Showing posts with label Kris Kobach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kris Kobach. Show all posts

Trump Considering Kobach for "Immigration Czar"

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, April 01, 2019
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Donald Trump is reportedly considering an "immigration czar" to oversee his vile nativist agenda, and the heinous Kris Kobach — who vice-chaired the trash-heap that was the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and has repeatedly lied about 3 million undocumented immigrants voting illegally — tops Trump's list of shitwheels for the position.

He also, as you may recall (or not, since every day is a thousand years) was caught in 2016 leaving the White House with an aggressive plan to harass immigrants.


That Trump is considering an "immigration czar" at all is horrendous for all the obvious reasons, and that he is considering Kobach for the position is chilling, not only because Kobach is fully on board with every ounce of malice this regime wants to exact on the population, but because it suggests that Trump is thinking ahead to 2020 and wants to enlist Kobach to help prepare a strategy of delegitimizing election results on the basis of conjured voter fraud, in case of an election loss.

I don't like this one fucking bit.

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We Resist: Day 655

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, November 05, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Trump Is a F#@king Liar and My Nerves Are Rattling Like Ghosts in an Attic About the Midterms Tomorrow.

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

Richard L. Hasen at Slate: Brian Kemp Just Engaged in a Last-Minute Act of Banana-Republic Level Voter Manipulation in Georgia.
In perhaps the most outrageous example of election administration partisanship in the modern era, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is running for governor while simultaneously in charge of the state's elections, has accused the Democratic Party without evidence of hacking into the state's voter database. He plastered a headline about it on the Secretary of State's website, which thousands of voters use to get information about voting on election day.

It's just the latest in a series of partisan moves by Kemp, who has held up more than 50,000 voter registrations for inconsistencies as small as a missing hyphen, fought rules to give voters a chance to prove their identities when their absentee ballot applications are rejected for a lack of a signature match, and been aggressive in prosecuting those who have done nothing more than try to help those in need of assistance in casting ballots.

But the latest appalling move by Kemp to publicly accuse the Democrats of hacking without evidence is even worse than that: Kemp has been one of the few state election officials to refuse help from the federal Department of Homeland Security to deter foreign and domestic hacking of voter registration databases. After computer scientists demonstrated the insecurity of the state's voting system, he was sued for having perhaps the most vulnerable election system in the country. His office has been plausibly accused of destroying evidence, which would have helped to prove the vulnerabilities of the state election system.

...If anyone is to blame for vulnerabilities with the voting system it is Kemp. And now he's trying to turn those vulnerabilities into crass political advantage by blaming Democrats without evidence for the state's failings.
Adam Gabbatt at the Guardian: Stacey Abrams Condemns Brian Kemp After He Accuses Democrats of Voter 'Hack'. "The Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, Stacey Abrams, said on Monday her opponent had 'abused his power,' a day after Brian Kemp, who is also Georgia's secretary of state, announced an unexplained investigation into alleged 'cybercrime' by the state Democratic party. ...'I think, unfortunately, Secretary Kemp has not only abused his power, he has failed to do his job,' Abrams said in an interview with ABC. 'And you don't deserve a promotion when you do not serve the people you've been hired to serve.'" Right on.

Jana Winter at the Boston Globe: Hackers Targeting Election Networks Across Country Prior to Midterms. "Hackers have ramped up their efforts to meddle with the country's election infrastructure in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's midterms, sparking a raft of investigations into election interference, internal intelligence documents show. The hackers have targeted voter registration databases, election officials, and networks across the country, from counties in the Southwest to a city government in the Midwest, according to Department of Homeland Security election threat reports reviewed by the Globe. The agency says publicly all the recent attempts have been prevented or mitigated, but internal documents show hackers have had 'limited success.' The recent incidents, ranging from injections of malicious computer code to a massive number of bogus requests for voter registration forms, have not been publicly disclosed until now."

Staff at the AP: What Russians Have Been up to Ahead of 2018 U.S. Midterm Vote. "As Americans prepare for another election, Russian troublemakers have again tried to divide U.S. voters and discredit democracy. ...Russia is not alone — it's just one source of online manipulation ahead of Tuesday's election. Russia denies interference, and may not be able to affect the outcome anyway, but has reason to be interested in the election result." The AP covers four major areas of attempted disruption by Russia: Funding trolls, creating "Faux-American" sites, tricky tweets, and probing candidates.

Relatedly:


Dole, who was permanently injured fighting the Nazis in WWII. Wow.

Angela Charlton at the AP/Global News: Here's What Russia and Vladimir Putin Stand to Gain from Meddling in U.S. Elections. "The Kremlin likes Trump because he's one of the rare Western leaders to embrace Russian President Vladimir Putin... Some Russians, meanwhile, wear the U.S. accusations as a badge of honor, a sign that their country is a fearsome world power again. ...By discrediting Western democracy, that strengthens Putin's argument to his own voters that his authoritarian model of governance is best. 'The growing confrontation with the West and a focus on it on national television channels probably helped consolidate this effect of a fortress under siege,' one of Putin's metaphors for modern Russia, [analyst Masha Lipman] said. 'And pledging allegiance to the leader is a matter not only of loyalty but even of national security and national identity.'"

In other election news...

