Showing posts with label Mike Pence Is Terrible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Pence Is Terrible. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 902

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, July 10, 2019
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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: Migrant Children Allege Sexual Abuse and Retaliation and Primarily Speaking.

Let's start out with some GOOD news today!

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jenna Amatulli at the Huffington Post: Women's World Cup Soccer Champs Praised at NYC Parade with Glorious Signs. "The United States Women's National Team was honored in New York City with a parade on Wednesday after they brought home the 2019 Women's World Cup — and the signs did not disappoint." There is a great collection of the signs that greeted Donald Trump's least favorite professional sports team, but this one is defo my favorite:


So, yesterday, Amy McGrath announced that she is challenging Mitch McConnell for his senate seat, and then this happened... Kasie Hunt at NBC News: McGrath Raises a Record $2.5 Million on First Day of Senate Campaign. "Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Amy McGrath raised more than $2.5 million in the first 24 hours of her campaign against Mitch McConnell — over $1 million of it coming in just the first five and a half hours after she announced, according to her campaign. McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said it's the most ever raised in the first 24 hours of a Senate campaign." RIGHT FUCKING ON.

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: California Becomes First State to Give Health Care to Some Undocumented Migrants. "California has become the first state to offer taxpayer-supported health care to some undocumented migrants after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law Tuesday. The new laws...will allow around 90,000 low-income adults below the age of 25 to access the state's Medicaid program, even if they're undocumented. ...Newsom said he plans to further expand coverage to more adults in the years to come." Woot!

* * *

Ann E. Marimow and Jonathan O'Connell at the Washington Post: Appeals Court Dismisses Emoluments Lawsuit Involving [Donald] Trump's D.C. Hotel.
A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with [Donald] Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington.

The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the attorneys general lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution when his business accepts payments from state and foreign governments.
Crap.

[CN: Rape culture]


Nicole Lafond at TPM: DOJ Instructs Two Mueller Deputies Not to Appear for Closed-Door Testimony. "House Democrats are attempting to make arrangements for two of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's deputies to appear for a private, closed-door testimony on the same day that Mueller is set to testify — July 17. But the Justice Department has reportedly instructed the two special counsel staffers, James Quarles and Aaron Zebley, not to appear. According to new reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the DOJ's interference could muddy the deal that the department and lawmakers reached last month to get Mueller's testimony." Muddy the deal. That's polite.

Peter Jamison at the Washington Post: Trump's July Fourth Event and Weekend Protests Bankrupted D.C. Security Fund, Mayor Says. "Trump's overhauled July Fourth celebration cost the D.C. government $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation's capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals. In a letter to the president Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) warned that the fund has now been depleted and is estimated to be running a $6 million deficit by Sept. 30. The mayor also noted that the account was never reimbursed for $7.3 million in expenses from Trump's 2017 inauguration." Fucking grifter.

Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Trump's Human Rights Commission Could Undercut Human Rights.
The Trump administration launched an advisory commission this week tasked with examining human rights in foreign policy — but advocates worry it could undermine global reproductive rights.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday announced the creation of the U.S. State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights. He said the commission will conduct "an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy" and provide him "with advice on human rights." A notice published in the Federal Register in May said the commission will provide "fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights."

Though the State Department has an office devoted to human rights, the commission was "conceived with almost no input from" it, Politico reported. Officials told the outlet that the commission is "advisory and will not create policy, and maintain that everyone has 'unalienable rights,' including LGBTQ people and other minorities."

Mary Ann Glendon, a professor of law at Harvard University who teaches on human rights, will chair the commission. Glendon's anti-choice activism earned her the "Proudly Pro-Life Award" from National Right to Life in 2009. That year, Glendon turned down a medal from the University of Notre Dame, citing its decision to give President Barack Obama an honorary degree.
Fucking hell.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link; ableist language at link] Jonathan Cohn at the Huffington Post: Obamacare Had Another Bad Day in Court; That's Pretty Alarming. "[T]he mere possibility that the two Republicans would invalidate part, let alone all, of the Affordable Care Act is hard to fathom. The consequences of such a ruling would be devastating, and the underlying argument of the lawsuit is, according to a wide array of respectable legal experts, positively [absurd]. And yet, here we are."

Rishika Dugyala at Politico: Pence Aide Still Refuses to Reveal Why Trip Was Mysteriously Scrapped. "The mystery surrounding Vice President Mike Pence's scrapped trip to New Hampshire last week is still alive, with his chief of staff telling reporters Wednesday morning that he can't yet offer up an explanation. 'I can't talk about that,' Pence chief of staff Marc Short told reporters on the White House driveway. He said the public could expect an answer 'in a few weeks.'" What horseshit. [Background.]

[CN: Nativism] Josh Israel at ThinkProgress: GOP Congressman Claims without Proof That 80% to 90% of Asylum Claims Aren't Legit. "Texas Rep. Michael Cloud (R) falsely stated that few asylum seekers have legitimate claims of political persecution, and that their cases should therefore merit only a very brief evaluation lasting 30 minutes to two hours maximum. The House Freedom Caucus member combined debunked statistics and a misunderstanding of what makes people eligible for asylum in a Fox News interview." These fucking lying assholes.

* * *


Maxwell Tani at the Daily Beast: CNN Tells Digital Staff: Take Some Cues from Fox News. "Fox News is already beating CNN on TV. Now, to ensure the conservative news network doesn't start winning online, CNN wants to make sure its employees know what stories Fox News is writing about. In recent months, CNN's newly revamped audience development team has begun highlighting the top daily stories people are searching for online in a widely seen company Slack messaging channel. The network has begun placing small fox emojis next to stories the right-leaning cable outlet covered online that CNN missed." Goddammit.

[CN: Misogyny] Larrison Campbell at Mississippi Today: Robert Foster, GOP Governor Candidate, Denies Woman Reporter Access Because of Her Gender. "In two phone calls this week, Colton Robison, Foster's campaign director, said a male colleague would need to accompany this reporter on an upcoming 15-hour campaign trip because they believed the optics of the candidate with a woman, even a working reporter, could be used in a smear campaign to insinuate an extramarital affair. 'The only reason you think that people will think I'm having a (improper) relationship with your candidate is because I am a woman,' this reporter said. Robison said the campaign simply 'can't risk it.'" Seethe.

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

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We Resist: Day 900

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, July 08, 2019
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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 USWNT Is F#@king Awesome and Primarily Speaking and A Couple of Notes on the Epstein Charges.

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

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


Mike Pence is going to go to the southern border and tell rank lies about what he sees there. Let us all endeavor to counterbalance his propaganda with the truth, wherever we can.

Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: United Nations Human Rights Commissioner 'Appalled' by Conditions in U.S. Detention Centers. "Conditions in U.S. detention centers where migrants and refugees are being held are 'undignified' and 'alarming,' said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday. ...Bachelet said she was appalled by the detrimental effects of such conditions, especially for children, adding that 'Detaining a child even for short periods under good conditions can have a serious impact on their health and development — consider the damage being done every day by allowing this alarming situation to continue.'"

Amanda Holpuch at the Guardian: Migrant Children Held in Texas Facility Need Access to Doctors, Says Attorney.
Hundreds of children at a migrant detention center in Texas are being held in "inhumane" conditions that amount to an "emergency public health crisis" and should be allowed immediate access to doctors, according to an attorney who gained rare access to the facility.

Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School's immigrant rights clinic, was one of six attorneys to visit the detention center in Clint as part of ongoing litigation about an agreement that states unaccompanied children can't be held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities for more than 72 hours.

The team found that children had no adequate access to medical care, had no basic sanitation, were exposed to extreme cold, and did not have adequate access to drinking water or food.

"I've been visiting children detained in federal immigration custody for 12 years," Mukherjee told the Guardian. "I have never seen anything like this before. I have never seen, smelled, had to bear witness to such degrading and inhumane conditions."
Sob.

[CN: Homophobia] And of course it isn't just the children who are being subjected to degrading and inhumane conditions.


Molly O'Toole and Carolyn Cole at the LA Times: Facing Trump's Asylum Limits, Refugees from as Far as Africa Languish in a Mexican Camp.
A group of roughly 100 Haitians, Africans, and South Americans cross the Rio Grande, just shallow enough for adults to wade despite an overnight storm.

As they wait on the muddy bank near Del Rio, Texas, to surrender themselves to the Border Patrol, the voices of children in the group carry across the river to the Mexican side.

There, in the city of Ciudad Acuña, hundreds of migrants have formed an impromptu refugee camp in an ecological park bound on one side by the river. Just outside the park, the official port of entry to the United States sits at the end of a short bridge.

They've crossed thousands of miles by foot, boat, and bus to seek asylum in the U.S., only to find themselves stalled in a purgatory of soggy tents and overflowing bathrooms. Now, they face an uncertain wait prolonged by Trump administration policy.

The temptation to make the risky and illegal river crossing mounts daily.

"If you see people jumping over the river, it is because they are tired of staying here," said one resident of the camp, Luis, who declined to give his last name out of fear for the safety of his family back home.

Home for him would be the West African nation of Cameroon, where Luis was vice principal of a school until he fled last fall. He escaped a widening conflict between the country's English-speaking minority and its Francophone-majority government, which receives security assistance from the U.S.

He was jailed and tortured before escaping to neighboring Nigeria, Luis said. After a trek across three continents, he landed here, where he has waited for six weeks to present himself to U.S. officials at the Del Rio port of entry.

He hopes to join a sister in Ohio.

"At times, it is really disheartening," he said, "so it is difficult to wait."
Patrick Timmons at the Guardian: 'People with No Names': The Drowned Migrants Buried in Pauper's Graves. "Dotted amid the decorated graves there is the sudden, jarring sight of plain, wooden crosses. One has scrawled on it in Spanish: '24 April 2019. Unidentified male recovered from the Rio Bravo approximately 300 meters from the black bridge in the Morelos neighborhood.' ...As drownings have increased in the treacherous river amid the Trump administration trying to block all undocumented people from crossing into the U.S., even to seek asylum, Piedras Negras has had to bury unidentifiable bodies after they were hauled out of the water by first responders."


Malice is the motherfucking agenda.

As I have noted many times previously: This administration (mis)treats migrants and refugees as the canary in the coalmine of their official cruelty. The Trump Regime's war on immigrants is intolerable on its face, but understand that, whatever they are doing to undocumented immigrants, they will do to other marginalized people and dissidents in the same way eventually.

With that as preface, Drew Harwell at the Washington Post: FBI, ICE Find State Driver's License Photos Are a Gold Mine for Facial-Recognition Searches. "Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have turned state driver's license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through millions of Americans' photos without their knowledge or consent, newly released documents show. Thousands of facial-recognition requests, internal documents, and emails over the past five years, obtained through public-records requests by researchers with Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology and provided to The Washington Post, reveal that federal investigators have turned state departments of motor vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure."

A lot of folks will read headlines about this item, see "ICE," and assume the technology is only being used to "nab illegals." It isn't. It's already being used against citizens. And, even if it were only being used against undocumented immigrants, that's bad enough. But the population's indifference to abuses against undocumented immigrants will mean this surveillance programs expands without much pushback. So, let's make some noise.

Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: Sanctuary Leaders Fight Back Against ICE's 'Psychological Violence' and Steep Fines. "Ivan and his mother Hilda Ramirez came to the United States fleeing familial violence in 2014. Since then, they have been 'under attack' by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the elder Ramirez said. They were detained together for almost a year after first arriving in the United States. Since their release from detention, they have been targeted for deportation. Because of ups and downs in their immigration cases, they have been forced to take sanctuary twice in St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. On July 4, soon after receiving a letter from ICE informing her of a $303,620 fine, Ramirez told Rewire.News she sees these financial penalties as part of a larger pattern of attacks against immigrants in sanctuary."

Matt Zapotosky at the Washington Post: Justice Department Changing Lawyers on Census Case. "The Justice Department is swapping out the lawyers who had been representing the administration in its legal battle to put a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census, possibly signaling career attorneys' legal or ethical concerns over the maneuvering ordered by [Donald] Trump." We knew this wasn't over yet. Goddammit.

* * *

Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Federal Grand Jury Probing Top GOP Donor Elliott Broidy over Trump Inauguration. "Top Republican fundraiser and Trump ally Elliott Broidy is under investigation by a federal grand jury over suspicions that he used his position as vice chairman of Trump's inaugural committee to help him strike business deals with foreign leaders." Yeah, that Elliott Broidy.

Mohamad Bazzi at the Guardian: The Troubling Overlap Between Jared Kushner's Business Interests and U.S. Foreign Policy. "The meeting in May 2017 was crucial because it helped solidify a Trump foreign policy favoring Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their conflict with Qatar, a tiny emirate in the Gulf that is rich in natural gas and home to a major U.S. military base. It also raises questions about a problem that has dogged Kushner since the earliest days of the Trump administration: whether his family's business interests are driving his political decisions." Yes, they are.

Spencer Kimball at CNBC: Deutsche Bank Will Exit Global Equities Business and Slash 18,000 Jobs in Sweeping Overhaul. "Deutsche Bank announced Sunday that it will pull out of global equities sales and trading, scale back investment banking and slash thousands of jobs as part of a sweeping restructuring plan to improve profitability. ...Deutsche has come under renewed scrutiny in the U.S. over its business relationship with [Donald] Trump. The House Intelligence and Financial Services Committees subpoenaed Deutsche in April for records on Trump's finances. Trump and his family sought to have that subpoena squashed in court, but a federal judge ruled the bank can turn over financial documents to House Democrats."

