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.
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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.
— Adam Serwer🍝 (@AdamSerwer) June 18, 2019
(If you don't know why that last item was posted in this section, this is why.)
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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...
Exclusive: Pompeo blocks inclusion of Saudi Arabia on a U.S. list of countries that recruit child soldiers https://t.co/VTngJlSfur pic.twitter.com/P44V7MBloY
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) June 18, 2019
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[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.[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.
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: Gun violence; domestic violence; death]
A Texas father shot his daughter six times, including twice in the head, just feet from her 13-month-old after an argument over where to place a baby gate. America is the only high-income country where guns make every day arguments deadly. #txlege
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) June 18, 2019
https://t.co/jBrffStXyC
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[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.'"
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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?
