Shakesville: toxic masculinity

Showing posts with label toxic masculinity. Show all posts

Not-Breaking News: Tucker Carlson Is a Dirtbag

[Content Note: Misogyny; rape culture; toxic masculinity.]

At MediaMatters, Madeline Peltz has published unearthed audio (with transcripts) of Fox News' Tucker Carlson saying disgusting things about women and girls, including rank rape apologia.

Suffice it to say, I am hardly surprised.

Carlson has long been a bigoted shitwheel, and one of his favorite pastimes on his various cable news shows over the years (because the opportunities never run out for mediocre white dudes) has been harassing women.

When I briefly became a subject of national interest while working for John Edwards, Carlson invited Bill Donohue to be a guest on his show, where they talked shit about me and Donohue detailed his desire to personally bankrupt me.

I still remember sitting on my couch at home beside Iain, watching Carlson talk about me and thinking: He's using my name and photo, but the person he's describing is unrecognizable as me.

I was deliberately monsterized, because Carlson likes putting a target on women's backs.

I'm hardly the only woman to whom he's subjected to such vile treatment. None of us needed to hear him use vulgar language to know that he hates women.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 769

a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

The Republicans keep saying they want a witness who isn't a liar and fraudster and criminal, but the only people who Donald Trump allows in his orbit are liars and fraudsters and criminals!
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 27, 2019

It's really rich for these Republicans to act OUTRAGED!!1! about Michael Cohen being a liar when their president lies on a constant basis and they manifestly refuse to hold him accountable for that.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 27, 2019

Someone should ask the GOP why, given Cohen's long history of criminal ties and behavior -- which was in the public domain before 2016 -- they made him the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2017 #CohenTestimony
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) February 27, 2019

They're just shameless. Pretending like they don't understand how criminal investigations even work, i.e. witnesses for the prosecution who have turned are always liars and criminals. And getting a case of the vapors over the fact that Cohen is a liar, when Donald Trump lies like his life depends on it. They're calling Cohen a liar to protect an even bigger liar.

The whole thing is a depressing spectacle. And we still have no new information that will get us any closer to removing Trump and his entire corrupt administration from power.

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

Heidi Przybyla at NBC News: House Poised to Pass First Major Gun Bill in a Generation.

Democratic leaders say they have the votes to pass a bill requiring background checks on all commercial gun sales, including those at gun shows and over the internet. The bill also has five Republican co-sponsors, led by New York Rep. Peter King, who had tried — and failed — for several years to advance the bill while his party controlled the chamber.

Democrats taking control of the House has "really given it momentum. Hate to admit that, but that's the reality," King said in an interview with NBC News.

...Since the bill faces an uphill fight in the Republican-run Senate, the House leadership arranged a separate vote — a day later on Thursday — on a more modest measure that may be able to attract greater bipartisan support.

That bill would close the so-called "Charleston loophole," which allows the sale of a firearm to proceed if a background check is not completed within three days.

In the Senate, Democrats are hoping to pressure Republicans, including Tim Scott of South Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado — another state rocked by mass shootings — to align themselves with the measure and lean on McConnell to bring it for a vote.

[Donald] Trump has vowed to veto the current legislation, and many advocates remain skeptical that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will bring it up for a vote.

Two of the worst men on the fucking planet, standing in the way of even the most modest legislation to try to stem the tide of gun violence across the nation.

Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post: White House Bans Four Journalists from Covering Trump-Kim Dinner Because of Shouted Questions. "The White House abruptly banned four U.S. journalists [from the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, the Los Angeles Times, and Reuters] from covering [Donald] Trump's dinner here Wednesday with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after some of them shouted questions at the leaders during their earlier meetings. ...Among the questions asked of Trump was one about the congressional testimony of his former lawyer Michael Cohen. The White House's move to restrict press access was an extraordinary act of retaliation by the U.S. government, which historically has upheld the rights of journalists while a president travels overseas. It was especially remarkable because it came during Trump's meeting with the leader of a totalitarian state that does not have a free press."

Rowena Mason, Jessica Elgot, and Heather Stewart at the Guardian: Theresa May Says Britain Can Still Leave EU on 29 March. "Theresa May has insisted it is still possible for the UK to leave the European Union on 29 March if enough MPs back a revised withdrawal deal, amid signs hardline Eurosceptics may be softening their demands. In an article in the Daily Mail, the prime minister pleaded with MPs to get behind her deal, after she was forced to give them votes on extending article 50 and ruling out no deal if her withdrawal agreement does not pass. ...In her statement to the Commons on Tuesday, May said she planned to hold the next meaningful vote on her Brexit deal by 12 March. If it was defeated again, it would be followed by a vote on 13 March on leaving with no deal and, if this was rejected, a vote on 14 March for an extension to article 50."

Pamela Constable and Joanna Slater at the Washington Post: Pakistan Shoots Down Two Indian Aircraft in Its Airspace, Captures Pilot. "Pakistan shot down two Indian aircraft over its territory Wednesday and launched strikes inside Indian-controlled Kashmir, a day after Indian jets bombed targets in Pakistan for the first time since 1971 in retaliation for a terrorist attack. The tit-for-tat airstrikes and accompanying aerial dogfight marked the most serious military escalation between the two nuclear-armed rivals in two decades."

Peter Beaumont at the Guardian: Infant Mortality in Venezuela Has Doubled During Crisis, UN Says. "Infant mortality in Venezuela has soared by roughly 50% during the prolonged political crisis in the country. Briefing the UN security council, the UN’s political and peace building chief, Rosemary DiCarlo, depicted a devastating collapse in Venezuela's health system. She warned that 40% of medical staff had left the country and said hospital stocks of medicine had dwindled to 20% of the required level. DiCarlo said the 'protracted crisis' in the country had led in recent weeks to an 'alarming escalation of tensions.' Four people died and hundreds were injured in clashes last weekend at the country's borders."

