Showing posts with label worker rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label worker rights. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 907

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, July 15, 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 last week and earlier today by me: The Trump Revisionism Begins and Recommended Reading and Trump Is a F#@king Racist, Part One Zillion in an Endless Series and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: Racism; nativism; abuse. Covers entire section.]

Martin Pengelly and Jamiles Lartey at the Guardian: Republicans Silent as Trump Renews Racist Attack on Congresswomen.
In the face of international condemnation — but very little comment from his own party — Donald Trump returned to the offensive against four Democratic congresswoman he targeted with racial invective on Sunday.

True to provocative form, the president accused the Democrats of "spewing" "racist hatred" — precisely the offence of which he has been widely accused.

In a tweet early on Monday, the president wrote: "When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel, and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said. So many people are angry at them [and] their horrible [and] disgusting actions!"

He added: "If Democrats want to unite around the foul language [and] racist hatred spewed from the mouths and actions of these very unpopular [and] unrepresentative Congresswomen, it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I can tell you that they have made Israel feel abandoned by the U.S."

The tweets reflected others Trump sent late on Sunday amid the storm created by his initial demand that the unnamed congresswomen should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime[-]infested places from which they came."
It's quite honestly not even worth remarking upon that his party refuses to condemn him. They aren't merely silent; many of them are openly defending him.


Senator Lindsey Graham in particular has been eagerly defending Trump's nativist malice. Kevin Fitzpatrick at Vanity Fair: Lindsey Graham: "I Don't Care" If Migrants "Stay in These Facilities for 400 Days."
Speaking with Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network, Senator Lindsey Graham vehemently disagreed with humanitarian concerns raised by Vice President Mike Pence's recent tour of a migrant detention facility in Texas. "I don't care if they have to stay in these facilities for 400 days, we're not going to let those men go that I saw," said Graham. "It would be dangerous."

Graham was referring to now-viral footage of Pence's tour, which saw the vice president blithely overlooking a fenced room filled to capacity with migrants protesting unsanitary conditions. Pence subsequently claimed over Twitter that the men "were in a temporary holding area because Democrats in Congress have refused to fund additional bed space," and derided CNN for allegedly "ignoring the excellent care being provided to families and children" in a separate facility.
This is what both Graham and Pence are defending:


That is an image of a concentration camp.

Garrett M. Graff at Politico: The Border Patrol Hits a Breaking Point. "The problems underlying CPB's almost theatrical failures trace all the way back to its creation amid the post-9/11 reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security and have been exacerbated by a longstanding failure of leadership that extends up to both Congress and the White House and has lasted through three administrations. Both the modern Border Patrol and its parent CBP have been plagued by poor leadership and management at all levels, and by recruiting challenges that have left them with a subpar, overstressed workforce and a long-running toxic culture." This is a must-read.


Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Files Regulation That Would All but End Asylum for Non-Mexican Migrants.
The Trump administration published an interim final rule on the federal register Monday further that effectively ends asylum protections for Central American migrants. Under the rule, migrants — including unaccompanied minors — who travel through Mexico without first applying for protection in a “safe third country” are ineligible for asylum in the United States.

The majority of people who claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border are from Central American countries in its Northern Triangle region, including Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. Migrants from these countries routinely flee gangs, political unrest, and domestic violence. Traveling by foot or bus through Mexico is the only viable way they can receive asylum protections in the United States.

"It would end asylum for Central Americans," Ur Jaddou, former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told Buzzfeed News last month, when the rule was under consideration. It's not just Central Americans who will be impacted by this new rule, so too will the thousands of migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, and countries in Africa who apply for asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Goddammit.


Meanwhile, Trump is still thrashing over having been thwarted (for now) from including a nativist citizenship question on the census. Hans Nichols, Kayla Tausche, and Hallie Jackson at NBC News: Trump Weighs Ousting Commerce Chief Wilbur Ross After Census Defeat. "Donald Trump has told aides and allies that he is considering removing Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after a stinging Supreme Court defeat on adding a citizenship question to the census, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations. ...[S]ome White House officials expect Ross to be the next Cabinet secretary to depart, possibly as soon as this summer, according to advisers and officials."

* * *

Unlike Ross, Trump is still keen on Mick Mulvaney, to our lasting misfortune. Seung Min Kim, Lisa Rein, Josh Dawsey, and Erica Werner at the Washington Post: 'His Own Fiefdom': Mulvaney Builds 'an Empire for the Right Wing' as Trump's Chief of Staff. "[Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is] a former tea party lawmaker who has built what one senior administration official called 'his own fiefdom' centered on pushing conservative policies — while mostly steering clear of the Trump-related pitfalls that tripped up his predecessors by employing a 'Let Trump be Trump' ethos. ...Mulvaney has focused much of his energy on creating a new White House power center revolving around the long-dormant Domestic Policy Council and encompassing broad swaths of the administration. One White House official described Mulvaney as 'building an empire for the right wing.'" Shiver.

