Showing posts with label class warfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label class warfare. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 880

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, June 18, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Today in Misogyny. And Every Day. and Trump Announces Massive Sweep of Undocumented Immigrants and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed: USCIS Director Appears to Warn Asylum Officers in an Email to "Do Our Part". "The newly appointed leader of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, sent an email to staffers Tuesday in which he appeared to push asylum officers to stop allowing some migrants seeking refuge in the country passage at an initial screening at the border. 'Under our abused immigration system if an alien comes to the United States and claims a fear of return the alien is entitled to a credible fear screening by USCIS and a hearing by an immigration judge,' Cuccinelli wrote to USCIS staffers. ...He told staffers that USCIS needed to do 'our part to help stem the crisis and better secure the homeland.'" The homeland. JFC.

Faith Karimi at CNN: Body of a 6-Year-Old Girl from India Is Found in the Arizona Desert. "The body of a 6-year-old girl believed to be from India was found in a remote desert area in Arizona this week, officials said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the girl was trying to cross into the United States with a group of people from her country. Her body was discovered 17 miles west of Lukeville, just over the U.S.-Mexico border. The group was trying to get into the U.S. after human smugglers dropped them off near the Mexico border, the agency said in a statement Thursday. Temperatures in the rugged wilderness where agents found her remains Wednesday hovered around 108 degrees."

Deaths in the desert are going to become more commonplace as the Trump Regime escalates its violation of international law by refusing to allow refugees to seek asylum at the border. That will inevitably force more people to try to cross the border illegally in search of safety.


(If you don't know why that last item was posted in this section, this is why.)

* * *

Devan Cole at CNN: Trump Downplays Tanker Attacks in Contrast to His National Security Team. "Donald Trump, in contrast to statements by his own top aides, downplayed recent attacks on two fuel tankers in the Gulf of Oman that his administration has blamed on Iran, calling them 'very minor.' The disconnect between Trump's comments in an interview with Time magazine — in which he also warned that he would 'certainly' go to war with Iran were the country to develop nuclear weapons — and recent statements by national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo come at a time of escalating military posturing between the two countries and a heightened risk of confrontation."

Eliana Johnson at Politico: Trump Prepares to Bypass Congress to Take on Iran. "The Trump administration and its domestic political allies are laying the groundwork for a possible confrontation with Iran without the explicit consent of Congress — a public relations campaign that was already well underway before top officials accused the Islamic Republic of attacking a pair of oil tankers last week in the Gulf of Oman. Over the past few months, senior Trump aides have made the case in public and private that the administration already has the legal authority to take military action against Iran, citing a law nearly two decades old that was originally intended to authorize the war in Afghanistan."

Kate Riga at TPM: Pentagon Sending 1,000 More Troops to Middle East as Iran Tensions Escalate. "Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan announced Monday that the Pentagon is dispatching 1,000 more troops to the Middle East in the wake of the blown-up oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman."

They're ramping up for war as fast as they can. Meanwhile...


* * *

[CN: Gun violence; white supremacy; misogyny; death] Kelly Weill and Justin Glawe at the Daily Beast: Dallas Federal Building Shooter Posted Far-Right Memes About Nazis and Confederacy.
A Texas man accused of opening fire outside a Dallas courthouse uploaded right-wing memes to Facebook, including memes about Nazism and the Confederacy.

Authorities said Brian Clyde, 22, attacked the Earle Cabell federal courthouse Monday morning before law enforcement killed him. No one else was reported injured. A Dallas Morning News photograph of Clyde shows him holding a semi-automatic rifle and wearing a belt full of ammunition. He appears to have uploaded to his Facebook page a picture of similar magazines on Saturday. Elsewhere on the page, he shared memes, some of which suggested racist or misogynist views.

...Last week, Clyde uploaded a Facebook video suggesting plans with a gun.

"I don't know how much longer I have, but a storm is coming. However, I'm not without defense," he said in the brief video, pulling out a rifle. "I'm fuckin' ready. Let's do it."

On Saturday, he uploaded a picture of 10 gun magazines. On Sunday, he uploaded a picture of a sword with the caption "A modern gladius to defend the modern Republic."

Clyde served in the Army from 2015 to 2017, though details of his discharge were not available.
[CN: Anti-semitism; violence] Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: California Man Arrested for Allegedly Plotting to Kill Jews Walks Free After Posting Bail. "A California man who allegedly wanted to carry out a mass shooting of Jews and police officers has been released from custody after he posted $125,000 bail over the weekend. [Redacted], 23, was taken into custody last week after a joint investigation by the FBI and police in Concord, on the outskirts of San Francisco. ...When police searched his home, they allegedly discovered a homemade AR-15 rifle, 13 magazines, a sword, a hunting knife, camouflaged clothing, books about the Hitler youth and Nazi life, as well as additional pistol ammunition. ...In a statement on Monday evening, the Concord Police did not offer any updates as to [redacted]'s bail conditions but noted that they were working to 'keep those threatened apprised of any developments' and urged the public to be vigilant." Oh.

[CN: Gun violence; domestic violence; death]


* * *

[CN: Sexual harassment] Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: 'This Isn't a Game': Four Women Sue Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill for Sexual Harassment. "Indiana State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon hasn't spoken to her state's attorney general, Curtis Hill, since the night he allegedly grabbed her ass. 'I want him to know how profoundly he's affected all of our lives,' Reardon, a Democrat, told The Daily Beast through tears on Monday. 'This isn't a game.' And so she is suing. Reardon and three other named statehouse employees filed a new federal lawsuit against Hill on Tuesday morning. The 11-count complaint against Hill and the state of Indiana alleges sexual harassment, retaliation, gender discrimination, battery, defamation, and invasion of privacy, according to a draft viewed Monday evening by The Daily Beast."

[CN: Domestic violence] Staff at USA Today: Read the Full Statement from Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan About a 2010 Domestic Case. "Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan released a written statement Monday night, addressing a violent domestic dispute from nine years ago with his then-wife. The 2010 incident is part of an FBI background investigation ahead of his possible confirmation hearing to be [Donald] Trump's permanent defense chief." Shanahan asserts: "I never laid a hand on my then-wife and cooperated fully in a thorough law enforcement investigation that resulted in her being charged with assault against me — charges which I had dropped in the interest of my family."

[CN: Domestic violence and sexual abuse] Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast: Eight Women Accuse Hollywood Filmmaker Max Landis of Emotional and Sexual Abuse: 'We're Not People to Him'. "As for secondhand allegations, there were too many to count. 'There's too many voices to ignore,' [actress Anna Akana] insisted. 'And I felt the need to be vocal because Max is intimidating and he's scary. And I've seen, being in that friend group, one of the most frustrating things is that he would lord his power and his money over people and intimidate them into friendship, or into forgiveness.'"