* * *

[Content Note: Homophobia] Emma Green at the Atlantic: Conservative Christians Just Retook the United Methodist Church. "The United Methodist Church has fractured over the role of LGBTQ people in the denomination. At a special conference in St. Louis this week, convened specifically to address divisions over LGBTQ issues, members voted to toughen prohibitions on same-sex marriage and LGBTQ clergy. This was a surprise: The denomination's bishops, its top clergy, pushed hard for a resolution that would have allowed local congregations, conferences, and clergy to make their own choices about conducting same-sex marriages and ordaining LGBTQ pastors. This proposal, called the 'One Church Plan,' was designed to keep the denomination together. Methodist delegates rejected its recommendations, instead choosing the so-called Traditional Plan, which affirmed the denomination's teachings against homosexuality."

[CN: Homophobia; HIV/AIDS stigma] Lachlan Markay and Sam Stein at the Daily Beast: Pence's Incoming Chief of Staff, Marc Short, Disparaged People Living with AIDS for 'Repugnant' Gay Sex in College Column. "Vice President Mike Pence's incoming chief of staff Marc Short disparaged people living with HIV and AIDS and claimed that the transmission of the disease was largely the result of 'repugnant' homosexual intercourse in an early '90s column for his college newspaper [at Washington & Lee University]. ...The column was published in The Spectator, a conservative student newspaper that Short co-founded as an undergraduate in 1989. Short served as an editor for the publication until he graduated in 1992."

[CN: Homophobia; white supremacy] Alys Brooks at Rewire.News: Funding Hate: GOP License Plate Programs Pour Funds into Fringe Groups. "Specialty license plates that fund nonprofits aren't unusual — many states have dozens supporting causes like organ donation and wildlife conservation. But some license plates fund groups that promote hate and misinformation, as the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has done since the 1990s. And now state-level Democratic lawmakers are hitting back against license plate programs that fund these causes. Since 2011, ADF has received over $1 million through Arizona's license plate program, according to data compiled by the office of state Sen. Juan Mendez (D-Tempe). The license plates fund only a small portion of ADF's $50 million annual budget."

* * *

[CN: Misogyny; toxic masculinity] Stephanie McNeal at BuzzFeed: This College Student Shared How Different Her Boyfriend Acts IRL Versus on Social Media and Now Every Straight Man Is Called Out. It's a collection of screenshots of private texts men sent their female partners (which are loving and kind) juxtaposed against screenshots of social media images the men posted of their female partners (which are objectifying and shitty). We're meant to find it funny, of course, but since I am the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington, I will point out that this is a sinister example of how toxic masculinity harms women (by encouraging abuse against them) and men (by limiting their range of healthy emotions and encouraging them to be abusive toward the people around them). Fuck the patriarchy forever.

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

Open Wide...

Another Sexual Assault Allegation Against Trump

[Content Note: Sexual assault.]

Multiple women have accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment. Trump has himself bragged about sexually assaulting and harassing women, including grabbing women by their genitals and peeping at pageant contestants in dressing rooms without consent. He has routinely made inappropriate comments about having sex with girls, including his own daughter, and he has physically assaulted at least one female reporter.

And now a former campaign staffer has alleged that Trump kissed her without consent during the 2016 campaign. Beth Reinhard and Alice Crites at the Washington Post report:

In interviews with The Washington Post, and in the lawsuit, Alva Johnson said Trump grabbed her hand and leaned in to kiss her on the lips as he exited an RV outside the rally in Tampa on Aug. 24, 2016. Johnson said she turned her head and the unwanted kiss landed on the side of her mouth, which she called "super-creepy and inappropriate."

"I immediately felt violated because I wasn't expecting it or wanting it," she said. "I can still see his lips coming straight for my face."

Johnson said she told her boyfriend, mother and stepfather about the incident later that day, an account all three confirmed to The Post. Two months later, Johnson consulted a Florida attorney about the unwanted kiss; he gave The Post text messages showing that he considered her "credible" but did not take her case for business reasons. The attorney gave Johnson the name of a therapist, whose notes, which The Post reviewed, reference an unspecified event during the campaign that had left her distraught.

...Two Trump supporters that Johnson identified as witnesses — a campaign official and Pam Bondi, then the Florida attorney general — denied seeing the alleged kiss in interviews with The Post.

..."Do I recall seeing anything inappropriate? One hundred percent no," Bondi said in an interview. "I'm a prosecutor, and if I saw something inappropriate, I would have said something."

Sure. Despite the fact that Bondi declined to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University after Trump wrote her a $25k check — a fact that the Washington Post neglects to mention.

Donald Trump is an absolute menace. He is the living embodiment of toxic masculinity, a danger to individual women on an interpersonal level and a threat to the entire world.

I will never stop being angry that he was allowed to reach the Oval Office, and the day when he leaves cannot come soon enough.

I take up space in solidarity with Alva Johnson.

Open Wide...

U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Arrested After Planning Mass Violence

[Content Note: Threats of mass violence; white supremacy; misogyny; stochastic terrorism.]

In yet another chilling reminder that the most urgent terrorist threat in this country is conservative white men with seething resentments and personal arsenals, U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, a 49-year-old self-proclaimed white nationalist with a massive stockpile of weapons and ammunition, was arrested by federal investigators after planning a large-scale terrorist attack targeting Democratic politicians and journalists.

Lynh Bui at the Washington Post reports:

Christopher Paul Hasson called for "focused violence" to "establish a white homeland" and said, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since at least 2017, developed a spreadsheet of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and searched the Internet using phrases such as "best place in dc to see congress people" and "are supreme court justices protected."

"The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," the government said in court documents filed this week, arguing that Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.

...Hasson was arrested Friday on charges of illegally possessing weapons and drugs, but the government said those charges are the "proverbial tip of the iceberg." Officials with the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland outlined Hasson's alleged plans to spark chaos and destruction, describing in court documents a man obsessed with neo-fascist and neo-Nazi views.

"Please send me your violence that I may unleash it onto their heads," Hasson wrote in a letter that prosecutors said was found in his email drafts. "Guide my hate to make a lasting impression on this world."

Naturally, because white supremacy and toxic masculinity go together like rancid chocolate and poisoned peanut butter, Hasson was also a fan of violent misogynist Anders Behring Breivik: "Hasson had been studying the 1,500-page manifesto of right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who unleashed two attacks in 2011 that killed 77 people in Norway, and echoed Breivik's attack preparations."