[CN: War on agency; misogyny] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire.News: Republicans Get Another Win in Their Fight to Gut Title X. "The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled the Trump administration's domestic 'gag rule,' which bans federal family planning dollars from going to health-care providers who perform abortions or refer patients for abortion services, can take effect everywhere but the state of Maryland. The ruling jeopardizes comprehensive reproductive health-care access for nearly 4 million people. 'This is devastating news for the millions of people who rely on Title X for cancer screenings, HIV tests, affordable birth control, and other critical primary and preventive care,' Dr. Leana Wen, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's president and CEO, said in a statement following the ruling."

[CN: Gun violence] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Tougher Gun Laws Mean Fewer U.S. Kids Die, Study Shows. "A study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics shows that children who live in states with strict firearms laws are less likely to die from gun violence than those in states with more lax restrictions. The researchers found that the stricter the state's gun laws, the lower the risk of children dying." Unfortunately, the federal government and most state governments are currently in the stranglehold of the death cult known as the Republican Party.

Nicole Lee at Engadget: The Amazon Prime Day Strike Could Be a Turning Point for Workers' Rights. "Today, Amazon will start its fifth annual Prime Day, which has been expanded to 48 hours this year. Designed to enlist (and keep) Prime members, it is the company's biggest shopping event of the year — on the same level as Black Friday — with extensive discounts and deals across the entire site. At a time when Amazon would likely prefer that all its employees hunker down to meet increased demand, a group of warehouse workers in Shakopee, Minnesota are going on strike. It isn't the first time the workers in Shakopee have raised their concerns. But it will be the first major work stoppage event for Amazon in the U.S. and could be a harbinger of things to come."


[CN: Climate change; flooding; displacement] Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Water on Water on Water: Why Tropical Storm Barry Is Already Devastating Louisiana. "With half-a-foot of rain already unleashed on New Orleans, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, warning, 'No one should take this storm lightly.' As Barry moves inland, it's expected to impact other areas in Louisiana such as Baton Rouge and Shreveport, as well as cities in Alabama and Mississippi. But with the storm only expected to become a hurricane on Saturday, why is it already so destructive? It has a lot to do with climate change, and specifically, with just how wet the past year has been for the United States." That item is a couple of days old now, but water/flooding still remains the greatest threat.

[CN: Climate change; flooding; displacement; death] Staff at the BBC: Monsoon Floods Displace Millions in India. "More than three million people have been displaced across north and north-eastern India amid monsoon rain that has cost lives and destroyed homes. Storms and floods have ripped through areas of Nepal, Bangladesh, and India, killing more than 130 people. At least 67 people lost their lives in Nepal in torrential rains, police there said on Monday. Thirty people were reported missing while 38 were injured, Nepalese police added. Heavy rains also caused deaths in Bangladesh, including in overcrowded Rohingya refugee camps. More bad weather is expected in the coming days."

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

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We Resist: Day 869

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, June 07, 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 Administration to Open Mass Detention Facility for Migrant Children in Texas and Primarily Speaking.

Let's start with a whole bunch of GOOD resistance news today!

Auditi Guha at Rewire.News: There's a New Standard for Paid Family Leave Policy in the United States. "Starting in July 2021, workers in Connecticut can get up to 12 weeks off to care for themselves, their family, or a loved one. ...It has the most generous wage-replacement policy and would cover 95 percent of low-wage workers' pay, up to $900 a week for up to 12 weeks, and includes a broad definition of a loved one covered under the policy, including siblings, grandparents, or anyone 'equivalent of a family member,' even if the person is not of blood relation. This is a boon for single parents and LGBTQ people, who often have non-traditional support networks, advocates say." Yay!

Jessica Glenza at the Guardian: Why the Guardian Is Changing the Language It Uses to Describe Abortion Bans. "The Guardian will no longer use the term 'heartbeat bill' in reference to the restrictive abortion bans that are moving through state legislatures in the U.S. ...'We want to avoid medically inaccurate, misleading language when covering women's reproductive rights,' the Guardian's U.S. editor-in-chief, John Mulholland, said. 'These are arbitrary bans that don't reflect fetal development — and the language around them is often motivated by politics, not science.' The Guardian style guide already encourages editors to use 'anti-abortion' over 'pro-life' for clarity, and 'pro-choice' over 'pro-abortion.'" Terrific!

Kate Riga at TPM: Nadler Pushes Impeachment to Centralize Investigations into Trump. "Nadler crafted his pitch around two central points. One, that impeachment proceedings would centralize the investigations into [Donald] Trump and his administration currently sprawled across multiple committees, keeping it all contained within Judiciary. Second, Nadler argued that, procedurally, it's easy to get information and ask questions during impeachment proceedings than in regular House committee sessions." Excellent arguments. Keep pushing, Jerry!

And that's not all he's up to:


[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Ryan J. Reilly at the Huffington Post: House Democrats to Make It Easier to Find Trump Aides in Contempt, Bring Them to Court. "House Democrats are set to vote next week on a resolution that would make it easier for the House of Representatives to drag members of the Trump administration to court ― and to find them in contempt ― for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. The resolution will also declare Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt of Congress, and authorize the civil enforcement of subpoenas in federal court. The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the resolution on Monday evening, and the full House could take it up on Tuesday."

