We Resist: Day 903

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's Massive Purge of Undocumented Immigrants Is Back On and Primarily Speaking.

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

Staff and agencies at the Guardian: New Orleans: Evacuations Ordered as City Braces for Possible Hurricane.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered south-east of New Orleans, Louisiana, on Thursday as the city and a surrounding stretch of the Gulf coast braced for a possible hurricane over the weekend that could unload heavy rain and send water spilling over levees, in the first big test for flood defenses since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The strength and speed of the wind increased on Thursday and by mid-morning was upgraded to become tropical storm Barry.

All eyes were on a weather disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico that dumped as much as 8in (20cm) in just three hours on Wednesday over parts of metro New Orleans, triggering flash flooding.

Coastal communities are braced for Barry to turn into the first hurricane of the season by Friday, coming ashore along the Louisiana-Mississippi-Texas coastline and pouring more water into the already swollen Mississippi River.

Forecasters said the biggest danger in the days to come is not destructive winds but heavy rain as the slow-moving storm makes its way up the Mississippi valley.

This is the worst fucking timeline. I am horrified that NOLA residents may have to revisit one of their city's worst nightmares. I'm thinking about you, NOLA. Stay safe.

* * *

[Content Note: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Allan Smith and Hallie Jackson at NBC News: Trump Expected to Order Citizenship Question Added to the Census. "Donald Trump is expected to announce Thursday that he is taking executive action to add a citizenship question to the census, according to an administration official. Trump tweeted that he will hold a press conference in the afternoon to discuss his latest efforts at including the question as part of the census."

Just to be clear: The president is reportedly going to announce that he will ignore a Supreme Court ruling to take unilateral executive action. That is a grievous affront to our democracy. He is asserting his power as a dictator at that point.

The following facilities started housing ICE detainees last month:
- Adams County Correctional Center: Mississippi prison operated by @CoreCivic
- Catahoula Correctional Center: Louisiana jail run by LaSalle Corrections
- ICE Processing Center: run by @GEOGroup in Louisiana https://t.co/82tS8VYWxg

— RAICES (@RAICESTEXAS) July 9, 2019

Max Siegelbaum at the Guardian: Millions in U.S. Taxpayers' Money Invested in Private Prison Firms. "Millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being invested into private prison operators involved in the detention of thousands of migrants across the United States, an investigation shows. Some of the largest investments, which are by pension funds for public sector workers such as teachers and firefighters, come from states with 'sanctuary' policies, such as New York, California, and Oregon." Goddammit.

Barbie Latza Nadeau at the Daily Beast: Acting Border Boss Who Quit Says He Was 'Hit Hard' by Migrant Boy's Death. "Speaking to CNN, [John Sanders, who quit his role as acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner after just one month] did not directly criticize the Trump administration's approach to immigration, but he said that the threat of raids of sanctuary cities coupled with the death of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez troubled him. He said Vasquez's death pushed him towards taking further action to prevent another similar tragedy, such as bolstering medical assistance at the border. 'It hit me hard, that he was in the cell sleeping,' Sanders told CNN. 'Helping the kids. That has forever changed me. And I think a lot more needs to be done for them.'"

If more agents share his feelings, and I sure hope they do, they can: 1. Resist inhumane orders. 2. STAND DOWN. 3. Don't carry out these raids.

Yes, they may lose their jobs. But at what cost do they keep them?

* * *

[CN: Misogynoir; birtherism. Video may autoplay at link] Oliver Darcy at CNN: Trump Invites Right-Wing Extremists to White House 'Social Media Summit'. "Trump is calling it a 'social media summit,' but the White House did not extend invites to representatives from Facebook or Twitter. Instead, the White House has invited its political allies to the event. ...Among them are Bill Mitchell, a radio host who has promoted the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory on Twitter; Carpe Donktum, an anonymous troll who won a contest put on by the fringe media organization InfoWars for an anti-media meme; and Ali Alexander, an activist who attempted to smear Sen. Kamala Harris by saying she is not an 'American black' following the first Democratic presidential debates. Other eyebrow raising attendees include James O'Keefe..." JFC.

BREAKING: Sexual Assault Allegation Surfaces About Nominee for Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman https://t.co/TwVeZ1vgS9 | @MarcusReports and @KatieBoWill pic.twitter.com/4llcp9jcHf

— Defense One (@DefenseOne) July 10, 2019

Jordan Wilkie at the Guardian: 'A Risk to Democracy': North Carolina Law May Be Violating Secrecy of the Ballot.

North Carolina may be violating state and federal constitutional protections for the secret ballot in the US by tracing some of its citizens' votes.

The situation has arisen because North Carolina has a state law that demands absentee voting — which includes early, in-person voting as well as postal voting — is required to use ballots that can be traced back to the voter.

The laws are in place as a means of guaranteeing that if citizens cast multiple ballots during early voting or that if ineligible residents — like non-citizens or people who have not completed sentences for criminal offenses — cast ballots, those votes can be retrieved and removed.

Likewise, if a voter casts an early ballot then dies before election day, that ballot can then be discounted.

But voting rights advocates think the North Carolina law breaks one of the most sacred tenets of the democratic system: preserving the secrecy of the ballot.

If voters aren't ensured privacy, they may not vote. Which, of course, is the entire point. Because Republicans are a bunch of Democracy Killers.

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

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We Resist: Day 851

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?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 833

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: We Have Become Inured to the Unfathomable and On Bill Barr's Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony and Primarily Speaking and Another Migrant Child Dies in Custody and Trump Wants Funding to Expand Detention Camps.

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

So, Attorney General Bill Barr did not turn up to the House Judiciary Committee hearing today, because he has as much contempt for the rule of law as his deplorable boss, and Rep. Steve Cohen pulled a ridiculous stunt, bringing a bucket of fried chicken to the hearing and eating it in front of the empty chair where Barr should have been, then holding a chicken figurine while giving a press conference and calling Barr "Chicken Barr."

First of all, Barr did not fail to show up because he's afraid. To the absolute contrary, he failed to show up because the Republican Party has consolidated power so thoroughly that a Democratic House majority no longer matters, and the Trump Regime will take every opportunity to show that.

Secondly:

It's already well established that I am the Most Humorless Feminist in All of Nofunnington, so let me go ahead and point out that stunts like this and language like "Chicken Barr" are firmly in Donald Trump's wheelhouse, and even if Dems *could* out-bully him, they *shouldn't*. https://t.co/2o9PePa72G

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

And let me just be really clear about how abuse dynamics work: When you're dealing with an abuser, you can't "fight fire with fire." All you can do is replicate the abuser's mechanisms of abuse, and that doesn't weaken them. It empowers them.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

That is not an argument against being strong. It's not even an argument against being aggressive, which fighting fascism absolutely calls for. It's an argument against legitimizing and normalizing Trump's tactics by replicating them. BE SMARTER THAN DONALD TRUMP, Democrats.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2019

For fuck's sake.