Hasson is responsible for his own vile views and his violent urges to act on them.

But this didn't happen in a vacuum.

Since the day he announced his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has been waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, rhetorically putting targets on the backs of his "enemies" and hoping that shamelessly violent wrecks among his cultists will do the rest.

And here is a man who decided to go on a mass killing spree, aimed at some of Trump's most frequently-invoked targets: Marginalized people, Democrats, and members of the press.

As I have said many, many, many times before: Trump did not invent white supremacy, but he sure as fuck is doing everything he can to empower it. And that has consequences.

No one knows that more keenly than Trump.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 743

Inbox: An Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the Trump admin's family separation policy on February 7 entitled, "Examining the Failures of the Trump Administration's Inhumane Family Separation Policy."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 1, 2019

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: 'We Have No Stability Right Now': When Your Husband's Freedom Is at ICE Agent's Discretion.

"¿Cómo estás, mi amor?" This is how Berenilsse Marcial greets her son Louis after picking him up from his after-school program the evening of January 23. She has been going out of her way to seem chipper in front of the second grader, who has been having trouble concentrating at school and won't sleep alone anymore. Marcial doesn't have the words to explain why his step-father has been absent for nearly a month because he is being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, or that their family's fate rests in the hands of two immigration officials they've never even seen before.

On January 4, ICE agents detained Marcial's husband, Hector Baca Gutierrez, in New York at a scheduled appointment. Back in November, Baca Gutierrez received a letter from Thomas Decker, the field office director of the District of New York's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) for ICE, telling him to appear on the tenth floor of 26 Federal Plaza on December 13 to meet with "Officer Almodovar." The reason for the appointment simply said "interview."

"We knew it couldn't be good," said Neal Datta, Baca Gutierrez's attorney. "The ninth floor of 26 Federal Plaza is where you go to report [to ICE]; the tenth floor is where you go and don't come back out."

Baca Gutierrez has been detained for 26 days. His family has struggled over the past four weeks with the emotional and financial impact of his departure.

"This has been devastating to my family," said Marcial. "I don't know what we're going to do."

Sob. I am so fucking angry at this regime's vile nativist agenda and their relentless malice. And I am so frustrated by how little sustained front-page press this issue is getting, despite the fact that it's still destroying families every day. We talk about "the wall," but not about the people whose lives are being affected by the nativism underwriting Donald Trump's policies, including a border wall, which he justifies by demonizing those people.

I know there is a lot about which to be angry, every day, but it's like people think this issue is solved, because Trump signed a bullshit executive order last summer. It isn't over. Goddammit.

* * *

[CN: Extreme weather; death] Jessica Glenza at the Guardian: Polar Vortex: Cold That Has Killed at Least 16 to Give Way to 'Spring-Like' Weather. And not a moment too soon. Not that such a huge swing in temperature will be a unilaterally good thing. "The bitter cold gripping the American midwest is expected to turn into spring-like weather by early next week, according to forecasters. Just days after arctic conditions, temperatures are expected to climb by as much as 80 degrees Fahrenheit in some regions. Experts said the rapid thaw is unprecedented, and could create its own problems — bursting pipes, flooding rivers, and crumbling roads." It can also cause enormous sinkholes.

[CN: White supremacy] Christopher Mathias at the Huffington Post: Congressman Alerts Ethics Committee over Steve King's Continued White Nationalism. "Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) alerted the House Ethics Committee this week that racist Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) continues to use his official government website to promote a white nationalist blog — potentially reviving Ryan's effort to censure King or even expel him from Congress. Ryan sent a letter to the Ethics Committee on Tuesday stating he wanted to 'make the Committee aware of the continued use of government resources on the part of Rep. King to promote and advance white nationalism.' 'A HuffPost report published today, January 29, details how King is continuing to use his government website to promote the white nationalist website VDare.com,' the letter reads, referring to this HuffPost report."

[CN: Right-wing terrorism] Sam Levin at the Guardian: FBI Investigated Civil Rights Group as 'Terrorism' Threat and Viewed KKK as Victims.

The FBI opened a "domestic terrorism" investigation into a civil rights group in California, labeling the activists "extremists" after they protested against neo-Nazis in 2016, new documents reveal.

Federal authorities ran a surveillance operation on By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), spying on the leftist group's movements in an inquiry that came after one of BAMN's members was stabbed at the white supremacist rally, according to documents obtained by the Guardian. The FBI's BAMN files reveal:

The FBI investigated Bamn for potential "conspiracy" against the "rights" of the "Ku Klux Klan" and white supremacists.

The FBI considered the KKK as victims and the leftist protesters as potential terror threats, and downplayed the threats of the Klan, writing: "The KKK consisted of members that some perceived to be supportive of a white supremacist agenda."

The FBI's monitoring included in-person surveillance, and the agency cited BAMN's advocacy against "rape and sexual assault" and "police brutality" as evidence in the terrorism inquiry.

The FBI's 46-page report on Bamn, obtained by the government transparency non-profit Property of the People through a records request, presented an "astonishing" description of the KKK, said Mike German, a former FBI agent and far-right expert who reviewed the documents for the Guardian.

JFC. Meanwhile... Sarada Peri at the Daily Beast: Powerful Men Can't Stop Complaining That They're Being Bullied. "For the most part, what Schultz has faced is not bullying but questioning and criticism. ...It was the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which has frequently railed against liberal 'snowflakes,' which called the treatment of Schultz bullying. But it's not alone in using the term as a catch-all for any and all criticism directed at the wealthy and political elite. ...The pattern first took shape with the Victim-in-Chief, Donald Trump, whose insecurity and paranoia lead him to see a world that is pitted against him. The Democrats are unfair. The media is fake. The rules are rigged. The Deep State is out to get him. 'No politician in history has been treated worse or more unfairly,' he once said — never mind the time they shot Lincoln."

