Shakesville: Puerto Rico

Showing posts with label Puerto Rico. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 827

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

The Pentagon is preparing to approve a loosening of rules that bar troops from interacting with migrants entering the United States, expanding the military's involvement in [Donald] Trump's operation along the southern border.

Senior Defense Department officials have recommended that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan approve a new request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide military lawyers, cooks, and drivers to assist with handling a surge of migrants along the southern border.

The move would require authorizing waivers for more than 300 troops to a long-standing policy prohibiting military personnel from coming into contact with migrants.

It's "lawyers, cooks, and drivers" now, but naturally the loosening of this policy is opening the door to a militarization of the border that will result in violence that Trump desperately wants and for which he continually invents justifications.

Caitlin Oprysko at Politico: Rosenstein Defends Russia Investigation, Takes Shots at Obama Administration. "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Thursday [at the Public Servants Dinner of the Armenian Bar Association] teed off on the Obama administration's handling of Russian election interference and hit back at critics of the Russia probe in his first public remarks since special counsel Robert Mueller's report dropped last week. ...[H]e defended the investigation and its findings in his speech, as well as DOJ's dedication to the rule of law and staying above the fray of partisanship, declaring that 'today, our nation is safer, elections are more secure, and citizens are better informed about covert foreign influence schemes.'"

This is just a good reminder that Rod Rosenstein has always been a partisan hack.

SMH #RodRosenstein was never a white hat like GOP shills wanted us to believe. Just another Trump/GOP toady
1. W/ Giuliani at the Kavanaugh announcement
2. W/ KellyAnne at the WH egg roll
3. W/ Ted Cruz at Kavanaugh announcement
4. W/ Ken Starr and his team including, Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/G2eTMCZBv2
— Nadine van der Velde (@nadinevdVelde) April 26, 2019

Missy Ryan and John Hudson at the Washington Post: Trump Administration Expected to Distance Itself from Global Arms Treaty. "The Trump administration is expected to curtail U.S. support for a global arms treaty, the latest illustration of its aversion to international pacts and world governance. Arms control advocates, diplomats, and former officials said [Donald] Trump is likely to refer to his decision to revoke the United States' status as a signatory of the Arms Trade Treaty as soon as Friday, when he will speak to the National Rifle Association. The NRA has long opposed the pact."

[CN: White supremacy] Katie Galioto at Politico: Trump Says He Answered Charlottesville Questions 'Perfectly'.

Donald Trump on Friday defended his 2017 statement that there were "very fine people" on both sides of the deadly white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, comments that recently came under fire again after former Vice President Joe Biden attacked Trump for them.

When asked for clarification on his remark about the racially charged clash that left one person dead, Trump stood by his claim made more than one-and-a-half years prior.

"If you look at what I said you will see that that question was answered perfectly," Trump told reporters on the White House lawn ahead of a trip to Indianapolis to speak at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting. "I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general."

First of all, no he wasn't. Secondly, even if he had been, describing superfans of Robert E. Lee as "very fine people" isn't acceptable, either!

[CN: White supremacy] Maxwell Tani and Andrew Kirell at the Daily Beast: Fox News Reporter Rips Colleagues over Charlottesville: You Sound Like 'White Supremacist Chat Room'. "A Fox News reporter on Thursday called out two of his colleagues for sounding 'like a White Supremacist chat room' when they attempted to defend [Donald] Trump's infamous 'both sides' comment about white supremacists in Charlottesville, according to internal emails reviewed by The Daily Beast. ...[Wrote Fox News Radio's White House correspondent Jon Decker:] 'Based upon the slew of emails that I've received today, both of you should send an apology to your Fox News colleagues — many of whom are hurt and infuriated by your respective posts. Your posts read like something you'd read on a White Supremacist chat room.'"

[CN: White supremacy] Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: GOP Judges Launch Bizarre Attack on Black Lives Matter and the First Amendment. "An opinion handed down Wednesday by three Republican judges could chill the First Amendment rights of protesters — and potentially allow police to shut down political movements by filing lawsuits harassing movement leaders. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit's decision in Doe v. McKesson effectively strips First Amendment protections from protest leaders who commit minor offenses, ignoring longstanding Supreme Court precedents in the process." You've got to head over and read the details of this case, which I can't easily summarize here. This is absolutely absurd and profoundly chilling.

[CN: Trauma] Amanda Holpuch and Hazar Kilani at the Guardian: Hurricane Maria's Lasting Impact on Puerto Rico's Children Revealed in Report.

More than half of young people in Puerto Rico saw a friend or family member leave the island after Hurricane Maria, according to a study published on Friday which reveals the dramatic extent to which young Puerto Ricans were exposed to damaged homes, shortages of food and water and threats to their lives.

In contrast to most comparable disasters, the physical and mental effects of the category four storm which hit the island in September 2017 were "nearly ubiquitous regardless of geographical location or socioeconomic status," according to a study about its impact on young Puerto Ricans published on Friday in the journal Jama Network Open.

"The magnitude was so large that all children were exposed," said Joy Lynn Suárez, a psychology professor at Carlos Albizu University in San Juan and a report co-author.

The death toll from Maria is estimated at between 2,975 and 4,645. The storm cut nearly all communication across the island and destroyed the power grid.

Those who survived still feared for their lives. According to the new study, 30% of children reported that they perceived their lives or the lives of people they loved to be at risk — a strong predictor of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Researchers tied to Puerto Rico government agencies and universities also found:

47.5% of children's family's homes were damaged, while 83.9% of children saw damaged homes

24% of youth helped rescue people

25.5% of youth were forced to evacuate

32% of youth experienced shortages of food and water

16.7% of youth still did not have electricity five to nine months after the storm
The study is one of the largest attempts in US history to survey young people after a major natural disaster. It is also the largest sample ever of Hispanic youth impacted by disaster, a group underrepresented in existing research.

[CN: Climate change; trauma] Brian Kahn at Earther: Cyclone Kenneth Poses a Humanitarian Nightmare as It Slams into Mozambique. "For the second time in a month, Mozambique is dealing with a catastrophic cyclone. On Thursday night local time, Cyclone Kenneth roared ashore on the country's north coast with the strength of a major hurricane. Like its predecessor Cyclone Idai, the storm is expected to linger inland and dump feet of rain. The combination of back-to-back powerful cyclones means that the already underfunded response to Idai will likely be stretched gossamer thin. The timing and strength of the storms will also aggravate food insecurity and could lead to dam breaches in the coming days, unleashing a whole new wave of humanitarian disasters."

[CN: Climate change; creepy-crawlies] Eun Kyung Kim for NBC News at CNYCentral: Deadly "Kissing Bug" Making Its Way North. "Bloodsucking insects known as 'kissing bugs,' because of their tendency to bite people around the mouth, are spreading across the country after working their way north from South America. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed last week that a girl in Delaware was bitten by one of the critters, which are formally known as triatomine bugs. ...The bugs can spread a parasite that causes Chagas' disease through its feces. ...But the CDC said not all triatomine bugs are infected with the parasite that causes Chagas' disease. The disease can be dangerous, but chances of contracting it are low, according to the agency."

And finally, in good news...

BREAKING: The Kansas Supreme Court rules the state constitution protects the right to have an abortion #ksleg pic.twitter.com/yP2BGtyPCM
— Jonathan Shorman (@jonshorman) April 26, 2019

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

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We Resist: Day 803

"Trump takes aim at Puerto Rican leaders after disaster bill fails." My god. He is such a loathsome specimen. https://t.co/NCHz2LVN5z
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 2, 2019

Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Went to Bed Raging at Puerto Rico and Woke Up Raging at Puerto Rico. "Trump can't stop tweeting his angst about Puerto Rico and the money the federal government spent on the island's hurricane relief efforts after it was devastated — and nearly 3,000 were killed — by Hurricane Maria last year. In a string of tweets that started just before 11 p.m. EST on Monday night and reignited after 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Trump berated the U.S. territory's leadership, whom he described as 'crazed,' 'incompetent,' and 'corrupt,' and suggested that he was the 'best thing that ever happened' to the island."

Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Trump Claims Puerto Rico Received $91 Billion in Aid Following Hurricane Maria. It Didn't. "In a pair of tweets, Trump reiterated a number he's floated before, suggesting the island was given $91 billion in relief money to recover from the devastating storms in 2017. He also claimed the territory's politicians had mismanaged that money, saying it was unfair to the country's 'farmers and states' — seemingly suggesting Puerto Rico itself was not part of the United States. ...He added, 'Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!'"

John Wagner at the Washington Post: White House Spokesperson Twice Calls Puerto Rico 'That Country' in TV Interview.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley twice referred to Puerto Rico as "that country" during a television appearance Tuesday in which he defended a series of tweets by [Donald] Trump lashing out at leaders of the U.S. territory.

...As he pressed to defend Trump's contentions, Gidley sought to make the case that the leaders of the territory, whose residents are U.S. citizens, have mishandled the aid they've received thus far.

"With all they've done in that country, they've had a systematic mismanagement of the goods and services we've sent to them," Gidley said. "You've seen food just rotting in the ports. Their governor has done a horrible job. He's trying to make political hay in a political year, and he's trying to find someone to take the blame off of his for not having a grid and not having a good system in that country at all."

Gidley later attributed his misstatements to "a slip of the tongue."

What a disgusting lot of toxic wrecks they are. I hate this regime with the fiery power of ten thousand suns.

* * *

Chris Isidore at CNN: U.S. Auto Plants Would Shut Down within a Week If Border Closes, Economist Says. "[E]very automaker operating an auto plant in the United States depends on parts imported from Mexico, said Kristin Dziczek, the vice president of industry, labor, and economics at the Center for Automotive Research. About 16% of all auto parts used in the United States, both at assembly plants and sold at auto parts stores, originate in Mexico. Virtually all car models in America have Mexican parts, she said. Because of that reliance, she said the auto industry would stop producing vehicles relatively quickly. 'You can't sell cars with missing pieces,' she said. 'You've got to have them all. I see the whole industry shutdown within a week of a border closing.'"

One week before it would affect the auto industry, and not much longer before it would affect the U.S. food supply.

Kate Riga at TPM: Trump Punts, Says GOP Will Unveil Health Care Plan 'Right After the Election'. "Donald Trump, perhaps realizing the political cudgel he had handed Democrats with the renewed Obamacare attack, tweeted Monday that Republicans would wait to unveil their healthcare plan alternative until 'right after the election.' ...The punt could also be a result of Republicans not actually having a plan. Reports surfaced Monday that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) was pitching in on the effort, which did not seem very far along in its development. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) washed his hands of the issue entirely, clearly unwilling to make a second run at an issue that provided a huge win for the Democrats and humiliation for his caucus last time around."

So, take note, potential Trump voters (who are definitely reading this blog every day, lol): Your cool president will take away your healthcare in gratitude for your voting for him!

Yessenia Funes at Earther: Trump's 'Unprecedented' Plan to Restart the Keystone XL Pipeline May Be Illegal. "Donald Trump ratcheted up the drama over the Keystone XL Pipeline Friday when he issued a presidential memorandum to push the oil pipeline through despite a recent court ruling against it. And opponents plan on taking him back to court over it. After all, his action could set a new precedent for presidential power over such infrastructure if he gets away with it. ...The new permit is issued simply 'by the authority vested in [Trump] as President of the United States of America.' This move is unprecedented, said Doug Hayes, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club, who is helping litigate the case."

I feel like "Trump's 'Unprecedented' Plan to ____________ May Be Illegal" is the #1 MadLib of this administration.

Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: Trump's Threat to Close the Border Could Actually Increase Migration. "Donald Trump is threatening to close ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border this week, saying the detention centers are 'maxed out' due to a recent increase in migration. ...But would shutting down a border actually do anything to mitigate migration to the United States? Experts are dubious, suggesting it might actually do the opposite. 'We think these policies are actually accelerating arrivals,' Sarah Pierce, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told ThinkProgress. 'When these policies are announced, there is a rush to the border to get to the United States before the next hammer falls.'"

I feel "Trump's Threat to ____________ Could Actually Make [X] Worse" is the #2 MadLib of this administration.

* * *

Rachel Leingang at the Arizona Republic: University of Arizona Will Charge 2 Students over Protest of Border Patrol Event on Campus.

Two students at the University of Arizona will be charged with misdemeanors after a video showing them protesting a Customs and Border Protection event on campus went viral, UA President Robert Robbins announced Friday.

The potential charges stem from a Border Patrol presentation to a student club, the Criminal Justice Association, on campus on March 19.

Video of the incident showed two Border Patrol agents in a classroom giving a presentation, with people outside the door recording them and calling them "Murder Patrol," "murderers," and "an extension of the KKK."

After the agents leave the classroom, a group followed them until they left campus, chanting "Murder Patrol," video footage on social media shows.

Conservative media and commentators shared the video on social media and blogs as an example of free speech issues on college campuses.

In the letter sent to students posted online, Robbins said the protest represented a "dramatic departure from our expectations of respectful behavior and support for free speech on this campus."

UA police determined Friday that they "will be charging" two students involved in the incident with "interference with the peaceful conduct of an educational institution," which is a misdemeanor. A Class 1 misdemeanor could result in up to six months of jail time.

So, just to be clear, the students who were protesting border agents for enforcing Trump's vile nativist agenda are being punished for encroaching on the border agents' free speech. Wow.

Mark Bergen at Bloomberg: YouTube Executives Ignored Warnings, Letting Toxic Videos Run Rampant. "In recent years, scores of people inside YouTube and Google, its owner, raised concerns about the mass of false, incendiary, and toxic content that the world's largest video site surfaced and spread. ...Each time they got the same basic response: Don't rock the boat. ...Five senior personnel who left YouTube and Google in the last two years privately cited the platform's inability to tame extreme, disturbing videos as the reason for their departure."

Daniel Boffey at the Guardian: No-Deal Brexit More Likely by the Day, Says Michel Barnier. "Michel Barnier has said a no-deal Brexit is 'very likely' and becoming more likely by the day after the Commons rejected all the alternative solutions to Theresa May's deal. The comments from the EU's chief negotiator were echoed by the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg. 'We have to take into consideration a no-deal possibility — it's a probability,' the Dutch prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters. 'We are no longer looking for an exit, but rather an emergency exit,' added Luxembourg's prime minister Xavier Bettel, who was hosting Rutte for no deal talks in the duchy."

Leyland Cecco at the Guardian: Canada Warming at Twice the Global Rate, Climate Report Finds. "Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, a landmark government report [peer-reviewed by forty-three government scientists and academics] has found, warning that drastic action is the only way to avoid catastrophic outcomes. 'The science is clear — Canada's climate is warming more rapidly than the global average, and this level of warming effectively cannot be changed,' Nancy Hamzawi, assistant deputy minister for science and technology at Environment and Climate Change Canada, told reporters on Monday. The report, released late on Monday by Environment and Climate Change Canada, paints a grim picture of Canada's future, in which deadly heatwaves and heavy rainstorms become a common occurrence."

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

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We Resist: Day 799

What I’m noticing is that the people pushing this as an overblown hoax are the ones who missed out on and criticized reports of Russian interference in the first place. They have a reason to want this to go away and a cognitive bias. Just. Saying. 6/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) March 25, 2019

Adam Peck at ThinkProgress: Republican Party Reportedly Says It Will Target Reporters Critical of Trump. "The Republican National Committee and pro-Trump super PAC America First plan to use intimidation tactics and harassment to defend [Donald] Trump from journalists reporting facts they deem critical of the White House... [T]he White House and Trump's allies in Congress have claimed Barr's memo fully exonerates the president. And on Thursday, both the RNC and America First PAC threatened any journalist reporting otherwise with a personalized harassment campaign. 'Any reporter who tries that will be hit with 30-second spots of all their ridiculous claims about collusion,' an anonymous source 'familiar with internal discussions' at both organizations told The Atlantic. 'Their tweets have all been screencapped. It's all ready to go.'"