* * *

Kenneth P. Vogel and Iuliia Mendel at the New York Times: Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies. "The broad outlines of how the Bidens' roles intersected in Ukraine have been known for some time. The former vice president's campaign said that he had always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, that he had never discussed the matter with Hunter Biden and that he learned of his son's role with the Ukrainian energy company from news reports. But new details about Hunter Biden's involvement, and a decision this year by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general to reverse himself and reopen an investigation into Burisma, have pushed the issue back into the spotlight just as the senior Mr. Biden is beginning his 2020 presidential campaign."

The Trump campaign is going to milk this for all it's worth. And, to be clear, there is a valid question about potential conflicts of interest here. But trust that the Trump campaign doesn't care about that even a little. Their only interest is in how it can be used to hurt Joe Biden, legitimately or not.

So I'm linking the story as a heads-up, because the Trump campaign will not drop it, but also to direct your attention to the following passage, highlighted by Brian Beutler with the observation: "Many paragraphs in we learn one reason why the cat got Bill Barr's tongue when Kamala Harris put him on the spot about politically motivated investigations."

Mr. Giuliani has discussed the Burisma investigation, and its intersection with the Bidens, with the ousted Ukrainian prosecutor general and the current prosecutor. He met with the current prosecutor multiple times in New York this year. The current prosecutor general later told associates that, during one of the meetings, Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Trump excitedly to brief him on his findings, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Mr. Giuliani declined to comment on any such phone call with Mr. Trump, but acknowledged that he has discussed the matter with the president on multiple occasions. Mr. Trump, in turn, recently suggested he would like Attorney General William P. Barr to look into the material gathered by the Ukrainian prosecutors — echoing repeated calls from Mr. Giuliani for the Justice Department to investigate the Bidens' Ukrainian work and other connections between Ukraine and the United States.

That would be why Barr acted like he didn't even understand the definition of the word "suggest" when Harris asked him if Trump or anyone else at the White House had ever asked or suggested that he open an investigation into anyone — because Trump asked him to open an investigation on Biden.

Of whom Trump is not afraid, despite the widely-held assumption in the political press that Trump's obsessive tweeting about Biden indicates fear of facing him. The fuck it does. Trump wants to face Biden because he knows Biden is the most ethically compromised of all the Democratic contenders. Among other reasons. Like the odds that Biden will take a big roundhouse swing at Trump and end up hitting himself in the face instead.

* * *

Julia Harte at Reuters: Foreign Government Leases at Trump World Tower Stir More Emoluments Concerns. "The U.S. State Department allowed at least seven foreign governments to rent luxury condominiums in New York's Trump World Tower in 2017 without approval from Congress, according to documents and people familiar with the leases, a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause. ...The rental transactions, dating from the early months of Trump's presidency and first revealed by Reuters, could add to mounting scrutiny of his business dealings with foreign governments, which are now the subject of multiple lawsuits. Congressional staffers confirmed to Reuters that the Trump World Tower lease requests were never submitted to Congress."

The Trump admin just filed a brief trying to dismantle the ENTIRE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.

-130 million people w/pre-existing conditions could lose coverage

-13 mill people covered by Medicaid could lose coverage

-2.3 mill young adults could lose coverage

We can’t stand for this.

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) May 2, 2019

Jon Swaine at the Guardian: Stephen Moore: Trump's Fed Pick Underpaid Ex-Wife's Alimony for Years. "Stephen Moore, Donald Trump's embattled pick for the Federal Reserve board of governors, has underpaid his ex-wife's alimony bills for years, leaving her out of pocket by tens of thousands of dollars. ...The underpayment persisted even after Moore was found in contempt of court in Virginia in 2012, and came close to having his home seized, after he failed to pay Allison Moore more than $300,000 he owed her at the time. A spokeswoman for Moore said he declined to comment." I'll bet he did.

[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse] Jacob Soboroff at NBC News: Emails Show Trump Admin Had 'No Way to Link' Separated Migrant Children to Parents. "On the same day the Trump administration said it would reunite thousands of migrant families it had separated at the border with the help of a 'central database,' an official was admitting privately the government only had enough information to reconnect 60 parents with their kids, according to emails obtained by NBC News. ...In the absence of an effective database, the emails show, officials then began scrambling to fill out a simple spreadsheet with data in hopes of reuniting as many as families as they could." Holy hell.

Matthew S. Schwartz at NPR: ACLU: Border Agents Violate Constitution When They Search Electronic Devices.

The ACLU, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sued the federal government in 2017, alleging that its "warrantless and suspicionless searches" of electronic devices at the U.S. ports of entry violated the First and Fourth amendments. Lawyers now say that, through depositions of border agents, they have learned that the scope of the warrantless searches has expanded far beyond the mere enforcement of immigration and customs laws.

Border officers have the authority to search belongings for contraband, or to determine who is admissible into the U.S., the ACLU said. But agents now "claim authority to search travelers' devices for general law enforcement purposes, such as looking for potential evidence of illegal activity beyond violations of immigration and customs laws," plaintiffs wrote.

"That claimed authority extends to enforcing 'hundreds' of federal laws, including tax, bankruptcy, environmental, and consumer protection laws. Defendants' asserted purposes for conducting warrantless or suspicionless device searches also include intelligence gathering or advancing pre-existing investigations."

This is so bad. And if the government is allowed to get away with it, we can be certain that such encroaches on people's privacy will not be limited to the borders.

[CN: Islamophobia; abuse] In a chilling view of what that future might look like... Rosie Perper at Business Insider: Chinese Authorities Are Reportedly Using an App to Monitor Muslims in Xinjiang and See If They Match 36 'Person Types' Deemed as Dangerous. "Researchers at Human Rights Watch said they obtained a copy last year of a mass surveillance app used by police in Xinjiang, which is home to an estimated 13 million Uighur Muslims as well as a other Muslim minority groups that are subjected to unprecedented surveillance measures. ...According to the report, the app compiles data about Xinjiang inhabitants, including their blood type, height, and information about their electricity use, and warns government officials and police officers when it detects a suspicious person."

[CN: Extreme weather; video may autoplay at link] Swati Gupta and Helen Regan at CNN: 100 Million People in Path of India's Worst Cyclone in Five Years. "What is expected to be India's strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in nearly five years is barreling toward 100 million people on the east coast, prompting officials to begin emergency evacuations. ...As Fani was classified as an 'extremely severe cyclonic storm' in India, the country's Coast Guard and Navy deployed ships and helicopters for relief and rescue operations. Army and Air Force units have also been put on standby in Odisha, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh states."