My heart bleeds. Meanwhile... [CN: Violent misogyny; gun violence; toxic masculinity] Will Bunch at the Philly Inquirer: A Domestic Terrorist Slaughtered 5 Women in a Florida Bank and Hardly Anyone Noticed. "If you watched TV news over the last week, it's all but guaranteed that you never heard the names of these female victims or even the despicable shooter, even as the name of another alleged Florida criminal, a huckster named Roger Stone, was uttered thousands of times. But not only that — you also probably saw next to nothing about another mass gun murder of five Americans that took place just three days later, when a different 21-year-old white male killed his girlfriend, her parents, and his own parents. ...The way these shootings are all happening — the almost robotic similarity of these young and male and alienated and isolated killers, the recurring links to domestic violence or repressed sexuality and the large number of female victims, and the fact that these killings happen in everyday locales like a bank or a motel bar — scream out one word to me. Terrorism."

[CN: Gun violence] Vivian Ho at the Guardian: 'An Indelible Mark': Effects Related to Gun Violence Are Widespread and Lasting. "Fifty-eight percent of American adults have experienced trauma related to gun violence in their lifetime, according to a report released on Friday by Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit for gun policy reform. More people are killed in the U.S. with guns within the first month of the year than are killed in any of the nation's high-income peer countries in an entire calendar year. Each year, more than 100,000 Americans survive a gunshot wound and 15,600 children and teens are shot and injured, the report states. The violence doesn't only alter the lives of the victims, but those of their entire network, the report stresses. 'Gun violence in any form leaves an indelible mark on the lives of those who are affected,' said Christopher Kocher, director of the Everytown Survivor Network."

[CN: Sexual assault; sex abuse by clergy] Staff at AP/NBC News: Hundreds of Accused Abusers Named by Catholic Leaders in Texas. "Catholic leaders in Texas on Thursday identified 286 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children, a number that represents one of the largest collections of names to be released since an explosive grand jury report last year in Pennsylvania. Fourteen dioceses in Texas named those credibly accused of abuse." 286. Fucking hell.

* * *

Allegra Kirkland at TPM: All the Reasons the 2020 Census Is Shaping Up to Be a Disaster. "Inadequate funds, insufficient outreach, a wave of high-profile data breaches, and a deep mistrust of the Trump administration among minority communities compound the bureaucratic challenge inherent in moving the census online for the first time. Even if the Trump administration fails in what experts say would be a catastrophic bid to add a citizenship question to the census, advocates fear that this potent combination of factors will lead to a significant miscount of the state population figures used to divvy up congressional and legislative districts and allocate tens of billions of dollars in federal resources. The anticipated undercount of vulnerable populations in the 2020 Census will have consequences that shape national politics and reverberate through Americans' day to day lives for the next decade." This is so, so bad.

Jessica M. Goldstein at ThinkProgress: The Weaponization of 'Learn to Code'. "'Learn to code' is a linguistic dog whistle. ...Its origins are in an overblown and willfully misremembered spate of news stories about a man named Rusty Justice (yes, his real name) teaching web development to out-of-work coal miners in Kentucky. ...Its current usage, as formally documented by Know Your Meme, is as 'an expression used to mock journalists who were laid off from their jobs, encouraging them to learn software development as an alternate career path.'" Such assholes.

Lauren Thomas at CNBC: The CEO of the Biggest Mall Owner in the U.S. Says He's 'Nervous' About More Retail Bankruptcies This Year. "The biggest mall owner in the U.S. is warning of more store closures and even bankruptcies to rattle the retail industry in 2019. 'There are some retailers out there that we're nervous about,' Simon Property Group CEO David Simon said Friday during a call with analysts after the company reported earnings, though he didn't name those companies. 'We are concerned about a few [retail bankruptcies] that should shake out in the first quarter. ...The days of a rising economic tide...don't lift all retail boats. You've got a lot of out-performance and a lot of under-performance.'" Yikes.

And let us end on a hopeful note! Andy Towle at Towleroad: Joy Behar to Pete Buttigieg: 'Do You Think This Country Is Ready for a Gay President?'. "South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, who last week announced his intention to explore a run for president in 2020, sat down with the ladies of The View on Thursday. Buttigieg talked about his experience as a mayor, his time serving in Afghanistan, his position on Israel, and why he thinks someone from his generation (he's 37) is qualified to be Commander-in-Chief. He was also asked whether or not America's ready for a gay president. Replied Buttigieg: 'Well, there's only one way to find out.'" Right on, Mayor Pete!

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 739

The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, reflecting lost output from federal workers, delayed government spending and reduced demand.

The report, which was released Monday, estimated a hit of $3 billion, or 0.1 percent, to economic activity during the fourth quarter of 2018. The impact was projected to be greater during the first quarter of 2019: $8 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP.

Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as federal workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost after a quarter of the government was closed for nearly 35 days.

"Among those who experienced the largest and most direct negative effects are federal workers who faced delayed compensation and private-sector entities that lost business," the report said. "Some of those private-sector entities will never recoup that lost income."

Devan Cole and Kevin Bohn at CNN: State of the Union Will Not Take Place Tuesday, Pelosi Aide Says. "Donald Trump's second State of the Union address will not take place on Tuesday, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN. The aide confirmed that the address, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, will not happen — answering a key question about the address's fate in the wake of the reopening of the federal government. ...Trump's director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp said Monday that the White House has been in discussions with Pelosi's office about rescheduling the address and that 'we should have a response soon.'"

Good for Pelosi for not just letting everything "go back to normal" and proceed as planned. Trump shouldn't get what he wants when he's still threatening to hold the country hostage again. The SOTU continues to be a point of leverage in Pelosi's pocket, and she knows it.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: GOP Moves to Block Anyone from Running a 2020 Primary Challenge Against Trump. "Amidst collapsing poll numbers and an unmitigated defeat in his standoff with House Democrats, one contingent still has [Donald] Trump's back: the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is planning to stonewall any efforts from potential GOP challengers for the 2020 nomination. As ABC reported, the RNC passed a resolution on Friday that threw their 'undivided support' behind the president as he gears up for the 2020 race — a resolution that effectively undercut any other Republicans thinking of running."

Thank you to the Republican National Committee, (the RNC), who voted UNANIMOUSLY yesterday to support me in the upcoming 2020 Election. Considering that we have done more than any Administration in the first two years, this should be easy. More great things now in the works!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019

Democracy killers. The entire Republican Party isn't even pretending they aren't authoritarians anymore.