Those are the sorts of reports that we must understand as an erosion of our democratic norms. This is a recognizably authoritarian tactic. It's intimidation of the free press. It's a deliberate strategy.

And that gets lost in the frustratingly ubiquitous rhetoric about Trump being "stupid." The erasure of his cunning and deliberate malice will, quite literally, be the death of this republic.

* * *

Earlier this month, I mentioned a Foreign Policy report about the Trump Regime having reportedly rescinded an invitation to Finnish investigative journalist Jessikka Aro to receive the State Department's International Women of Courage Award after they realized she was a Trump (and Putin) critic.

Manu Raju and Jennifer Hansler at CNN have an important follow-up on that item:

After a Foreign Policy report suggested that the State Department may have retaliated against her because of her criticism of [Donald] Trump on social media, State Department deputy spokesperson Robert Palladino asserted it was a miscommunication and that she had been "incorrectly notified" of her award. He called it a "regrettable error," saying Aro actually "had not" been a finalist.

But internal communications reviewed by CNN show that the State Department and US embassy officials in Finland had been in talks with Aro for several months, extensively communicating with her about the award, her travel documents, her itinerary in Washington and her bio, which had been approved by eight State Department officials.

Then, two weeks after an official asked her to provide a list of her social media accounts, the honor was abruptly rescinded and the invite to attend the event was canceled.

...The documents were obtained by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who have now written a letter to the State Department's inspector general to demand an investigation into allegations that the invite was rescinded because of Aro's criticism of Trump, calling the episode "disturbing."

"If the department rescinded the award because of statements made by a journalist, exercising her right to freedom of speech, it would mean that the Department is using political fealty to the President as an eligibility criteria for receiving a government award designed to highlight courage," said Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the panel. "Furthermore, misleading the public and Congress about the true reasons behind its actions would harm the Department's reputation here in the United States and around the world, and undermine its credibility regarding future pronouncements from the press podium."

...Aro told CNN on Thursday that she does not accept the State Department's explanation that it was an "error." ...Aro also suggested that the matter should be investigated to expose whether her tweets critiquing Trump were the reason the award was revoked.

"If some DC official used those or similar expressions of my freedom of speech as the main reason to rescind my award, that unfortunately hinders the whole idea of the International Women of Courage Award, which is to promote human rights, such as freedom of speech, and which was the basis for my nomination in the first place," she told CNN.

Pointing out the profound hypocrisy is, of course, necessary and important. But I hope Democrats, as they pursue the truth of what happened, will also explore how it could be further evidence of Trump currently colluding with and being compromised by Russia, as it's entirely possible it was not her criticism of Trump that got Aro disinvited but her tenacious reporting on Putin.

* * *

[Content Note: Racism; neglect] Alan Pyke at ThinkProgress: Trump Casts Himself as the Best Friend Puerto Rico's Ever Had as Residents Are Starving.

More than a million Americans on Puerto Rico are sliding toward starvation 18 months after thousands died there in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

The federal disaster response overseen by [Donald] Trump's administration has been repeatedly criticized as a skinflint operation.

Funding cuts imposed on the island this year have yielded horrific scenes, including an HIV clinic where patients are now being forced to wallow in their own waste for hours because staff cannot afford to buy enough diapers.

But to the president, the story here is that everybody's being unfair to him.

"I've taken better care of Puerto Rico than any man ever," Trump said Thursday afternoon when questioned about Gov. Ricardo Rosselló's (D-PR) criticisms of the White House response. "Puerto Rico has been taken care of better by Donald Trump than by any living human being," he said.

I loathe him so fucking much.

* * *

Alberto Nardelli at BuzzFeed: The European Union Thinks the UK Is Left with Two Choices After the Last 24 Hours of Brexit Chaos. "In a sign that Brussels and Europe's capitals are highly sceptical of [Theresa May's] odds of getting the Brexit deal through Parliament, much of Thursday's meeting was dedicated to no-deal planning and preparing a common opening position ahead of a meeting of EU leaders expected to take place next month. Should there be a no-deal, the EU would set the UK three preconditions to enter trade talks the note states... In effect, Britain would be asked to sign up to terms very similar to those contained in the Brexit agreement. The European Commission warned the ambassadors from the member states against entering bilateral sectoral negotiations with the UK."

And then this morning... Heather Stewart at the Guardian: MPs Reject Theresa May's Brexit Deal by 58 Votes. "MPs have rejected Theresa May's Brexit deal for a third time, by 344 votes to 286, despite the prime minister's offer to her Tory colleagues that she would resign if it passed. A string of Brexit-backing Conservative backbenchers who had rejected the deal in the first two meaningful votes, including the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, switched sides during the debate, to support the agreement. But with Labour unwilling to change its position, and the Democratic Unionist party's 10 MPs determined not to support it, it was not enough to secure a majority for the prime minister. Afterwards May told MPs: 'The implications of the house's decision are grave,' and added: 'I fear we are reaching the limits of this process in this house.'"

Allison McCann at the New York Times: The Man Trying to Make Sense of Brexit Is Tired and Would Like to Stop Now. "By day, Jon Worth works as a communications consultant for European politicians. By rest-of-his-day he makes Brexit flowcharts — 27 versions since January, to be exact. Brexit has become a tangled, often confusing web of decisions and possible outcomes that change almost daily. ...'In the beginning people were like, 'What the hell is he doing?' and then people were like, 'Wait, it's actually a really useful way to understand Brexit,'' Mr. Worth said. 'And now people ask me, 'Where's the next version of the diagram?'' But he's exhausted. After more than two dozen updates to his flowchart, he'll take a break on April 12th, the deadline for Britain to leave if Parliament does not approve Prime Minister Theresa May's deal — regardless of what is happening with Brexit. He says he can't keep going at this pace."

What a fucking mess.

* * *

[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Julia Ainsley at NBC News: DHS to Ask Congress for Sweeping Authority to Deport Unaccompanied Migrant Children. "Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will ask Congress for the authority to deport unaccompanied migrant children more quickly, to hold families seeking asylum in detention until their cases are decided, and to allow immigrants to apply for asylum from their home countries, according to a copy of the request obtained by NBC News. In a letter to Congress, Nielsen said she will be seeking a legislative proposal in the coming days to address what she called the 'root causes of the emergency' that has led to a spike in border crossings in recent weeks. The letter has not yet been sent. The legislative proposal would have to clear the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, which is likely to respond with strong opposition." Good.

ICYMI: @HispanicCaucus members demand release of kids and parents illegally held at migrant family jail. https://t.co/gSzn3hzQwk #EndFamilyDetention
— Gabe Ortíz (@TUSK81) March 29, 2019

Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: Despite Sanctuary Law, California Cops 'Bend over Backwards' to Work with ICE. "When former California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed legislation in October 2017 to limit law enforcement collaboration with immigration authorities, it was one of the most progressive sanctuary laws in the United States. But a new report reveals some of the state's law enforcement agencies are not abiding by the law, and others have developed workarounds to avoid compliance, allowing many in law enforcement to follow the Trump administration's lead in attacking undocumented families." Really troubling — and an important reminder that we always have to be vigilant about what's happening in our communities. We can't be content that things are as they are supposed to be. Not with so much at stake.

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

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We Resist: Day 798

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: Release the Report and Primarily Speaking.

I've got a doctor's appointment, so today's thread will be shorter than usual. Here are a few things I've read today to which I want to direct your attention:

Kate Riga at TPM: Pelosi: 'Arrogant' of Barr to Expect That Dems Would Blindly Accept His Summary. "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) did not mince words Wednesday while reacting to Attorney General William Barr's summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. '[W]e just haven't even seen the Mueller Report, and we don't expect to accept just the attorney general's interpretation of it,' Pelosi said on SiriusXM show Make It Plain. 'A little bit arrogant of him to think that that would be the case.' 'We have to get the report,' she added. 'They — to their peril — will keep that report.'"