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

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We Resist: Day 886

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, June 24, 2019
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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 Reverses Course on Immigrant Purge — to Blame Democrats for His Malice and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: White supremacy; nativism] Let's start with some GOOD news, care of Ravelry, whose managers have announced that they are "banning support of Donald Trump and his administration on Ravelry. ...We cannot provide a space that is inclusive of all and also allow support for open white supremacy. Support of the Trump administration is undeniably support for white supremacy." Right on.

This announcement comes at a time when the Trump Regime's violent white supremacy is painfully evident in its torture of brown children in concentration camps, and as Axios reports on leaked Trump transition documents in which a number of people who went on to hold prominent administration positions were flagged for ties to white supremacy.

It also comes at a time when Donald Trump is brazenly asserting his authoritarianism, like in this absolutely appalling tweet in which he suggests he (and/or someone else bearing the Trump name) will be president for the rest of his natural life and beyond:


That is terrifying. Also terrifying is the fact that most people reacted to it with jokes, rather than treating it with the gravity it deserves.

Ravelry is taking this moment seriously. Good for them.

* * *

[CN: Sexual violence] At the Cut, E. Jean Carroll published an account of Donald Trump raping her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in the mid-nineties. It is a deeply harrowing read of a blatant rape. Carroll is at least the 22nd woman to accuse the U.S. president of sexual assault, and it has not received proportional or sustained coverage in the news.

At Media Matters for America, Katie Sullivan observes that, the day after Carroll's account was published, "several major newspapers failed to report the story on their front pages, even though it is horrific, detailed, and extremely similar to the accounts of numerous other women." Among the papers who did not include the story on their front pages: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

[CN: video may autoplay at link] At the Huffington Post, Hayley Miller notes that, two days after Carroll's account was published, "the hosts of the most popular Sunday morning talk shows in the U.S. had the opportunity to ask their guests ― often a mix of high-profile Republicans and Democrats ― about Carroll's horrifying claim and whether to hold the president accountable. But the allegation went largely undiscussed by major TV networks on Sunday morning, clearing the path for yet another sexual assault allegation against the president to slip into the void. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC ― the networks that make up the 'big five' of Sunday morning talk shows ― boasted major political players in their lineups that included Vice President Mike Pence and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). And yet not a single one of them was asked about Carroll's allegation."

Jon Allsop at the Columbia Journalism Review deep-dives into the media failure:
As is often the case, the criticism that "the media" did "not cover" Carroll's accusation should not be taken literally. The story was generated by the cover of a major magazine and provoked a vocal reaction on Twitter; Carroll subsequently spoke to major networks, and will continue her interview round today as New York hits newsstands. The complaint, rather, is one of magnitude, and on such terms is entirely legitimate.

...Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton calculated that the story was not among the 164 articles featured on the Times's homepage; it appeared there later on, but the Times tagged it in its books section, and even there it was downplayed. As of this morning, the story is all but absent from the homepages of major outlets. Yes, it's three days old at this point. But, as MSNBC's Joy Reid said yesterday: "In any other universe, in any other presidency, in any other news cycle… [Carroll's allegations] would have been the lead story all week long."

...Whatever the reason, it's astonishing that Carroll's allegation isn't ubiquitous in our news media this morning. Its relative absence is doubly surprising when you consider that the #MeToo moment — with its brilliant reporting on Harvey Weinstein and so many other abusive men—has arguably been the biggest story of the Trump era not to centrally feature Trump. Somehow, Trump escaped accountability at the height of that moment. It looks like that's happening again.
Rage. Seethe. Boil.

* * *

Patrick Wintour at the Guardian: U.S. Proposes Tanker Protection Force in Wake of Gulf Attacks.
The U.S. is to propose an international maritime Gulf protection force, its special envoy on Iran has said, as the Trump administration prepared to announce fresh economic sanctions on Tehran.

Brian Hook said he had been holding extensive talks with U.S. allies in the wake of the Gulf of Oman tanker attacks, when two vessels were damaged by explosions. He believed a global coalition to protect shipping was required.

"There have been too many attacks. We could have had an environmental disaster and extensive loss of life due to reckless Iranian provocations," he said.

Hook said the G20 summit this week in Japan would be a good forum for discussions.
So now Trump wants to use the attacks on tankers to build what I can only assume he wants to be a rival/replacement of NATO, but including all his friends like the Saudis. Cool.

R. Jeffrey Smith at the New York Times: Hypersonic Missiles Are Unstoppable — and They're Starting a New Global Arms Race. Hypersonic missiles are "a revolutionary new type of weapon, one that would have the unprecedented ability to maneuver and then to strike almost any target in the world within a matter of minutes. Capable of traveling at more than 15 times the speed of sound, hypersonic missiles arrive at their targets in a blinding, destructive flash, before any sonic booms or other meaningful warning. So far, there are no surefire defenses. Fast, effective, precise, and unstoppable — these are rare but highly desired characteristics on the modern battlefield. And the missiles are being developed not only by the United States but also by China, Russia, and other countries."

[CN: Nativism; child abuse]


[CN: Nativism; death] Sheriff Eddie Guerra of Hidalgo County, Texas, tweeted last night: "Deputies are on scene by the river SE of the Anzalduas Park in Las Paloma Wildlife Management Area where Border Patrol agents located 4 deceased bodies. Bodies appear to be 2 infants, a toddler, and 20yoa female. Deputies are awaiting FBI agents who will be leading." He has posted no updates since.

I'm not certain if FBI agents are taking the lead on the case because the bodies were found on federal land or because there is the possibility of foul play or some other reason altogether, but I will note the unlikelihood, as is the wide conjecture, that the victims drowned in the river near which they were found and their bodies all washed up simultaneously in the same place.

There is no good reason for migrants and refugees to die in the desert. All the reasons are bad. But I truly hope they did not die by violence at the hand of someone amped up by nativist rhetoric, because that means it is far more likely that more people will die the same way.

On a related note... Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Vigilante Arrested for Impersonating U.S. Border Patrol Agent. "A member of a vigilante group known for stopping migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has been arrested for allegedly impersonating a U.S. Border Patrol agent, court documents show. ...Reuters reports Jim Benvie, spokesman for the so-called Guardian Patriots, was arrested on the separate impersonation charges Friday in Oklahoma. The Justice Department alleges that Benvie, 44, passed himself off as a Border Patrol agent in April. Earlier this year, the Guardian Patriots split from another armed border group, the United Constitutional Patriots."