[Content Note: Child abuse] Irwin Redlener at the Daily Beast: The Trump Administration Is the Worst for Children in the Country's History. "It was already clear that Donald Trump's policies, actions, and words have put millions of children at risk. But although the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end, this nearly 40 day financial crisis added a whole new dimension to the challenges facing children living in poor, working poor, and even many middle-class families. It has become undeniable that after only two years, the Trump administration is already showing itself to be the most anti-child of any presidency in memory."

We could have had a president who had dedicated her life to improving the lives of children. Instead, we are stuck with this piece of shit.

[CN: Nativism; violent misogyny] Katie Mettler at the Washington Post: Trump Again Mentioned Taped-Up Women at the Border; Experts Don't Know What He Is Talking About. "Trump has a new favorite anecdote, one that fixates on tape. Specifically, in public remarks at the White House, at the border and at farming conventions, the president has been talking about tape on the mouths of migrant women. On at least eight occasions over a period of 12 days this month, the president has argued publicly for his proposed wall on the southern border by claiming without evidence that traffickers tie up and silence women with tape before illegally driving them through the desert from Mexico to the United States in the backs of cars and windowless vans."

And at TPM, Kate Riga notes: "Soon after the Washington Post questioned where he got that information, acting Border Patrol Assistant Chief Armando Sianez asked agents if they had any evidence to backup Trump's claims." Gross.

Justin Wise at the Hill: Graham Says Trump Floated Using Military Force in Venezuela. "Trump reportedly broached the idea of using military force in Venezuela in a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this month. Graham recounted the exchange to Axios, telling the news outlet that Trump asked him what he thought about using military force in a nation where the U.S. is pushing for regime change. ...Graham added that Trump is 'really hawkish' when it comes to Venezuela."

Meanwhile...

US, Canadian fighter planes scramble to escort Russian bombers

Russia now using intimidation tactics by coming near the North American coastline https://t.co/1xaPXBsma2
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 27, 2019

[CN: Homophobia] Speaking of Russia being terrible... Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: Protestors Wrap Russian Embassy with the Rainbow Flag to Protest the Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya. "About a hundred people protested the Russian Embassy in London 'to raise awareness of and call for an end to the persecution of the LGBTQ community in the Chechen Republic' according to Gay Times. The protest was intended to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The protest had four demands according to Gay Times: 'For Theresa May to publicly condemn Chechnya's atrocities; for governments to shelter refugees from Chechnya; for a United Nations investigation on Russia; and for Russian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.'"

[CN: Right-wing terrorism; Islamophobia]

"Three Kansas militia men sentenced over plot to kill Somali Muslims." Build that wall or whatever. 🤨 https://t.co/ZRZrcjvJaP
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 26, 2019

[CN: Gun violence; misogynist violence; death; toxic masculinity] Madeline Holcombe and Kelly McCleary at CNN: Suspect in Five Louisiana Shooting Deaths Captured in Virginia.

[Dakota Theriot, 21, is] accused of killing his parents, his girlfriend, and her father and brother in two separate shootings Saturday in Louisiana.

Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50, were at their home near Baton Rouge when the suspect killed them, Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

When authorities arrived at the scene, Keith Theriot was still alive and told them his son shot them, authorities said.

Dakota Theriot's girlfriend, Summer Ernest, and her relatives were found dead in a home 30 miles away. The other victims included her father, Billy Ernest, 43, and her brother Tanner Ernest, 17, according to authorities.

Theriot was dating Summer and had lived with the Ernests for several weeks, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said. He was recently asked to leave the residence and not return, according to authorities.

...Authorities believe the shootings stemmed from a "boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute," CNN affiliate WAFB reported.

"This is probably one of the worst domestic violence incidents I've seen in quite a while," Webre said. "For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with."

There were no red flags ahead of the two shootings Saturday morning and other than a simple possession of drug paraphernalia charge, Theriot had no other run-ins with the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, Ard said.

My condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims.

A couple of points:

1. I am enraged that Summer Ernest is being identified as her murderer's "girlfriend" here, despite the fact that she and/or her parents kicked him out of their residence recently, and it is very likely that her decision to not be his girlfriend anymore is why he murdered her.

2. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that police would suggest there were "no red flags" ahead of the shootings, given that the "dispute" between Ernest and Theriot was enough that he was asked to GTFO. Just because police don't know what precipitated that incident doesn't mean that there were no red flags.

3. Again, this is another mass shooting by a young white man who is somehow taken into custody alive, while young Black men and women are killed by police during altercations following suspected crimes like selling loose cigarettes or breaking traffic laws.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

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

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 733

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.

Russian warships were deployed to shadow 2 US Navy ships in the Baltic Sea. Russian ships have also been shadowing a US Navy ship heading to the Black Sea https://t.co/iTGEBh3Gjl
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 21, 2019

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

For background: I've got a big section on Venezuela in this edition of my daily We Resist thread from December. https://t.co/YJ2qfchLNt
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 22, 2019

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.

THE FLOOR IS TOXIC MASCULINITY! JUMP! #AmericasGotTerry pic.twitter.com/avDj23oFoP
— terry crews (@terrycrews) January 21, 2019

* * *

[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."

The world's 26 richest people own the same wealth as half of humanity, Oxfam says pic.twitter.com/wfxHhbbqF2
— TicToc by Bloomberg (@tictoc) January 21, 2019

[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."

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

Open Wide...

An Observation About Toxic Masculinity

As I mentioned in Tuesday's We Resist thread, the razor brand Gillette released an ad challenging toxic masculinity, which naturally prompted misogynist shitwheels to prove the very point yet again by responding with heaping fuckloads of toxic masculinity.

I've written a whole lot in this space about the harmfulness of toxic masculinity to every gender, and how vile its defenders are — but something else occurred to me as I watched (or rather could not avoid seeing) defenders of toxic masculinity rage endlessly over days.

IT'S SO GODDAMNED BORING.

Defending one very specific and limiting and impossibly rigid notion of masculinity is like arguing that there shouldn't be greyhounds or dachshunds or keeshonds or mutts because EVERY DOG SHOULD BE A LABRADOR. AND NO HORSES, EITHER!