Nicole Lafond at TPM: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh Set to Appear with Trump at Monday Rally. "According to Variety, the Trump campaign is promoting the rally as an event that will feature special appearances from Limbaugh and Hannity, as well as country music singer Lee Greenwood, but Fox News told TPM that Hannity will only be hosting his show at the rally and interviewing the president. ...Hannity, who maintains a close friendship with the president, has been pegged as Trump's 'shadow' chief of staff who has a significant amount of influence over the president's decisions."

[Content Note: White supremacy] Stephanie Kirchgaessner at the Guardian: Trump Ally Kris Kobach Accepted Donations from White Nationalists. "The Republican candidate for governor of Kansas, Kris Kobach, who has close ties to the Trump administration, has accepted financial donations from white nationalist sympathizers and has for more than a decade been affiliated with groups espousing white supremacist views. Recent financial disclosures show that Kobach, a driving force behind dozens of proposals across the U.S. designed to suppress minority voting and immigrant rights, has accepted thousands of dollars from white nationalists."


Brian Kahn at Earther: A Major Storm Will Hit the Eastern U.S. on Election Day (But Please Go Vote Anyway). "The weather doesn't stop for anyone, including voters. For many folks heading to the polls this week, a big mess of rain, snow, and possibly severe weather is on tap starting on Monday and stretching into Tuesday. But the impacts aren't expected to last all day, so you should be able to find a window to go vote. ...Bundle up if you think there will be a line at your polling place, and drive safe (or tell your free or discounted Uber or Lyft driver to do so). While there's going to be some butt weather out there, there will still likely be times of the day when things are less butt, so hit the polls then if you can."

* * *

Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey, and Philip Rucker at the Washington Post: Trump Administration Prepares for Massive Shake-Up After Midterms. "Some embattled officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, are expected to be fired or actively pushed out by Trump after months of bitter recriminations. Others, notably Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, may leave amid a mutual recognition that their relationship with the president has become too strained. And more still plan to take top roles on Trump's 2020 reelection campaign or seek lucrative jobs in the private sector after nearly two years in government. The expected midterm exodus would bring fresh uncertainty and churn to a White House already plagued by high turnover and internal chaos."

What should terrify all of us about that is the character and quality of a person who would accept a job in the Trump administration at this point. They know, keenly, that malice is the agenda, and they'll be on board with that. Even more than Jeff Sessions and Kirstjen Nielsen are, which is scary AF.

Staff at the Daily Beast: Trump to Meet Putin and Erdogan at First World War Ceremonies. "Donald Trump will hold meetings with both Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this week as leaders from around the world descend on Europe to mark 100 years since the end of the First World War. ...Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to use the events to warn about history repeating itself and that a nationalist resurgence led by authoritarian leaders is threatening liberal democracies."

[CN: Nativism] Amanda Macias at CNBC: Trump's Border Deployments Could Cost $220 Million as Pentagon Sees No Threat from Migrant Caravan. "Donald Trump's move to deploy troops to the U.S.-Mexico border is so far shaping up to have a cost of $220 million, according to two U.S. defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. The initial cost estimate, a figure that could change based on the ultimate size and scope of the mission, comes as nearly 4,000 troops moved to the border Saturday as Trump has repeatedly warned of a caravan of migrants from Central America." Imagine what we could do for refugees with $220 million.

[CN: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Mary Papenfuss at the Huffington Post: Armed Militia Groups Head to the Border, Sparking Military Concerns. "Armed bands of civilian militia members are traveling to the southern U.S. border, where [Donald] Trump has ordered thousands of active-duty troops to rebuff the approaching migrant caravan. About '200 unregulated armed militia members [are] currently operating along the southwest border,' says a planning document for Army commanders leading the 5,200 troops Trump has deployed at the border, according to Newsweek. The groups 'operate under the guise of citizen patrols supporting' border officials, the document says, pointing out 'reported incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments.' The U.S. Border Patrol late last month warned landowners in Texas to expect 'possible armed civilians' to come onto their property because of the caravan, The Associated Press reported."

* * *

[CN: White supremacy; misogyny] Janet Reitman at the New York Times: U.S. Law Enforcement Failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism; Now They Don't Know How to Stop It. "White supremacists and other far-right extremists have killed far more people since Sept. 11, 2001, than any other category of domestic extremist. ...These statistics belie the strident rhetoric around 'foreign-born' terrorists that the Trump administration has used to drive its anti-immigration agenda. They also raise questions about the United States' counterterrorism strategy, which for nearly two decades has been focused almost exclusively on American and foreign-born jihadists, overshadowing right-wing extremism as a legitimate national-security threat."


[CN: Misogynist abuse; racism; gun violence] David Mack, Amber Jamieson, and Julia Reinstein at BuzzFeed News: The Tallahassee Yoga Shooter Was a Far-Right Misogynist Who Railed Against Women and Minorities Online.
The man who shot and killed two women at a yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida, on Friday before killing himself was a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed misogynist who railed against women, black people, and immigrants in a series of online videos and songs.

Scott Beierle, 40, was named by Tallahassee police as the shooter who opened fire inside the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio, killing two women, and injuring four other women and a man.

Those killed were identified as Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, who worked at Florida State University's College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21.

On a YouTube channel in 2014, Beierle filmed several videos of himself offering extremely racist and misogynistic opinions, in which he called women "sluts" and "whores," and lamented "the collective treachery" of girls he had gone to high school with.

"There are whores in — not only every city, not only every town, but every village," he said, referring to women in interracial relationships, whom he said had betrayed "their blood."
Beierle also had a history of arrests for grabbing women on the FSU campus and at a public pool.