[CN: Nativism] Carmen Heredia Rodriguez at Kaiser Health News: Non-English Speakers Face Health Setback If Trump Loosens Language Rules. "A federal regulation demands that certain health care organizations provide patients who have limited English skills a written notice of free translation services. But the Trump administration wants to ease those regulations and also no longer require that directions be given to patients on how they can report discrimination they experience. ...The government acknowledged in the proposal that the change would lead to fewer people with limited English skills accessing health care and fewer reports of discrimination [but said] the impact of doing away with these requirements would be 'negligible.'"

* * *

Helena Bottemiller Evich at Politico: Agriculture Department Buries Studies Showing Dangers of Climate Change.
The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department's acclaimed in-house scientists.

The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the 600 million people world-wide whose diet consists mostly of rice — to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons to a warning to farmers about the reduction in quality of grasses important for raising cattle.

All of these studies were peer-reviewed by scientists and cleared through the non-partisan Agricultural Research Service, one of the world's leading sources of scientific information for farmers and consumers.

None of the studies were focused on the causes of global warming – an often politically charged issue. Rather, the research examined the wide-ranging effects of rising carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures, and volatile weather.

The administration, researchers said, appears to be trying to limit the circulation of evidence of climate change and avoid press coverage that may raise questions about the administration's stance on the issue.

"The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change," said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. "Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires, and heat waves."
Elana Schor at the AP: Medical Groups Warn Climate Change Is a 'Health Emergency'. "74 medical and public health groups aligned on Monday to push for a series of consensus commitments to combat climate change, bluntly defined by the organizations as 'a health emergency.' ...'The health, safety, and well-being of millions of people in the U.S. have already been harmed by human-caused climate change, and health risks in the future are dire without urgent action to fight climate change,' the medical and public health groups wrote in their climate agenda."


The entire exchange is just fucking incredible.

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

Open Wide...
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Trump Reverses Course on Immigrant Purge — to Blame Democrats for His Malice

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, June 24, 2019
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[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse.]

After announcing a massive sweep of undocumented immigrants last Monday, scheduled to begin yesterday, Donald Trump reversed course at the last minute, tweeting: "At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!"

[CN: Video may autoplay] According to a CNN source, Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Trump late Saturday asking him to call off the raids. They reportedly "spoke at 7:20 p.m. ET Friday night for about 12 minutes, according to the source." Now Trump is using Democrats' plaintive calls for decency to blame them for his malice.


Trump is demanding that House Democrats put their stamp on the cruel immigration policies Trump wants, or he'll be forced to torture undocumented immigrant families. This is sick beyond measure.

Meanwhile, following Friday's report about the Trump Regime's horrific abuse of immigrant children in their concentration camps, there have been additional first-hand accounts published about the horrors taking place in these facilities:

Isaac Chotiner at the New Yorker: Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children. "We drove around afterward, and we discovered that there was a giant warehouse that they had put on the site. And it appears that that one warehouse has allegedly increased their capacity by an additional five hundred kids. When we talked to Border Patrol agents later that week, they confirmed that is the alleged expansion, and when we talked to children, one of the children described as many as three hundred children being in that room, in that warehouse, basically, at one point when he first arrived. There were no windows."

William Brangham at PBS: A Firsthand Report of 'Inhumane Conditions' at a Migrant Children's Detention Facility.
Basically, what we saw are dirty children who are malnourished, who are being severely neglected. They are being kept in inhumane conditions. They are essentially being warehoused, as many as 300 children in a cell, with almost no adult supervision.

We have children caring for other young children. For example, we saw a little boy in diapers — or he had no diapers on. He should have had a diaper on. He was 2 years old. And when I was asked why he didn't have diapers on, I was told he didn't need it.

He immediately urinated. And he was in the care of another child. Children cannot take care of children, and yet that's how they are trying to run this facility. The children are hardly being fed anything nutritious, and they are being medically neglected.

We're seeing a flu outbreak, and we're also seeing a lice infestation. It is — we have children sleeping on the floor. It's the worst conditions I have ever witnessed in several years of doing these inspections.
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Serena Marshall, Lana Zak, and Jennifer Metz at ABC News: Doctor Compares Conditions for Unaccompanied Children at Immigrant Holding Centers to 'Torture Facilities'. "'The conditions within which they are held could be compared to torture facilities,' the physician, Dolly Lucio Sevier, wrote in a medical declaration obtained exclusively by ABC News. ...She described conditions for [children] at the McAllen facility as including 'extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.' All the children who were seen showed evidence of trauma, Lucio Sevier reported, and the teens spoke of having no access to hand washing during their entire time in custody. She compared it to being 'tantamount to intentionally causing the spread of disease.'"

Asked about these reports over the weekend, Mike Pence pretended like he cares (as if the Trump Regime doesn't have control over these conditions) and made sure to introduce the regime's new talking point blaming the Democrats: "If Democrats in Congress will simply step up...we can solve the crisis."


He is a despicable scoundrel. The Trump Regime could, at any time, reverse their vile nativist policy of separating and detaining families. They could certainly reverse their policies on climate change, which is driving much of the northward migration of refugees, and they could certainly reverse their decision to eliminate foreign aid for Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, whence come many of the refugees fleeing violence and/or joblessness and/or hunger.

This is hardly the fault of Democrats. Mike Pence knows that. So does Donald Trump.

It wasn't the Democrats who established concentration camps in order to torture thousands of migrant and refugee children.

On that note, I will end by recommending this blunt and necessary editorial at the Salt Lake Tribune by their editorial board: Yes, We Do Have Concentration Camps.

MAKE YOUR CALLS. Resist.

Open Wide...
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Trump Is Terrifying. So Are His Followers.

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, June 19, 2019
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Last night, Donald Trump officially launched his 2020 campaign with a rally in Orlando. It went precisely as you'd expect — with Trump running through all his greatest hits, including brazen lies, claiming credit for shit he hasn't done, demonizing his opponents, and basking in the glow of "Lock her up!" chants, while seemingly promising that Attorney General Bill Barr will prosecute Hillary Clinton.

National treasure Aaron Rupar came through as always with a Twitter thread compiling the notable moments from the event, with descriptions and video, including from Mike Pence's chilling introduction.

And one of the things you'll note, if you watched the event live or if you peruse Aaron's thread, is that the story of the night might not be Trump, who was certainly maximum Trump in every familiar way, but his followers in the crowd, some of whom waited for days outside the venue to ensure they'd be in the audience.

They are rabid.

Booing the "fake news" right out of the gate.

And again, for the second time in short order.

Chanting "Drain the swamp."

"Lock her up!"

Just going absolutely wild for their godking.

Trump has tapped into resentments and anger and hatred and bigotries that the Republican Party has spent decades cultivating, nurturing, and stoking. He knows how to inflame it. He knows how to exploit it. And he is eminently willing to do it, no matter the cost to this country or its people who aren't among his cultists.

I am horrified watching his crowds react to him, especially knowing keenly that he can and will provoke them to violence at any moment.