[CN: Sexual violence] Tom Vanden Brook at USA Today: Military Sexual Assaults Rise by Almost 38%; Alcohol Involved in Nearly Two out of Three.

Sexual assaults in the military rose nearly 38% from 2016 to 2018, according to survey results obtained by USA TODAY.

That spike in crime within the ranks comes after years of focused effort and resources to eradicate it.

The report, due to be released Thursday by the Pentagon, surveyed Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine personnel in 2018. Based on the survey, there were an estimated 20,500 instances of unwanted sexual contact — an increase over the 14,900 estimated in the last biennial survey in 2016. Unwanted sexual contact ranges from groping to rape.

Enlisted female troops ages 17 to 24 were at the highest risk of being assaulted, said Nathan Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office.

...More than 85% of victims knew their assailant. Alcohol was involved in 62% of the total assaults.

...The latest report on sexual assaults requires Congress to intervene, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., the chairwoman of the Armed Services Committee's personnel panel.

"The department must accept that current programs are simply not working," Speier said. "Congress must lead the way in forcing the department to take more aggressive approaches to fighting this scourge.”

One might imagine that the increase is attributable to higher incidents of reporting, but that is, unfortunately, not the case: "The rate of reporting sexual assault to authorities declined, a trend that might point to less confidence among troops." Additionally, the increase is only in female victimization: "For women, assaults involving groping and crimes involving penetration both increased, Galbreath said. The type of assaults for men stayed relatively stable."

It is possible that official reporting has declined, while anonymous reporting in a survey has increased. But it's tragic that the best-case scenario is that it's the same number of assaults with dwindling hopes for justice.

My guess is that it's not a coincidence that this time period overlaps precisely with the time period that a confessed serial sex abuser has been serving as commander-in-chief.

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

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 216

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things in the news today:

Earlier today by me: Trump Doubles Down in Phoenix and Deplorable Dispatches.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Kellie Hwang and Garrett Mitchell at AZ Central: Fake News? Trump Supporters Circulate Photo of Phoenix Rally Crowds...But it's Not. "Social media is a glorious place. You see something, it looks cool, and so you retweet it. And sometimes that gets you into trouble. Such was the case Tuesday night, when Tennessee Republicans and other supporters of [Donald] Trump started sharing an image of what was purportedly a massive crowd gathered in the streets of Phoenix ahead of his speech. Only problem? The photo is actually an aerial shot from the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers parade. And frankly, anyone who is at all familiar with Phoenix should have known better. It's a desert, people."

LOLOLOLOLOL! The fake news is coming from inside the house!

Indeed, despite the caterwauling about the haters and losers of the fake news media concealing Trump's massive support in Phoenix, the crowd was startlingly sparse.

Trump appears to be extremely agitated about his crowd size in Phoenix.

It'd be shame if everyone retweeted to show his actual crowd size. pic.twitter.com/rqGCRryG3M

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) August 23, 2017

And as Jenna Johnson reports at the Washington Post: As Trump Ranted and Rambled in Phoenix, His Crowd Slowly Thinned.

Trump spent the first three minutes of his speech — which would drag on for 75 minutes — marveling at his crowd size, claiming that "there aren't too many people outside protesting," predicting that the media would not broadcast shots of his "rather incredible" crowd and reminiscing about how he was "center stage, almost from day one, in the debates."

...But as the night dragged on, many in the crowd lost interest in what the president was saying.

Hundreds left early, while others plopped down on the ground, scrolled through their social media feeds or started up a conversation with their neighbors. After waiting for hours in 107-degree heat to get into the rally hall — where their water bottles were confiscated by security — people were tired and dehydrated and the president just wasn't keeping their attention.

Come for the racism; stay for the fact that it feels safer to face shouting anti-racist protesters in a group if you leave all together.

One person who did love Trump's speech last night? Steve Bannon. Obvs.

Bannon loved Trump's speech last night, a couple Breitbart sources tell @swin24 and me https://t.co/o5UpIRHLYR

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) August 23, 2017

And one person who, like all other people with a modicum of sense and decency, really didn't care for the speech is former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Rachel Chason at the Washington Post: James Clapper Questions Trump's Fitness, Worries About His Access to Nuclear Codes. (Someone at the Washington Post is killing it with their headline game!) Clapper questioned Trump's "fitness for office following his freewheeling speech in Phoenix on Tuesday night, which Clapper labeled 'downright scary and disturbing.' 'I really question his ability to be — his fitness to be — in this office,' Clapper told CNN's Don Lemon early Wednesday morning. 'I also am beginning to wonder about his motivation for it — maybe he is looking for a way out.'"

I don't think he's looking for a way out — he's far too egomaniacal and loath to admit failure for that — but I sure hope someone is fixing to give him a way out all the same. And soon.

* * *

Eric Levitz at New York Magazine: GOP Mulls Paying for Tax Cuts Through Shameless Lying. "Permanent tax cuts are probably still out of the GOP's reach, regardless of their budgetary gimmickry. But if the Trump administration is to pass any major legislation, it will need to follow the lead of these House Republicans, and concentrate on their party's strengths: Passing tax reforms that disadvantage powerful interest groups isn't one of them; drafting fraudulent budgets is." Seethe.

Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire: Lawsuit: Trump's Election Commission Is Hiding Public Information. "Trump in May signed an executive order creating the 'Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity,' led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kris Kobach... The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School and the Protect Democracy Project filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in New York to compel the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget to answer requests and disclose public information related to the commission. ...'This administration has a troubling pattern of keeping public information from the public—a pattern that is continuing with this commission,' Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. 'The government's obligation to share this information is especially important when there are so many reasons to be skeptical of this commission.'"

JUST IN: Secret Service to stop deleting White House visitor log information https://t.co/6nrzMVcKRU pic.twitter.com/8rjEOwKCIE

— The Hill (@thehill) August 23, 2017

Uhhh.

[CN: White supremacy; anti-Black racism; Nazism] Jay Dow at Kirstin Cole at PIX11: Nazi Propaganda and Jim Crow Graffiti on Building Terrifies Sunnyside Neighbors. "Residents say they will rally Wednesday because they are fearful and intimidated by Nazi propaganda, Jim Crow-era images, and a condo board president allegedly donning a [Donald] Trump mask. Elevator surveillance video allegedly shows Neil Milano, wearing a mask of the president, plastering the door with Trump stickers in a would be attempt to 'menace' his neighbors in Sunnyside at a building on 39th Place. ...Milano is the condo board president of a building around the corner, where he's put up other references to [Donald] Trump, and a lot more. From provocative Jim Crow-era images, to banners of Adolf Hitler, all framed around what Milano's lawyer calls a historical display." Fucking hell.