* * *


Kari Paul at the Guardian: Libra: Facebook Launches Cryptocurrency in Bid to Shake Up Global Finance. "Facebook has announced a digital currency called Libra that will allow its billions of users to make financial transactions across the globe, in a move that could potentially shake up the world's banking system. Libra is being touted as a means to connect people who do not have access to traditional banking platforms. With close to 2.4 billion people using Facebook each month, Libra could be a financial game changer, but will face close scrutiny as Facebook continues to reel from a series of privacy scandals."

Let me offer some unsolicited advice: Don't freely offer your financial data to a company who already abuses your personal data for their own profit.

Also: Fuck Facebook. Their pretense that this will help poor people is disgusting. "Disrupting" traditional finance models with no other objective than their own profit will ultimately harm financially vulnerable people the most.

[CN: Class warfare; food insecurity] Aviva Aron-Dine, Matt Broaddus, Zoë Neuberger, and Arloc Sherman at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Administration's Poverty Line Proposal Would Cut Health, Food Assistance for Millions over Time. "The Trump Administration is considering a change to the federal poverty line that would ultimately cause millions of people to lose eligibility for, or receive less help from, health, food assistance, and other programs that help them meet basic needs. ...While [the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)'s] notice does not discuss how the proposal would affect low-income families, the Census poverty thresholds are the basis for Department of Health and Human Services poverty guidelines, which determine who can get help from Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), and many other federal programs. The proposed change would lower the income-eligibility cutoffs for all of these programs, cutting or eliminating assistance for some individuals and families."

[CN: Poverty] Morgan Lee and AP Staff at the Washington Post: Childhood Poverty Persists in Fast-Growing Southwest. "The number of children living in poverty has swelled over the past three decades in fast-growing, ethnically diverse states such as Texas, Arizona, and Nevada as the nation's population center shifts south and west, a report Monday on childhood well-being shows. The annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 18% of the nation's children live in poverty, down from the Great Recession. But the same advances weren't seen in the Southwest, where many children are Native Americans, Latinx, and immigrants who have long faced disadvantages. 'The nation's racial inequities remain deep, systemic, and stubbornly persistent,' said the annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation."

And finally... Reuters Staff at the Guardian: Scientists Shocked by Arctic Permafrost Thawing 70 Years Sooner Than Predicted. "Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared. A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia. 'What we saw was amazing,' Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters.

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

Open Wide...
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Trump's Leaked Taxes and His Redefining of Poverty

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 08, 2019
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Last night, the New York Times published a BIG SCOOP after somehow acquiring ten years of Donald Trump's tax documents: "Decade in the Red: Trump Tax Figures Show over $1 Billion in Business Losses."

Although access to the actual documents is new, the basic information is not. We already knew that Trump was a terrible businessman who took major losses for many years. Indeed, the fact that he was taking major losses has underwritten the speculation that he was engaged in international money laundering, as taking enormous businesses losses can signal precisely that.

As Olga Lautman notes: "These were the crucial years Trump was forming alliances with the Russian mafia. This covers the KGB-organized Soviet Union trip, a thief in law frequenting Trump's casinos, and many more interesting to say the least criminals in Trump Towers."

Naturally, this information did not get leaked by accident. There's almost certainly something worse in subsequent years, but Trump is hoping that most Americans won't understand the possibilities lurking beneath his huge losses and will merely laugh at what a "shitty businessman" he was, despite his relentless braggadocio to the contrary. And, of course, even a cursory glance at social media shows that most folks are happy to oblige.

As ever, there was a major policy report out last night, too, now thoroughly obscured by the Times' report. [Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.] Via Bloomberg: "Trump May Redefine Poverty, Cutting Americans from Welfare Rolls."

The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs.

The possible move would involve changing how inflation is calculated in the "official poverty measure," the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a regulatory filing on Monday. ...The figure determines eligibility for a wide swath of federal, state, and non-profit programs, including Medicaid and food stamps.

By changing the index the government uses to calculate how much the cost of living rises or falls, the poverty level could rise at a slower rate.
In other words, Donald Trump wants to redefine poverty in a way that reduces people's access to welfare programs so that he can claim he's reducing poverty and saving taxpayer dollars.

There is a perfect, terrible juxtaposition between these two stories: The billionaire president who could take billions in business losses and still sit pretty in a gilded penthouse in the sky, who acquired the power he's now got through corrupt financial dealings with other democracy-hostile oligarchs, now exploits his office to harm people in poverty.

Malice is the agenda. That could not be more clear.

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 831

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, April 30, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Trump Will Make Asylum-Seekers Pay and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: Anti-Semitic violence; Islamophobia; stochastic terrorism; video may autoplay at first link. Covers entire section.]

Andrew Johnson and R. Stickney at NBC 7 San Diego: 1 Dead, 3 Injured in Synagogue Shooting in Poway, Deputies Detain Suspect.
A woman has died and a rabbi was injured after shots were fired inside a Poway, California synagogue filled with people celebrating the last day of Passover. A suspect was taken into custody approximately two miles away from the synagogue while three patients were rushed to a nearby hospital.

The victim was identified Saturday as 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye.

A man with an assault-style rifle entered Chabad of Poway on Rancho Bernardo Road, west of Interstate 15 at 11:23 a.m. and opened fire on the people inside, law enforcement officials said.

"We didn't hear him screaming or saying anything. He was just focused to kill. You saw the hate and the murder in his eyes," Danny Almong, a witness, told NBC 7. "He had a vest and he had clips in the vest. He was ready. He was ready. He came in to kill."

The suspect was identified as John T. Earnest, 19.
The scene almost certainly would have been even more grim were it not for the courage of Oscar Stewart. Also, Lori Gilbert-Kaye died protecting her rabbi, who lost a finger in the shooting. My condolences to her family, friends, and community.

Earnest, whose parents assert that he was radicalized online, "has also been charged with setting fire to a nearby mosque weeks earlier. Prosecutors allege John T. Earnest, 19, attacked the Islamic Center of Escondido, California, on March 23 in what is described as an act of terrorism. Graffiti was found at the scene citing the attack on New Zealand Muslims by a white-power terrorist."

This, too, must be viewed as the inevitable consequence of the nation's president waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, centered firmly within his white supremacy. If that weren't abundantly clear already, here is Donald Trump, hours after Earnest opened fire at a synagogue, fear-mongering about Democrats wanting "to take your guns away."


Trump also said this as details were emerging about another horrific mass shooting, too — in Tennessee, with seven dead — committed by another young white man whom authorities say "has a history of committing violent crimes."