Erin Banco and Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: House Dems Preparing Investigation of Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine Shenanigans. "Top congressional Democrats are actively discussing opening a probe into Rudy Giuliani for his overseas political and consulting work, including a recent attempt to uncover dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a source with direct knowledge tells The Daily Beast. The contours of a potential probe are still under consideration. But it would likely look at whether Giuliani's relationships with foreign politicos interfered or intersected with American foreign-policy efforts." (Spoiler Alert: They did!)

We all know that the Trump Regime is going to continue ignoring Democrats' authority, but I am nonetheless very glad that the Democrats continue to try to hold them accountable.

* * *

And now onto the not-good news...

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Lee Moran at the Huffington Post: Donald Trump Uses D-Day Ceremony Interview to Rant About Nancy Pelosi. "With the graves of U.S. troops who sacrificed their lives in World War II behind him, [Donald] Trump gave an interview to Fox News and tore into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 'I think she's a disgrace,' Trump told Laura Ingraham in a sit-down pre-recorded at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. 'I actually don't think she's a talented person. I've tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done,' Trump added. 'She's incapable of doing deals; she's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.'" Fucking hell.

On Twitter, someone suggested that those troops died in part so that Trump would have the freedom to say even horrible things near their graves, but, as I noted in reply: Trump is not a private citizen. As president, he is both the head of government and the head of state. The rules and norms about what he can/should say are very different, and free speech laws do not apply.


Diana Ohlbaum and Rachel Stohl at Just Security: An 'Emergency' Arms Deal: Will Congress Acquiesce in Another Blow to Its Authority? "What exactly has changed to warrant an emergency declaration for additional arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE? It is not as if the Trump administration has been unable to make arms deals with the Middle East up until now. Since taking office, the Trump administration has approved more than $20 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and approximately $5 billion worth of sales to the UAE."


Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Two Cases Show the Astounding Breadth of the Supreme Court's War on Democracy. "These two cases, Kisor v. Wilkie and Gundy v. United States, are early stages of a much broader effort to transfer power from the executive branch — whose leader is elected, at least most of the time — to a judiciary that is unaccountable to voters and that is now controlled by the Republican Party. It is unclear whether the Supreme Court's right flank has the votes it needs to prevail in both cases, but both are bellwethers for an agenda that could leave the next Democratic president powerless to govern."

[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent; sexual assault; covers next two paragraphs] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Missouri Forcing Women to Have Pelvic Exams 72 Hours Before Abortions, Says Doctor. "Missouri state officials are forcing physicians to perform pelvic exams on women ahead of abortions, according to a doctor who works at the last abortion clinic left in the state. David Eisenberg told the Los Angeles Times that, since the state's governor signed a law banning abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, he's been forced to carry out the exams. ...'What I realized was I effectively have become an instrument of state abuse of power,' said Eisenberg. 'As a licensed physician, I am compelled by the state of Missouri to put my fingers in a woman's vagina when it's not medically necessary.'"

As I have noted previously, regarding state laws mandating medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound probes, the state is victimizing abortion providers by coercing them into being their tools of sexual violence, and I am glad that Dr. Eisenberg is stating this plainly and also profoundly upset that he is being put in that position, along with abortion providers all over the country obliged to perform similarly invasive procedures with no purpose but to deter women from seeking abortions.

[CN: Queer hatred; white supremacy] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: The Organizers Behind Boston's Straight Pride Parade Should Concern You. "The three men organizing the parade, planned for August 31 [in Boston], are John Hugo, Mark Sahady, and Chris Bartley, who is called the 'gay ambassador' on the event website. Sahady has ties to groups like the Proud Boys, the New Hampshire American Guard, and the Massachusetts Patriot Front. Hugo unsuccessfully ran for the Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District in 2018 with support and endorsement from Resist Marxism, a group that is considered to be 'alt-lite' and holds anti-Semitic, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ views."

[CN: Terrorism]


Jeff Cox at CNBC: Jobs Creation Slows Dramatically with Payrolls Up Just 75,000 in May, Much Worse Than Expected. "Job creation decelerated strongly in May, with nonfarm payrolls up by just 75,000 even as the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low, the Labor Department reported Friday. The decline was the second in four months that payrolls increased by less than 100,000 as the labor market continues to show signs of weakening. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 180,000. In addition to the weak total for May, the previous two months' reports saw substantial downward revisions. March's count fell from 189,000 to 153,000 and the April total was taken down to 224,000 from 263,000, for a total reduction of 75,000 jobs."

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

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We Resist: Day 763

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, February 21, 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: Mueller Reportedly Close to Completing His Investigation and U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Arrested After Planning Mass Violence.

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

Let us start once again with some good resistance news:


Note: The reason it wasn't sooner is because the House was in recess last week.

Here is where I express once more how deeply fucking glad I am that Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House again. THANK YOU, MADAM SPEAKER.

* * *

Nina dos Santos at CNN: Senate Investigators Pursue Moscow-Based Former Trump Associate.
Senate investigators want to question a Moscow-based American businessman with longstanding ties to [Donald] Trump after witnesses told them he could shed light on the President's commercial and personal activities in Russia dating back to the 1990s, multiple sources have told CNN.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, which is probing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, has been keen to speak with David Geovanis for several months, the sources say.