Haroon Siddique and Oliver Laughland at the Guardian: Charlottesville: United Nations Warns U.S. over 'Alarming' Racism. "A UN committee charged with tackling racism has issued an 'early warning' over conditions in the US and urged the Trump administration to 'unequivocally and unconditionally' reject discrimination. The warning specifically refers to events last week in Charlottesville, Virginia, where civil rights activist Heather Heyer was killed when a car rammed into a group of people protesting against a white nationalist rally. Such statements are usually issued by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) over fears of ethnic or religious conflict. In the past decade, the only other countries issued with an early warning were Burundi, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria." Welp.

Kenrya Rankin at Colorlines: A Rabbi Asked Paul Ryan If He Supports Censuring Trump for His Comments on Charlottesville. Here's What He Said. "[D]uring a town hall in Racine, Wisconsin, Rabbi Dena Feingold asked House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) what 'concrete steps' he would take to hold the president accountable 'when his words and executive actions either implicitly or explicitly condone — if not champion — racism and xenophobia. For example, will you support the resolution for censure?' Ryan's response: 'I will not support that; I think that will be so counterproductive. If we descend this issue into some partisan hack fest, into some bickering against each other and demean it down into some kind of political food fight, what good does that do to unify this country? We want to unify this country against this kind of hatred and this kind of bigotry.'" Asshole.

[CN: Sexual assault] Elizabeth McLaughlin at ABC News: Fort Benning Drill Sergeants Suspended Pending Sexual Assault Investigation. "The Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, along with the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, were investigating a recent charge of sexual assault by a female trainee against a drill sergeant when [additional allegations of sexual misconduct between trainees and drill sergeants] were discovered, the center said in a press release Wednesday. Now, the drill sergeants under review have been suspended pending the expanded investigation. The Army said they will have no contact with trainees while the investigation is carried out."

Sexual assault in the U.S. military has long been a problem in desperate need of meaningful attention. Advocates were just beginning to finally make some headway when the nation decided to elect a confessed sexual abuser as Commander-in-Chief. So here we are.

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

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Four Years Later, Senator Gillibrand Is Still Fighting for Accountability for Military Sexual Assaults

[Content Note: Sexual harassment and abuse.]

Four years ago, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced legislation to enforce meaningful accountability for the epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. military, by "transferring sex crimes from the watch and authority of military brass and instead funneling such cases to independent military prosecutors."

Here we are, four years later, and there is yet another major incident of widespread sexual harassment/assault against female servicemembers. As I reported last Monday, the U.S. Marine Corps is investigating after a link to a drive containing photos of female Marines "in various states of undress" was posted to a 30k+ member Facebook group. The WaPo reported: "The hard drive contained images, as well as the names and units of the women pictured. Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments."

Today, Gillibrand grilled Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the latest incident, and she did not hold back, her voice rising with precisely the emotion I want my elected officials to have about this subject.

Military leadership must take responsibility for a toxic culture that fosters harassment and sexual assault. pic.twitter.com/nTPrLPwY7d

— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) March 14, 2017

I have to say, when you say to us, "It's got to be different," that rings hollow. I don't know what you mean when you say that. Why does it have to be different—because you all of a sudden feel that it has to be different? Who has been held accountable?

I very much align myself with Senator Fischer's comments: Who has been held responsible?! Have you actually investigated and found guilty anybody?! If we can't crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyber-hacking throughout our military?

It is a serious problem, when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life to this country, in the way they have, with no response from leadership. I can tell you: Your answers today are unsatisfactory.

Sen. Gillibrand continued, before Gen. Neller had the opportunity to provide more unsatisfactory answers.

GILLIBRAND: I can tell you: Your answers today are unsatisfactory. They do not go far enough. And I would like to know what you intend to do to the commanders who are responsible for good order and discipline. [edit] Where's the accountability for failure?! Who is being held accountable for doing nothing since 2013?! Who? Which commander? I am very concerned that this is part of a culture that is resulting in the high levels of sexual assault.

We know from the FY14 SAPRO report that 60 percent of men and 58 percent of women who experience sexual harassment or gender discrimination in the previous year throughout all the services indicated that a supervisor or unit leader was one of the people engaged in the violations. That is a problem with our command.

So if you're dedicated to fixing the culture of the Marines, and all the services, what do you plan to do to hold commanders responsible who fail to get this done?

NELLER: [long pause] Senator, I understand and share your concern. Um. If I were aware, or any— I would expect that any commander who was aware of someone who has reported any allegation of anything, particularly something as serious as sexual assault, and the chain of command didn't do anything, that that commander would be held accountable.

[long pause] I don't have any statistics for you on that. Um. I can tell you that, of all those individuals who have come forward with allegations of sexual assault, what's happened to individuals that, um, were the charges, uh, ended up with some sort of process and ended up with an adjudication, um, but those are just numbers.

As you clearly and rightfully state, this is a problem with our culture, and... [pause] I'm still in the process— I mean, I— [gives up trying to be circumspect] I don't have a good answer for you. I'm not gonna sit here and duck around this thing. I'm not. I'm responsible. I'm the commandant. I own this. And we are gonna have to— [pause]

You know, I know you've heard it before, but we're gonna have to change how we see ourselves and how we do—how we treat each other. Um. That's a lame answer, but, ma'am, that's all I've—that's the best I can tell ya right now.

Credit to Gen. Neller for at least managing to look like he actually sort of gives a shit about this issue, which is the bare fucking minimum and yet a bar so low most of his predecessors and colleagues haven't been able to meet it.

Perhaps the most (unintentionally) wise thing that Neller said is that the military has to change how they see themselves. They also need to change how they see their critics.

One is virtually deemed traitorous at the mere suggestion that a member of the U.S. military (especially a straight white male member of the U.S. military) is anything less than a paragon of moral virtue. They are warriors, they are heroes, they are patriots, they are the good guys who take on the evil-doers.

That collective reputation is fiercely protected. But its fierce protection abets abuse.

Communities in which members are presumed to be above reproach attract abusers who cynically and deliberately exploit the reflexive presumption of moral virtue their membership affords them. Abusers count on the merest suggestion that they are anything but unassailably upstanding being mischaracterized as a hostile attack on the entire community. They count on the community closing ranks around all but the occasional bad apple they cannot justifiably defend.

The setting apart of the military as inherently honorable is antithetical to effective rape prevention. It discourages self-reflection—what need is there to examine one's own ethics if one has already been declared honorable by one's entire country?—and it attracts predators who know they can operate with immunity under the presumption of honor, and it exhorts gatekeepers to ignore evidence which subverts the idea of inherent honor. Which is why, in sexual assault cases, the chain of command routinely chooses silencing victims in defense of the narrative instead of holding their attackers accountable.

