you like hamburger or chicken, more and more dangerous meat is reaching your house."

Some people argue that this proves inspections are working; i.e. more cases are being caught. Either way, the numbers are going to go up the longer the shutdown lasts. Food safety is one of the many things that will compromised by a shuttered government.

Joel Shannon at USA Today: Measles Outbreak Grows in Area with Low Vaccination Rate, Most Patients Unimmunized. "A measles outbreak in southwestern Washington state has grown to 16 confirmed cases, and most of the children affected are unimmunized against the disease, officials said Thursday. ...Only two of the children have an unverified immunization status; the other 14 are unimmunized, officials say. Clark County has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state, with more than 22 percent of public school students having not completed their vaccinations, The Oregonian reports, citing state records."

Outbreaks of disease, whether due to a subversion of herd immunity or other causes, will also be even worse than otherwise if the shutdown continues. We are just fucked on so many levels.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 697

In a shocking legal ruling, a federal judge in Texas wiped Obamacare off the books Friday night. The decision, issued after business hours on the eve of the deadline to enroll for health insurance for 2019, focuses on the so-called individual mandate. Yet it purports to declare the entire law unconstitutional — everything from the Medicaid expansion, the ban on pre-existing conditions, Medicare and pharmaceutical reforms to much, much more.

A ruling this consequential had better be based on rock-solid legal argument. Instead, the opinion by Judge Reed O'Connor is an exercise of raw judicial power, unmoored from the relevant doctrines concerning when judges may strike down a whole law because of a single alleged legal infirmity buried within.

We were on opposing sides of the 2012 and 2015 Supreme Court challenges to the Affordable Care Act, and we have different views of the merits of the act itself. But as experts in the field of statutory law, we agree that this decision makes a mockery of the rule of law and basic principles of democracy — especially Congress's constitutional power to amend its own statutes and do so in accord with its own internal rules.

...Friday was another sad day for the rule of law — the deployment of judicial opinions employing questionable legal arguments to support a political agenda. This is not how judges are supposed to act.

I encourage you to read the whole thing. Meanwhile, over at ThinkProgress, Ian Millhiser explains one of the primary reasons that O'Connor's ruling is unlikely to stand: Alito Cut the Legs Out of the Latest Attack on Obamacare — and Didn't Even Know He Did It.

[A] passage in Justice Samuel Alito's opinion for the Court in Hobby Lobby could — or at least, should — take on an entirely unexpected significance after Reed O'Connor, a partisan operative turned federal judge, struck down the entire Affordable Care Act on Friday in a case called Texas v. United States.

Judge O'Connor's opinion is a jurisprudential trainwreck. It misreads the text of the law, draws distinctions that the Supreme Court explicitly rejected, and it feigns ignorance regarding the outcome of a year-long debate where congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal Obamacare. O'Connor's opinion is such an embarrassment to the judiciary that even Jonathan Adler, one of the architects of the last partisan lawsuit seeking to undermine Obamacare, called the opinion "strained and implausible."

But you don't have to take my or Adler's word for it. You can also take Justice Alito's.

O'Connor's opinion, to the extent that it engages in anything that can be described as legal reasoning, rests largely on statements of fact that Congress wrote into the Affordable Care Act's text when it enacted the law in 2010. Yet Hobby Lobby rejected O'Connor's use of such fact-finding statements. Indeed, the methodology O'Connor used in his opinion is so inconsistent with the methodology Alito used in Hobby Lobby that the two opinions cannot coexist.

There is much more at the link.

The long and the short of it is that O'Connor's ruling is being almost universally received as trash by legal experts. That doesn't guarantee it won't be upheld, but it is much more likely to be overturned. Even this conservative Supreme Court isn't going to be inclined to allow a judge to use faulty reasoning to eradicate the Affordable Care Act with a stroke of his pen.

* * *

Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: As Shutdown Looms, House Republicans Decline to Show Up for Votes. "With just days left before a possible partial government shutdown, a number of retiring House Republicans have been failing to show up for votes in the weeks since the midterms, the New York Times reported Sunday. [Donald] Trump vowed last week that he would 'own' a possible government shutdown in an effort to secure funding for a wall on the country's southern border. ...[But] even if Trump ultimately agrees to a package that will avoid a shutdown, the fact that many retiring Republicans are simply not showing up for votes means GOP House leadership doesn't know if they will have the votes to pass it." Good grief.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is the latest Trump official to hit the road and will leave his cabinet position by the end of the year. Good riddance to corrupt rubbish. Trump tweeted that Zinke's replacement will be announced sometime this week, and I'm sure whoever it is will be even worse than Zinke. Shiver.