Every. Damn. Time.

* * *

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: The Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear a Case That Could Nuke the Separation of Church and State. "In what will almost certainly be a victory for the religious right, the Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will decide whether the Constitution permits a local government to display 'on public property a 40-foot tall Latin cross, established in memory of soldiers who died in World War I.' Although a federal appeals court held that this cross violates the Constitution's ban on laws 'respecting an establishment of religion,' the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh — which gave Republicans a solid five-person majority on the Supreme Court — all but guarantees that this lower court decision will be reversed."

And finally, some important acts of resistance...

[CN: Nativism; reference to self-harm] Renée Feltz at Rewire.News: Pennsylvania Mural Highlights Migrants Who Were Traumatized in 'Family Prison'.
Karen (a pseudonym) struggled to comfort her then-5-year-old son after he twice attempted suicide during the 651 days they were held in detention, while seeking asylum from extreme violence in El Salvador.

"What would you tell your son if he asked, 'Why can't I be free?'" she once demanded to know from a guard at the Berks County Residential Center.

The trauma they endured there was hard to ignore this week when their eyes — and her son's question — were painted in an 88-foot mural across the steps of Pennsylvania's capitol building in Harrisburg, about an hour's drive from Berks. The massive image is part of a citywide art project that includes several billboards and three bus shelter displays featuring the images and words of parents and children who were held at the controversial facility.
Yessenia Funes at Earther: Opponents Plan to Stop Controversial Hawaiian Telescope's Construction 'at Whatever Cost'. "Last Tuesday, the Hawaiian Supreme Court ruled to approve the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), an observatory that would have the ability to gaze farther into the universe than any current telescope can. Its creation could literally transform our understanding of the world. But that's only if community members allow it to be built, and opponents don't plan on backing down easily. 'We're at the last straw,' Hanalei Fergerstrom, a Native Hawaiian priest and opponent to the project who has testified against the project in court, told Earther. 'The last thing we have is our sacred space, and it's come down to the point where we must take a stand. Period. At whatever cost it's gonna cost — and we're prepared to exhaust those costs.'"

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

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 426

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, March 21, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: The Austin Bomber Has Been Stopped and Trump Disgorges More Contempt for the Rule of Law — and the Media Continues to Fail Us and Joe Biden, What Are You Even Doing?

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

[Content Note: Anti-Semitism.]


Alice Ollstein at TPM: House Dem: Plot to Oust Broadcast Board CEO 'Our Worst Nightmare'.
The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says whistleblowers have detailed a plot by the Trump administration to oust the CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and replace him with someone favored by the White House.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) warned in a letter to the BBG, obtained by TPM, that that candidate, André Mendes, then plans to dismiss the existing Board of Governors, according to the whistleblowers.

In a statement to TPM, Engel called the alleged plot "our worst nightmare coming true."

"This action would violate current law and represent what these whistleblowers have described as 'a coup at the BBG,' presumably with the aim of pushing the BBG's journalism toward a viewpoint favorable of (sic) the Trump Administration," Engel wrote to the BBG. "I view these claims as credible and this scenario as outrageous and unacceptable."
This isn't creeping authoritarianism; it's stomping through the house and taking a huge shit in the middle of the living room.

Carol D. Leonnig, David Nakamura, and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post: Trump's National Security Advisers Warned Him Not to Congratulate Putin; He Did It Anyway. "Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers Tuesday when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on his reelection — including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating 'DO NOT CONGRATULATE,' according to officials familiar with the call. Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow."

The collusion, said the brokenest of broken records, is and has always been right out in the open.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Kaitlan Collins and Jeff Zeleny at CNN: Trump Furious over Leak of Warning to Not Congratulate Putin. "Donald Trump was infuriated after it quickly leaked that he had been directly instructed by his national security advisers in briefing materials not to congratulate [Putin]. Trump was fuming Tuesday night, asking his allies and outside advisers who they thought had leaked the information... According to the source, the incident resurfaces his long-held belief there are individuals inside his administration — especially in the national security realm — who are actively working to undermine him. White House chief of staff John Kelly also is furious that a confidential presidential briefing became public knowledge, a White House official said, and intends to address the matter Wednesday as aides try to figure out who disclosed the warning."

Someone who cares about this country more than the president does. That's a long list. At least Kelly can rule out Mike Pence.

Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann at NBC News: Trump, Master of the Political Insult, Declines to Chide Putin. "In his nearly three years as president or a presidential candidate, Donald Trump has never been shy about openly criticizing others, including foreign leaders. He ripped into London's mayor. He fired back at British Prime Minister Theresa May (initially tweeting at the wrong Theresa May). And he's hurled insults at North Korea's Kim Jong-Un. Which all makes Trump's reluctance to forcefully criticize Vladimir Putin — after the election interference in 2016, after the poisoning in Britain, and after the voting irregularities in Russia — all the more striking. Even when the president is instructed NOT to congratulate Putin." Yup.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: A GOP Senator's Remarkable Admission about Trump and Mueller. (Emphases original.)
[Republicans'] stance is that of course Mueller should be allowed to finish his investigation, but they will not act legislatively to protect the probe, because this is not at all necessary, as Trump would never dream of taking action against it, since he would face severe consequences that Republicans will not enunciate in advance.