This, too, underlines the urgency of impeaching him.

Because that seething resentment and inflamed bigotry doesn't stay behind in the venue. His followers take it with them, out into the world. They are amped by hate.

And that is tremendously dangerous.

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We Resist: Day 873

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, June 11, 2019
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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.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Omgggggggggg and Trump: "I Don't Leave" and Primarily Speaking.

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

Donald Trump had an epic tweetshitz disgorgement this morning. At Raw Story, David Badash offers a summary of the nightmare: "Trump's rambling and incoherent tweets made little sense. For example, this one in which he may or may not be quoting Fox News, saying, 'The Greatest Witch Hunt of all time continues. All crimes were by the other side, but the Committee refuses to even take a look. Deleting 33,000 Emails is the real Obstruction — and much more!' ...This one clearly is all Trump: 'PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!' There were more, of course."

Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade testified to the House Judiciary Committee that Trump's "conduct described in the report constitutes multiple crimes of obstruction of justice, supported by evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." The Daily Beast has a transcript of her statement, which is worth your time to read.

This seems like a little nothing of a story, but it's actually worth our attention and scrutiny: Felicia Sonmez and Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post: Former Trump Chief of Staff Reince Priebus Joins the Navy. Note the details of what it took for him to get there.
Reince Priebus, [Donald] Trump's former chief of staff, has officially joined the Navy.

At a commissioning ceremony Monday morning, Vice President Pence swore in Priebus as an ensign, an entry-level officer. Priebus and his family also met with Trump at the White House after the ceremony.

...Priebus's commissioning follows a lengthy process in which former defense secretary Jim Mattis recommended him and a board of officers selected him as a reserve officer, according to defense officials and a memo obtained by The Washington Post late last year.

...A Navy review board reviewed 42 candidates last December and "professionally recommended" Priebus and four others to join the service through a competitive direct-commission program for human resources officers, the memo said.
I noted on Twitter: First, I expect that he will be quickly promoted. Second, I don't think it's a coincidence this happened immediately following the Mueller report. Priebus kept his fucking mouth shut. This is his reward. And note it was Pence who personally swore him in.

Malcolm Nance tweets: "He is now a Navy Public Relations Officer. I shit you not." And, just like that, Trump has his propagandist in the Navy.

Trump-Pence are politicizing the military with loyalists. Trump threatens not to recognize election outcomes if he doesn't win. And the reason for Pence's (and Putin's) fascination with Venezuela comes sharply into focus.

Maduro now looks like a dry run for what will happen here. I sure as fuck hope I'm wrong about that.


Relatedly, Dana Bash at CNN reports that the Trump campaign is considering putting resources in Oregon: "Oregon is so blue that it has not voted for a Republican for president since 1984. But the Trump campaign is flush with cash and is looking for ways to spend its money and time wisely while Democrats duke it out for the chance to run against [Trump]."

In a free and fair election, Trump would have zero chance of winning Oregon. But if the GOP, with or without help from Russia (or other nefarious actors), rigs the elections to, say, turn Oregon red, this is the preemptive explanation for how it happened: They had the wisdom to "put resources" in Oregon.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is doing everything he can to undermine the integrity of U.S. elections to Trump's favor:
There actually are a lot of bills to safeguard the 2020 elections from the next Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is blocking all of them.

The New York Times reported a few days ago that McConnell is refusing to bring to a vote any bill to safeguard the elections from foreign attack. There's a Democratic bill to provide election funding to state and local governments. There's a bipartisan Senate bill to "codify cyberinformation-sharing initiatives between federal intelligence services and state election officials, speed up the granting of security clearances to state officials, and provide federal incentives for states to adopt paper ballots." McConnell won't allow any of them to come to a vote.

The threat from Russian election interference is actually quite severe. Russian intelligence breached at least one Florida county computer system and planted malware in a manufacturer of vote-tabulating machines, according to the Mueller report. While the probability that Russian hackers could actually change the outcome of the next election is low, the consequences would be extraordinarily high — especially if they do so by actual vote-rigging rather than mere information warfare.
Luke Harding and Jason Burke at the Guardian: Leaked Documents Reveal Russian Effort to Exert Influence in Africa. "Russia is seeking to bolster its presence in at least 13 countries across Africa by building relations with existing rulers, striking military deals, and grooming a new generation of 'leaders' and undercover 'agents,' leaked documents reveal. The mission to increase Russian influence on the continent is being led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman based in St. Petersburg who is a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. One aim is to 'strong-arm' the U.S. and the former colonial powers the UK and France out of the region. Another is to see off 'pro-western' uprisings, the documents say."

* * *

Andrew Desiderio, Heather Caygle, and John Bresnahan at Politico: Pelosi-Nadler Clash over Impeachment Intensifies. "Nadler has twice urged Pelosi in private to open a formal impeachment inquiry, but the speaker, backed by the majority of her leadership team and her caucus, has maintained that impeaching the president would backfire on Democrats without meaningful Republican support. And there is no sign that Trump's GOP firewall is cracking."

Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post: The House Begins to Tell the Story of Trump's Criminality. "[T]his is the beginning of a process that will, if committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) is successful, include fact witnesses who can bring to life what the panel explained on Monday. Whether it changes public opinion sufficiently to encourage Democrats to move to impeachment is unknown, but if part of the task here is to make an historical record, Democrats have certainly succeeded."

Former Rep. Steve Israel at the Atlantic: What Nancy Pelosi Wants to Do Before Impeachment.
For Pelosi, public sentiment doesn't mean following public opinion, but strategically shaping it so that it's more receptive to a strategic goal. It's not just laying the groundwork; it's fertilizing it. That takes message discipline, unity, and patience — all of which will be necessary as pressure to impeach [Donald] Trump continues to build.

...Pelosi, remember, believes it's possible to shape public sentiment. That's why she's unleashed her committee chairs to fully exercise their oversight responsibilities by investigating every facet of potentially impeachable offenses: Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, Adam Schiff on Intel, Maxine Waters on Financial Services, Elijah Cummings on Oversight and Reform.

They may find a smoking gun — incontrovertible evidence that crystallizes public support for impeachment and maximizes pressure on House Republican incumbents in moderate districts. Then Pelosi will have achieved her goal: a broader public consensus for impeachment and stronger, if not necessarily overwhelming, bipartisan support.
Connecting those dots draws a line that points toward impeachment. I just hope we get there sooner rather than later. Because I'm honestly worried that it's already too late.

* * *

[CN: White supremacy] Danielle McLean at ThinkProgress: Under Trump, the 2020 U.S. Census Could Fail to Count 4 million Americans. "Republican efforts to rig the 2020 U.S. Census could leave more than four million people, including a large number of black and Latinx Americans, uncounted and unrepresented, according to a new study from the Urban Institute. The upcoming 2020 Census is facing 'unprecedented challenges and threats,' according to the report, thanks to the Trump Administration, which has done everything possible to ensure that minority populations are left uncounted, giving Republicans a huge edge during the 2021 congressional and state legislative redistricting process."