Rachel Weiner, Carol D. Leonnig, and Matt Zapotosky at the Washington Post: Michael Flynn's Business Partner Charged with Illegally Lobbying for Turkey.

A former business partner of Michael Flynn has been charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy for his efforts to get Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited from the United States.

Bijan Kian made his first appearance in Alexandria federal court Monday morning. According to the indictment, Kian, who ran a lobbying firm with Flynn, conspired with a Turkish businessman to illegally influence government officials and public opinion in the United States against Gulen.

The indictment demonstrates the extent to which Flynn was secretly working to advance the interests of his Turkish clients while publicly serving as a key surrogate to Donald Trump and auditioning for a role in his administration. According to the newly-unsealed court document, Flynn was texting and emailing frequently about how to advance the Turkish agenda throughout the final weeks of the presidential campaign.

[Content Note: Nativism; white supremacy] Frank Dale at ThinkProgress: Stephen Miller Uses White Nationalist Dogwhistle to Push Trump's Border Wall. "White House senior adviser Stephen Miller echoed white nationalist rhetoric to advocate for [Donald] Trump's proposed border wall during a rare television appearance on Sunday. Miller told CBS' Margaret Brennan that Trump is 'absolutely' willing to shut down the government this week if he doesn't receive funding for his border wall, calling it 'a fundamental issue' that will determine 'whether or not the United States remains a sovereign country.' The term 'sovereignty' has been used as a white nationalist dogwhistle for decades." These fucking assholes, pretending to care about the nation's sovereignty while undermining it by colluding with a foreign adversary. JFC.

[CN: Nativism; Islamophobia] Erin Allday at the San Francisco Chronicle: Trump Travel Ban Keeps Yemeni Mother from Seeing Dying 2-Year-Old Son in Oakland. "Abdullah Hassan was born in Yemen with a rare brain disease that initially affected his ability to walk and talk but quickly worsened. He is no longer able to breathe on his own. His father, a U.S. citizen who lives in Stockton, brought him to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland for care about five months ago, and Abdullah is not expected to live much longer. The parents are ready to take Abdullah off life support, but they want his mother to have one more moment to hold him. So far, the U.S. State Department has ignored their pleas for a waiver to get her into the United States, they say." I hate this fucking cruel administration with the fiery power of ten thousand suns.

[CN: Nativism; death; video may autoplay at link] Anne Flaherty and Wil Cruz at ABC News: Border Patrol Head Didn't Tell Congress About Jakelin Caal Maquin to Avoid 'Politicizing' Girl's Death. "The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said he did not disclose the death of a 7-year-old girl at the border during his testimony to Congress because he wasn't sure that the mother had been notified and because he didn't want to 'risk politicizing the death of a child.' ...[Kevin McAleenan], who provided a detailed timeline of the events, called Jakelin's death a 'tragedy.' He went on to defend his agents' actions." Of course he did.

* * *

[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Cory Booker Again Addresses Sexual Orientation: 'I'm Heterosexual'. "Cory Booker addressed his sexual orientation in a profile with the Philadelphia Inquirer, which mulled the New Jersey senator's possible 2020 presidential run as a bachelor. Wrote the Inquirer: 'But there's one factor that might be unique among the two dozen or so Democrats eyeing a 2020 run: He's single. America hasn't elected an unmarried president since 1884 — and only two have ever taken office without having been married first. If he runs, Booker, 49, would try to be the third.' ...Said Booker, who has addressed his orientation multiple times in the past: 'I'm heterosexual. Every candidate should run on their authentic self, tell their truth, and more importantly, or mostly importantly, talk about their vision for the country.'"

To be clear, I'm not including this item in the We Resist thread because I find something objectionable about Booker's response, but because I find it objectionable that he was obliged to respond at all. No one should be forced to announce their sexuality, for any reason, and for fuck's sake in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and eighteen no one's sexuality should even matter. It's irrelevant to whether someone is capable of doing the job of president.

Relatedly, Democrats may have their first openly gay presidential candidate in 2020, as South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg is reportedly contemplating a run.