There's too much at stake for men invested in a narrative that confers upon them them an unearned reputation of honor for them to be gatekeepers in cases that are the most immediate evidence that narrative is bullshit. They have a vested interest in maintaining it, at victims' expense.

Pulling sexual assault cases out of the chain of command is an important and critical reform. But it is only a start. Truly getting to the root of the military's rape crisis will require giving up some things I'm not sure the military is willing to let go.

But they must. If this is ever going to change.

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The High Cost of the Old Boy's Club: Navy Scandal Edition

[Content note: rape, sexual assault, sex work, homophobia. The linked survivor’s stories contain specific descriptions of rapes.]

Last week, Craig Whitlock at the Washington Post offered a devastating look at one of the biggest corruption scandals in United States military history. It surrounds Leonard Glenn Francis, a defense contractor who bribed Naval personnel and defrauded the United States out of millions of dollars, for years on end:

In perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War, Francis doled out sex and money to a shocking number of people in uniform who fed him classified material about U.S. warship and submarine movements. Some also leaked him confidential contracting information and even files about active law enforcement investigations into his company.

He exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal.

…Francis and his firm have admitted to defrauding the Navy of $35 million, though investigators believe the real amount could be much greater.

Francis and two of the contractors who worked for him have pleaded guilty to federal crimes, as have four Navy officers, one enlisted man, and a NCIS agent. More were charged last week and many more—at least 200, including 30 admirals—remain under investigation. Using classified infomration obtained via a stunning array of bribes, Francis’s Singapore-based company, Glenn Defense Marine, won contracts for which it wildly overcharged. This not only cost taxpayers millions, it posed a grave threat to Navy security. At the January trial of the first sailor convicted of wrongdoing in the case, the prosecution laid out the potential damage:

“He put the U.S. Navy at risk of embarrassment, exploitation, attack, or worse; and in doing so he made a fool of every senior sailor who had promoted him to a position of responsibility,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark W. Pletcher wrote in a court brief in advance of Layug’s sentencing.

…“As seems abundantly obvious, in the wrong hands, this information would provide a substantial advantage to those intent on doing our Sailors, our Navy, and our Nation harm, essentially allowing them to know when and where to plan an attack,” wrote Pletcher, the federal prosecutor overseeing the case.

Those who attempted to blow the whistle didn’t get very far. From last week's story:

Francis threw a Christmas party for the visiting officers at the Island Shangri-La, a five-star hotel. They were treated to filet mignon, lobster and Dom Pérignon champagne, and they mingled with female escorts dressed as Santa’s little helpers, according to Schaus and a second officer who was present in port.

A handful of senior officers were invited to an after-party with the escorts, whom Francis had dubbed the “Santa Niñas,” or Santa’s girls, according to a third individual who was present.

The next day, Francis boarded one of the warships and delivered a $600,000 sewage bill, according to the second officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he remains on active duty and wasn’t authorized to speak to a reporter.

“He came into my office with a big grin wanting to be paid,” the officer said. The officer protested and brought up the lavish party from the night before. “I came right out and told Francis that we were paying for it with this bill.”

The officer said he lost the argument, and Francis got what he wanted.

One of the points that Whitlock’s terrific reporting uncovers is how many of the bribes used by Francis involved sex work. Although he used a variety of other bribes, ranging from iPhones and theatre tickets to straight up cash payments, the extent to which he used sex to get secrets is stunning. He kept extensive notes on the sexual preferences of various officers and maintained extensive contacts with escort agencies in several countries in order to be able to offer sexual services to Naval men in many different Asian ports. In Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Singapore, and other places, luxury hotels and the services of sex workers were some of his most important tools. In some cases, sex workers not only provided services, but also gathered additional information for Francis.

It’s not exactly news that sailors like sex. But there's a context here that is important. While winking at the (often married) heterosexual men receiving sexual favors courtesy a defense contractor, the Navy was also busily discharging sailors who happened to be gay, lesbian or bisexual. The cost of discharging military personnel from all services in the first ten years of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been estimated between $190.5 million to $363.5 million. By 2010, more than 13,000 individuals had been discharged under DADT, and increasingly, they were disproportionately women of all races and men of color The US Navy alone, for the years 1997-2005 (the only years for which I could find data broken down by service) discharged 2,483 personnel for DADT.

Another piece of context for this is the piss-poor job the Navy and other branches of the service were doing dealing with rape and sexual assault. In 2013, the year that investigators finally closed in on Leonard Francis’ corruption ring, there were 1,057 incidents of sexual assault reported in the Navy alone. Women in the Marines and the Navy were at highest risk for sexual assault, when compared to the other services. And a 2013 Rand survey found that a whopping 62 percent of military women who reported sexual assault received some form of retaliation.

The stories of retaliation against women reporting are appalling, particularly the technique of diagnosing survivors with mental illness and then booting them, not their attackers, from the service. Amy Quinn, dismissed from the Navy for having a “personality disorder” after reporting her rape. Jenny McLendon, who received the same diagnosis after reporting. Samantha Jarrett, diagnosed with depression and medically discharged. “Carrie Ann,” another woman with a depressingly familiar story:

The day after her release from the hospital, Carrie Anne returned to duty, but she had missed the morning muster. A petty officer first class confronted her about that.

“I told him I had just gotten out of the hospital and had been raped,” Carrie Anne said. 'He yelled at me for using the word 'rape.'” What female members of the Navy were supposed to say was they were involved in a SAPR case.” SAPR stands for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response.

Shortly after this reprimand, Carrie Anne said she was called into the office of the Chief Petty Officer in charge of her division. She had requested a change of location in her residence because her attacker lived nearby.

“He said he wasn't going to put an innocent man behind bars,” Carrie Anne said. “He said he didn't want 'stagnant water in his Navy.'”

”Carrie Anne” was medically discharged against her will. All charges were dropped against her attacker.

My point, here it is:

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same culture that persecutes rape survivors rather than rapists was willing to wink at heterosexual men receiving sexual bribes from a defense contractor. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that a military culture paranoid about rooting out the private lives of gay service members simply ignored the actual threat to security posed by the sailors receiving bribes from Leonard. Heterosexual adultery can be grounds for charges under the UCMJ if the behavior “was to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces or was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.” While I’m actually not too thrilled at the idea of the military rooting around in people’s private lives, it does seem to me that letting a defense contractor hire sex workers for an officer is about as prejudicial to good order as it gets. Yet adultery is more often used as a lesser charge to help rapists escape appropriate punishment, or as a threat against survivors who try to report rape.