[CN: LGBTQx hatred] Felicia Sonmez and Carol Morello at the Washington Post: Pence Says Move to Bar Rainbow Flags Outside U.S. Embassies Was 'the Right Decision'. Yes, I'm sure he does, since it was probably at his direction. Also: This isn't news. Let me know when Mike Pence stops hating queer people for two seconds, because that would be news.

[CN: Trans hatred; death; carcerality] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Trans Woman Who Died at Rikers Island Prison Was in Solitary. "Layleen Polanco was pronounced dead in her cell Friday afternoon, reportedly around an hour after a prison officer noticed she was unconscious. The exact cause of her death hasn't yet been determined. She was in the women's jail on Rikers, in a unit for transgender women, but was placed in solitary as punishment for allegedly taking part in a fight."

* * *

And finally, let's end with some GOOD news...


Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: As Red States Try to Close Clinics, Maine Increases Number of Abortion Providers.
In September, Maine will start allowing health care professionals like nurses to perform abortions, thanks to a bill signed into law by Gov. Janet Mills (D) on Monday.

The law allows nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other advanced practice clinicians to administer medication abortion and other in-clinic procedures. The number of clinics where aspiration abortion, the most common type of in-clinic procedure and used up to 16 weeks in pregnancy, is performed would increase from three to up to 18 — including in Aroostook County, among the poorest counties statewide, and where patients have had to travel over 150 miles for an in-clinic procedure.

"Allowing qualified and licensed medical professionals to perform abortions will ensure that Maine women, especially those in rural areas, are able to access critical reproductive health care services when and where they need them from qualified providers they know and trust," Mills said in a press statement. "These health care professionals are trained in family planning, counseling, and abortion procedures, the overwhelming majority of which are completed without complications."
Amazing.

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

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Mike Pence Is a Terrifying Menace

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 30, 2019
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[Content Note: War on agency; misogyny; queer hatred.]

At Reuters, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Joseph Tanfani provide one of the first in-depth looks at the vice-presidency of Mike Pence.

Long overdue, their report is necessary reading and, as I noted on Twitter, details exactly what I've been warning Mike Pence would do, as a veep empowered by a president to run domestic policy, since even before these twin nightmares were elected.

Here's a brief selection of receipts just from between the time Pence was selected as Trump's running mate and their inauguration:

July 14, 2016: "At the time Pence signed the anti-LGBTx law, only 28 percent of Hoosiers believed there should be no legal recognition or rights accorded to same-sex couples in Indiana. He was nonetheless content to do the bidding of less than one-third of the entire state, because meaningful democracy is of no interest to him. As you would expect, Pence — who has bragged 'I was Tea Party before it was cool' — holds odious positions on an entire raft of issues: He recently signed 'a sweeping new anti-abortion law that combines some of the harshest attacks on reproductive rights into one piece of legislation.' He tried to block Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana. He opposed campaign finance reform as 'unconstitutional' and Medicare Part D as an 'unfunded entitlement program.' He's anti-union, and naturally gets an A-rating from the NRA. His positions are both contemptible and extreme."

July 20, 2016: "Before he was an awful governor, Pence was an awful Congressman: During his 12 years in the House, he cast 38 votes on abortion and reproductive-rights issues, every single one of which was anti-choice. He repeatedly voted for the Federal Abortion Ban; repeatedly voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act; repeatedly voted to defund Planned Parenthood; and repeatedly cosponsored legislation so extreme that it would not only have banned abortion, but also would have banned some common forms of contraception, stem cell research, and in vitro fertilization. ...And his failures on reproductive justice are just the tip of the crapberg."

July 22, 2016: "I've also read a raft of articles about how nice Pence is reported to be. Pence is 'Midwestern polite.' He's 'likable.' He knows how to be 'both kind and ruthless.' Heck, even Indiana Democrats like Mike Pence! With qualifications: 'In person he's very amiable, he's really friendly and engaged,' said Ann DeLaney, a former chair of the state Democratic Party...who was an occasional guest on Pence's radio show in the 1990s [and] said Pence's personal and political political positions struck her as an 'odd dichotomy.' That's a very polite way of saying that Pence is kind to people in person, but things get a little dicier when he's, say, making the decision to erode the rights of entire groups of people with the mere stroke of his pen. Then, Pence isn't so much 'nice' as 'cruel and unapologetic.'"

September 13, 2016: "Mike Pence is awful for women; a disaster for LGBTQ people; terrible for refugees and immigrants. His entire tenure as Indiana's governor has been an exercise in punitive governance, absolutely horrific in every way for marginalized Hoosiers."

October 4, 2016: "[Voters] will find in Pence's record a host of anti-abortion measures, which has made Indiana one of the most unsafe places to be pregnant in the country. Trump talks the horrible talk about health and women's agency; Pence has walked the horrible walk."

October 8, 2016: "In 2011, the House GOP provided a perfect insight into the intersection of anti-choice aggression and rape apologia, when they attempted to redefine rape in order to limit access to abortion. Republican legislators, unhappy with exceptions to the Hyde Amendment which allow federal funds to pay for abortions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, wanted to limit the definition of the exception to 'forcible rape,' thus excluding pregnancies resulting from incest, statutory rape, and rape via coercion or incapacitation. That legislation, the 'No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,' had 173 co-sponsors. Among them [was] then-congressman and current vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence."

December 4, 2016: "Pence's style has always been less aggressive than it is opportunist — which does not make him any less dangerous. To the contrary, his patience in waiting for effective opportunities in which to implement his extremism, and his willingness to brazenly disregard democratic processes to get it done, makes him all the more toxic. His stealth is the perfect complement to Trump's theatrical egotism: Pence will exploit every second of being ignored to enact a radical conservative agenda in the long shadow cast by Trump's attention-grubbing megalomania."

December 06, 2016: "In the middle of the exchange, there was a revealing moment about the power behind the gold chair. Joe Scarborough asked Pence about running the transition, and Pence agreed that he was, then carefully backtracked, saying Trump is in charge, but he is 'chairing it.' Everyone had a good laugh, including Pence, about his very political answer."

December 8, 2016: "Pence will work, as quietly as possible, with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate to pass horrifically regressive legislation. Both he and Congressional Republicans will be blissfully content to operate outside the glaring spectacle of Trump, who will be enormously useful in sucking up all the media attention."

I warned, over and over, not only that Pence would pursue exactly the policies he is now pursuing, but also how he would do it. I urged people to pay attention to him. I begged the press to shine a light on his activities.