Geovanis helped organize a 1996 trip to Moscow by Trump, who was in the early stages of pursuing what would become a long-held goal of building a Trump Tower in the Russian capital, according to multiple media reports at the time.

Years later, Geovanis worked for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, whose ties to Trump's 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort have also been of interest to investigators.
Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: Trump White House Is Forcing Interns to Sign NDAs and Threatening Them with Financial Ruin. "Upon orientation, the interns signed their very own non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), with the envoy of the counsel's office warning them that a breach of the NDA — blabbing to the media, for instance — could result in legal, and thus financial, consequences for them. Interns were also told that they would not receive their own copies, these sources said. This was all a standard facet of the Trump intern orientation process, billed as an 'ethics training' — underscored by implicit legal threats from [Donald] Trump's in-house lawyers."

Brianna Sacks and Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed: Trump Said He Ordered His Administration to Withhold Wildfire Aid to California; FEMA Says He Never Did. "Although [Donald] Trump tweeted that he had ordered his administration to cut off disaster aid to wildfire victims in California, federal officials confirmed on Wednesday that they never received any such directive. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which helps survivors of national disasters recover, told BuzzFeed News for the first time that Trump never issued an order to stop sending money to California. 'We never got any such directive,' Brandi Richard, a FEMA spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News. 'That's evidenced by the fact that work is still being done and we continue to support wildfire survivors across the state.'"

Tom McKay at Earther: Trump Wants Guy Who Compared Climate Science to the Holocaust to Head Climate Panel. "Donald Trump's administration is assembling a panel to determine whether climate change — which scientific experts broadly agree poses an existential threat to the safety and well-being of the world's population and is caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases — is really a threat to national security. ...According to the Post, a draft executive order on the proposed Presidential Committee on Climate Security says that it will be headed National Security Council senior director and physics professor William Happer, who thinks rising levels of atmospheric CO2 will be good for humans."


[Content Note: Nativism] Daniella Silva at NBC News: Migrant Families Still Being Separated at the Border, Report from Texas Group Says.
Migrant families are still being separated by the Trump administration, sometimes over "uncorroborated allegations" of crimes, according to a report published Thursday by a Texas civil rights group.

"Family separations are still very much happening in the southern border, they're still being torn apart by the U.S. government," Efrén Olivares, director of racial and economic justice at the Texas Civil Rights Project, told NBC News.

While the separations were not happening at the same scale as when the Trump administration announced the "zero tolerance" policy last spring, some occurred under troubling circumstances, Olivares said. The report, which looked at cases between June 22 through Dec. 17 in McAllen, Texas, comes roughly eight months since the government formally ended the policy.

The report said it found 38 cases of parents and legal guardians separated from their children.

One of those cases involved Mr. Perez-Domingo, an indigenous migrant father from Guatemala whose primary language is Mam, according to the report. Perez-Domingo was separated from his 2-year-old daughter in July after being accused by Customs and Border Protection of not being the girl's biological father and providing a fraudulent birth certificate, according to the report. He was not given an interpreter during his interview.

The civil rights group said it investigated the incident and discovered the birth certificate was authentic and a DNA test determined Perez-Domingo was the child's father. They were reunited in August.

"The lack of assistance of translators, in combination with aggressive questioning by the CBP agent, resulted in severe discrimination and traumatic consequences for this indigenous family," the report says, adding, had the group "not interviewed this father early in the process, it is highly likely that Mr. Perez-Domingo would have been deported without his daughter, and his child unlawfully orphaned in the United States."
[CN: Nativism; worker intimidation] Shani Saxon at Colorlines: Immigrant Teachers in Denver Threatened with Deportation for Striking. "As the wave of teacher strikes continues across the United States, immigrant educators in Denver, Colorado, have been uniquely targeted. According to the Guardian, public school officials sent letters in January warning them that they could possibly lose their visas if they decided to join the picket line. ...Lily Eskelsen García, the first Latina president of the National Education Association, spoke to the Guardian about the culture of intimidation immigrant educators endure on a regular basis. 'Things like that happen all the time,' García says. 'And it's reprehensible. That's not good faith bargaining — that is an intimidation tactic.'"

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: No End in Sight for 'Retaliatory Immigration Raids' in North Carolina. "In the span of nine days, North Carolina has seen a barrage of immigration enforcement, reportedly in response to new sheriffs' 'lack of cooperation' with the U.S. government. The ramped-up enforcement appeared to begin with a workplace raid in Sanford on February 5, and continued Wednesday in the small town of Hendersonville, where advocates say federal immigration authorities posed as day laborers to detain undocumented immigrants. ...Advocates in North Carolina told Rewire.News they believe ICE may be using new tactics to detain and deport migrants, as immigrant communities are increasingly utilizing social media to alert others of ICE enforcement operations, sightings, and checkpoints in their area."

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

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We Resist: Day 762

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, February 20, 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: Putin Openly Threatens U.S.; Trump Is Silent and The Political Press Vows to Be Hot Garbage in 2020.

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

Let's start with some good news!