Emily Jane Fox at Vanity Fair: "She Was Not Involved": Emails Show Ivanka's Lawyer Asked for Changes to Michael Cohen's Congressional Testimony. "Sekulow issued a statement protesting Cohen's assertions: 'Today's testimony by Michael Cohen that attorneys for the president edited or changed his statement to Congress to alter the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations is completely false.' But Cohen had communications detailing these alleged edits, some of which lawmakers requested in a closed-door hearing with the House Intelligence Committee the following week. One document, which I have reviewed, was an e-mail exchange between Cohen and his then attorney, Stephen Ryan, outlining changes that Ryan said Lowell had asked them to make in order to distance Ivanka from the Moscow deal. Attached to the e-mail were drafts he said were Lowell's suggested edits."

Andrew Roth at the Guardian: Russia Acknowledges Presence of Troops in Venezuela. "Russia has troops on the ground in Venezuela, officials from both countries have confirmed publicly for the first time, saying the deployment was provided for military consultations and was not linked to the 'possibility of military operations.' 'Military experts are there; they are tasked with the practical implementation of provisions of military-technical cooperation agreements,' a Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said in a televised briefing. ...Asked to clarify the nature of the cooperation, Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said 'military contracts, military equipment, military hardware.' He said that Russia had contracts to deliver 'special equipment' to Venezuela. He did not give further detail during a telephone briefing with journalists. Maria Zakharova, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, said: 'Russia is not changing the balance of forces in the region and is not threatening anyone.'"

Erin Banco at the Daily Beast: Trump Admin Gives Okay to Sell Nuclear Tech to Saudis. "The U.S. Department of Energy has approved six authorizations for U.S. companies seeking to conduct nuclear related work in Saudi Arabia, according to two sources with knowledge of those approvals. ...It's been unclear to what extent the U.S. government, and U.S. companies, have communicated with Riyadh about nuclear energy, especially in the wake of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and amid claims by Democrats on the Hill that individuals in the national security community attempted to discuss a nuclear deal with Riyadh without going through the proper regulatory approval process. The DOE authorizations, previously unreported, indicate that U.S. companies are indeed moving ahead in their plans to engage with Saudi Arabia on nuclear technology and nuclear energy development."

Shane Harris at the Washington Post: Palantir Wins Competition to Build Army Intelligence System. "The Army has chosen Palantir Technologies [which was co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and sometimes adviser to Donald Trump] to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for soldiers, according to Army documents, a significant boost for a company that has attracted a devoted following in national security circles but had struggled to win a major defense contract. Industry experts said it marked the first time that the government had tapped a Silicon Valley software company, as opposed to a traditional military contractor, to lead a defense program of record, which has a dedicated line of funding from Congress. The contract is potentially worth more than $800 million."

Lachlan Markay at the Daily Beast: Trump Ally Jerry Falwell's Liberty University Landed Pentagon Contract Months After Trump's Election. "Just months after [Donald] Trump took office, the federal government signed a contract to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jet fuel from a university run by one of the president's top political supporters. The Pentagon's energy-procurement arm inked the contract, valued at nearly $900,000, with a company called Freedom Aviation on May 9, 2017, and has purchased more than $400,000 in turbine fuel from the company since then. Freedom Aviation is wholly owned by Liberty University, a conservative school in Lynchburg, Virginia, led by high-profile Trump supporter Jerry Falwell Jr."

And in good news... Andy Towle and Towleroad: Puerto Rico Governor Signs Executive Order Banning Gay Conversion Therapy for Minors. "Puerto Rico's Governor Ricardo Rossello has issued an executive order banning gay conversion therapy for minors. Said Rossello in a statement: 'As a father, as a scientist, and as the Governor for everyone in Puerto Rico, I firmly believe that the idea that there are people in our society who need treatment because of their gender identity or whom they love is not only absurd, it is harmful to so many children and young adults who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. ...Conversion therapy in no way benefits anybody; it only causes unimaginable pain and suffering.'"

Head to comments to let us know what you've been reading to which we need to be paying attention!

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 678

Defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her allies are taking on Georgia's shoddy election system in the right way: through a big and bold lawsuit. At the very least, the lawsuit will shine the light of day on how Georgia makes it much harder than many other states to register and successfully cast a ballot. If the lawsuit achieves its more ambitious aims, a court could put Georgia's voting system back under federal supervision for up to 10 years.

Rather than how a typical voting lawsuit works with a singular focus on a problematic aspect of Georgia's electoral process — like overexuberant voter purges or its shoddy voting machinery — the lawsuit makes an argument that the cumulative effect of Georgia's system is to deny voters, especially voters of color, the opportunity to easily cast a ballot which will be fairly and accurately counted.

...[I]t is smart to make an argument that the system cumulatively disenfranchises voters. Rather than focusing on one of the hurdles facing voters, this suit lays out all of the hurdles together. Voting should not be an obstacle course, but the lawsuit claims that's exactly what Georgia has created through a combination of misfeasance and malfeasance.

And in more good resistance news, House Democrats are taking voters' message that their mandate is to hold Donald Trump accountable. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The True Depths of Trump's Cruelty Are About to Be Exposed.

The House GOP's near-total abdication of any oversight role has done more than just shield [Donald] Trump on matters involving his finances and Russian collusion. It has also resulted in almost no serious scrutiny of the true depths of cruelty, inhumanity and bad-faith rationalization driving important aspects of Trump's policy agenda — in particular, on his signature issue of immigration.

That's about to change.

In an interview with me, the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee [Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)] vowed that when Democrats take over in January, they will undertake thorough and wide-ranging scrutiny of the justifications behind — and executions of — the top items in Trump's immigration agenda, from the family separations, to the thinly veiled Muslim ban, to the handling of the current turmoil involving migrants at the border.

Right on.

In not-good news... Frank Dale at ThinkProgress: WTF Is Schumer Doing? "[Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)], who has made a series of pointless deals allowing confirmations of dozens of Trump judicial nominees, said on Tuesday that he's willing to offer Trump $1.6 billion for border security. ...Schumer has previously offered Trump funding for the border wall that he keeps falsely claiming is already under construction."

Honest to Maude, I have no fucking idea why there are Democrats who think Nancy Pelosi is our biggest problem and ignore the giant turd that is Chuck Schumer's senate leadership. HAHA J/K I KNOW WHY LADIES AMIRITE.

* * *

[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault; child sex abuse] Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald: How a Future Trump Cabinet Member Gave a Serial Sex Abuser the Deal of a Lifetime. "Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found. ...Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life. But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein's crimes and the number of people involved. Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes."

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: Giuliani's Bizarre Bragging About the Manafort-Trump Alliance Raises New Obstruction Questions. "The first two paragraphs of this New York Times story are remarkable enough: Despite Paul Manafort having agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation, his lawyer, Kevin Downing, continued to brief [Donald] Trump's legal team. That's a highly unusual setup, and one that is generally frowned upon in legal circles. The next two paragraphs, though, might take the cake. In them, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani practically brags about having pulled one over on Mueller by gleaning key information from the arrangement. ...[T]he Trump team is saying this highly unusual arrangement was used to gain a strategic advantage. It isn't even pretending these were harmless status updates. Giuliani is gloating about having gamed the legal system."

NEW: Donald Trump told Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower, according to two sources familiar with the matter. https://t.co/QW1WF0vhHa
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 28, 2018

Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer at Politico: Trump Threatens Government Shutdown over Border Wall Funding. "Nine days ahead of a deadline that could trigger a partial government shutdown, with no solution in sight, the president told Politico in a Tuesday Oval Office interview that he is unflinchingly firm Congress must send him a bill approving $5 billion for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and said he would 'totally be willing' to shut down the government if he doesn't get it. ...Sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with a stack of papers, magazines, and a soda at the ready, Trump said he now believes that a pitched battle over the border is a 'total winner' politically for his party, and a loser for Democrats. 'I don't do anything...just for political gain,' Trump said. 'But I will tell you, politically speaking, that issue is a total winner.'"