And now it is abundantly clear: The heinous anti-choice, misogynist, and queer-hating policy that is becoming a hallmark of the Trump administration is being directed by Pence.

Malice has always been his agenda.

As I've always said: Keep your eyes on Pence.

[Related Reading: On Mike Pence's Destructive Ambition.]

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We Resist: Day 851

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, May 20, 2019
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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: Primarily Speaking and A Fourth Migrant Child Dies in U.S. Custody — and a Fifth.

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

Patrick Wintour at the Guardian: Iran Hits Back at Trump for Tweeting 'Genocidal Taunts'.
The Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has hit back at Donald Trump's "genocidal taunts" after a strongly worded warning from Trump that Tehran should not think of attacking the U.S.

"Goaded by #B_Team," Zarif wrote on Twitter, in an apparent reference to Trump advisers such as John Bolton, "@realdonaldTrump hopes to achieve what Alexander, Genghis, & other aggressors failed to do. Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. #EconomicTerrorism & genocidal taunts won't 'end Iran.'"

He added: "#NeverThreatenAnIranian. Try respect — it works!"

On Sunday Trump warned Iran not to threaten the U.S. or else it would face its "official end," shortly after a rocket landed near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad overnight.
I don't even know what to say anymore. I'm feeling incredibly angry, and I'm feeling scared, and I'm feeling bitter about the fact that I warned over and over during the 2016 campaign that Donald Trump would be a dangerous, warmongering president, and I, along with everyone else who gravely made those warnings, was sneered at as a hyperbolic hysteric, but here we are, and now everyone behaves as though we were somehow all in agreement that Trump would do this if he were elected. But we weren't. And there were lots of leftists and members of the media who, along with Republicans, ridiculed and silenced and harassed the people who were sending up the red flags and downplayed Trump's authoritarian malice, which helped him get elected.

David Enrich at the New York Times: Deutsche Bank Staff Saw Suspicious Activity in Trump and Kushner Accounts.
Anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump's now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees' advice. The reports were never filed with the government.
Oh.

I mean, the Treasury Department has been compromised all the way back to 2016, so there's no guarantee that anything would have happened even if the suspicious activity had been reported, as it should have been, but now we'll never know.

Jasper Jolly at the Guardian: Trump Reacts Angrily to New York Times Report on Deutsche Bank Transaction. "On Monday, Trump tweeted: 'The new big story is that Trump made a lot of money and buys everything for cash, he doesn't need banks. But where did he get all of that cash? Could it be Russia? No, I built a great business and don't need banks, but if I did they would be there.' Trump also called the Times reporting 'phony' and called Deutsche Bank 'very good and highly professional.'" OMG. This would be hilarious if it weren't so goddamned tragic.

* * *

[Content Note: War on agency] Brie Shea and Imani Gandy at Rewire.News: Everything You Need to Know About the Extreme Abortion Bans Sweeping the Country. "Conservatives have had their sights set on undermining — if not outright overturning — Roe v. Wade from the moment the U.S. Supreme Court issued the decision 46 years ago. And now, states are clamoring to pass unconstitutional pre-viability abortion bans in the hopes that the Court's conservative majority will revisit Roe and kill it. Here at Team Legal, we wanted to provide an overview of where these unconstitutional bans are being enacted, what penalties they carry, and anything else you might need to know about them."

[CN: War on agency] Rachana Pradhan and Alice Miranda Ollstein at Politico: How Mike Pence's 'Indiana Mafia' Took Over Health Care Policy. "Pence has developed his own sphere of influence in an agency lower on Trump's radar: Health and Human Services. It's also the agency with the ability to fulfill the policy goal most closely associated with Pence over his nearly 20 year career in electoral politics: de-funding Planned Parenthood. Numerous top leaders of the department — including Secretary Alex Azar, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and Medicaid/Medicare chief Seema Verma — have ties to Pence and Indiana. Other senior officials include Pence's former legislative director from his days as governor and former domestic policy adviser at the White House. 'He has clearly recruited people connected to him who share his very extreme views on sexual and reproductive health care,' said Emily Stewart, the vice president of public policy at Planned Parenthood."

The fact that a Pence vice-presidency under a president who wanted his veep to focus on policy would have horrific consequences for marginalized people was something about which I and many others warned, too.

[CN: Sexual violence; misogyny] Deanna Paul at the Washington Post: Sailors Ranked Female Crew and the Sex Acts They Wanted to Perform with Them, Navy Report Says. "Sailors aboard a U.S. Navy submarine circulated sexually explicit lists that ranked female crew members, an investigation found. The lists, first reported Friday by Military.com, were uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 74-page investigative report reveals two lists — one with Yelplike star ratings on the women and another containing 'lewd and sexist comments' beside each woman's name."

Among other urgent warnings during the last presidential election, see also: Electing a confessed serial sex abuser as president and commander-in-chief will normalize sexual violence across the country, including in the military.

* * *

[CN: Nativism; violence] Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: Border Patrol Agent Reportedly Called Migrants 'Subhuman' Before Hitting a Migrant Man with His Truck. "A Border Patrol agent accused of hitting a migrant with his truck called migrants 'subhuman' and 'mindless murdering savages,' federal prosecutors said. ...According to court documents, [in December 2017, Border Patrol Agent Matthew Bowen, 39] spotted a man, later identified as 23-year-old Antolin Lopez Aguilar, who appeared to have jumped a border fence near the Mariposa Port of Entry. As Lopez Aguilar ran away, Bowen 'accelerated aggressively' and struck him twice in the back with the front grille of his truck, said another Border Patrol agent on the scene. Lopez Aguilar fell to the ground, the truck tires landing mere inches from his face."

Lisa Friedman at the New York Times: EPA Plans to Get Thousands of Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math. "The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the future health risks of air pollution, a shift that would predict thousands of fewer deaths and would help justify the planned rollback of a key climate change measure, according to five people with knowledge of the agency's plans. ...The new modeling method, which experts said has never been peer-reviewed and is not scientifically sound, would most likely be used by the Trump administration to defend further rollbacks of air pollution rules."

Angelica LaVito at CNBC: Measles Cases Climb to 880 in U.S., with Most New Cases in New York. "Health officials confirmed another 41 measles cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday, bringing the total to 880 for 2019, already the worst year for the disease since 1994. ...Thirty of the 41 new cases were reported in New York, where health officials have battled two large outbreaks since the fall. ...Health officials blame the recent surge of cases — after saying in 2000 that the disease had been eliminated from the U.S. — on an increasing number of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children."

And finally, about that Trump tax cut... Camila Flamiano Domonoske at NPR: Ford Slashes 10% of Its Global Salaried Workforce. "Ford is eliminating about 7,000 white-collar jobs — or about 10% of its salaried workforce — as part of a previously announced company-wide global restructuring. About 800 U.S. workers will lose their jobs between now and August. Some workers are being laid off, while others are being reassigned, Ford says. It says the company's management team is shrinking by close to 20% as part of the restructuring, which will save Ford about $600 million a year."