Staff at the Daily Beast: Anti-Semitic Attacks in U.S. Tripled in 2018: Study. "According to a new study released Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League, 59 Jews were the victims of physical assault in 2018 — which includes the 13 congregants killed or wounded in the Tree of Life massacre — up from 21 assault victims in 2017. The study found that there were a total of 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents reported last year, a figure obtained from police reports, victim accounts, and news articles. Nearly 98 percent of those incidents involved harassment or vandalism, the study said."

Relatedly... Richard Winton and James Queally at the LA Times: L.A. Terror Plot Thwarted: Army Vet Planned 'Mass Casualties,' FBI Says. "A U.S. Army veteran who wanted revenge for attacks on Muslims around the globe was planning to detonate a bomb at a Long Beach rally this past weekend before he was intercepted by law enforcement officials, authorities said Monday. Mark Steven Domingo, 26, was arrested Friday night [and] charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and, if convicted, could face up to 15 years in prison. According to a federal affidavit, Domingo considered 'various attacks — including targeting Jews, churches, and police officers' before he decided 'to detonate an IED at a rally scheduled to take place in Long Beach this past weekend.'"

* * *

Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaidó is currently staging a coup, and witnesses have reported men in military uniform accompanying Guaidó exchanging fire with soldiers acting in support of Nicolás Maduro. The Guardian has live updates of what's happening.

Veep Mike Pence, who has long been obsessed with Venezuela, is pretty excited about it:


Aram Roston and Matt Spetalnick at Reuters: Blackwater Founder's Latest Sales Pitch: Mercenaries for Venezuela. "Erik Prince — the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of [Donald] Trump — has been pushing a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela's socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, four sources with knowledge of the effort told Reuters. Over the last several months, the sources said, Prince has sought investment and political support for such an operation from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles. In private meetings in the United States and Europe, Prince sketched out a plan to field up to 5,000 soldiers-for-hire on behalf of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, according to two sources with direct knowledge of Prince's pitch."

David Edwards at Raw Story: House Intel Committee to Refer Erik Prince for Criminal Prosecution over Alleged Lies for Trump. "The House Intelligence Committee is expected to send a criminal referral to the Justice Department alleging that Erik Prince lied to lawmakers. While speaking to The Washington Post on Tuesday, Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) revealed the plans for a criminal referral. 'The evidence strongly suggests that he misled our committee,' Schiff said. 'When we asked whether he was asserting some privilege, he merely said he was not answering questions because the White House told him not to.' Schiff noted that Republican members of the committee have attempted to block the criminal referral."

Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Family Sues Deutsche Bank and Capital One to Halt Subpoenas from House. "Trump and his family sued Deutsche Bank and Capital One on Monday to block House Democrats subpoenas demanding access documents related to Trump's finances, according to multiple new reports. ...'The subpoenas were issued to harass [Trump], to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of [Trump] and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage,' the lawsuit said, according to Politico. 'No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one.' ...House Democratic leaders on the House Financial Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee said a joint statement on Monday that the suit was 'meritless' and was filed to force a delay in accountability." Yup.

Manu Raju and Alex Rogers at CNN: Graham Calls Democrats 'Political Hacks,' Says Trump Should Fight Their Subpoenas 'Like Hell'. "Graham, who played a prominent role in President Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings in 1998, defended his past stance in an interview with CNN on Monday, while calling on Trump to 'fight like hell' against House Democratic 'political hacks' and goading Democrats to carry through with impeaching Trump if they want. And when asked about Trump's behavior, specifically the 10 instances documented in special counsel Robert Mueller's report of the president's possible obstruction of justice, Graham said bluntly: 'I don't care.'" What a fucking weasel.

Michael Birnbaum and Ioana Burtea at the Washington Post: Trump's Campaign Manager Gave a Paid Speech in Romania, Prompting Ethics Concerns.
The day before special counsel Robert S. Mueller III submitted his report to the Justice Department last month, Washington was abuzz with what revelations it might contain about contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and foreign officials. But [Donald] Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was an ocean away, delivering a paid speech to a room full of Romanian politicians and policy elites.

Legal analysts said that Parscale's visit breaks no laws so long as he does not do any lobbying in the United States on behalf of foreign clients without registering. But ethics experts said any money changing hands between foreign citizens and campaign officials created an obstacle course of potential risks. And some ethics lawyers worried that Parscale's engagement — which received little attention outside Romania at the time — is a sign that the 2016 Trump campaign's freewheeling approach to foreign contacts may be carrying over to its 2020 successor.

...In a statement, Parscale said the "handful of international speeches" he has delivered gave him a chance to see the world with his wife and recuperate from campaign responsibilities.

"We did not grow up with the opportunity to travel internationally, and speaking opportunities have allowed me to share my talent with other professionals in a university setting while having a brief break from the rigorous campaign schedule that I maintain," Parscale said. "This speaking engagement was fully vetted and approved through the necessary channels in advance."
LOL the "necessary channels" being his corrupt boss' lackeys, natch.

Meanwhile, Parscale is giving interviews on U.S. television, broadcasting to the Kremlin exactly which states the Trump 2020 campaign would like hacked please and thank you:


The collusion is right out in the open.

Speaking of Russia... Hannah Ellis-Petersen at the Guardian: Whale with Harness Could Be Russian Weapon, Say Norwegian Experts. "Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force. ...The strange behaviour of the whale, which was actively seeking out the vessels and trying to pull straps and ropes from the sides of the boats, as well as the fact it was wearing a tight harness which seemed to be for a camera or weapon, raised suspicions among marine experts that the animal had been given military-grade training by neighbouring Russia. Inside the harness, which has now been removed from the whale, were the words 'Equipment of St. Petersburg.'" Cool.

Rod Rosenstein has quit, apparently for real this time:


Peter Cary and Allan Holmes of the Center for Public Integrity, at the Guardian: Workers Barely Benefited from Trump's Sweeping Tax Cut, Investigation Shows. "Big companies drove Donald Trump's tax cut law but refused to commit to any specific wage hikes for workers, despite repeated White House promises it would help employees, an investigation shows. The 2017 Tax and Jobs Act — the Trump administration's one major piece of enacted legislation — did deliver the biggest corporate tax cut in U.S. history, but ultimately workers benefited almost not at all." What a fucking shocker.

[CN: Anti-choicery] Emily Shugerman at the Daily Beast: 'Bizarre, Dangerous, and Insulting': Baby Nurses Fed Up with Trump's Bogus Abortion Rants. "Trump's latest rant about babies being executed after birth is riling up neonatal nurses, who say he's twisted the palliative care they provide for the sickest of infants into an anti-abortion rallying cry that could endanger health providers. ...The nurses claim what they do is sensitive, personal, and has absolutely nothing to do with abortion. And they are not happy with the president's claims." Nurse Julia Pulver has an excellent Twitter thread on this subject.