Alan Pyke at ThinkProgress: Elizabeth Warren's Radical Universal Child Care Idea Aims to Close the Chasm Between Rich and Poor. "The Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act would fund a gigantic new network of federally funded but locally managed day-care centers, preschools, and other child care facilities. All children would be welcome — and families earning 200 percent of the federal poverty level or less would pay zero dollars for their kids to participate. Above that earning level, families would pay some share of the cost, but even the wealthiest families would have their fees capped at 7 percent of their income."

This may or may not be good news, depending on your feelings about this dude... Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Jay Inslee, Potential 2020 Contender, on Climate: 'We Need to Blow the Bugle'. "Jay Inslee, the gravel-voiced governor of Washington, is poised to enter the throng of Democrats vying to dislodge Donald Trump as president in the 2020 election. He's made some exploratory moves, visiting Nevada and New Hampshire, and said a definitive decision on running will be taken in 'weeks.' ...Climate change will be the cudgel that Inslee will use in the ballot box fight, an issue he considers perniciously overlooked by America's leading political figures even as the U.S. is tormented by more powerful hurricanes, scorching wildfires, and submerged coastlines. 'We need a fundamental shift in our national priorities. There's too much to risk to belittle climate change,' Inslee said."

And this is just straight-up good news (and let us hope this quickly proliferates beyond NYC). Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: New York City Says Businesses Can't Discriminate Based on Hair. "Although it is often touted as one of the world's most liberal places, New York City can be quite regressive when it comes to Black hair. But now, in response to multiple complaints from women who faced loss of employment because of their kinky strands, the New York City Commission on Human Rights has taken action. New guidelines not only classify texture-based prejudice as racial discrimination — but they also make employers liable for up to a quarter of a million dollars in penalties."

* * *

Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post: Trump Grows Frustrated with Coats, Leading Some to Fear He Might Be Fired. "Trump has grown increasingly disenchanted with Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, who has served as the nation's top intelligence official for nearly two years, leading some administration officials to worry he will soon be dismissed, according to people familiar with the matter. The president has never seen Coats as a close or trusted adviser, the people said, but he has become more frustrated with him in recent weeks over public statements that Trump sees as undercutting his policy goals, particularly with respect to reaching a disarmament agreement with North Korea." Fire him, don't fire him, who cares. The person who needs to be removed is Donald Trump. Followed closely by Mike Pence.


Philip Rucker and Matt Zapotosky at the Washington Post: 'Enjoy Your Life': Trump Puts New Attorney General in an Awkward Position from the Start. "On William P. Barr's first full day as attorney general, [Donald] Trump singled him out during remarks in the Rose Garden after signing a national emergency declaration aimed at building his long-promised border wall. 'I want to wish our attorney general great luck and speed, and enjoy your life. Bill, good luck,' Trump told him at Friday's ceremony, drawing light laughter from others in attendance, who surely remembered the many ways the president tormented Barr's predecessor, Jeff Sessions. In the days that followed, Trump sent more than a dozen messages to his 58 million Twitter followers reviving his critiques of the Justice Department, which Barr now helms, or the officials who came before him." He knew what he was signing up for.

[Content Note: Homophobia; racism] Matthew Rodriguez at Out: Trump's Plan to Decriminalize Homosexuality Is an Old Racist Tactic.
The Trump administration is set to launch a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality in dozens of nations where anti-gay laws are still on the books, NBC News reported Monday. While on its surface, the move looks like an atypically benevolent decision by the Trump administration, the details of the campaign belie a different story. Rather than actually being about helping queer people around the world, the campaign looks more like another instance of the right using queer people as a pawn to amass power and enact its own agenda.

...The most telling detail of NBC News' report is that his plan centers homophobic violence in Iran, who NBC News calls the administration's "top geopolitical foe." The plan has reportedly been spearheaded by the U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, who is also the administration's top-ranked gay official, in response to news that a young gay man was hanged in Iran recently.

...Grennell's sudden interest in Iran's anti-gay laws is strikingly similar to Trump's rhetoric after the 2016 Pulse massacre in Orlando, Florida. After the deadly shooting, Trump used the 49 deaths as a way to galvanize support for an anti-Muslim agenda rather than find a way to support LGBTQ+ people. In pushing for immigration restrictions and a Muslim ban, Trump argued, he was the true pro-LGBTQ+ candidate. Rather than honor those who died, Trump used the tragedy as a way to stoke fear among the American people, and Grennell is taking similar actions with Iran — trying to reach an economic goal by painting the administration's opponent as anti-gay.

...The truth is, this is part of an old colonialist handbook. In her essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak coined the term "White men saving brown women from brown men" to describe the racist, paternalistic process by which colonizing powers would decry the way men in power treated oppressed groups, like women, to justify attacking them. Spivak was referencing the British colonial agenda in India. But Grennell's attack might be a case of white men trying to save brown gay men from brown straight men, to the same end.

There are several signs that this decision is denoted in a colonial sense of paternalism rather than any true altruism. According to the report, the decriminalization campaign is set to begin in Berlin where LGBTQ+ activists from across Europe will meet to hatch a plan that is "mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean."

That sentence alone should set off several alarm bells. First of all, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean are huge geopolitical entities. Attitudes toward gay people differ greatly among countries and regions within those entities and attempting to gather a room of European activists on how to deal with queer issues in those regions is the definition of paternalism.
Fucking hell.