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

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Dispatches From the Queer Resistance #8 — A Pete Buttigieg Special

Posted by Fannie Wolfe at Monday, April 15, 2019
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[Content Note: Transphobia; hate crimes; homophobia.]

Here's my regular reminder that 77% of LGBTQ voters chose Hillary Clinton over any other contender in the 2016 US presidential election and that Republicans, generally, are pretty terrible when it comes to acknowledging the rights, let alone dignity, of LGBT people.

1. On Pete Buttigieg

Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg officially launched a 2020 presidential campaign over the weekend. Buttigieg is the first openly-gay Democratic presidential candidate in U.S. history.

His reception among Democratic voters and the mainstream press has largely been positive. Via a recent piece in The New York Times:

Mr. Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., drew large, enthusiastic crowds in his first campaign visit to the early-voting state over the weekend. That followed a series of well-received appearances on national TV, which have helped fuel his new popularity: An Iowa poll on Monday showed him jumping to third place in the 2020 caucus race, and a Quinnipiac national poll on Thursday showed him rising to fifth and tied with Senator Elizabeth Warren.
As a lesbian, I want to be more excited about his candidacy, but it's been difficult because it's hard not to perceive his success thus far as a function of him being white, cis, and male. That he appears on the verge of running an "insurgent" campaign similar to Bernie Sanders' campaign in 2016 says almost nothing about whether someone who is queer and also female, trans, non-binary, and/or a person of color could do so with the same mainstream appeal and while being given gratuitous benefits of the doubt about their intelligence, competence, and demeanor.

But, it's not just that I harbor resentment about this. Although yes, there's a fair amount of that. It's 2019 and about fucking time for a female President of the United States. It's time. And I refuse to silence that sentiment in myself ever again.

It's also that he seems prone to adopting rightwing frames of social and political issues, which I think is counterproductive to progress. In addition to Liss's ongoing coverage of Buttigieg and his gentlemen's quarrel with Mike Pence about gay rights, I agree with her that it's a strategic mistake to try to have a conversation about LGBT people on the terms set by anti-LGBT Christians.

For several years in the pre-Obergefell era, I was a progressive lesbian contributor to a group blog that regularly ran contentious debates about LGBT rights, often with prominent "marriage defenders" participating. From that experience, one of my big take-aways was that those who opposed LGBT rights, and marriage equality in particular, had a very strong fear of being thought of as bigoted. They wanted to oppose our equality while also still being widely seen, even by gay people, as nice. Yet, the marriage equality movement had successfully cast the denial of marriage equality as a denial of love between two people.

Because of that frame, I really think that, to many heterosexual allies, the prominent opponents of equality began to symbolize hateful barriers to their loved ones' happiness. I think many people simply didn't want to be associated with the bigotry of that, and that's especially true in a post-marriage-equality world where so much of the opposition in hindsight looks like bigoted fear-mongering that has yet to be atoned for or acknowledged by those who used to peddle it:


More recently, the religious right, with the blessing of Trump-Pence, is trying to carve out special rights to discriminate against LGBT people under the auspice of "religious freedom."  Anti-LGBT Christians have long tried to claim that they are the ones truly persecuted in society, for having to live in a society that is relatively pro-LGBT, and now they once again have the backing of the Executive (and likely, the Judiciary). It is a mistake to backtrack and allow the culture narrative to once again become that LGBT rights is an abstract matter about which reasonable, nice people can disagree and still be friends.

The correct response to Mike Pence is to tell him that his views on marriage are indecent and bigoted, and that neither his religion, nor anyone else's, should serve as a pretext for denying LGBT people full equality under law.

Actually, an even better conversation would be for Buttigieg, who is ostensibly running for president, to direct his comments toward Donald Trump, both for being a bigot himself and for selecting the bigot Mike Pence as his vice president. By publicly feuding with Trump's vice president, rather than Trump himself, Buttigieg is feuding with someone beneath the position he wants the public to believe he's qualified to hold.

For these reasons, and others, I have concerns about Buttigieg as a candidate. I am inherently skeptical of how he would handle Donald Trump, Fox News, and the rightwing/Russian meme machines when he is vastly untested and unvetted on the national stage. In my experience, a Democratic politician can either stand up for the full dignity of marginalized people or they can care about being seen as "civil" and "electable" by a large chunk of Republican voters who will never vote for them anyway, but they usually can't do both. My concern is that Buttigieg sees his path forward as the latter, even as his run would be historic for cis white gay men.

2. Donald Trump and Mike Pence Are Not Our Friends

Hey, has anyone determined yet if the current vice president of the United States actually wants to hang queers, or whether the Donald Trump was "just joking" when he claimed as much? Har har har, what funny times we're living in, huh?

3. Matthew Shepard's Ashes Interred

In case you missed it, at the end of last year Matthew Shepard's ashes were finally, 20 years after his death, laid to rest at the Washington National Cathedral. I hope this brings at least some measure of peace to his family.

4. Billy Jack Gaither

Pete Buttigieg's presidential run is bound to invoke (and yes, revive) many national conversations about LGBT people, intersectionality, and our rights.  As such, it's going to be vitally important for progressives to acknowledge that people within LGBT communities can be more and less privileged than one another, depending on a wide variety of characteristics such as race, gender, age, disability, religion, income, body size, appearance, and more.

See, for instance, this thread, which I think is an important reminder that we have to collectively get better at talking about people who are marginalized within marginalized communities, while also doing justice to the reality that even those "at the top" so to speak, are still marginalized by the mainstream:


As we saw in 2016, bigotry is a national security vulnerability that can easily be manipulated for the benefit of Republican politicians. With multiple white women, women of color, men of color, a Jewish candidate, and a gay candidate vying for the Democratic nomination, we can count on that happening again in 2020. We have to remain vigilant and it's a really good thing those with the largest media platforms in the U.S. are representative of the full diversity of our nation! (har har har)

5. Massachusetts Bans "Gay Conversion Therapy"

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed a law making the state the 16th in the nation to ban gay conversion therapy on minors.

6. Trump's Ban on Transgender Troops Goes Into Effect

The Trump Administration's policy of banning transgender people from joining the military went into effect last Friday. This policy is a reversal of the Obama-era policy from 2016 that initially lifted the ban.

Elections have consequences.


7. Lightfoot Makes History in Chicago

Earlier this month, Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, won Chicago's runoff mayoral election.  Scheduled to take office in May 2019, Chicago will be the largest city in the U.S. headed by an openly-gay person and Black woman.

The local LGBT rag, The Windy City Times, ran an article of reactions to her win from those in Chicago's African-American and/or LGBT communities.

Open Wide...
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