Why would anyone want that kind of world? And the assholes who do don't even have the sense to realize that it's their fiercely guarding an oppressively stifling set of dehumanizing rules that makes them aggressive and resentful and cruel.

The evil of banality makes them vicious.

Stop being boring. Be creative. You don't have to be a labrador! Go be a poodle!

(My apologies to labradors, who are very accepting.)

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 726

Leahy asks if William Barr will seek and follow the advice of DOJ ethics officials on whether he must recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.

Barr says that he will seek out their advice "but under the regulations, I make the decision."
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 15, 2019

[Content Note: HIV/AIDS stigma] In case you haven't heard, Barr has an utterly appalling record on HIV/AIDS dating back to the Reagan administration, including, as noted by staff at Towleroad, running "HIV prison camps" at Guantanamo Bay. Sounds like he and Mike Pence are going to get on like gangbusters.

* * *

Steve Liesman at CNBC: Trump Administration Doubles Estimate of Shutdown Cost to Economy from Original Forecast, Per Source. "The Trump administration now estimates that the cost of the government shutdown will be twice as steep as originally forecast. The original estimate that the partial shutdown would subtract 0.1 percentage point from growth every two weeks has now been doubled to a 0.1 percentage point subtraction every week, according to an official who asked not to be named. The administration had initially counted just the impact from the 800,000 federal workers not receiving their paychecks. But they now believe the impact doubles, due to greater losses from private contractors also out of work and other government spending and functions that won’t occur."

"The boost from Trump's tax cut isn’t materializing for taxpayers." No shit. https://t.co/1vasFdfCq1
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 14, 2019

Erin Banco, Asawin Suebsaeng, Betsy Woodruff, and Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: Mueller Probes an Event with Nunes, Flynn, and Foreign Officials at Trump's D.C. Hotel. "The Special Counsel's Office and federal prosecutors in Manhattan are scrutinizing a meeting involving former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, one-time National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and dozens of foreign officials, according to three sources familiar with the investigations. The breakfast event, which was first reported by The Daily Sabah, a pro-government Turkish paper, took place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. at 8.30 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2017 — two days before [Trump's] inauguration. About 60 people were invited, including diplomats from governments around the world, according to those same sources. The breakfast has come under scrutiny by federal prosecutors in Manhattan as part of their probe into whether the Trump inaugural committee misspent funds and if donors tried to buy influence in the White House."

Pamela Brown, Evan Perez, and Shimon Prokupecz at CNN: Trump's Legal Team Rebuffed Request for Mueller Interview in Recent Weeks.

Donald Trump's legal team rebuffed special counsel Robert Mueller's request in recent weeks for an in-person session with Trump to ask follow-up questions.

The request was made after Trump's team submitted written answers to a limited number of questions from Mueller's team focusing on before Trump was in office.

As Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between Trump associates and Russians winds down, an interview with the President remains an outstanding issue even as Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said an interview would happen "over my dead body." One source familiar with the matter summed it up by saying, "Mueller is not satisfied."

People familiar with the talks describe the two sides as at loggerheads, with no meaningful discussion about the issue in about five weeks.

And the Trump team appears to have hardened its position. It's told the Mueller team that prosecutors have no cause to seek follow-up questions in person after the President's team submitted written responses to questions before Thanksgiving.

In November, the President submitted written answers to questions submitted by Mueller's office that dealt largely with the allegations of Russian collusion and the time period before the inauguration.

The Trump team has all but closed the door to any further responses to Mueller, the sources say.

Guess it's time to send him a fucking subpoena then!

Olivia Gazis at CBS News: Adam Schiff Makes Specialty Hires for Reopened Russia Probe. "Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have wasted no time in beefing up the investigative staff dedicated to continuing the committee's work on its semi-dormant Russia probe, even as the committee's new membership is still taking shape. The new majority has made offers to half a dozen new staffers, CBS News has learned, and is still searching for six more. Among the latest hires are an expert in corruption and illicit finance and a former prosecutor. ...'There's a lot of work yet to be done on Russia,' a senior committee official told CBS News. 'What we're doing is we are creating a purpose-built team that will take the point on that.'" Get him.

* * *

[CN: Nativism] Tara Bahrampour at the Washington Post: Federal Judge Rules Against Trump Administration's Push for Citizenship Question on 2020 Census, Case Likely Headed to Supreme Court. "A federal judge has ruled against the Trump administration's addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In the first major ruling on the controversial question, Judge Jesse M. Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the administration to stop its plans to add the question to the survey 'without curing the legal defects' identified in his opinion. Plaintiffs hailed the decision. 'This ruling is a forceful rebuke of the Trump administration's attempt to weaponize the census for an attack on immigrant communities,' said Dale Ho, director of the Voting Rights Project at the ACLU, which was a plaintiff in the case. The Trump administration had tried several times to stop the case from going forward, including requests to the Supreme Court; the administration is likely to appeal Furman's decision in the high court."

"Contrary to recent rumors, Ivanka Trump will not be the new leader of the World Bank, according to the White House. But she will play a large role in selecting its new president." Oh. https://t.co/O6lULTXqoy
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 15, 2019

Brian Stelter at CNN Business: John Kasich Signs with CNN as Senior Political Commentator. "John Kasich's time as Ohio governor just came to an end. And his time as a CNN commentator just began. On Tuesday morning CNN announced that Kasich is the newest addition to the network's stable of commentators. He will appear as a guest across an array of CNN programs. ...Kasich's move to CNN is notable because he is one of the most prominent critics of [Donald] Trump within the Republican Party. He has declined to rule out a 2020 primary bid against Trump." 1. He's not a prominent critic of Trump; he is a prominent critic of Trump's vulgarity. He has very few, if any, policy objections. 2. CNN is acknowledging that Kasich is essentially going to get a ton of free airtime ahead of a likely presidential run, and they're giving him the job, anyway. Disgusting.

* * *

[CN: Food insecurity; nativism] Rebecca Vallas at Rewire.News: Will Trump Starve SNAP Households to Get His Wall? "The nation's largest food assistance program, SNAP helps about 38 million people in 19 million households put food on the table each month. Nearly half are children. Facing criticism that funding for SNAP was set to run out at the end of January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced last week that it had cobbled together enough money to pay February benefits. But if the shutdown drags on past that, the Trump administration doesn't appear to have a long-term plan for keeping SNAP up and running. The agency had nothing to say about March in its announcement — and apparently SNAP benefits will end altogether if the shutdown drags on."