Erin Durkin at the Guardian: 'There Is No Attempt to Hide': Ivanka Trump Defends Use of Private Email. "Ivanka Trump reportedly used her personal account up to 100 times in 2017 to contact other Trump administration officials. The news drew immediate comparisons with Hillary Clinton's use of a private server as secretary of state, which still prompts Donald Trump's supporters to chant 'lock her up' at rallies. The president apparently wanted Clinton prosecuted after he took the White House. But on Wednesday Ivanka Trump insisted there was no comparison between the two cases. 'In my case, all of my emails are on the White House server. There's no intent to circumvent,' she told ABC. 'There's no equivalency to what my father's spoken about.'" Okay, player.

And Pence led the transition. https://t.co/GS81gc57Jb
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 28, 2018

Rebecca Morin at Politico: Trump Retweets Fake Pence Account Giving Thanks for Clinton's 2016 Loss. "Donald Trump on Wednesday shared a post from a parody account of Vice President Mike Pence giving thanks 'for every day Hillary Clinton is not president.' The post was originally shared by @MikePenceVP, a profile that uses the same photo as one of Pence's verified accounts but describes itself as a 'fan account.' ...'I'm thankful for every day Hillary Clinton is not President!' the @MikePenceVP account tweeted on Thanksgiving. Trump retweeted the post Wednesday morning to his 56 million Twitter followers. ...It is unclear whether the president thought he was retweeting the vice president or knew it is a parody account."

It's equally possible that Trump was too daft to realize in the middle of another tweetshitz frenzy that he wasn't retweeting the actual veep, and that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and decided to try to create a distraction from his daughter's email scandal. Scary.

* * *

[CN: Corruption; exploitation] Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Puerto Rican Homeowners Suffer as FEMA Pays Exorbitant Prices for Home Repairs. "More than 100,000 homeowners in Puerto Rico may be victims of a widespread corruption scheme involving a government-run program to fix their properties, according to an investigative report from the New York Times. ...The program received $1.2 billion to repair up to 120,000 homes that were damaged, but not destroyed, by Hurricane Maria. ...Luis Vega Ramos, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, said [the program] was a mixture of 'incompetence and corruption.' 'The government's responsibility is to watch out, to be custodians of the proper and effective use of those funds,' he told the Times. 'I don't understand why they need to pay hundreds of millions of those dollars to middlemen who turn around and permit overpricing.'" Because the entire Trump administration is a giant grift.

Speaking of which... [CN: Wildfires] Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Trump Officials Accused of Using Deadly Wildfires to Boost Logging. "Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said that he hoped new legislation would allow for the 'thinning' of forests to help prevent wildfires. He said he was confident Congress would soon pass a new farm bill that would remove environmental reviews for the removal of trees and brush, as well as the building of roads through federal forests. 'We have to manage our forests,' said Zinke on a visit to the charred remains of Paradise, a town in northern California that has been razed by the so-called Camp fire. ...Zinke was joined on the Paradise tour by Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, who also backs greater intervention in forests. 'People say they want pristine forests — well, this doesn't look pristine to me,' Perdue said, referencing the ashy remains of Paradise." Rage seethe boil.

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: When Love Is Not Enough: The Health Toll of Immigration Enforcement.

Julia Perez Pacheco and Samuel Oliver-Bruno have been together for more than 20 years and for the entirety of that time, Oliver-Bruno has been Perez Pacheco's rock. He has supported her financially and emotionally, paying her medical expenses, driving her to doctor's appointments, and caring for her during hospital stays.

...The effect his deportation will have on his life is clear, after having spent over two decades in the United States. Less acknowledged has been the effect his deportation will have on the health of his family members, who have already been shaken to their core by his detainment.

For his wife, his deportation could have potentially "life-ending" and "life-changing" effects, according to her cardiology physician assistant, who wrote a letter of support for the family as Oliver-Bruno pursued deferred action.

Perez Pacheco has pulmonary arterial hypertension, an "aggressive and progressive" condition caused by lupus, a diagnosis she received at 15. Lupus affects most of the tissues in the body, causing them to become inflamed and scarred. For Perez Pacheco, this primarily has meant that lupus is affecting the blood vessels in her lungs and her heart. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is not curable, the physician assistant explained in the letter, and ultimately Perez Pacheco's condition will "deteriorate."

Presently, she is devastated. She told Rewire.News the past several days have been hellish. She is tired and has "no willingness to do anything."

"I have horrible headaches and mentally, I don't know how much longer I can keep carrying all of this pain," Perez Pacheco said late Monday afternoon. "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

Although her particular situation is unique, the negative health impacts of detainment and deportation on families is an underreported, yet increasingly common, issue. Fear, trauma, and stress are having very real and damaging effects on immigrant communities that researchers are still working to understand. Adults who are subjected to immigration enforcement are experiencing severe and wide-ranging health implications. And these outcomes, medical professionals say, should be viewed as a public health crisis.

It is absolutely and unquestionably a public health crisis. Sustained anxiety and trauma are serious health concerns.

Opheli Garcia Lawler at the Cut: Another Ferguson Protester Has Died. "Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American activist who live-streamed throughout the protests against police brutality and the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, has died. ...Masri is not the first person connected to the Ferguson protests to die in the years since the protests against the killing of Michael Brown. Danye Jones and Darren Seals have both been found dead since 2014. Jones death was considered by police to be a suicide, but his mother Melissa McKinnies — who is a prominent activist herself — suspected foul play. Seals was found shot to death and set on fire, and his murder has not been solved. The circumstances of Masri's death have not been released or confirmed." My condolences to his family, friends, and community.

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

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We Resist: Day 622

In an unprecedented move, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released an explicit statement that purports to describe the sexual preferences of a woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of misconduct.

The statement, which was circulated to the hundreds of journalists on the Judiciary Committee's press list, was from Dennis Ketterer, a former Democratic congressional candidate and television meteorologist who said he was involved in a brief relationship with Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick in 1993.

Swetnick said last week in an affidavit that Kavanaugh was present at a house party in 1982 where she alleges she was the victim of a gang rape, a claim he vehemently denies.

In his statement, Ketterer said Swetnick once told him that she sometimes enjoyed group sex with multiple men and had first engaged in it during high school. Ketterer said the remark "derailed" their relationship, which he described as involving "physical contact" but no intercourse.

Ketterer said Swetnick "never said anything about being sexually assaulted, raped, gang-raped, or having sex against her will" and "never mentioned Brett Kavanaugh in any capacity." He described their relationship as lasting for a "couple of weeks."

It is absolutely outrageous that Republicans would release a letter like this from anyone with whom Swetnick had a relationship, as though every woman who has survived sexual assault tells every man with whom she's subsequently involved, but the fact that they released this horseshit based on the experiences of a man who claims to have dated her for a "couple of weeks" is enraging.

Remember this shit, too, when dipshits demand to know why it is that women don't report. FUCK EVERYTHING.

And while we're on the subject of Senate Republicans being rape apologist, victim-blaming shitwheels...

Remember when people were pinning hopes on Lindsey Graham that he was going to "stop Trump" w/ John McCain, and I was like: Uh, I guess you're new here, but Lindsey Graham is trash. And then people shouted at me that I was a dumb cunt who didn't appreciate allies when I saw them? https://t.co/LqrgL2Cg9L
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 3, 2018

Breathtaking. Meanwhile...

Leigh Ann Caldwell and Heidi Przybyla at NBC News: FBI Has Not Contacted Dozens of Potential Sources in Kavanaugh Investigation. "More than 40 people with potential information into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have not been contacted by the FBI, according to multiple sources that include friends of both the nominee and his accusers. The bureau is expected to wrap up its expanded background investigation as early as Wednesday into two allegations against Kavanaugh — one from Christine Blasey Ford and the other from Deborah Ramirez. But sources close to the investigation, as well as a number of people who know those involved, say the FBI has not contacted dozens of potential corroborators or character witnesses."

A sham investigation. And it should have been obvious that it would be, from the moment that asshole Jeff Flake called for it.

* * *

[CN: Rape culture; trauma; misogyny] Mara Gordon at NPR: Sexual Assault and Harassment May Have Lasting Health Repercussions for Women.

The trauma of sexual assault or harassment is not only hard to forget; it may also leave lasting effects on a woman's health. This finding of a study published Wednesday adds support to a growing body of evidence suggesting the link.