[CN: Class warfare; child abuse] Chris McGreal at the Guardian: About 13m U.S. Children Are Living Below the Poverty Line, Rights Group Reveals. "A leading children's rights group has called for a doubling of the federal minimum wage and wider access to housing subsidies to end the 'moral travesty' of millions of children living in poverty while the wealthiest Americans get tax cuts. The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) said in a new report that about 13 million American children are living in homes with incomes below the poverty line, depriving many of a decent education and proper nutrition, and putting them at risk of homelessness and violence. Two-thirds of those living in poverty are children of color."

Well, I guess they should just take out a small million-dollar loan from their fathers or write a bestselling book, right? Rage seethe boil.

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

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 741

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, January 30, 2019
View Comments

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Polar Vortex: It's Cooooooooold! and Christie Unintentionally Reveals Trump's Strategy and The Time Is Now: Get Trump Outta There. And some good resistance news, ICYMI late yesterday: Stacey Abrams Will Deliver the Democratic Rebuttal to the State of the Union Address.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, this seemed to resonate (!!!):


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

John Wagner and Shane Harris at the Washington Post: Trump Blasts U.S. Intelligence Officials, Disputes Assessments on Iran and Other Global Threats. "[Donald] Trump lashed out at U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, calling them 'extremely passive and naive' about the 'dangers of Iran' and pushing back on their assessments of the Islamic State and North Korea during a congressional hearing. ...Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also weighed in. 'The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality,' Warner said in a tweet. 'People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter.'"


I still don't understand what Trump (and Pence) are doing in Venezuela, although I am damn certain that their interest does not end at regime change. I do think they are interested in further destabilizing the region, to what ends I'm not sure, and I suspect there's a possibility of waging a false war with Russia in Venezuela, with the purpose of pillaging oil and other regional resources (including state treasure; see above) and the tangential benefit of creating the illusion that Russia and the U.S. are still adversaries and that the U.S. president isn't a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin. In any case, I'm very freaked out and worried for the people of Venezuela.

Emma Loop at BuzzFeed: A House Democrat Is Targeting Steven Mnuchin's Business Dealings in the Russian Sanctions Fight. "A House Democrat is demanding answers about an alleged business deal that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had with an associate of a Russian oligarch whose companies recently received US sanctions relief. California Rep. Jackie Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Mnuchin last week seeking answers about a deal he reportedly made in 2017 with an associate of Oleg Deripaska's, the billionaire aluminum magnate whose companies Treasury surprisingly announced it would be taking off the formal sanctions list in December."

Igor Derysh at Salon: With Sanctions Lifted, Trump Transition Member Gets Board Position on Russian Oligarch's Company. "On Sunday, the Treasury Department lifted the sanctions on three companies owned by Deripaska 10 months after it imposed them, citing Russia’s 'malign activity around the globe.' Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was also personally sanctioned because the government accused him of threats to rivals, bribing government officials and links to organized crime. As part of the deal to have the sanctions lifted, Deripaska agreed to dilute his control of EN+, the parent company of the Russian aluminum giant Rusal. ...On Monday, EN+ announced seven new board directors, including Christopher Burnham, who served on Trump's State Department transition team and previously worked as an executive at Deutsche Bank." Deutsche Bank. Of course.


Danny Hakim at the New York Times: N.R.A. Seeks Distance From Russia as Investigations Heat Up. "When a delegation of high-profile donors, boosters, and board members from the National Rifle Association traveled to Russia in 2015, they visited a gun factory in Moscow, took in a ballet, and met with members of Vladimir Putin's inner circle. But now the N.R.A. is seeking to distance itself from the trip, after revelations that a Russian woman who helped arrange it, Maria Butina, was conspiring to infiltrate the organization. The trip has been a subject of scrutiny in at least four inquiries into the N.R.A.'s ties to Russia; questions about the N.R.A. have also surfaced in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Newly empowered congressional Democrats are now stepping up efforts to uncover how much money the N.R.A. received from Russia, and whether the group served as a conduit for Russian funds into the 2016 Trump campaign."

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Hacked Emails List Right-Wing Fundraiser Partying with Russian Fascists and Oligarchs. "Last month, a new leak site called Distributed Denial of Secrets went live, compiling a cache of hacked emails and documents of Russian officials, confidants of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, and those steering Russian interference efforts. Among the revelations: A higher-up at the Bradley Foundation, one of the main financiers of right-wing groups in the U.S. — including the Daily Caller News Foundation and anti-immigrant organizations — apparently attended a notorious 'pro-family' conference in Russia in 2014, held shortly after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine."

Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco at the Daily Beast: Mueller Witness' Team Gamed Out Russian Meddling...in 2015. "Days after Donald Trump rode down an escalator at Trump Tower and announced he'd run for president, a little-known consulting firm with links to Israeli intelligence started gaming out how a foreign government could meddle in the U.S. political process. Internal communications, which The Daily Beast reviewed, show that the firm conducted an analysis of how illicit efforts might shape American politics. Months later, the Trump campaign reviewed a pitch from a company owned by that firm's founder — a pitch to carry out similar efforts."

Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman at Reuters: Special Report: Inside the UAE's Secret Hacking Team of U.S. Mercenaries.
Stroud had been recruited by a Maryland cyber security contractor to help the Emiratis launch hacking operations, and for three years, she thrived in the job. But in 2016, the Emiratis moved Project Raven to a UAE cyber security firm named DarkMatter. Before long, Stroud and other Americans involved in the effort say they saw the mission cross a red line: targeting fellow Americans for surveillance.

"I am working for a foreign intelligence agency who is targeting U.S. persons," she told Reuters. "I am officially the bad kind of spy."

The story of Project Raven reveals how former U.S. government hackers have employed state-of-the-art cyber-espionage tools on behalf of a foreign intelligence service that spies on human rights activists, journalists, and political rivals.

Interviews with nine former Raven operatives, along with a review of thousands of pages of project documents and emails, show that surveillance techniques taught by the NSA were central to the UAE's efforts to monitor opponents.
There is much more at the link.

* * *

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: Howard Schultz Is Anything But a Realist. "The idea that a billionaire with no political experience is just what we need is particularly galling amid our current disastrous experiment. And Schultz would run as a 'centrist independent,' which appears to mean 'economically conservative and socially liberal,' but there's not a great constituency for that. ...At the core of this sort of centrism is the idea that there's a hallowed middle ground that — simply by virtue of being equidistant between arbitrarily designated and presumptively equivalent 'extremes' — is inherently sensible, virtuous, and above all, non-ideological. This idea is certainly seductive to far too many people. But it doesn't give rise to anything resembling realism. In a way, it's a rigid ideology all its own."