But a Republican lawmaker has just given away the real game behind this carefully crafted straddle. Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) was pressed by the Washington Examiner on why Republicans are hesitant to protect Mueller, and this is what happened:
Republicans in Congress are hesitant to antagonize [Donald] Trump ahead of ahead of difficult midterm elections, wary of sparking a backlash from a committed grassroots base more loyal to the White House.

Amid sky-high Democratic enthusiasm and a developing "blue wave," Republicans can't afford a war with Trump that depresses GOP turnout. Republicans might be worried about Trump's attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller, but they are reluctant to push back, much less support legislation to curtail the president's ability to fire Mueller and sideline the federal probe…

"The president is, as you know — you've seen his numbers among the Republican base — it's very strong. It's more than strong, it's tribal in nature," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who decided to retire when his second term concludes at year's end, after periodically sparring with Trump.

"People who tell me, who are out on trail, say, look, people don't ask about issues anymore. They don't care about issues. They want to know if you're with Trump or not," Corker added.
This is a candid glimpse from a leading GOP lawmaker into what’s really driving the Republican straddle on Mueller.
Authoritarians love their authoritarian god-king.

Rep. Adam Schiff at USA Today: Republicans Leading Russia Probe Ignored Every Lesson I Learned as a Prosecutor. "Investigations have a certain rhythm: You begin with solid leads, use subpoenas to compel testimony or documents from reticent witnesses, interview lower-level witnesses first, and then move on to higher-level targets. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee did none of these things before shutting down their Russia investigation last week."

Of course not. And see the preceding item as to why. See also: Many of them are probably compromised, too.

* * *

Craig Timberg, Karla Adam, and Michael Kranish at the Washington Post: Bannon Oversaw Cambridge Analytica's Collection of Facebook Data, According to Former Employee. "Conservative strategist Stephen K. Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica's early efforts to collect troves of Facebook data as part of an ambitious program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters, a former employee of the data-science firm said Tuesday. ...Wylie said that Bannon — while he was a top executive at Cambridge Analytica and head of Breitbart News — was deeply involved in the company's strategy and approved spending nearly $1 million to acquire data, including Facebook profiles, in 2014. ...It is unclear whether Bannon knew how Cambridge Analytica was obtaining the data, which allegedly was collected through an app that was portrayed as a tool for psychological research but was then transferred to the company." I can guess.


Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: Trump Accidentally Touts Key Role of Cambridge Analytica in 2016 Campaign. "They had this expression 'drain the swamp.' And I hated it, I thought it was so hokey. I said, 'That is the hokiest, give me a break, I am embarrassed to say it.' [But] every time I said it I got the biggest applause. And after four or five times, I said, 'Boy, what a great expression, I love saying it, it's amazing.'" Coincidentally, Trump's remarks about his infamous catchphrase came on the same night the Washington Post provided more detail than ever before about how it originated with Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon, who became Trump's campaign chairman two months before he debuted 'drain the swamp.'"

Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: Cambridge Analytica Looked to Pounce on Russian Hacks, Email Shows. "Cambridge Analytica hoped to capitalize on Russian hacking of Hillary Clinton and her ally, an email written by one of its employees indicates. Emily Cornell, the employee, sent the email on July 29, 2016. It went out to people working with Make America Number One, the pro-Trump super PAC funded by Republican super-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer. After noting some of the firm's work for the super PAC, Cornell wrote: 'With her campaign getting hacked, I can only imagine what a new swatch [sic] of emails will do to her already fractured base!' ...On July 22, seven days before Cornell's email, WikiLeaks had published almost 20,000 emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee."

Which were stolen by Russian hackers allegedly working on behalf of the Kremlin. Bear that in mind as you consider the information in the following two tweets:


Yeah.

* * *


[CN: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Rebecca Savransky at the Hill: GOP Lawmaker: 'We Might Need to Build a Wall Between California and Arizona'. "Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) proposed building a border wall between California and Arizona to protect the state. 'As we look in Arizona, we often look into the dangers of the southern border,' McSally said during a round-table discussion about 'sanctuary cities' Tuesday at the White House. ...'But if these dangerous policies continue out of California, we might need to build a wall between California and Arizona as well to keep these dangerous criminals out of our state,' she said, smiling."


[CN: Police brutality; white supremacy] Melanie Schmitz at ThinkProgress: Unarmed Black Man Shot by Sacramento Police Officers Because He Was Holding a Cell Phone.
A unarmed Black man was shot by two police officers in Sacramento, California this weekend, after officers said they believed their lives were in danger because the man was holding a cell phone they thought was a gun.

Stephan Clark, 22, was in the backyard of his grandparents' house, where he had been living, when officers approached him on Sunday. Police said they were responding to reports that a man had been breaking into cars with a 'toolbar'; deputies in a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department helicopter had informed them that the suspect was allegedly hiding in a backyard and pointed them in Clark's direction.

When officers confronted Clark, they saw the cellphone in his hand and opened fire, discharging their weapons at least 20 times.

"The officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them," Sacramento police said in a statement afterward. "Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons striking the suspect multiple times."

Clark was pronounced dead at the scene. Police found a pair of headphones and a iPhone 6 Plus with a rose gold case and black card holder adhered to the back — which reportedly belonged to his girlfriend — but no gun.

"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time in his own backyard?" said Clark's grandmother, Sequita Thompson, speaking with the Sacramento Bee.
Fucking hell. Rage seethe boil.