In the study of roughly 300 middle-aged women, an experience of sexual assault was associated with anxiety, depression, and poor sleep. A history of workplace sexual harassment was also associated with poor sleep, and with an increased risk of developing high blood pressure.

"These are experiences that [a woman] could have had long ago ... and it can have this long arm of influence throughout a woman's life," says Rebecca Thurston, lead author of the study, and a research psychologist and director of the Women's Behavioral Health Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh.

..."These [traumatic experiences] are clearly critical things that happen to people early on, that have these really long lasting effects," says Susan Mason, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota who studies the effects of trauma. "These really shape people's life trajectories."

..."Sexual assault and sexual abuse are much more common than people think," Thurston says. These are "key toxic stressors for women."

While researchers weren't surprised that sexual assault and harassment seemed to be related to the development of mood disorders and poor sleep, they were impressed by the strength of the association.

"These should be urgent public health priorities," Mason says. "How do we address the fundamental ways that our social structure affects health?"

Right now, the way that we're addressing this issue is by tasking (predominantly) women who are themselves frequently survivors of sexual assault and/or harassment with trying to solve the problem, exposing themselves to more abuse, and thus making ourselves sicker and sicker as we try to encourage our culture to get well. That isn't working. It's also aggressively cruel.

* * *

[CN: War on agency] Summer Ballentine at the AP: Missouri Down to 1 Abortion Clinic Amid Legal Battle. "Missouri is down to one clinic providing abortions Wednesday, after the only other clinic in the state that performs the procedure failed to adhere to new state requirements. Federal appeals court judges ruled last month that Missouri can enforce a requirement that doctors must have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals before they can perform abortions. The judges issued a mandate Monday for that rule to officially take effect. ...Women seeking abortions [must now] go to Planned Parenthood's St. Louis clinic — which is now the only facility in Missouri where abortions can be performed — or travel to neighboring states." That is the very definition of an undue burden.

"The family applied for FEMA assistance but were denied. Like many families in Puerto Rico, they couldn’t find the necessary papers needed to prove the home was theirs: It was passed down through the family through generations." https://t.co/GFn0f6l2Wi
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 3, 2018

[CN: Class warfare] Tami Luhby at CNN Money: Getting Health Insurance Through Work Now Costs Nearly $20,000. "Employers and workers together are spending close to $20,000 for family health insurance coverage in 2018, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report. Although premiums have increased fairly modestly in recent years, the growth has far outpaced workers' raises over time. The average family premium has increased 55% since 2008, twice as fast as workers' wages and three times as fast as inflation, Kaiser's Employer Health Benefits Survey found. Companies pick up most of the tab, shelling out $14,100 a year, on average. Still, workers have to pay an average of $5,550, up 65% from a decade ago. For single coverage, total premiums have reached $6,900, on average, up 47% from 2008. Workers contribute roughly $1,200 a year. Deductibles also continue to burn a deeper hole in workers' pockets. The average deductible now stands at $1,350, up 212% since 2008. That's eight times faster than wage growth."

[CN: Toxic water] Kat Lonsdorf at NPR: 'You Just Don't Touch That Tap Water Unless Absolutely Necessary'. "Aleigha Sloan can't remember ever drinking a glass of water from the tap at her home. That is 'absolutely dangerous,' the 17-year-old says, wrinkling her nose and making a face at the thought. 'You just don't touch that tap water unless absolutely necessary. I mean, like showers and things — you have to do what you have to do. But other than that, no,' she says. 'I don't know anybody that does.' ...Americans across the country, from Maynard's home in rural Appalachia to urban areas like Flint, Mich., or Compton, Calif., are facing a lack of clean, reliable drinking water. At the heart of the problem is a water system in crisis: aging, crumbling infrastructure and a lack of funds to pay for upgrading it."

If Trump really wanted to "Make America Great Again," he could start with a plan to make sure every resident of this nation had reliable access to clean drinking water. That he never even mentions this subject is a pretty good indicator that he has no interest in improving anything for the lives of average Americans, in case literally everything else he does hadn't already tipped his hand.

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

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We Resist: Day 602

GOP senators’ reaction this AM to Trump Puerto Rico tweets following a familiar pattern: Decline to comment, say they haven’t read them, or offer mild criticism and move on.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 13, 2018

Just a reminder that Donald Trump's fellow Republicans will tolerate absolutely anything, as long as they can continue their bid to consolidate power.

[Content Note: Displacement] Danielle McLean at ThinkProgress: FEMA Will Put 1,000 Displaced Puerto Ricans out on the Streets This Friday. "More than 1,000 Puerto Ricans, displaced by last year's hurricanes, have been living temporarily in hotels and motels throughout the country while they await more permanent housing alternatives — major repair to their own homes, for example, or help finding a new place to live. But they are now bracing for the likelihood they will become homeless this week. A federal judge in Massachusetts on August 30 allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to stop funding its Transitional Shelter Assistance (TSA) program, which allows hurricane-displaced people to live in hotels or motels throughout Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland."

This, of course, immediately after we found out that nearly $10 million of FEMA funding had been redirected to ICE to fund Trump's nativist abuses.

And it wasn't only FEMA whose funding was diverted, either. Tal Kopan at CNN: It's Not Just FEMA: ICE Quietly Got an Extra $200 Million. "The Trump administration this summer quietly redirected $200 million from all over the Department of Homeland Security to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, despite repeated congressional warnings of ICE's 'lack of fiscal discipline' and 'unsustainable' spending. The Department of Homeland Security asked for the money, according to a document made public this week by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley. Of the $200 million, the document says $93 million will go to immigrant detention, a 3% budget increase that will fund capacity for an additional 2,300 detainees; and $107 million for 'transportation and removal,' or deportations, a 29% budget increase."

[CN: Child abuse] Meanwhile... Caitlin Dickerson at the New York Times: Detention of Migrant Children Has Skyrocketed to Highest Levels Ever.

Even though hundreds of children separated from their families after crossing the border have been released under court order, the overall number of detained migrant children has exploded to the highest ever recorded — a significant counternarrative to the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the number of undocumented families coming to the United States.

Population levels at federally contracted shelters for migrant children have quietly shot up more than fivefold since last summer, according to data obtained by The New York Times, reaching a total of 12,800 this month. There were 2,400 such children in custody in May 2017.

The huge increases, which have placed the federal shelter system near capacity, are due not to an influx of children entering the country, but a reduction in the number being released to live with families and other sponsors, the data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services suggests. Some of those who work in the migrant shelter network say the bottleneck is straining both the children and the system that cares for them.

Emphases mine. So, five times the number of children are currently being detained in "federally contracted shelters," which get paid by the federal government per child being held, so there is a financial incentive to keep the children in detention rather than releasing them to live with guardians. This is an enormous grift.

Specifically: It's thieving from U.S. taxpayers in order to profit from the exploitation of undocumented children. Absolutely sickening.

And one of the ways extended detention is being rationalized is with the mendacious argument that detention is necessary to keep track of undocumented immigrants and ensure they show up for court hearings. That is demonstrably false.

“Detention is wholly unnecessary to ensure that refugee families attend their court hearings. On the contrary, families and children w/legal counsel overwhelmingly appear in immigration court.” #EndFamilyDetention
— Gabe #DreamActNow Ortíz (@TUSK81) September 13, 2018

Finally on this subject today... Kate Riga at TPM: Trump Mulls Paying Mexico to Deport Immigrants Passing Through to U.S. "The Trump administration is considering redirecting $20 million in foreign aid funds to Mexico to help them deport immigrants passing through the country on the way to the United States, according to a Tuesday New York Times report. The money would pay for bus and airplane fare back to the immigrants' countries of origin. Per the New York Times, this would primarily affect Central Americans traversing across Mexico to the U.S. border."

It would also be a program rife for corruption. Which, naturally, is an unspoken feature of the proposal, not a bug.

* * *

Don't know what this is yet (I bet you have a guess though and #MeToo, cough):

Senate Democrats Have Referred A Secret Letter About Brett Kavanaugh To The FBI https://t.co/wIAtiu4f3q by @LissandraVilla and @pdmcleod
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) September 13, 2018

Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Kavanaugh Offers Details on Nationals Tickets Purchases That Led to Debt.