Pilar Melendez at the Daily Beast: Howard Schultz Shocked a Box of Cheerios Costs Four Dollars. "Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, amid a media tour rife with awkward moments, got stumped by Morning Joe on Wednesday when asked: 'How much does an 18-ounce box of Cheerios cost?' 'An 18 ounce box of Cheerios? I don't eat Cheerios,' the billionaire responded to host Mika Brzezinski. When she revealed the price was four dollars, Schultz was shocked. 'That's a lot,' he said."

There are a whole lot of reasons that the cultural enamourment with billionaires and the attendant belief that they are inherently qualified to be political leaders are garbage. Among them is this: Anyone who is a billionaire is de facto completely out of touch with the lives of the majority of the population. They have no comprehension about what life is really like. One cannot effectively and decently lead people whose lives they fundamentally don't understand.


[Content Note: Class warfare] Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Diapers, Tampons, Nursing Bras: The Trump Shutdown's Unseen Costs for Working Families. "Corinne Cannon, founder and executive director of the Greater D.C. Diaper Bank, told Rewire.News Friday that the organization saw 'a pretty drastic increase in requests for help for individuals' during the government shutdown. The diaper bank, operating in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for more than eight years, normally provides 'diapers, period products, formula, breastfeeding supplies, adult incontinence supplies, and other hygiene products' to social service organizations that then distribute them to those in need. But during the government shutdown, there was 'a massive increase in need,' Cannon said. 'We had an increase in requests for individuals, an increase in requests from organizations — we saw a lot of folks who we've never talked to about diaper needs before coming [to us].'"

[CN: Nativism] John Wagner and Erica Werner at the Washington Post: Trump Digs In on Border Wall Funds as Congressional Negotiators Prepare to Convene. "Trump warned Wednesday that congressional negotiators would be 'wasting their time' if they do not discuss his demand for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, which led to a 35-day partial government shutdown that ended last week with a temporary truce. The president's message, delivered in a morning tweet, came hours before a bipartisan, bicameral committee was set to meet for the first time to broker a compromise over border security funding and avert another shutdown, with Democrats continuing to resist Trump's demand. 'If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!' Trump wrote on Twitter."

Fucking hell.

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We Resist: Day 740

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, January 29, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: This F#@king Guy and Bill Barr Discussed Mueller Probe with Mike Pence and Newsflash: Warmongers Want Wars. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation About Bernie.

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

Danielle Paquette at the Washington Post: The Lowest-Paid Shutdown Workers Aren't Getting Back Pay. "Unlike the 800,000 career public servants who are slated to receive full back pay over the next week or so, the contractors who clean, guard, cook, and shoulder other jobs at federal workplaces aren't legally guaranteed a single penny. They're also among the lowest-paid laborers in the government economy, generally earning between $450 and $650 weekly, union leaders say. And even as they began returning to work Monday, they were bracing for more pain. [Donald] Trump's new deadline for Congress to earmark funding for his proposed border wall is Feb. 15. Agencies could close again if no deal is reached."

If Donald Trump is really the magnanimous "blue collar billionaire" he purports to be, then he should use money from his own goddamned pockets to give back pay to the working people who are getting stiffed because of his shutdown. Of course he will never do that, because he didn't even pay people who did work for him when he was a private citizen and because MALICE IS THE AGENDA.

Suzy Khimm at NBC News: The Shutdown Is Over, But the Pain for Low-Income Families Lingers. "[Candice Cluff] was among the thousands of low-income Americans across the country who were frozen out of the Section 8 voucher program during the shutdown, prohibited from accessing public subsidies to private landlords who rent to about 2.2 million families. When vouchers became available through turnover, many local housing authorities decided to stop re-issuing the vouchers to new participants because they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to pay landlords after February, according to Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group."

Liam Stack at the New York Times: Joshua Trees Destroyed in National Park During Shutdown May Take Centuries to Regrow. "The partial government shutdown ended last week after 35 days, but conservationists have warned that its impact may be felt for hundreds of years in at least one part of the country: Joshua Tree National Park. The Southern California park, which is larger than Rhode Island and famed for its dramatic rock formations and the spiky-leafed Joshua trees from which it takes it name, had only a skeleton crew of workers during the shutdown. With most of its park rangers furloughed, vandals and inconsiderate guests ran amok. Gates and posts were toppled, new roads carved through the desert by unauthorized off-road drivers, and a small number of the park's thousands of Joshua trees were outright destroyed, conservationists said."

Burgess Everett, John Bresnahan, and Sarah Ferris at Politico: Republicans May Block Trump from Another Shutdown. "Though House Republicans aren't ruling out supporting the president should he choose another confrontation over his border wall, the Republican Senate majority — which actually has governing power — has another view. 'I did not love the shutdown. I wouldn't think anybody would have another shutdown,' said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the key negotiators trying to strike a deal on border security. ...But while White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump 'doesn't want to go through another shutdown,' she declined to rule it out if Congress doesn't come up with a border security plan to Trump's liking. Neither did House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a close Trump confidant."

So, presumably, Senate Republicans will keep rolling over. Or strategize how to throw Trump under the bus so they can finally get their President Pence and go back to sliding into authoritarian rule behind someone who people insistently believe will be "better" than Trump just because he is less vulgar.

* * *

Joshua Eaton and Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Roger Stone Pleads Not Guilty to Lying to Congress About Russia Collusion. "Stone faces one count of obstructing a proceeding, five counts of lying to Congress, and one count of witness tampering. ...After the reading of the charges was waived, [one of Stone's attorneys, Robert Buschel] entered the not guilty plea on Stone's behalf. ...Judge Robinson imposed similar conditions for Stone's release to those put in place Friday in Florida. He can travel only between Florida, D.C., and New York, and he agreed not to contact any other witnesses in this case." Oh, well as long as he promises! I'm sure we can trust him. Roger Stone would never lie.


If only.

Kelly Weill at the Daily Beast: How the Proud Boys Became Roger Stone's Personal Army. "On Tuesday, Stone was arraigned in a Washington, D.C. courthouse on charges he lied about dealings with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign in 2016. Stone has spent the past two years as the most outlandish character in the Trump-Russia saga, with his colorful quotes and flamboyant wardrobe. At the same time, he's grown tighter with the violent ultra-nationalist group, hiring them as security and participating in the group's videos — even repeating its slogan." For fuck's sake.