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

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 372

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, January 26, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: Quite a Leak: Trump Wanted to Fire Mueller Last June and We Asked Them to Step Up, and They Let Us Down.

Lauren Gambino at the Guardian: Donald Trump Denies Report He Tried to Fire Robert Mueller in June. "Donald Trump has denied a report he ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June, but was persuaded against it after the White House counsel threatened to resign. ...'Fake news, folks, fake news,' Trump told reporters in Davos, when asked about the report." Of course. Because Donald Trump is a pathological liar.

Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: The Glaring Problem with Trump's Dismissal of the Mueller Story. "Trump blithely dismissed the story as 'fake news' and took a shot at the New York Times — the outlet that broke the story. 'Fake news, folks, fake news,' he said. 'Typical New York Times fake stories.' But there's an obvious problem with Trump's suggestion that the New York Times is making stuff up. The Times isn't the only outlet to report that Trump tried to fire Mueller... Trump's dismissal of the story is also in tension with what Trump's representatives told the Times. Instead of denying the story, Trump's attorney, Ty Cobb, told the Times that '[w]e decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process.' Trump representatives similarly declined to comment to Politico, the Post, and CNN."

Eric Levitz at NYMag: Trump Booed at Davos for Calling Media 'Vicious and Fake'. "And then, the Q&A began, and Trump went off-script. The president focused most of his extemporaneous remarks on a hyperbolic account of his tax 'reform' law's glorious effects. But when forum chairman Klaus Schwab asked Trump how his background as a businessman influenced his approach to governing, the mogul replied, 'As a businessman I was always treated really well by the press…it wasn't until I became a politician that I realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be.' Boos and hisses ensued."

Nicole Lafond at TPM: 'Amnesty Don': There's 'Tremendous Support' from GOP on DACA Citizenship. "Donald Trump on Friday said he has 'tremendous support' from Republicans to make a compromise on a path to citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, despite backlash from his far-right base." This is horseshit. It's just more garbage to get headlines that helps him blame Democrats for his own failure to deliver on his promises and his party's failure to provide good governance.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jeff Cox at CNBC: Soros: Trump Has U.S. 'Set on a Course Towards Nuclear War'.
Donald Trump has the U.S. on course for a nuclear war with North Korea, billionaire investor and progressive political activist George Soros said Thursday.

In a blistering critique of the country under Trump's leadership, the head of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations painted a bleak picture.

"The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real," Soros said during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power."

"This creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority preemptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy."
Trump wasn't the only target of Soros' ire. Ben Smith at BuzzFeed: George Soros Just Launched a Scathing Attack on Google and Facebook. "The financier and philanthropist George Soros joined the rising attacks on Facebook and Google Thursday night, calling for 'more stringent regulations' on the tech giants. Soros referred to the companies as a 'menace' and denounced 'the rise and monopolistic behavior of the giant IT platform companies,' which he described as 'ever more powerful monopolies,' hurting competitors and societies alike. ...'They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access,' he said."

Relatedly... [CN: Bigotry; privilege] Nitasha Tiku at Wired: The Dirty War Over Diversity Inside Google. "In interviews with Wired, 15 current Google employees accuse coworkers of inciting outsiders to harass rank-and-file employees who are minority advocates, including queer and transgender employees. Since August, screenshots from Google's internal discussion forums, including personal information, have been displayed on sites including Breitbart... Other screenshots were included in a 161-page lawsuit that Damore filed in January, alleging that Google discriminates against whites, males, and conservatives. What followed, the employees say, was a wave of harassment. ...At least three employees had their phone numbers, addresses, and deadnames (a transgender person's name prior to transitioning) exposed. ...More than a dozen pages of personal information about another employee were posted to [a site known as] 'the web's biggest community of stalkers.'"

* * *

[CN: War on agency] E.A. Crunden at ThinkProgress: As Another Shutdown Looms, Senate GOP Focuses on 20-Week Abortion Ban. "In the midst of an unresolved dispute over funding the federal government and insuring protections for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants, Senate Republicans plan to vote on a 20-week abortion ban next week, re-opening a debate on the legal medical procedure at a politically charged moment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) moved to vote on anti-choice legislation introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday, clearing the way for a procedural vote as soon as Monday."

[CN: Sexual assault; rape apologia] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire: Advocates Sue to Unwind Trump Administration Guidance on Campus Sexual Assault. "Attorneys on behalf of three advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration alleging the Department of Education overstepped its authority in issuing Title IX policy addressing campus sexual assault. ...The lawsuit alleges the Trump Administration's Title IX policy is unlawfully based on government officials' discriminatory stereotypes about the credibility of women and girls who report sexual violence, citing comments made by Acting Assistant Secretary Candice Jackson in a July 2017 New York Times interview as one example. Jackson told the paper that '90 percent' of campus sexual-assault complaints 'fall into the category of 'we were both drunk,' 'we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.''"

[CN: Sexual harassment] Jonathan Tamari at the Philly Inquirer: Rep. Pat Meehan Will Not Seek Reelection After Sexual Harassment Furor. "U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan will not seek reelection, he disclosed Thursday, about a week after news reports that he used taxpayer dollars to settle a former aide's sexual harassment claim — and following the harsh response to his description of the woman as his 'soul mate.' ...Meehan, 62, is now subject to a review by the House Ethics Committee, which he sat on until the reports. He has said he will repay the taxpayer money if the panel finds that he committed sexual harassment. But he concluded his letter by saying, 'I acted, at all times, within the appropriate boundaries of the close relationship I shared with the former employee.'" JFC. Good riddance to this dirtbag.