The Washington Post reported in July that Kavanaugh ran up credit card debt that the White House has attributed to his purchasing pricey season tickets for himself and a group of friends. The nominee's friends have since repaid Kavanaugh — an avid fan of the Nationals baseball team — according to the White House, and the issue did not surface during his two days of public questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But the issue arose in written follow-up questions submitted by members of the committee, and Kavanaugh submitted his answers in writing late Wednesday.

...In explaining the debt to members of the committee, Kavanaugh noted that he is a "huge sports fan" and said that he bought four season tickets annually from the Nationals' arrival in Washington in 2005 until 2017. He also bought playoff packages in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2017.

He split the tickets with a "group of old friends" through a "ticket draft" at his home, Kavanaugh said.

"Everyone in the group paid me for their tickets based on the cost of the tickets, to the dollar," Kavanaugh said in the written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee that were made public Wednesday. "No one overpaid or underpaid me for tickets. No loans were given in either direction."

In 2016, Kavanaugh reported between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt, according to his financial disclosures, which was spread out over three credit cards and a loan. The debts were either paid off or dipped below the reporting requirements the following year.

None of this makes any fucking sense. It just doesn't add up. How does someone whose entire net worth is less than a million dollars carry $60,000 (or more) worth of personal loans? Something is very hinky.

In other Kavanaugh news...

Democrats fail in bid for U.S. Supreme Court nominee documents https://t.co/V5HYitJHRb
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 13, 2018

[CN: Gun violence; death] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: The Teens Who Testified Last Week Want Senators to See the Human Cost of Kavanaugh's Confirmation. "Judge Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court would help solidify conservative control of the federal judiciary for decades to come. And nothing reinforced that potential generational impact more than the panel of teenage witnesses who lined up to testify against Kavanaugh on the final day of his confirmation hearing. One of those witnesses was Aalayah Eastmond, who shared her experience as a survivor of the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Eastmond was in the third classroom attacked that day. She detailed for the senators who stayed to listen — and not all Republican senators did — what it was like to hide under the body of classmate Nicholas Dworet, who was killed right in front of her. She described saying what she thought were her final goodbyes to her parents, and the shock of having police pick body parts out of her hair."

Fuck every Republican Senator who refused to even listen to Eastmond. Cowards.

* * *

Pussy Riot member Pyotr Verzilov in critical condition in Moscow toxicology unit suffering from suspected poisoning. Hospital won’t allow his mother to see him. He’s a Canadian citizen (in addition to Russian), which will become significant in his case https://t.co/iWaaJlc2za
— Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) September 13, 2018

Fuck.

[CN: Gun violence; racism; police brutality] Adam Serwer at the Atlantic: The NRA's Catch-22 for Black Men Shot by Police. "But the NRA's conspicuous lack of outrage after the shootings of Philando Castile, Jason Washington, and Alton Sterling, all black men killed by police while in possession of a firearm, suggests an impossible double standard. When armed black men are shot by the police, the NRA says nothing about the rights of gun owners; when unarmed black men are shot, its spokesperson says they should have been armed. ...There's also a catch-22 here: If Jean had been armed, Guyger would have a much more plausible defense. If innocent unarmed black men like Jean are shot, it's because they lack firearms; if innocent black men who are armed like Castile or Sterling are shot, it's because they had a gun. Heads, you're dead; tails, you're also dead."

[CN: Gun violence; toxic masculinity; white, male privilege] Meagan Flynn at the Washington Post: 'This Is the New Normal': Six Dead, Including Gunman and Wife, in California Shooting Rampage. "Six people are dead after a man in Bakersfield, Calif., went on a shooting rampage on Wednesday that began at a trucking business and ended about 15 minutes later with the suspect's suicide, a local sheriff said. 'Six people lost their lives in a very short amount of time,' Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said during a Wednesday night news conference. ...Youngblood said he would consider it a mass shooting, saying the string of shootings was 'certainly' connected. The Kern County sheriff said the motive was not immediately clear but that much of his department was working on piecing the shootings together. 'Obviously there's some type of situation that caused the husband to be completely upset,' he said."

"Upset." Wow.

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

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I Hate Him So Much

[Content Note: Death.]

Across two tweets, Donald Trump just said:

3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.

This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!

All day every day I am incandescently angry that this man is president. Occasionally he says or does or tweets something so obscene that I briefly fear my anger will go supernova and tear a hole in the universe.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 587

White House Counsel Don McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall, shortly after the confirmation (hopefully) of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

Announcement that WH Counsel Don McGahn to step down, comes 11 days after it was reported he submitted to 30 hours of questioning by the office of special counsel Robert Mueller over the past 9 months.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 29, 2018

Huh.

* * *

John Wagner at the Washington Post: Trump, without Citing Evidence, Says China Hacked Hillary Clinton's Emails. "Trump asserted early Wednesday, without citing evidence, that Hillary Clinton's emails were hacked by China, and he said the Justice Department and the FBI risked losing their credibility if they did not look into the matter. Writing on Twitter, Trump alleged that much of the former secretary of state's emails that was hacked contained classified information and called it 'a very big story.' ...Trump provided no details about the alleged hacking, but his tweets came shortly after the online publication of a story by the Daily Caller asserting that a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area hacked Clinton's private server while she was secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails."

This was the United States president: 1. Taking another swipe at the U.S. intelligence community; 2. Taking another swipe at his political opponent; 3. Publicly accusing a foreign state of espionage without evidence.

The latter while simultaneously provoking that nation via a trade war.

ALARMING: China breaks w/ precedent & withholds influenza samples from US. If trade war worsens, tariffs could also entangle vaccines, which should be global goods. Worrying clash of shortsighted Trump policies & China’s dangerous strong-arming https://t.co/cZaHI6rOaj
— Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) August 28, 2018

Steven Lee Myers at the New York Times: With Ships and Missiles, China Is Ready to Challenge U.S. Navy in Pacific. "A modernization program focused on naval and missile forces has shifted the balance of power in the Pacific in ways the United States and its allies are only beginning to digest. While China lags in projecting firepower on a global scale, it can now challenge American military supremacy in the places that matter most to it: the waters around Taiwan and in the disputed South China Sea. That means a growing section of the Pacific Ocean — where the United States has operated unchallenged since the naval battles of World War II — is once again contested territory, with Chinese warships and aircraft regularly bumping up against those of the United States and its allies."

* * *

[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Shannon Najmabadi at the Texas Tribune: Across the Country, Basements, Offices, and Hotels Play Short-Term Host to People in ICE Custody.

The basement of a federal building in downtown Austin, 10 floors below U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's office. Space in a "fashionable" South Carolina office park. Branches of major hotel chains in Los Angeles, Miami, and Seattle.

These facilities rarely appear together on government lists, but they all have something in common: They're nodes in a little-known network of holding areas where people in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spend hours or even days on their way to other locations.

The government's [family separation] policy drew attention to the country's vast and often obscured immigration detention apparatus, particularly to a billion-dollar private contracting industry and to U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing centers that migrants call "ice boxes."

But hidden in plain sight across the country, hotels, federal buildings, and office space are used by ICE as way stations for immigrants — and their existence often comes as a surprise to the unsuspecting civilians who work or live nearby.

...All told, at least 80 hospitals and 150 holding locations — scattered across the country — have played host to people in ICE custody over the last decade, records show. Some of the facilities are unmarked processing areas where migrants transferred from local jails under detainers, or picked up by ICE, are kept until the agency can bus them to longer-term detention facilities.

Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: Immigrants in Washington Detention Center Join National Prison Strike. "One week into the national prison strike, a movement led by incarcerated people demanding an end to 'prison slavery' and improvements that recognize their humanity, immigrants in detention have launched a strike of their own in solidarity. ...This morning, Maru Mora Villalpando, a spokesperson for the undocumented-led immigrant rights group, NWDC Resistance, told Rewire.News the number of immigrants participating in the strike is fluctuating. She said that she could confirm six hunger strikers at NWDC had been placed in solitary confinement by ICE and that the strike may spread to Oregon and California." I take up space in solidarity with their protest and I angrily grieve that it's required in the first place.