[CN: Carcerality; violence; sexual assault] Ella Fassler at ThinkProgress: 'This Isn't Rehabilitation': Alabama Inmates Speak Out Against State's Soaring Prison Homicide Rate. "Kennedy's case isn't unique in Alabama, where the prison homicide rate is the highest in the nation at more than 34 per 100,000 prisoners. The level of violence has skyrocketed over the past 10 years, as prisons in the state come under fire for 'horrendously inadequate' care that violate the U.S. constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. ...Derrick said he wakes up every morning fearing for his life. 'This isn't rehabilitation,' he told ThinkProgress. ...'They basically let prisoners kill each other.'"

[CN: Toxic masculinity] Kate Lyons and Matthew Weaver at the Guardian: Gillette #MeToo Ad on 'Toxic Masculinity' Cuts Deep with Men's Rights Activists. "Gillette is under fire from men's rights activists and rightwing publications for a new advertisement that engages with the #MeToo movement and plays on its 30-year tagline 'The Best a Man Can Get,' asking instead: 'Is this the best a man can get?' The advertisement features news clips of reporting on the #MeToo movement, as well as images showing sexism in films, in boardrooms, and of violence between boys, with a voiceover saying: 'Bullying, the MeToo movement against sexual harassment, toxic masculinity: Is this the best a man can get?' The film has generated heated debate." Where "heated debate" actually means "misogynist shitwheels proving the very point yet again."

screenshot of Leslie and Ben at a political rally in Parks and Recreation; closed captioning shows Leslie is saying, 'You're ridiculous and men's rights is nothing.'

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

Open Wide...

Hello! This Is a Reminder That Hannah Gadsby Is Very Smart and Very Good at Her Job!

[Content Note: Toxic masculinity.]

Given the opportunity to speak at The Hollywood Reporter's 2018 Women in Entertainment gala, comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about "the good men," and not in the way that women usually feel obliged to talk about "good men" on such a platform.

You can watch or read a transcript of the entire thing (which also calls in people of other privileges) at Vulture, but here is an excerpt made of ferocity and fire:

My issue is that when good men talk about bad men, they always ignore the line in the sand — the line in the sand that is inevitably drawn whenever a good man talks about bad men: "I am a good man. Here is the line. There are all the bad men." The Jimmys and the good men won't talk about this line, but we really need to talk about this line. Let's call it Kevin. And let's never call it that again.

We need to talk about how men will draw a different line for every different occasion. They have a line for the locker room; a line for when their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters are watching; another line for when they're drunk and fratting; another line for nondisclosure; a line for friends; and a line for foes. You know why we need to talk about this line between good men and bad men? Because it's only good men who get to draw that line. And guess what? All men believe they are good.

We need to talk about this because guess what happens when only good men get to draw that line? This world — a world full of good men who do very bad things and still believe in their heart of hearts that they are good men because they have not crossed the line, because they move the line for their own good. Women should be in control of that line, no question.

That.

Open Wide...

We Resist: Day 662

A mocking tweet from the National Rifle Association has stirred many physicians to post on social media about their tragically frequent experiences treating patients in the aftermath of gun violence.

"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted on Thursday. "Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves."

The NRA was criticizing the American College of Physicians' (ACP) new position paper, in which the physicians' group outlines its public health approach to reducing deaths and injuries from firearms.

"We are not anti-gun: we are anti-bullet holes in our patients," Esther Choo, a doctor and professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, replied on Twitter. "Most upsetting, actually, is death and disability from gun violence that is unparalleled in the world."

The NRA posted its tweet just hours before a man shot and killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

"I would like to graciously extend the invitation to the author of this tweet and anyone else from the NRA to join me at the hospital the next time I care for a child who has been hurt or killed by a gun that wasn't safely stored or was an innocent bystander," tweeted Jeannie Moorjani, a pediatric doctor in Orlando.

More physicians weighed in, often using the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane.

"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane. It's my fucking highway," wrote forensic pathologist Judy Melinek, in a tweet that has gone viral.

A trauma surgeon in Utah tweeted a photo of his blue scrubs covered in blood. "Can't post a patient photo," he wrote, "so this is a selfie. This is what it looks like to #stayinmylane."

The Republican Party is a death cult, and the NRA is their primary sponsor.

* * *

[CN: Authoritarianism; video may autoplay at link] Cheyenne Haslett at ABC News: Trump, Without Evidence, Calls Florida Ballots 'Massively Infected,' Demands End to Recounts.

Donald Trump weighed in on the battle over counting ballots in Florida's Senate and governor's race Monday and, as he has done before, claimed without evidence that the integrity of the election had been compromised.

The president said the results from Election Night should be accepted and declared both Republican candidates should be declared the winners of their respective races.

He tweeted: "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!"

The president's desire to use results from Election Night, which he tweeted on Veterans Day, would disenfranchise many votes that are counted after Election Day, including voters serving overseas in the military. Overseas and military ballots can arrive until Nov. 16 and will be counted, as long as they're postmarked on or before Election Day.

Additionally, there is no evidence that ballots "showed up out of nowhere," but rather ballots continued to be counted days after the election — largely mail-in, absentee, and provisional ballots in slow counties like Broward and Palm Beach, which lean Democrat. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has no open investigations into any claims of potential fraud, ABC News confirmed Sunday afternoon.

Disenfranchising servicemembers is quite a way to celebrate Veterans' Day.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Ronald J. Hansen at the Arizona Republic: Kyrsten Sinema Widens Lead Again over Martha McSally in Pivotal Day for Arizona's U.S. Senate Race. "Democrat Kyrsten Sinema widened her lead again over Republican Martha McSally on Sunday, a pivotal day in the U.S. Senate race as the number of uncounted ballots dwindled. Sinema expanded her lead to 32,292 votes — a 1.5 percentage-point lead — as of 6:20 p.m. Sunday, according to updated counts posted by the Arizona Secretary of State. Her campaign manager predicted her victory was inevitable. The lengthy vote-count process, which has continued long after the polls closed Nov. 6, is mostly due to the need to verify signatures for voters who vote by mail. The Arizona Republic estimates about 215,000 ballots remain to be counted statewide. To remain competitive, McSally needs to outperform all of her previous showings in Maricopa County, the state's most populous area and one that Sinema has dominated."