* * *


Also from the threats assessment hearing, via the Daily Beast: Kremlin and Other Enemies Will Target 2020 Election.
America's enemies will "almost certainly" use online influence operations to try to weaken its institutions, undermine its alliances, and cause unrest during the 2020 elections, the Director of National Intelligence has said.

In its 2019 threat assessment, released Tuesday morning, the DNI said that the country's enemies are "probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests." Specifically focusing on Russia, the report says that the Kremlin's disinformation campaigns online will try to "aggravate social and racial tensions, undermine trust in authorities, and criticize perceived anti-Russia politicians."

...In his opening statement on the report to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats emphasized that China "is the most active strategic competitor responsible for cyber espionage against the US Government, corporations, and allies."

CNN's Jim Sciutto also notes that the assessment contradicts Trump's claim that North Korea will denuclearize, noting that "the IC continues to assess that it is unlikely to give up all of its WMD stockpiles, delivery systems, and production capabilities."
And while foreign adversaries try to subvert our democracy from the outside, the Republican Party will continue to try to subvert our democracy from the inside.

Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Kentucky Leads the Country in Disenfranchising African American Voters, Report Finds. "One out of every four African American voters is disenfranchised in the state of Kentucky, a higher rate than any other state, as a result of the state's law barring people with felony convictions from voting, according to a new report from the Kentucky League of Women Voters released Tuesday." Emphasis mine.

* * *


Seriously. This fucking guy.

With her permission, I'm going to share SKM's earlier comment here on the main page:
Please note also that Schultz has naught but the vaguest objections to GOP (general "division is bad" hand-waving) yet he's johnny-on-the-spot in attacking right-wing anti-Dem straw men (e.g. AOC's mention of a 70% marginal tax, as though that's a universal Dem position, and as though it's not a very old idea).

He is running against the Democratic party but NOT against the GOP, simple as.
Correct.

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We Resist: Day 735

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, January 24, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Pelosi Reiterates: No SOTU While Government Is Closed and Trump Backs Down; Won't Give SOTU and Shutdown Is Making Air Travel Increasingly Unsafe and Reps. Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff to Investigate Deutsche Bank and I Am Here for It!

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


Niels Lesniewski at Roll Call: Wilbur Ross Doesn't Understand Why Furloughed Federal Workers Need Food Banks.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Several credit unions serving workers at federal departments and agencies have been offering stopgap loans, as they have during previous shutdowns. But it’s not clear how those loans would even be sufficient as the shutdown enters its second month.

"I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why," Ross said Thursday when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. "Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed."

But in addition to the federal employees who are set to miss another paycheck at the end of this week, there are many federal contractors who have no expectation of ever getting the missed payments back.
Which means they might be unable to pay the loans back. But anyway, Ross doesn't think it's that big a deal. He also said (for real, which I feel obliged to make clear, because this sounds like I'm making it up): "Put it in perspective: You're talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers if they never got their pay, which is not the case they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you're talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So, it's not like it's a gigantic number overall." This fucking guy.

I just keep thinking about the survey from three years ago which found that "56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined" and "nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name." We are a nation of people most of whom can't come up with $1,000 in case of emergency and our Commerce Secretary doesn't understand how furloughed workers can't just make it without getting paid indefinitely.

Lisa Rein and Eric Yoder at the Washington Post: Federal Workers Affected by Partial Shutdown to Be Billed for Dental, Vision Coverage. "The 800,000 federal employees furloughed by the partial government shutdown and working without pay were warned Wednesday that they must pay their dental and vision premiums beginning this week or they could lose their coverage. The workers are not at risk of losing their health insurance benefits, which will stay in effect through the duration of the shutdown — and for as long as a year — even if they are not receiving a paycheck, with their accumulated premiums deducted from their pay once their agency reopens. However, that protection does not extend to vision and dental insurance, and starting with their second missed paycheck at the end of this week, employees will be billed directly for premiums for dental and vision coverage."

Katelyn Marmon at ThinkProgress: The Shutdown Exposes Just How Vulnerable Federal Workers Are. "As the shutdown enters its second month without much progress toward reopening the government, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are bracing to miss their second paycheck in a row. ...For federal employees who are unable to do their jobs, being caught in the crossfire of a political debate is not what they signed up for when they decided to become a public servant. And when they're unable to do their work, everyone suffers. 'It's sad that we're actually being held hostage,' said [Ed Hill, a 22-year employee of the Census Bureau who is currently furloughed]. 'We serve the American public. So not only are we being held hostage — people that we serve, the American public, is being held hostage.'"

Brian Faler at Politico: 'Extraordinarily Angry and Very Upset Taxpayers': IRS Faces Chaotic Tax Season Amid Shutdown.
The IRS is facing tax season amid the shutdown with new rules that could complicate filing for millions of Americans — and a potential shortage of workers to handle the returns — raising the possibility of refund delays and angry taxpayers.

...The public, meanwhile, will be filing for the first time under Republicans' sweeping tax overhaul, H.R. 1, and many will surely be confused by changes made as part of the biggest tax code rewrite in a generation. At the same time, even experts are unsure whether workers have had the correct amount of taxes withheld from their paychecks, which could mean that many people accustomed to receiving refunds may instead owe the IRS.

...It is shaping up to be a big test of the Trump administration and is an increasingly important pressure point in the fight over the ongoing partial government shutdown.

"Everybody is concerned," said John Koskinen, who stepped down in 2017 as IRS commissioner. "There would have been uncertainty and challenges even without the shutdown — the shutdown is just exacerbating all of that."
Meanwhile, over at the Department of Homeland Security...


Tanya Snyder at Politico: 'We're Done': Shutdown Strikes Small, Midsize, and Rural Transit. "The government shutdown is pushing some of the nation's small, midsize, and rural transit systems to an existential crisis, prompting bus agencies to scale back service, prepare for furloughs, or even contemplate closing their doors entirely. ...The trauma for crucial transportation lifelines in rural or small-town America, including in states [Donald] Trump won in 2016, underscores the damage the 34-day shutdown is inflicting hundreds or thousands of miles from Washington, D.C. While the loss of federal dollars is hitting transit systems large and small, including those inside the Beltway, the most vulnerable agencies are those that don't get significant state support. And their riders are primarily low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans."

I guess if you don't need to eat, you don't need to be able to get to the grocery store — or your job or your doctor or anywhere else, either.

Fucking hell.

* * *

Staff at the Daily Beast: Russia Tells Trump: Leave Venezuela Alone. "Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow has thrown its support behind Maduro and directly warned the U.S. against military intervention. 'We consider that would be a catastrophic scenario that would shake the foundations of the development model which we see in Latin America,' said Ryabkov. He went on: 'Venezuela is friendly to us and is our strategic partner... We have supported them and will support them.' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that outside interference in the country was 'unacceptable' and that the prospect of military intervention from the U.S. was very dangerous." Oh.