The connecting thread here is a culture of straight male entitlement: entitlement to sex, to bribes, even to a job in the face of crimes against other sailors. It’s a poisonous stew that is actively harmful to good discipline and yes, to military safety and security. All those years of rooting out queer sailors, all those years of dismissing women who reported their rapes, helped keep the Navy a Straight Old Boy’s Club. But queer folk and rape survivors weren't the problem. The Boy's Club was the problem. If the Leonard Francis scandal doesn't prompt more people to give a damn about changing the Navy's culture, then I don't know what will.

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Today in Rape Culture

[Content Note: Sexual violence.]

Why I am not even a little fucking surprised:

The Pentagon misled Congress with inaccurate and vague information about sexual assault cases that portrayed civilian law enforcement officials as less willing than military commanders to punish sex offenders, an Associated Press investigation found.

Local district attorneys and police forces failed to act against U.S. service members who were subsequently prosecuted in military courts for sex crimes, according to internal government records that summarized the outcomes of dozens of cases. But in a number of cases, the steps taken by civilian authorities were described incorrectly or omitted. Other case descriptions were too imprecise to be verified.

There also is nothing in the records that supports the primary reason the Pentagon told Congress about the cases in the first place: To show top military brass as hard-nosed crime fighters who insisted on taking the cases to trial.

...The consequences could be significant if lawmakers believe they were misinformed. A backlash may stoke additional support for the Senate bill that's failed to pass largely because of the military's strident opposition. Another vote on the legislation could come as early as June.

The legislation aims to stop sexual assaults by stripping senior officers of their responsibilities to decide whether to prosecute sexual assault cases and giving that authority to seasoned military trial lawyers. Protect Our Defenders, a nonpartisan organization, supports the bill.

"Someone at the Pentagon should be held accountable," said retired Col. Don Christensen, the organization's president and the former chief Air Force prosecutor. "Whether you agree or disagree with the policy, every senator - especially those who repeated the claim or based their vote on the claim - should be outraged."

The Pentagon couldn't have proven the point more comprehensively that legislation is desperately needed to meaningfully address sexual violence in the US military.

I take up space in solidarity with servicemembers who have survived sexual violence, whether they have sought justice through formal channels or whether they have decided it wasn't worth the cost, for what was likely to be a futile endeavor.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: War] This is not good news: "[Ukrainian] President Petro Poroshenko has told MPs the military must prepare to defend against a possible 'full-scale invasion' from Russia, amid a surge of violence in eastern Ukraine. Russia has denied that its military is involved in Ukraine, but Mr Poroshenko said 9,000 of its troops were deployed. Clashes involving tanks took place in two areas west of Donetsk on Wednesday. There was a 'colossal threat' that large-scale fighting would resume, the president told parliament in Kiev. The outbreak of violence, in the government-held towns of Maryinka and Krasnohorivka, was among the worst in eastern Ukraine since a ceasefire was signed in Minsk in February."

[CN: Police brutality] An update from Baltimore on the case against the officers who killed Freddie Gray: "Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby plans to seek a protective order that would block the release of Freddie Gray's autopsy report and other 'sensitive' documents as she prosecutes the six police officers involved in his arrest. Mosby told The Baltimore Sun that prosecutors 'have a duty to ensure a fair and impartial process for all parties involved' and 'will not be baited into litigating this case through the media.'" Naturally, defense attorneys for the officers are claiming that Mosby's actions prove "there is something in that autopsy report that they are trying to hide." Of course. Funny how there aren't similar complaints when documents are leaked by prosecutors in other jurisdictions who are defending the police via the media.

[CN: Murder] In other news from Baltimore: "Baltimore police are seeking federal assistance to combat a surging crime rate as the city deals with the aftermath of the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, an incident that sparked days of intense protests. Police commissioner Anthony Batts said on Wednesday that the department had requested more federal agents and prosecutors to be dispatched to Baltimore after the city recorded 43 murders in May, the highest murder rate in the city since 1972. 'We understand fully the concern over the recent violence,' Batts said. 'Nothing is more important than the sanctity of human life within this city.'" A+ for connecting crime to protesters who are are trying to make sure that human life actually does matter, and isn't just empty words said unironically by cynical men.

[CN: Fat bias; bullying; self-harm] New research has confirmed (again) what fat people have been saying for years: "Negative stereotypes towards heavier individuals starts to affect long-term life opportunities from a young age. A number of studies in recent years have suggested that bigger children fare less well in school than their slimmer peers. ...[N]umerous other studies have now reported negative weight-related stereotypes and anti-fat attitudes being held by teachers at every stage of the school system, from kindergarten upwards. ...These early disadvantages have serious implications. First, there is the direct psychological cost of this hostile environment, including greater rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide among heavier young people. A recent study even suggested that bullying may be more harmful than child abuse in the long-term. But there is also a cost in terms of more limited life opportunities. In general, heavier individuals tend to have fewer years of education overall, are less likely to go on to higher education, and are less likely to get into graduate school. In all cases, the effects seem stronger for women and girls and negatively impact them at every stage in their careers. In fact, the research in this area tells us that heavier individuals, and in women in particular, are less likely to be hired, more likely to be disciplined or fired, receive poorer performance appraisals, and earn less money for the same work."

[CN: Sexual assault; rape culture] A Navy sailor who pleaded guilty to "secretly videotaping female trainees as they undressed for showers aboard a submarine" faces a maximum of six years in prison. Prosecutors have asked the judge for a three-year sentence, and his defense attorney has asked for "no more than six months," because he has a wife and children and because: "You don't have a predator on your hands. You have a young man who made terrible decisions." Fuck. Off.

[CN: Worker exploitation] Democratic US Senators Chris Murphy (Connecticut) and Al Franken (Minnesota) have introduced legislation banning noncompete contracts for low-wage workers. The bill "would ban noncompete clauses for workers making less than $15 an hour or $31,200 annually, or the minimum wage in the employee's municipality. The move follows reports the Jimmy John's sandwich shops requires some of its low-wage workers to sign two-year noncompete agreements prohibiting them from working at retail stores that make at least 10 percent of their sales from sandwiches. The legislation is dubbed the 'Mobility and Opportunity for Vulnerable Employees (MOVE) Act' and is also supported by the National Employment Law Project." GOOD. Let's hope the Republican majority is willing to let it come up for a vote and then supports it. (I bet they won't! For no legitimate reason!)

[CN: Worker exploitation] At Think Progress, Bryce Covert has an excellent piece on the increasingly common employment structure at salons, in which stylists are considered self-employed yet are still subjected to rules and regulations as though they are employees.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Whoa! "An Australian scientist has discovered that giant, invisible, moving plasma tubes fill the skies above Earth. It's a finding that was initially met with a considerable degree of scepticism within the field of astrophysics, but a University of Sydney undergraduate student Cleo Loi, 23, has proven that the phenomenon exists. By using a radio telescope in the West Australian outback to see space in 3D, Ms Loi has proven that the Earth's atmosphere is embedded with these strangely shaped, tubular plasma structures. The complex, multilayered ducts are created by the atmosphere being ionised by sunlight." AMAZING.