[CN: Racism; eliminationist imagery] Michael Brice-Saddler at the Washington Post: A Senator from Mississippi Joked About 'Public Hanging'; Her Black Opponent Called It 'Reprehensible'. "Drawing cheers from a gaggle of supporters, the line appeared to be a throwaway one. 'If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row,' Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss) is heard saying in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday morning. ...In a statement Sunday, [Democrat Mike Espy] called Hyde-Smith's comments 'reprehensible.' He added, 'They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.' In her own statement Sunday, Hyde-Smith [said]: 'In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.'" WOW.

Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress: Trump Properties Made Millions off the Midterm Election. "Trump-owned and branded properties cashed in during the midterm elections, according to a CNN analysis which found that campaigns and outside groups spent at least $3.2 million at the hotels and resorts. The CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that the Republican National Committee was the biggest customer, spending at least $1.2 million at Trump-branded properties since the beginning of 2017." How nice for him.

* * *

[CN: Nativism] Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: ICE Is Imprisoning a Record 44,000 People. "The steep rise in detentions is 'indicative of the fact that the Trump administration has weaponized ICE into an entity that far exceeds the agency's original mandate and fits with the anti-immigrant actions of this administration,' Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, told The Daily Beast. 'With little accountability and oversight — and a long track record of abuse — I'm concerned that the vast majority of those in ICE custody include many innocent people who've done nothing wrong.' ...'From a moral perspective, 44,000 is an astonishing number of people to be separated from their families and communities and held within a system that DHS's own Inspector General has criticized for abusive conditions,' added the Detention Watch Network's Mary Small."

[CN: Misogyny] Jessica Glenza at the Guardian: Planned Parenthood's New President Warns of 'State of Emergency' for Women's Health.

Dr. Leana Wen takes over as president of Planned Parenthood — America's biggest, best-funded, and most vilified reproductive healthcare institution — at a time of unprecedented attacks on the organization's values and work.

Last week, Alabama voters passed a fetal rights law; the Trump administration finalized rules to allow employers to opt out of health insurance requirements to provide birth control; and liberal women collectively held their breath as one of their champions — 85-year-old supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leader of the court's liberal wing — was hospitalized with three cracked ribs.

To all this, Wen's answer is to play offense.

"There is huge unmet need across our country, and it is our moral imperative to provide care for all those who need us," Wen said, with the torch-carrying conviction of an emergency room physician who has seen too much in too little time. "I plan to expand our services, and expand our reach."

..."There is no question we are in a state of emergency for women's health," said Wen. When a society "treats one type of healthcare differently than everyone else, that's when we get to where we are, which is the biggest healthcare crisis of our time."

[CN: Authoritarianism] Matt Shuham at TPM: Conway on Doctored Video White House Released: 'That's Not Altered; That's Sped Up'. "White House counselor Kellyanne Conway asserted Sunday that a 'sped-up' video is not the same as an 'altered' video, while defending the White House's use of an altered video of a hand motion made by CNN reporter Jim Acosta in order to justify suspending his press pass. 'That's not altered; that's sped up,' Conway told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. 'They do it all the time in sports to see if there's actually a first down or a touchdown. So I have to disagree with the, I think, overwrought description of this video being doctored as if we put somebody else's arm in there,' she added."

Staff at the Daily Beast: North Korea 'Continuing Missile Program at 16 Secret Sites,' Satellite Images Show. "North Korea is carrying on with its ballistic missile program at 16 secret facilities, new satellite images have revealed, undermining [Donald] Trump's boasts that he persuaded the hermit kingdom to abandon its weapons production and work toward denuclearization. The images, reported by The New York Times, show North Korea is continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen launching sites. The development suggests North Korea's promise to shut down one major test site was an attempted deception. The secret missile bases were identified in a study to be published Monday by the Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank."

[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Boston Gay Bars Receive Threatening Phone Calls. "At least two Boston gay bars received threatening phone calls around the same time on consecutive nights over the weekend, according to police. What the threats were was not disclosed. dbar in Dorchester received a threatening call on Friday night, and Alley Bar in downtown Boston received a similar call on Saturday. ...The Boston Globe reported on the threat to Alley Bar: 'Rocco LaMonica, the bar's manager on duty, said a doorman answered the bar's phone and heard the threats. LaMonica would not comment on what happened during the call but said it 'was threatening enough that we needed to call the police.' 'We're not going to stand back for anybody,' LaMonica said. 'You can't take a chance now.''"

Martin Rosenbaum at BBC News: Pseudonyms to Protect Authors of Controversial Articles. "Academics who are frightened to explore controversial topics, in case it provokes a backlash, will soon have a safer route to publish such work. An international group of university researchers is planning a new journal which will allow articles on sensitive debates to be written under pseudonyms. They feel free intellectual discussion on tough issues is being hampered by a culture of fear and self-censorship. The Journal of Controversial Ideas will be launched early next year." Yeah, this is going to be bad.

[CN: Rape culture; clergy sex abuse] David McFadden and David Crary at the AP: Bishops Will Delay Votes on Steps to Combat Sex Abuse Crisis. "In an abrupt change of plans, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the group's national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay for at least several months any votes on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis that is rocking the church. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, said the delay was requested by the Vatican, which asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February." The literal opposite of urgency. Fucking disgusting.

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

Open Wide...

Not-Breaking News: Tucker Carlson Is a Dirtbag

We Resist: Day 769

Another Sexual Assault Allegation Against Trump

U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Arrested After Planning Mass Violence

We Resist: Day 743

We Resist: Day 739

We Resist: Day 733

An Observation About Toxic Masculinity

We Resist: Day 726

Hello! This Is a Reminder That Hannah Gadsby Is Very Smart and Very Good at Her Job!

We Resist: Day 662

Welcome to Shakesville

Search This Blog

Archives

Recent Comments

Donate

Twitter Updates

Credits and Stuff