[CN: Sexual harassment] Erik Wemple at the Washington Post: CNN Reinstates Ryan Lizza. "CNN is reinstating Ryan Lizza, the Washington political reporter who was fired from the New Yorker for alleged sexual misconduct. 'Upon learning of The New Yorker's decision to sever ties with Ryan Lizza in December, CNN pulled him from future on-air appearances while the network conducted an extensive investigation into the matter,' reads a statement from a CNN spokeswoman. 'Based on the information provided and the findings of the investigation, CNN has found no reason to continue to keep Mr. Lizza off the air.'" All right then.

[CN: Sexual harassment] In today's New York Times, there is a piece authored by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, neither of whom are fans of Hillary Clinton (to put it mildly), about a man who worked for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign and sexually harassed a woman who also worked for the campaign. The piece is filed under the headline: "Hillary Clinton Chose to Shield a Top Adviser Accused of Harassment in 2008." That's somewhat mendacious, because what happened was that he "was docked several weeks of pay and ordered to undergo counseling," which is a consequence, not a shield.

For the record, I don't think that was a sufficient consequence. I believe he should have been fired.

I also think that headline is misleading. And the responses to this story are obviously terrific. Note that the backlash narrative so far has been that men losing their jobs over sexual harassment is disproportionate overreach and "ruin's men lives," and that sexual harassers should be sent for sensitivity training etc.

But when Hillary Clinton did exactly what these apologists ostensibly want people to do, which is not "ruin a man's life" but get him help, she's a monster who must be destroyed.

Gee, it's almost like these aren't principled positions at all, but just arguments used to lash out at women, no matter what approach we take.

ETA. [CN: Sexual harassment and assault]


* * *

[CN: Nativism; privacy violations] Russell Brandom at the Verge: ICE Is About to Start Tracking License Plates Across the U.S. "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from [privacy advocates]. The source of the data is not named in the contract, but an ICE representative said the data came from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data. 'Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,' spokesperson Dani Bennett said in a statement. 'ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.' (Vigilant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)"

[CN: Privacy violations] Dell Cameron at Gizmodo: Kris Kobach's Office Leaks Last 4 Social Security Digits of Nearly Every Kansas Lawmaker and Thousands of State Employees, Including Kris Kobach. "Prior to receiving notice from Gizmodo this morning, Kris Kobach's office was leaking sensitive information belonging to thousands of state employees, including himself and nearly every member of the Kansas state legislature. Along with a bevy of personal information contained in documents that, according to a statement on the website, was intended to be public, the Kansas Secretary of State's website left exposed the last four digits of Social Security numbers (SSN4) belonging to numerous current and former candidates for office, as well as thousands — potentially tens of thousands — of high-ranking state employees at virtually ever Kansas government agency. ...Gizmodo notified the Kansas Secretary of State's office of the exposure on Thursday morning, and the site was taken down within roughly an hour. A request for comment was not returned." Yeah, let's trust this guy with voter data. Jesus fucking Jones.

John Abraham at the Guardian: In 2017, the Oceans Were by Far the Hottest Ever Recorded. "[I]n terms of understanding how fast the Earth is warming, the key is the oceans. This important ocean information was just released today by a world-class team of researchers from China. The researchers (Lijing Cheng and Jiang Zhu) found that the upper 2000 meters (more than 6000 feet) of ocean waters were far warmer in 2017 than the previous hottest year. We measure heat energy in Joules. It turns out that 2017 was a record-breaking year, 1.51 × 1022 Joules hotter than any other year. For comparison, the annual electrical generation in China is 600 times smaller than the heat increase in the ocean."

Emily Chung at CBC News: Plastic Ocean Litter Boosts Deadly Infections in Corals. "Garbage like disposable diapers, plastic bags, and snack wrappers is getting into the ocean and snagging on coral reefs, leading to deadly infections that literally eat the corals alive, a new study suggests. A four-year survey of 125,000 corals in 150 reefs in the Asia-Pacific region found that corals in contact with plastic debris had an 89 percent chance of having three nasty diseases... Corals that weren't in contact with garbage had just a four per cent chance of being visibly diseased."

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

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Trump Will Find a New Way to Disenfranchise Voters

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, January 04, 2018
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[Content Note: Voter suppression.]

Speaking of more important news...

Donald Trump's nightmare "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity" is being disbanded after it's become "mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach."

You might think that's good news, but of course it's not the whole story: "In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said...Trump had signed an executive order asking the Department of Homeland Security 'to review its initial findings and determine next courses of action.' ...[A senior White House aide], who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the commission and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the Department of Homeland Security is 'better equipped to take up the matter.'"

Why on earth would the Department of Homeland Security be "better equipped" to address voting fraud? If you think it's because there are foreign governments meddling in our elections, hahahaha of course that's not the reason, since the president doesn't even believe that's happening.

It's because DHS is tasked with executing Trump's nativist, anti-immigrant policies — and while Trump unaccountably believes Vladimir Putin when he says he didn't interfere in our election, he refuses to believe multiple nonpartisan researchers who have concluded that widespread voter fraud does not exist, and that millions of undocumented immigrants did not vote in the last presidential election or any other.