YES, PLEASE! Actress Gabourey Sidibe is working on a memoir scheduled for publication in 2017, which she says will contain "stories 'too long, shady, and impolite' for interviews." LOL love her!

OMGOMGOMG! Mad Max: Fury Road My Little Pony. I repeat: Mad Max: Fury Road My Little Pony!!!

Are you even kidding me with this cuteness?! "Seven new species of miniature frogs discovered (and they’re adorable)."

And finally! Connor was a deaf shelter dog who was having trouble finding a forever home, even though he was a quick study at learning sign language. That is, until he was featured on the local news: "[I]t was enough to have someone notice him, and come into the shelter. The man inquiring about Connor was also deaf, and thought he would be able to give Connor a great home. He had seen the news coverage, and came in as soon as he could. By the end of the day, Connor had a new home." ♥ ♥ ♥

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

Something something Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana. And that is all I will ever say about that, because good fucking god the intense interest and judgment and scrutiny that child will face and I don't want to contribute even a single iota more of it.

[Content Note: Religious extremism; violence] Fucking hell: "Two gunmen were killed and a security guard wounded in an attack Sunday outside a controversial Dallas-area event where organizers were holding a contest for cartoons featuring the Muslim prophet Muhammad, police said. The Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest, led by prominent conservatives who are critical of Islam, was ending when two men drove up in a car and began shooting at a Garland school security officer, Bruce Joiner, who was apparently helping protect the building, city officials said." Joiner was shot in the leg and will be fine.

Insert a bunch of mendacious arguments here about free speech and censorship and freedom of religion, none of which will include the following thought: Just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. And it certainly doesn't mean you have to, as many arguments go. Some provocation serves no purpose other than to provoke people to anger and then say, "See?! They're angry!" When people do this online, we call it clickbait. When people do this in real life, we're supposed to call them fucking heroes.

I don't think anyone should be attacked over cartoons. I also don't think anyone should be unnecessarily provoked with them. This would probably be a good time to recall the words of Mohamed Binakdan.

[CN: Earthquake; death; video may autoplay at second link] The death toll following the devastating recent earthquake in Nepal has reached 7,250, and runway damage has "forced Nepalese authorities to close the main airport Sunday to large aircraft delivering aid to millions of people following the massive earthquake." But there are still bright spots among a lot of bleak news: 101-year-old Phanchu Tamang has been rescued and is now in stable condition. Wow.

[CN: Carcerality] This fucking guy: "Days after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laid out proposals for criminal justice reform at Columbia University, former Republican candidate Mitt Romney took time to criticize the presidential hopeful's comments about Baltimore and mass incarceration. ...'I was concerned that her comments smacked of politicization of the terrible tragedies that are going on there. When she said we're not going to have mass incarcerations in the future, what is she referring to? We don't have mass incarcerations in America. Individuals are brought before tribunals, and they have counsel. They're given certain rights. Are we not going to lock people up who commit crimes?'" Shut up shut up shut up.

[CN: Rape culture] In unsurprising and yet still terrible news: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand says that the US military is not "being honest about the problem" of sexual abuse. For example, the numbers of sexual assaults seem to be purposefully deflated by not including in statistics about military sexual assault the "spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities," despite the fact that they "are especially vulnerable to being sexually assaulted."

This is good news: "The Supreme Court has turned down the hideously anti-gay Liberty Counsel's challenge to New Jersey's ban on 'ex-gay' therapy for minors."

Neat: "The distinctive song of a secretive and elusive bird in central China has helped researchers to identify it and deem it to be a new species to science. Scientists first heard the harsh call of the Sichuan bush warbler in 1987, but they only recently gathered enough data to formally describe it. The new species, Locustella chengi, has been named after Prof Cheng Tso-hsin, a distinguished Chinese ornithologist."

And finally! A pet shop in Brazil filled its cages and crates with shelter animals and guess what happened? "The store found owners for all shelter animals displayed in the store and what's best, if the store hadn't told customers the animals were shelter pets, customers would have not known the difference." ♥

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Terrorism; death] I noted on January 5 that Boko Haram had started the year by seizing a multinational military base in Nigeria and massacred hundreds of people. In subsequent days, reports began to emerge that Boko Haram had killed "as many as two thousand people in at least sixteen towns and villages in the last week. ...Today I spoke to Hamza Idris, a friend and senior reporter with the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust, who has been covering the Baga massacre for the past week from the Borno State capital of Maiduguri. He had spoken with Baga residents and a district head who said that they had seen hundreds, but not as many as a thousand, bodies: people who were breathing and eating one moment and dead the next, from a grenade or bullet. ...I asked Idris if he knew what was happening in Baga. He sounded defeated: 'They've taken over the town, so we don’t know if they've stopped the killing or not.'"

The massacre in Nigeria has gotten comparatively little attention in the Western media, which has been obsessively documenting the attack in France on the staff of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Though both attacks were committed by men who are Muslim extremists, here are some key differences between the two massacres:

1. In Nigeria, the victims are black, many of them women and children. In France, the victims are almost exclusively white men.

2. In Nigeria, many/all of the victims were themselves Muslim. In France, all but one of the victims were not Muslim.

These are the facts underwriting Western indifference to the massacre in Nigeria, which has exponentially more victims. As "reprisal" attacks on French Muslims are justified or contextualized with rhetoric about people being "fed up" with Muslim extremism or terrorist violence, we are not meant to question the yawning apathy directed toward Nigerian victims who don't fit into simple narratives of Muslims attacking non-Muslims, or dark-skinned people attacking white people, and who don't inspire calls for solidarity because they were killed for simply living their lives instead of something "heroic" like publishing reprehensibly racist cartoons.

Everyone definitely cares about Muslim extremist violence—except, apparently, when it's directed at black Muslim women and children.

I am not, of course, suggesting that we shouldn't care about the victims in France. I am saying that we should care, at least as much, about the victims in Nigeria.

* * *

Mitt Romney really wants to make sure my Photoshop skills stay in tip-top shape: "Romney forcefully declared his interest in a third presidential run to a room full of powerful Republican donors Friday, disrupting the fluid 2016 GOP field as would-be rival Jeb Bush was moving swiftly to consolidate establishment support. ...'I want to be president,' Romney told about 30 donors in New York. He said that his wife, Ann—who last fall said she was emphatically against a run—had changed her mind and was now 'very encouraging,' although their five sons remain split, according to multiple attendees." OH NO! I hope this Romney family discord doesn't ruin the next family retreat at the giant beautiful boat house!