That's the guy for whom Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort and Bernie Sanders' chief strategist Ted Devine used to work. Yup.

* * *

Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis at the Washington Post: Civil Penalties for Polluters Dropped Dramatically in Trump's First Two Years, Analysis Shows. "Civil penalties for polluters under the Trump administration plummeted during the past fiscal year to the lowest average level since 1994, according to a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data. In the two decades before [Donald] Trump took office, EPA civil fines averaged more than $500 million a year, when adjusted for inflation. Last year's $72 million in fines was 85 percent below that amount, according to the agency's Enforcement and Compliance History Online database." Good grief.

[Content Note: Rightwing terrorism] Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: Experts Warn of Far-Right Threat as Police Foil Two Separate Violent Plots in One Week. "The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual report on extremism within the United States this week, revealing that individuals linked to or affiliated with the far-right were responsible for every extremist-related murder committed in the United States in 2018. The report notes far-right extremists were responsible for 50 murders in the 2018, making it the fourth deadliest year on record for domestic extremism in the United States. What's perhaps more alarming is that those murders only represent the tip of the iceberg. Just this week, authorities uncovered two separate violent plots in New York and Utah, both of which were planned out by suspects with far-right leanings, but thankfully not carried out."

[CN: Gun violence] Pilar Melendez at the Daily Beast: Gunman Accused of Killing 5 Women in Florida Bank Shooting 'Wanted Everybody to Die': Ex-Girlfriend. "There were plenty of warning signs. Zephen Xaver — the 21-year-old former prison guard trainee accused of killing five women while holding them hostage inside a bank in Sebring, Florida — had an obsession with guns and death, his ex-girlfriend told The Daily Beast. ...'His fascination with death got worse when we broke up,' she said. ...The 20-year-old said she tried to 'warn people' about Xaver's 'potentially fatal interests'... 'Listen, he was pretty open about the fact that he wanted everybody to die. All he talked about was killing people,' she said. 'He was one of those people that was too into mass shootings you know? He even got kicked out of school for having a dream that he killed everyone in his class.'"

[CN: Erosion of abortion access] Soumya Karlamangla at the LA Times: 60 Hours, 50 Abortions: A California Doctor's Monthly Commute to a Texas Clinic. "She comes here once a month, part of an unofficial network of physicians who travel across state lines to perform abortions in places where few doctors are willing. It's not yet 9 a.m., and the clinic's waiting rooms are filled, navigating them a game of human Tetris. Women with their husbands. Women pushing strollers. Women alone. The young doctor will spend 60 hours in Dallas this trip and perform 50 abortions. She will have to run in the hallways to keep up with her packed schedule."

[CN: Anti-choicery] Josephine Yurcaba at Rewire.News: Valerie Huber's New Role at HHS Could Bring Abstinence-Only Agenda to Global Policy. "Abstinence-only proponent Valerie Huber will move to a new position in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, worrying reproductive health advocates and experts who believe she could push her agenda into the global arena. ...She previously served as senior policy advisor for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. An unnamed department official told Politico that Huber is 'expected to strip references to sexual and reproductive health as well as sex education from the agency's global health documents,' and advocates say that move would have widespread repercussions."

[CN: Misogynoir; birtherism] Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: #MAGA Troll Jacob Wohl, Who Previously Attacked Mueller, Is Trying to Smear Kamala Harris with Birther Rumors. "Jacob Wohl the troll who attempted to smear Robert Mueller by paying women to make false sexual harassment complaints against him is now targeting 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. In a tweet on Tuesday, Wohl said that Harris should be disqualified from the presidential race because her parents were not born in the U.S." But she was, which is all that matters.

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We Resist: Day 733

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, January 22, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: MAGA Teen Harasser Force and Kamala Harris Announces Candidacy for President and I'm with Leslie.

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

Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: The GOP Has Become the Soviet Party. "Once upon a time, Ayn Rand-reading, red-baiting Republicans denounced Soviet Russia as an evil superpower intent on destroying the American way of life. My, how things have changed. The Grand Old Party has quietly become the pro-Russia party — and not only because the party's standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like the failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against." Damn. Say it, Catherine!

Catherine Garcia at the Week: Sanctions Deal Actually Boosts Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska. "The Times reviewed a confidential document, signed by a Treasury official and representatives of Deripaska's companies, which shows that under the deal, he will have the opportunity to wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in debt by transferring some of his shares to the Russian government-owned bank VTB, which has lent him a substantial amount of money. At the same time, Deripaska's allies — who are also close to the Kremlin — will still have major stakes in his companies." How utterly not shocking.

Staff at the Daily Beast: Leaked Audio Suggests Oleg Deripaska Planned Anastasia Vashukevich's Arrest. "A leaked audio tape allegedly shows that Russian aluminum oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his associates planned the arrest of Anastasia Vashukevich — the Belarusian model who claimed to have evidence of Kremlin interference in Donald Trump's election. ...Vashukevich insists she is being framed for a crime she didn't commit and apologized to Deripaska in court last week, saying: 'Please forgive me. I was just a tool and people used me.' Deripaska reportedly loaned Paul Manafort in excess of $10 million before the U.S. political adviser became Donald Trump's campaign chairman in 2016." Goddammit.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Matthew Mosk, Katherine Faulders, and John Santucci at ABC News: U.S. Banker with Ties to Putin's Inner Circle Sought Access to Trump Transition. "Nine days after Donald Trump won the presidency, as scores of supporters clamored for meetings with his transition team, the Hollywood producer of The Apprentice, Mark Burnett, reached out to one of Trump's closest advisers to see if he would sit down with a banker who has long held ties to Russia. The banker, Robert Foresman, never got the role he was seeking with the fledgling Trump administration. But he has recently attracted the attention of congressional investigators as one more name on an expanding list of Americans with established ties inside the Kremlin who appears to have been seeking access to the newly elected president's inner circle, according to three sources familiar with the matter."

Andy Towle at Towleroad: Donald Trump Jr. on Buzzfeed and Trump Tower Moscow: 'The Media Is Trying to Subvert This Democracy'. "Donald Trump Jr. claimed to know nothing about the Trump Tower Moscow project in an astonishing interview with FOX News' Laura Ingraham on Monday night... Said Trump Jr., placing all the onus for the Trump Tower Moscow project on former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen: '…the reality is this wasn't a deal — we don't know the developer. We don't know the site. We don't know anything about it. Ultimately, it was Michael Cohen essentially trying to get a deal done.' ...Of the media's (and in reaction to Buzzfeed's) continued scrutiny of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, Donald Jr. added: '...And the media right now is really trying to subvert this democracy. They've done more to hurt the credibility of this country's institution as a democracy than anything in history.'" The chutzpah of this traitor! OMG.