* * *

Natasha Korecki at Politico: 'Sustained and Ongoing' Disinformation Assault Targets Dem Presidential Candidates. "A wide-ranging disinformation campaign aimed at Democratic 2020 candidates is already underway on social media, with signs that foreign state actors are driving at least some of the activity. ...A Politico review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms, as well as interviews with data scientists and digital campaign strategists, suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation, and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary."

Evan Halper at the LA Times: Your Phone and TV Are Tracking You, and Political Campaigns Are Listening In. "Welcome to the new frontier of campaign tech — a loosely regulated world in which simply downloading a weather app or game, connecting to Wi-Fi at a coffee shop, or powering up a home router can allow a data broker to monitor your movements with ease, then compile the location information and sell it to a political candidate who can use it to surround you with messages. ...[I]f you have been to a political rally, a town hall, or just fit a demographic a campaign is after, chances are good your movements are being tracked with unnerving accuracy by data vendors on the payroll of campaigns."

Nick Bastone at Business Insider: Google Says the Built-In Microphone It Never Told Nest Users About Was 'Never Supposed to Be a Secret'. "In early February, Google announced that its home security and alarm system Nest Secure would be getting an update. Users, the company said, could now enable its virtual-assistant technology, Google Assistant. The problem: Nest users didn't know a microphone existed on their security device to begin with. The existence of a microphone on the Nest Guard, which is the alarm, keypad, and motion-sensor component in the Nest Secure offering, was never disclosed in any of the product material for the device. On Tuesday, a Google representative told Business Insider the company had made an 'error.'"

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We Resist: Day 749

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, February 07, 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: The 2020 Election Is Going to Be So Ugly and The Trump Regime Beats the Drums on Venezuela. And ICYMI late yesterday: Virginia Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General Must All Resign.

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

Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco at the Daily Beast: Paul Erickson, Russian Agent Maria Butina's Boyfriend, Indicted for Fraud. "Paul Erickson, the American political operative and boyfriend of admitted Russian agent Maria Butina, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in South Dakota on charges of wire fraud and money laundering. The U.S. attorney for the district of South Dakota is handling the prosecution, which is separate from the case that was lodged against Butina in Washington, D.C. Erickson, 56, was arrested on Tuesday and entered a plea of not guilty at an arraignment, according to the court filings." The charges stem from various schemes in which Erickson engaged to defraud elderly and disabled people.

[Content Note: Nativism; border militarization; video may autoplay at link] Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee at NBC News: Pentagon Moving 250 Active-Duty Troops to Eagle Pass, Texas, Citing Migrant Caravan. "The Pentagon is moving 250 active duty troops to the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, in advance of the arrival of a new caravan of migrants, according to a statement Wednesday by Defense Department spokesperson Capt. Bill Speaks. The move reflects [Donald] Trump's mention of a 'human wall,' but comes amid increasing frustration among Pentagon leaders with the continued border requests from Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Under the new directive, the troops will be moved from Arizona to Texas and — in a sign of the Pentagon's frustrations — will not represent an increase in the overall number of U.S. troops assigned to the border mission." Yikes.

Joshua Eaton at ThinkProgress: Trump Forges Ahead with Plans for North Korea Summit, Defying His Security Advisers. "Donald Trump announced plans for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as experts — including his own military and security advisers — warned that the upcoming meeting is likely to yield as few tangible results as the first one. ...'Kim Jong-un has to be extremely pleased that he's been able to get legitimacy on an international front, and has done virtually nothing to change his behavior within his own country,' Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN on Wednesday. 'It is baffling, again, as to what the president expects to achieve by a second summit.'" Regional destabilization and the ability to keep making absurd claims like how he averted war with North Korea, which he said in his SOTU and his dipshit cultists actually believe.

[CN: Sexual violence] Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald: Justice Department Opens Probe into Jeffrey Epstein Plea Deal. "The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta's role in negotiating a controversial plea deal with a wealthy New York investor accused of molesting more than 100 underage girls in Palm Beach. The probe is in response to a request by Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was critical of the case following a series of stories in the Miami Herald. The Herald articles detailed how Acosta, then the U.S. attorney for Southern Florida, and other DOJ attorneys worked hand-in-hand with defense lawyers to cut a lenient plea deal with multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2008."

[CN: Guns] Josh Lederman at NBC News: New Trump Rules Make It Easier for U.S. Gun Makers to Sell Overseas. "Semi-automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and even some grenades will become easier for U.S. weapons manufacturers to export overseas under new rules being put in place by the Trump administration and obtained by NBC News. Under the new rules, set to take effect in just under a month, gun makers will no longer need licenses from the State Department to sell dozens of types of weapons to other countries, including the popular AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle that's been employed in many of America's worst mass shootings. Instead, sellers will need only a no-fee license from the Commerce Department, which has a less onerous licensing process and a smaller global footprint, making it harder to track how the weapons are ultimately used overseas."