Colum Lynch at Foreign Policy: U.S. to End All Funding to U.N. Agency That Aids Palestinian Refugees. "Months after scaling back financial support for the United Nations agency that provides humanitarian aid to more than 5 million Palestinian refugees, the Trump administration has decided to end funding altogether, several sources told Foreign Policy, in a decision that analysts said would cause more hardship and possibly unrest in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the Middle East. The decision was made at a meeting earlier this month between [Donald] Trump's advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to the sources. The administration has informed key regional governments in recent weeks of its plan." This is not only a reflection of Trump's nativist agenda, but it has major foreign policy implications.

* * *

Holger Roonemaa and Inga Springe at BuzzFeed: This Is How Russian Propaganda Actually Works in the 21st Century. "The Russian government discreetly funded a group of seemingly independent news websites in Eastern Europe to pump out stories dictated to them by the Kremlin, BuzzFeed News and its reporting partners can reveal. Russian state media created secret companies in order to bankroll websites in the Baltic states — a key battleground between Russia and the West — and elsewhere in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. ...The websites presented themselves as independent news outlets, but in fact, editorial lines were dictated directly by Moscow. ...The revelations about the websites in the Baltic states provide a rare and detailed inside look into how such disinformation campaigns work, and the lengths to which Moscow is willing to go to obscure its involvement in such schemes."

Julie Bykowicz at the Wall Street Journal: The New Lobbying: Qatar Targeted 250 Trump 'Influencers' to Change U.S. Policy. "The professor also didn't know he was on a list of 250 people Mr. Allaham says he and his lobbying-business partner, Nick Muzin, identified as influential in [Donald] Trump's orbit. The list was part of a new type of lobbying campaign Qatar adopted after Mr. Trump sided with its Persian Gulf neighbors who had imposed a blockade on the tiny nation. Qatar wanted to restore good relations with the U.S., Mr. Allaham says. Win over Mr. Trump's influencers, the thinking went, and the president would follow. ...Qatar's lobbying operation over the next year was an unconventional influence plan to target an unconventional president — and shows how much Mr. Trump has changed the rules of the game in the influence industry."

Marianne Levine and Lili Bayer at Politico: Trump Lawyer Giuliani Got Paid to Lobby Romanian President. "Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani was being paid by a global consulting firm when he sent a letter to the president of Romania last week that contradicted the U.S. government's official position. Giuliani's letter to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis appears to take sides in a fight at the top of the Romanian government over how to rein in high-level corruption. The former New York mayor's letter criticizes the 'excesses' of Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), contrary to U.S. State Department policy, which has been supportive of the agency's efforts. Although the missive does not claim to have been sent on [Donald] Trump's authority, Romanian politicians seeking to blunt the power of the DNA have already used it to sow doubt about the U.S. government's position."

Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier at BuzzFeed: "Suspicious" Transactions at Russian Embassy Sparked Deeper Bank Probe Than Previously Known. "American bank examiners delved deeper into the [Russian] embassy's financial activity than was previously known — and reveal why they flagged two of the transactions as suspicious. The first, made just 10 days after the U.S. presidential election in 2016, was a $120,000 lump-sum check to then-ambassador Sergey Kislyak that was twice as large as any payment he'd received in the previous two years. The second, just five days after [Donald] Trump's inauguration, was a blocked attempt to withdraw $150,000 in cash that a bank official feared was meant for Russians the US had just expelled from the country."

* * *

Libby Watson at Splinter: Why Are Democrats Poised to Let 7 Trump-Nominated Judges Slide to Confirmation? "Since he took office, Trump has appointed more federal appeals court judges than former Presidents Obama and Bush had at the same point in their administrations combined. As the Pew Research Center noted earlier this year, Trump had trailed his predecessors in appointing district court judges until today, when Senator Chuck Schumer helpfully struck a deal with the Republicans to confirm seven district court judges, plus four other federal appointees. ...What is the deal? I mean, literally — what did Democrats receive in return for dropping their filibuster of these nominees? Is it simply so they can go home and resume campaigning for the midterms over Labor Day weekend? Is that where the Democrats are today, so utterly defeated that they'll accept 11 lifetime conservative judges for a few extra days of campaigning?"

Whatever the reason, Adam Jentleson, former Deputy Chief of Staff to retired Senator Harry Reid, is not fucking impressed (and I agree):

This comes down to leadership. Senate Dem leaders could take a stand and station one senator on the floor at all times to object, forcing McConnell to jump through interminable hurdles & produce 51 votes - twice - for each nominee, likely resulting in fewer lifetime Trump judges. https://t.co/iX9LcQrp1F
— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) August 29, 2018

To be clear, doing this would *not* block all of the judges confirmed under this agreement.

But it *would* force McConnell to run through the time-consuming "cloture" process for each nomination, and produce 51 recorded votes twice for each nominee. This has a few advantages:
— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) August 29, 2018

Second and more importantly, Dems would have a real shot at blocking some of these Trump judges.

As is, McConnell doesn't have to produce a single vote to confirm a single one of these Trump nominees. In effect, Dems are letting them all be confirmed by acclamation.
— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) August 29, 2018

I just want to emphasize the asymmetry here. Dems would only need to have *one* senator on the floor. McConnell would have to produce 51 votes.

Rather than organize this, the Senate Dem leader gave McConnell consent to instantly confirm 7 Trump judges to lifetime appointments.
— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) August 29, 2018

There is more to Jentleson's thread, which is worth reading in its entirety.

* * *

[CN: Climate change; extreme weather. Covers whole section.]

Dan Whitcomb at Reuters/Yahoo News: Hawaii Residents Hit by Floods from Hurricane Lane as New Storm Forms. "Flash flood warnings were issued on Tuesday for the Hawaiian island of Kauai, with residents on the north coast told to evacuate and others left stranded by high water as the remnants of Hurricane Lane drenched the archipelago and a new storm brewed in the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii was spared a direct hit from a major hurricane as Lane diminished to a tropical storm as it approached and then drifted west, further from land. But rain was still pounding the island chain, touching off flooding on Oahu and Kauai. ...The advisory urged residents near Hanalei Bridge on the north side of the island to evacuate their homes due to rising stream levels. A convoy that had been used to escort residents over roads damaged by historic floods in April between was shut down, leaving many cut off. 'Heavy pounding and hazardous conditions are being reported island-wide. Motorists are advised to drive with extreme caution. Updates will be given as more information is made available,' the Kauai Emergency Management Agency said."

Yessenia Funes at Earther: Puerto Rican Government's New Hurricane Maria Death Count Is Nearly 50 Times Higher Than Original. "A long-awaited study the Puerto Rican government commissioned to determine the number of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria is finally here. To no one's surprise, Puerto Rico's official death toll of 64 was a serious understatement. Researchers from George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health and University of Puerto Rico concluded the hurricane resulted in the deaths of 2,975 people. This estimate varies from the death tolls estimated in previous reports conducted by other scientists using different methodologies. ...The study is sure to note that while Hurricane Maria impacted everyone on the island, those in lower-income neighborhoods were 60 percent more likely to be at risk of dying over this period."

Christopher Flavelle at Bloomberg: Miami Will Be Underwater Soon; Its Drinking Water Could Go First. "Miami-Dade is built on the Biscayne Aquifer, 4,000 square miles of unusually shallow and porous limestone whose tiny air pockets are filled with rainwater and rivers running from the swamp to the ocean. The aquifer and the infrastructure that draws from it, cleans its water, and keeps it from overrunning the city combine to form a giant but fragile machine. Without this abundant source of fresh water, made cheap by its proximity to the surface, this hot, remote city could become uninhabitable. Climate change is slowly pulling that machine apart. Barring a stupendous reversal in greenhouse gas emissions, the rising Atlantic will cover much of Miami by the end of this century. ...If Miami-Dade can't protect its water supply, whether it can handle the other manifestations of climate change won't matter."

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