In other foreign policy news, the AFP reports that Mike Pence has told the Venezuelan opposition: "We are with you."


Pence in the Oval Office would not be an improvement. You can take that to the bank. Unfortunately.

* * *

Let's take a break for a good piece of resistance news, which is really more of a reminder, that Terry Crews is awesome.


* * *

[CN: Trans hatred] Robert Barnes and Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post: Supreme Court Allows Trump Restrictions on Transgender Troops in Military to Go into Effect as Legal Battle Continues. "The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed [Donald] Trump's broad restrictions on transgender people serving in the military to go into effect while the legal battle continues in lower courts. The justices lifted nationwide injunctions that had kept the administration's policy from being implemented. ...The court's five conservatives — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh — allowed the restrictions to go into effect while the court decides to whether to consider the merits of the case. The liberal justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — would have kept the injunctions in place." This decision is both indecent and terrible law.

[CN: Guns] Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Supreme Court Will Hear the First Big Second Amendment Case of the Kavanaugh Era. "In an ominous sign for potential victims of gun violence, the Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will hear New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York, a challenge to New York City's gun licensing regime. It's the first Second Amendment case the Supreme Court will hear since 2010, and only the second such case since 2008's District of Columbia v. Heller, which held for the first time in American history that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. ...The case involves such a minor and incidental burden on gun rights that it is unclear why the Court would pick this case as their first foray into Second Amendment litigation in nearly a decade. If the Court sides with the plaintiffs in this case, that would suggest that many gun laws must fall in this decision's wake."

[CN: Nativism; misogyny; video may autoplay at link] Chantal da Silva at Newsweek: ICE Agents Detain Woman Despite High-Risk Pregnancy and Deny Her Medication for Days, Immigration Lawyers Say. "The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has come under fire after its agents arrested a woman who was five and a half months into a high-risk pregnancy during a green card interview with her husband, a U.S. citizen, according to immigration lawyers. They then allegedly detained her for days and denied her access to the medication she needed to ensure a safe pregnancy. ...[Immigration lawyer Greg Siskind] said that the situation only began to turn around after his law firm called on social media users to put pressure on ICE, flooding the LaSalle Detention Center with phone calls demanding [Carmen Puerto Diaz]'s release. After facing pressure from immigration advocates, as well as from at least one member of Congress, Siskind said ICE finally allowed Puerto Diaz to take her medication late on Friday evening and eventually released her the following day."


[CN: Violent misogyny; toxic masculinity] Adam Forgie at KUTV: Provo Man Facing Terrorism Charge After Making Mass Shooting Threat Targeting Women. "According to a probable cause statement,27-year-old Provo resident Christopher Cleary posted the following threat on Facebook: 'All I wanted was a girlfriend, not 1000 not a bunch of hoes not money none of that. All I wanted was to be loved, yet no one cares about me I'm 27 years old and I've never had a girlfriend before and I'm still a virgin, this is why I'm planning on shooting up a public place soon and being the next mass shooter cause I'm ready to die and all the girls the turned me down is going to make it right by killing as many girls as I see. There's nothing more dangerous than man ready to die.' ...The arresting officer spoke with Cleary's probation office who said Cleary has a history of making threats of killing women as well as felony stalking."

[CN: Police brutality; racism] Kenrya Rankin at Colorlines: Jason Van Dyke Sentenced to 6 Years, 9 Months for Murdering Laquan McDonald. "On October 5, a jury found former Chicago Police Department officer Jason Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder and aggravated battery. [On January 18], Van Dyke was sentenced to six years and nine months for killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The decision comes more than four years after Van Dyke, who is White, shot the Black teenager 16 times, prompting protests against the department and a government that worked overtime to hide details of the shooting. ...[Judge Vincent Gaughan's decision to use the single murder charge as his guide, rather than 16 counts of aggravated battery — one for each shot Van Dyke fired into McDonald's body — which could have drawn a sentence of 96 years] means that Van Dyke could be out of prison in less than three-and-a-half years, as the sentence allows for a 50 percent reduction for good behavior."

* * *

[CN: Climate change. Covers entire section.]

Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic: There's Snow on TV, So Trump's Tweeting About Climate Change.
It's something of an annual tradition for the president. On Sunday morning, as the eastern half of the country endured driving snow and frigid winter winds, Donald Trump asked on Twitter how climate change could be real if it was so cold outside.

"Be careful and try staying in your house," he said. "Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn't be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!"

Trump has raised similar concerns about that "good old fashioned Global Warming" nearly every year since 2012. If it snows near Manhattan, the president says he isn't sure about climate change.

Unfortunately, even as New York has occasionally been blasted with frozen precipitation, the world has kept warming. The past four years have been the four warmest years on record — a fact that nasa and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were due to announce this past week, were the government not shut down. Earlier this winter, Washington, D.C., experienced a shocking 22 days of above-average temperatures, and the Northeast as a whole saw a balmy January. [Donald] Trump did not seize that opportunity to affirm that global warming was real.

The simple, tedious fact is that two things can be true at the same time: The world's average temperature can be clearly and dangerously increasing, and it can still snow sometimes in the northeastern United States.
Yessenia Funes at Earther: Australia Just Experienced Its Hottest Night Ever. "Thursday night set a new minimum temperature record of nearly 97 degrees Fahrenheit in New South Wales. This is the highest daily low temperature Australia has ever seen. And it's just latest in a string of brutally hot days for the country. Victoria and New South Wales, which sit on Australia's southeast corner, have seen temperatures soar above 107 degrees Fahrenheit for five days in a row. The capital of Canberra is set to see temperatures reach 104 degrees Fahrenheit four days in a row, which hasn't happened since 1939 when the country started keeping records."

Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Greenland's Ice Melting Faster Than Scientists Previously Thought. "Greenland's ice is melting faster than scientists previously thought, with the pace of ice loss increasing fourfold since 2003, new research has found. Enormous glaciers in Greenland are depositing ever larger chunks of ice into the Atlantic Ocean, where it melts. But scientists have found that the largest ice loss in the decade from 2003 actually occurred in the southwest region of the island, which is largely glacier-free. This suggests surface ice is simply melting as global temperatures rise, causing gushing rivers of meltwater to flow into the ocean and push up sea levels. Southwest Greenland, not previously thought of as a source of woe for coastal cities, is set to 'become a major future contributor to sea level rise,' the research states."

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