[CN: Worker exploitation] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: Trump's Administration Considers Rule That Would Make It Easier for Businesses to Exploit Workers. "Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which the Labor Department administers and enforces, there is an economic realities test that asks how dependent someone is on the employer in question. The more dependent the person is, the more likely that person is an employee and not an independent contractor. In January, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the transportation service SuperShuttle was correct to call its airport van drivers contractors instead of employees. The NLRB said it was considered entrepreneurial opportunity since workers set their own schedules and have their own work vans. [Paul Secunda, professor of law at Marquette University] said the ruling was a 'radical departure' from the common law definition of employee that has been used under the NLRA for decades."

[CN: Authoritarianism]


So, presumably, they're giving this authoritarian shit a tryout in Tennessee to force a SCOTUS ruling, in the hopes of getting it through on the federal level. JFC.

[CN: Predatory lending] Ken Sweet at the AP/Star Tribune: Financial Watchdog to Gut Most of Its Payday Lending Rules. "The nation's federal financial watchdog said Wednesday that it plans to abolish most of its critical consumer protections governing payday lenders. The move is a major win for the payday lending industry, which argued the government's regulations could kill off a large chunk of its business. It's also a big loss for consumer groups, who say payday lenders exploit the poor and disadvantaged with loans that have annual interest rates as much as 400 percent."

[CN: Descriptions of self-harm at link; institutional neglect of disabled people] Emily Wax-Thibodeaux at the Washington Post: The Parking Lot Suicides.
A federal investigation into Miller's death found that the Minneapolis VA made multiple errors: Not scheduling a follow-up appointment, failing to communicate with his family about the treatment plan, and inadequately assessing his access to firearms. Several days after his death, Miller's parents received a package from the Department of Veterans Affairs — bottles of antidepressants and sleep aids prescribed to Miller.

His death is among 19 suicides that occurred on VA campuses from October 2017 to November 2018, seven of them in parking lots, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. While studies show that every suicide is highly complex — influenced by genetics, financial uncertainty, relationship loss, and other factors — mental-health experts worry that veterans taking their lives on VA property has become a desperate form of protest against a system that some veterans feel hasn't helped them.

...Sixty-two percent of veterans, or 9 million people, depend on VA's vast hospital system, but accessing it can require navigating a frustrating bureaucracy. Veterans sometimes must prove that their injuries are connected to their service, which can require a lot of paperwork and appeals.

Veterans who take their own lives on VA grounds often intend to send a message, said Eric Caine, director of the Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention at the University of Rochester.

"These suicides are sentinel events," Caine said. "It's very important for the VA to recognize that the place of a suicide can have great meaning. There is a real moral imperative and invitation here to take a close inspection of the quality of services at the facility level."
[CN: Anti-choicery; abortion stigma] T.S. Mendola at Rewire.News: When Your President Calls You a Murderer. "It's a hell of a thing to hear your president call you a murderer. That's not quite the whole picture, though, of what [Donald] Trump did to later abortion patients during the State of the Union speech Tuesday night. ...It wasn't an accident that his plea for the control — the security — of the nation's wombs got shoved up next to the legacy of the military-industrial complex. We are mere ciphers of mothers, of women, of humans to be secured in the fight for an 'America First' jingoism that has members of Congress chanting 'USA! USA! USA!' like deluded fascist schoolboys, stars in their eyes."

[CN: Police brutality; white supremacy] Shani Saxon at Colorlines: Protests Erupt After the Alabama Cop Who Fatally Shot Emantic Bradford Jr. Isn't Charged.
An unidentified police office in Hoover, Alabama, won't face charges in the shooting death of a 21-year-old Black man, according to a report released by State Attorney General Steve Marshall on Tuesday (February 5).

"The Hoover police officer who shot and killed Emantic 'E.J.' Bradford Jr. at the Riverchase Galleria mall on November 22, 2018, did not commit a crime under Alabama law and thus will not be criminally charged for his actions," the document reads.

As Colorlines previously reported, the incident started when two men began fighting inside Birmingham's Riverchase Galleria Mall last year on Thanksgiving night (November 22). One man shot the other twice, which caused chaos as shoppers ran for their lives. During the melee, an off-duty officer shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. According to his family, Bradford stood outside the mall and pulled out his gun in an attempt to protect frightened customers when he was killed.

The attorney general's report says the officer "identified E.J. Bradford as an immediate deadly threat to innocent civilians and thus shot Bradford to eliminate the threat." It also states the officer "reasonably exercised his official powers, duties, or functions when he shot E. J. Bradford."

That conclusion did not sit well with protestors who burned two American flags outside Hoover City Hall, NBC news reports. According to the outlet, the words "BLACK LIVES DON'T MATTER" were spray painted in the flags.
[CN: Racism; nativism]


Lena H. Sun and Maureen O'Hagan at the Washington Post: 'It Will Take Off Like a Wildfire': The Unique Dangers of the Washington State Measles Outbreak. "Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Wash., a suburb of Portland, Ore., go to school without measles, mumps, and rubella immunizations, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control. Measles outbreaks have sprung up in nine other states this winter, but officials are particularly alarmed about the one in Clark County because of its potential to go very big, very quickly. ...'You know what keeps me up at night?' said Clark County Public Health Director Alan Melnick. 'Measles is exquisitely contagious. If you have an under-vaccinated population, and you introduce a measles case into that population, it will take off like a wildfire.' To date, at least 55 people in Washington and neighboring Oregon have gotten sick with the virus, with new cases tallied almost daily. All but five are in Clark County."