As ProPublica's Jessica Huseman noted on Twitter, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who was running the "Election Integrity" commission with Vice-President Mike Pence, confimed "what many experts suspected: DHS will look for non-citizens on the voter rolls states have already turned over. Kobach calls it a 'tactical shift.'"

Kobach said that he would remain in close contact with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security as that agency begins to investigate the issue instead of the commission. He said Trump made the final decision to disband the commission Wednesday after multiple weeks of discussion on the matter. DHS was chosen because the agency oversees immigration and can come up with an accurate estimate of the number of noncitizens on voter rolls, Kobach said.

"This is a tactical shift by the president who remains very committed to finding the scope of voter fraud," said Kobach, the architect of a controversial law that requires Kansas voters to provide their birth certificates or other proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. "In a perfect world, the commission would've moved swiftly and there wouldn't be any lawsuits."
That's the man tasked with protecting election integrity describing a "perfect world" as one in which he would have been allowed to disenfranchise voters across the country without anyone trying to stop him.

Republicans' attempts to undermine voting rights and voting access, especially among voters in demographics who historically tend to vote Democratic, continues to be a major concern.

And, once again, I will note that anyone who is talking about the "blue wave" they believe is coming in the 2018 midterms had better preoccupy themselves with what Trump, Pence, Kobach, and the DHS are up to.

Because there is no "blue wave" without free and fair elections.

And there will be no free and fair elections, if Republicans (and their pals in Russia) have anything to say about it.

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Trump's "Voter Fraud Commission" Is a Nightmare

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, December 06, 2017
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screen cap of White House page on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity

"On May 11, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order establishing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Vice President Mike Pence chairs the Commission, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach serves as the vice chair."

Trump established his Orwellian-named Election Integrity commission on the ridiculous and thoroughly debunked premise that he would have won the popular vote if only there hadn't been widespread voter fraud. Specifically, he has contended that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally, and all of them cast their votes for Hillary Clinton.

It's horseshit. It's a variation on the same horseshit that Republicans have been peddling for years to justify their various encroachments on voting rights. They continually make unsubstantiable claims about rampant voter fraud, despite the fact that multiple nonpartisan studies have found that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent.

But the fact that these assertions are demonstrable horseshit doesn't matter to Republicans nor to their base, who aren't the voters likely to be disenfranchised from voting.

They might, however, be concerned about the fact that Trump's Election Integrity Commission — which has been a shitshow from its inception — plans to create a massive national voter database, which national security experts are warning is at serious risk of being hacked.

Hamza Shaban at the Washington Post reports:
More than a half-dozen technology experts and former national security officials filed an amicus brief Tuesday urging a federal court to halt the collection of voter information for a planned government database.

Former national intelligence director James R. Clapper Jr., one of the co-signatories of the brief, warned that a White House plan to create a centralized database containing sensitive information on millions of American voters will become an attractive target for nation states and criminal hackers. This summer, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity issued a sweeping request to state officials to submit voter data to "analyze vulnerabilities and issues related to voter registration and voting." The commission, which is chaired by Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), was established after [Donald] Trump claimed that he would have won the popular vote if not for as many as 5 million illegally cast ballots. State officials haven't found any indication that there was widespread voter fraud.

State officials and civil rights advocates have questioned the commission's stated mission and broad data collection, arguing that it could restrict voting.

But the brief focuses on the security implications of aggregating and housing sensitive information, such as names, addresses, party affiliation, and partial social security numbers, in one central location, without adequate security and privacy safeguards. "A large database aggregating [personally identifiable information] of millions of American voters in one place, as the Commission has compiled and continues to compile, would constitute a treasure trove for malicious actors," the signatories wrote.

The brief states that the commission does not appear to have established rules or procedures defining who gets access to the database or how it should be actively protected.
Since June, we have known that there was hacking of state and local election databases during the 2016 election, including "the theft of thousands of voter records that contain private information like partial Social Security numbers." It is a serious concern that 2016 was just a dry run, and the meddling with and theft of voting records could be significantly more extensive in future. Why on earth would the Trump administration want to create a lumbering, central database which would make hackers' job even easier?

Well, as I've previously noted, Crosscheck, the data collection and aggregation program run by Election Integrity Commission vice-chair Kris Kobach's state of Kansas, which is positioned as a "voter fraud prevention" tool, is totally ineffective at preventing voter fraud, but very successful at disenfranchising voters.

The Republican Party can't win elections without the assistance of gerrymandering and voter suppression. (And the undemocratic Electoral College.) So Trump has tasked Mike Pence and Kris Koback with destroying our democracy as quickly and thoroughly as possible, under the auspices of preserving it.

And if the cost is exposing every voter in the United States to identity theft and sundry other schemes devised by foreign adversaries, that is a cost they are willing to let us pay.

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The Trump Regime Hates Democracy

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, October 27, 2017
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Orion Danjuma at the ACLU: Unsealed Documents Show That Kris Kobach Is Dead Set on Suppressing the Right to Vote.

For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote. Part of that struggle ended today when a federal court ordered excerpts of Kris Kobach's testimony disclosed along with other documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in our challenge to his restrictive voter registration regime.

The unsealed materials confirm what many have suspected: Kobach has a ready-made plan to gut core voting rights protections enshrined in federal law. And he has been covertly lobbying Trump's team and other officials from day one to sell them the falsehood that noncitizens are swinging elections.