For the record, I have nothing against Buttigieg, but I don't think he's got nearly enough experience to run for president. And he's not the only person contemplating a run about whom I feel similarly. It's certainly interesting to me how, following the defeat of the most qualified candidate ever, who happened to be a woman, the field is now rife with wildly unqualified men. Cough.

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

Open Wide...

Trump Wants to Militarize the Border; He's Telling Lies to Justify It

[Content Note: Nativism; Islamophobia.]

This morning, Donald Trump tweeted: "Sadly, it looks like Mexico's Police and Military are unable to stop the Caravan heading to the Southern Border of the United States. Criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in. I have alerted Border Patrol and Military that this is a National Emergy [sic]. Must change laws!"

Of course his stupid typo ("Emergy") is trending, because everyone's got jokes, since we're two years in and still haven't learned that mocking Trump isn't an effective strategy to halt rampaging authoritarianism.

As I noted on Twitter, there's something rather more important in that tweet: "Yes, 'emergy.' Ridiculous. But also: The President of the United States just asserted without evidence that 'unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in' to a caravan of refugees, which is some extreme Islamophobic trash to justify 'antiterrorism' measures at the border."

And of course Trump heard this garbage on Fox & Friends — though I'll note the shitwheels on Fox & Friends explicitly referred to terrorists, while Trump just said "Middle Easterners" and assumes (rightly, no doubt) that the deplorables will fill in the rest.

Just last Thursday, he threatened to close down the southern border altogether, and has repeatedly threatened to militarize the border in response to undocumented immigration. Now, he's escalating — asserting that the military must be deployed to the border to stop terrorists.

This, like the rest of Trump's arguments employed in defense of his nativist agenda, is a damnable lie.

Again, I want to underline: There is no urgent crisis threatening the United States because of undocumented immigration — not an employment crisis, not a crime and violence crisis, not a health crisis.

Their vile nativism is for no reason other than malice, which lies at the center of Trump's entire agenda.

Open Wide...

Of Course: Conservatives Smear Khashoggi

[Content Note: Violence; Islamophobia.]

Robert Costa and Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post: Conservatives Mount a Whisper Campaign Smearing Khashoggi in Defense of Trump.

Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect [Donald] Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist's alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump's continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.

In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is how there is no bottom to the Trump cultists' indecency.

A common talking point, long favored by politicians and the press alike, is that there was always a 30% (give or take) that would vote Republican no matter what, but built into that assertion was an assumption that some things would still be off-limits; some things would still stand on the other side of a line that could not be crossed.

But now we are seeing that it is not the case. There is no depth that Trump and the GOP cannot plumb that their hardcore cultists won't defend — and, indeed, the more malicious they get, the more the cultists cheer, and feel empowered.

This, of course, has long been apparent to anyone who has been at the blunt end of conservatives' seething hatred. Which is why a zero tolerance approach was necessary.

But instead the press has insisted on playing the sinister Both Sides game, and the Democratic opposition has mainly been led by folks who keep insisting on bipartisanship and urging good faith, long after it was apparent that the former wasn't possible and the latter wasn't warranted.

We have to get real about the fact that a huge portion of this country is fascist.

And we have to be honest about the fact that the issue has never been whether there were people who would go there (again). The issue has been that there people who exist there, so how do we keep them from running the country?

Lots of people have tried to bury that reality under bullshit about American Exceptionalism and various other lies — like the ludicrous emergent myth care of the dirtbag left that hardcore rightwingers are really secret socialists (nope) — and all they've accomplished is abetting the fascists.

So here we are. And now we have to get blunt about the fact that all the appeals to decency in the world don't matter when your opponent lacks decency altogether.

They are smearing a man who was killed as a terrorist so that their sadistic skipper can avoid having to do the work expected of a democratic president who gives a fuck about human rights.

That is a real thing that's happening.

There will never be a bottom to this unless and until we build a floor.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 816

Trump's Relentless Campaign of Stochastic Terrorism: Rep. Ilhan Omar Edition

We Resist: Day 797

Suspected Arson Attack at California Mosque

Social Media and Disinformation Watch, #2

Christchurch Shooting: Thread for Discussion

We Resist: Day 739

We Resist: Day 729

We Resist: Day 697

Trump Wants to Militarize the Border; He's Telling Lies to Justify It

Of Course: Conservatives Smear Khashoggi

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