In other 2016-ish news: Rick Santorum accuses his potential rivals of having thin resumes without a trace of irony. Rand Paul has hired someone yawn who cares. And Jay Leno says Hillary Clinton seems old and slow. Well, maybe some of us don't have time to dip our toes into the Fountain of Youth that is telling shitty jokes as a career and zipping around town in exhorbitantly priced cars while wearing head-to-toe denim, Mr. Leno.

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President Obama has unveiled the America's College Promise proposal, which would "make two years of community college free for responsible students, letting students earn the first half of a bachelor's degree and earn skills needed in the workforce at no cost." That is definitely better than nothing!

In related news: "Senior Democrats, dissatisfied with the party's tepid prescriptions for combating income inequality, are drafting an 'action plan' that calls for a massive transfer of wealth from the super-rich and Wall Street traders to the heart of the middle class. The centerpiece of the proposal, set to be unveiled Monday by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), is a 'paycheck bonus credit' that would shave $2,000 a year off the tax bills of couples earning less than $200,000. Other provisions would nearly triple the tax credit for child care and reward people who save at least $500 a year. The windfall—about $1.2 trillion over a decade—would come directly from the pockets of Wall Street 'high rollers' through a new fee on financial transactions, and from the top 1 percent of earners, who would lose billions of dollars in lucrative tax breaks." Sounds great! Too bad it will never pass out of the Republican-controlled Congress.

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[CN: Domestic violence] George Zimmerman, who was acquitted of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, has been arrested, again, for domestic violence. It's almost like if you let a guy literally get away with murder, he acts like he can get away with murder. Huh.

[CN: Police brutality; racism] Extended video footage of the police killing of Tamir Rice has been released, and shows that his 14-year-old sister "was pushed to the ground, handcuffed, and then shoved into the back of a patrol car as her 12-year-old brother lay dying after being shot by a Cleveland police officer who mistook his toy gun for a real one." Honestly. None of these people should be police officers. None of them.

[CN: Rape culture] In a survey of 73 men by University of North Dakota researchers, 31.7% of the respondents said they "would force a woman to have sex with them if there was no chance of being punished." When asked if they would rape a woman if there were no consequences, only 13.6% said they would. I am pretty disturbed by the cognitive dissonance there, but I am way the fuck more disturbed that nearly 1/3 of men will confess to raping women (as long as it's not called rape) if they can get away with it.

[CN: Rape culture] Veterans who have been discharged from the US military after sexual assaults are fighting to get veterans' benefits, which are often denied to them on the basis that they didn't serve long enough to qualify for them. Got that? The military doesn't do enough to prevent sexual assault, then denies benefits to service members who are discharged after being sexually assaulted. Fucking hell.

[CN: Appropriation] The Golden Globes were last night, and of course Eddie Redmayne, an able-bodied man, won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) for playing Stephen Hawking, a man with a disability, and of course Jeffrey Tambor, a cis man, won Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series (Comedy or Musical) for playing a trans woman. Yeah, it's a real celebration for trans women, I'm sure, when someone playing a trans woman wins Best Actor.

RIP Taylor Negron, who was one of my absolute favorite character actors. The very first thing I ever saw him in was Better Off Dead, as the worst mail carrier ever, and I always got so excited every time I saw him in something, because he just had a droll style I adored, and the greatest face.

And finally! Please enjoy this ridiculous video of an adorable begging bunneh.

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In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

In news that will surprise no one around here, I expect: "Political correctness," i.e. giving people in mixed-gender groups the tools to communicate respectfully and an expectation that they'll do it, works. "In creativity exercises involving mixed-gender groups, Jack Goncalo and his colleagues found that people instructed to be politically correct generated a greater quantity of novel ideas than those instructed merely to be polite, or given no instructions at all. ...The received wisdom is that 'political correctness' refers to something stifling and oppressive, while 'true creativity requires a kind of anarchy in which people are permitted to speak their minds, whatever the consequence,' Goncalo was quoted as saying. Yet when groups included men and women, the reverse proved true: in a creativity exercise, which involved coming up with new ideas for a business to occupy an empty building, the PC group did better."

[Content Note: Police brutality] The overall murder rate in the US is down, but police killings are at a two-decade high: "A count of 'justifiable homicides' in the FBI's Uniform Crime Report found that 461 people were shot and killed by police in 2013. What that figure tells us, more than anything, is that 461 is the bare minimum number of people who were shot by police last year. And it is almost certainly a dramatic under-estimation. Departments are not required to submit data for this count; it is voluntary. ...What's more, the figure is only a count of 'justifiable homicides,' which means those that are considered legally defensible. This means jurisdictions are least likely to include those shootings that are subject to criminal scrutiny in their reports."

Sultan Kösen, the world's tallest known man, and Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the world's shortest known man, met at a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Guinness Book of World Records, and this totally got me all choked up: "Even though he is short and I am tall, we have had similar struggles throughout our lives, and when I look into Chandra's eyes, I can see he's a good man," said Kösen. It takes some effort to look into someone else's eyes when you're seven feet apart in height. We should all make such an effort to see each other.

[CN: Sexual assault in the military; victim-blaming] This is incredible: "Here's What Happened During One Victim's Military Sexual Harassment Investigation: Katie Rapp, a soldier who reported sexual harassment while she was deployed in Afghanistan in 2011-2012, recorded her four-hour interview with a sexual assault investigator and provided it exclusively to BuzzFeed News." Everything about this story is fucking terrible, but what really sticks out to me is how Rapp's only real ally was her male squad leader, and both "said they have repeatedly been forced to defend their friendship to the National Guard," who repeatedly accused them of having an affair. Sure. Because there's no other reason a man would stand up for a woman being harassed. Fuck.

[CN: Harassment; racism; sexual policing; self-harm] This is not surprising but it is nonetheless appalling: "What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals."

[CN: Class warfare] This is one of the major reasons that I (and lots of other people) object to building healthcare reform through for-profit insurance companies: "Many Americans may believe that private insurance can keep major medical bills at bay. But a new survey finds that one-fifth of people with private plans still spend at least 5 percent of their income on out-of-pocket health care costs. ...The survey also shows that 'people who have insurance but have high health care costs relative to their income are as likely to skip getting the care they need as those with no insurance at all,' Commonwealth Fund President Dr. David Blumenthal said in the news release." Insurance doesn't make healthcare free, and politicians need to stop pretending that it does.

If you ever wondered what giant otters were talking about, now you know! (I didn't even know there were giant otters, previous to reading this article!)

And finally! Get the tissues: The APSCA's 2014 Humane Awards Cat, Kid, and Dog of the Year. ♥

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