As the de facto head of [Donald] Trump's election commission, Kobach has positioned himself to lead an all-out assault on the right to vote.
Danjuma goes on to detail "three big plays from Kobach's voter suppression playbook": 1. Disenfranchise new voters with severe registration restrictions. 2. If the law doesn't let you suppress the vote, pull some strings to get rid of the law. 3. Cover your tracks.

I strongly recommend heading on over to read the whole thing. This is critically important information, as it lays out how the Republican Party, with the power of the Trump administration and its "voter integrity commission" led by Koback and Vice President Mike Pence, are working to destroy democracy to maintain and expand their control of the government, on every level.

[H/T to Shaker Aphra_Behn.]

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The Trump Propaganda Machine

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, September 01, 2017
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Kobach, who is running for governor of Kansas, started writing for Breitbart before Bannon even left. Now that Bannon doesn't even need even the merest pretense of not actively coordinating with Breitbart, expect to see more of this.

Every Republican candidate across the country who's running on a platform of white supremacist nativism (or, as they like to call it, "immigration reform") will have a byline at Breitbart in no time.

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Democracy Killers

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, July 17, 2017
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Me, just earlier today: "Again, I will note that the Republican Party is pursuing this wildly unpopular legislation with a vigor that suggests a party who believes they will never have to be accountable to voters again. That seems worrying, no?"

Christopher Ingraham at the Washington Post:

The day after Donald Trump was elected president, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now the vice-chair of Trump's commission on voter fraud, told Trump's transition team of a proposal to change federal law to allow stricter requirements on voter registration.

Kobach's team was "putting together information on legislation drafts for submission to Congress early in the administration," Kobach wrote to transition team member Gene Hamilton in an email. "I have some already started regarding amendments to the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act] to make clear that proof of citizenship requirements are permitted (based on my ongoing litigation with the ACLU over this)."

...Amending the NVRA in such a manner "will lead to a dramatic reduction in access to voting," said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at NYU's Brennan Center, in an interview.
The day after Trump was elected. Oh.

As a reminder, the chair of this commission is Vice President Mike Pence.

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Our Democracy Is at Grave Risk

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, June 30, 2017
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In February of this year, Ari Berman reported that House Republicans voted "to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission, which helps states run elections and is the only federal agency charged with making sure voting machines can't be hacked."

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice "sent out a request for information on how states maintain their voter rolls." Um, okay.

On the same day, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the vice-chair of Donald Trump's "voter fraud" commission, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence, sent a letter to the Secretaries of State of all 50 states, requesting "that all publicly available voter roll data be sent to the White House by July 14, five days before the panel's first meeting."

The requested information would not only include a voter's name, address, birthdate, and partial Social Security Number, but also the voter's political party, if registered, and "which elections the voter has participated in since 2006."

And the commission wants this information for every registered voter in the entire country.

In response to Kobach's letter, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said in a statement that he has "no intention of honoring this request." California Secretary of State Alex Padilla flatly said in a statement that California will not comply: "California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach."

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin will not "turn over voter files to Trump election fraud panel." And even Alabama's Republican Secretary of State John Merrill has raised concerns about the request.
Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill also released a statement, saying that she would share publicly available data with the commission but complaining about a "lack of openness" about what the panel is looking for. Merrill cited past legal challenges to Kobach's efforts to clean up voter rolls in Kansas, which have led to some eligible voters being removed from registration lists.

"Given Secretary Kobach's history we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this commission," said Merrill, a Democrat and outgoing president of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

A spokeswoman for the association said the secretaries will almost certainly discuss Kobach's controversial request at their summer conference next week in Indianapolis.

The commission, which has yet to meet, has been viewed with suspicion from the start by civil rights groups, which think it will be used to justify measures — such as strict ID requirements — that will make it more difficult to vote.

Vanita Gupta headed the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department during the Obama administration. And she was not alone in raising flags about what the commission is getting up to.
A number of experts, as well as at least one state official, reacted with a mix of alarm and bafflement. Some saw political motivations behind the requests, while others said making such information public would create a national voter registration list, a move that could create new election problems.

"You'd think there would want to be a lot of thought behind security and access protocols for a national voter file, before you up and created one," said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University School of Law and former Department of Justice civil rights official. "This is asking to create a national voter file in two weeks."

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, also expressed serious concerns about the request. "It's probably a good idea not to make publicly available the name, address and military status of the people who are serving our armed forces to anyone who requests it," he said.

...There is no evidence to suggest that voting twice is a widespread problem, though experts say removing duplicate registrations are a good practice if done carefully.

"In theory, I don't think we have a problem with that as an idea, but the devil is always in the details," said Dale Ho, the director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. While he believes voter registration list maintenance is important, he says Kobach's Crosscheck program has been repeatedly shown to be ineffective and to produce false matches. A study by a group of political scientists at Stanford published earlier this year found that Crosscheck highlighted 200 false matches for every one true double vote.

"I have every reason to think that given the shoddy work that Mr. Kobach has done in this area in the past that this is going to be yet another boondoggle and a propaganda tool that tries to inflate the problem of double registration beyond what it actually is," Ho said.
And, one presumes, then subsequently used to justify voting requirements that disenfranchise voters who are most likely to be Democratic voters, which Republicans have already been doing in state legislatures for decades.

Because, of the two major parties, only Democrats believe that it should be easier to vote, not more difficult.


It's up to the states to hold the line against this massive federal attempt to erode voting rights. Make your calls. Let your state government know you're watching — and expect them to protect voters' information and rights.

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