Leticia Miranda and Ryan Mac at BuzzFeed: Amazon Recorded Video of a Seller's Face for Identification Purposes. "An Amazon seller based in Vietnam told BuzzFeed News that he was prompted to take a five-second video of his face using his computer's webcam in January as he signed up for a seller profile. Amazon seller consultants told BuzzFeed News they believe the company may be testing video to verify seller identities to prevent the creation of multiple seller profiles, a major issue for Amazon and its ongoing battle with fake sellers and counterfeit goods. ...Reached for comment by BuzzFeed News, Amazon disputed neither the authenticity of the facial verification process it required of the seller, nor the screenshot. The company, however, refused to explain its collection of sellers' faces. 'Amazon is always innovating to improve the seller experience,' a company spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in response to a detailed list of questions."

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

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We Resist: Day 687

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, December 07, 2018
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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 Goes on Another Twitter Rampage About Mueller and Trump Says He Intends to Nominate Bill Barr as AG and Mueller's Sentencing Memos on Manafort and Cohen Scheduled to Be Issued Today.

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

Let's start with some good resistance news! Molly Hensley-Clancy at BuzzFeed: Democrats Have Officially Gained 40 Seats in the House of Representatives. "Democrats have now won a California House race that was called, erroneously, for the Republican incumbent on election night, giving the party a net gain of 40 seats in the House of Representatives. The delayed victory in California's 21st District is likely the final win for Democrats in the November midterms. It ties up a string of wins that has transformed what looked like a modest House victory on election night — some called it a 'blue trickle,' rather than the predicted 'blue wave' — into a Democratic rout, the party's strongest performance in a midterm in decades." Woot!

Speaking of a strong Democratic performance in the midterms... Alex Roarty at McClatchy: This Is the All-Female Number-Crunching Team That Delivered the House to Dems.
At every step of the 2018 election, House Democrats at the DCCC relied heavily on a data and analytics team that guided the committee through two years of tumultuous politics and an ever-fluctuating path back to the majority.

The results speak for themselves: Democrats gained 40 House seats, a gargantuan total for a party once hoping to simply eke out 23 seats necessary for a majority. They were the party's largest House gains in a single campaign since 1974.

DCCC officials were also delighted that, in an election where the party earned overwhelming support for women and benefited from a surge of female candidates, the team analyzing the numbers behind-the-scenes was also led by three women: Rosa Mendoza, who ran the analytics team at the group's independent expenditure operation; Amber Carrier, the group's director of polling and modeling; and Claire Low, the DCCC's targeting and analytics director.
Fuck yeah!

And, for a final trifecta of good Democratic news... Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Washington Post: No Deal on Infrastructure Without Addressing Climate Change. "No doubt, a single infrastructure bill alone will not solve our climate problem. But it is an important and necessary first step to include at least some, if not many, of these ideas. Without them, Trump should not count on Democratic support in the Senate." GOOD. Now stick to it, Schumer! And don't budge an inch on infrastructure proposals that are privatization schemes, either.

* * *

Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: Trump to Name Former Fox Anchor Heather Nauert as Next United Nations Ambassador. "Donald Trump has decided to name the state department spokeswoman and former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert as the ambassador to the United Nations, a source familiar with his decision told Reuters. Trump will send a tweet on Friday morning about choosing Nauert to replace the outgoing UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, who announced her resignation in October, Fox News reported, citing multiple sources. ...Nauert, whose nomination would require Senate confirmation, is a former Fox News Channel correspondent and anchor. She does not have prior political or policy-making experience."

[Content Note: Disablist language] Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: Rex Tillerson on Trump: 'Undisciplined, Doesn't Like to Read,' and Tries to Do Illegal Things. "The fired secretary of state, who while in office reportedly called Trump a 'moron' (and declined to deny it), expounded on his thoughts on the president in a rare interview with CBS News's Bob Schieffer in Houston. ...'What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation,' Tillerson said, was 'to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, 'This is what I believe.'' ...'So often, the president would say, 'Here's what I want to do, and here's how I want to do it,' and I would have to say to him, 'Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can't do it that way. It violates the law,'' Tillerson said, according to the Houston Chronicle." And yet Tillerson didn't leave the administration until he was fired.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Deanna Hackney at CNN: George Papadopoulos Released from Prison. "Ex-Donald Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos was released from prison Friday morning after serving 12 days for lying to investigators about his contact with individuals tied to Russia during the 2016 campaign. ...As part of his sentence, Papadopoulos will now have 12 months of supervised release, must serve 200 hours of community service within about one year, and must pay a $9,500 fine." So, if you want to commit treason, just make sure you have $10,000 and 12 days to spare.


Allegra Kirkland at TPM: 'Contagion': After Midterms, GOP Steps Up National Effort to Limit Voting Rights.
In the aftermath of the elections, Republican lawmakers across the country — and they are nearly all Republican — have moved to undermine those voter-approved ballot measures, or to impose new restrictions on the franchise.

The boldest version of this has played out in Wisconsin, where the GOP-controlled legislature followed the example North Carolina set in 2016 and used the lame duck legislative session to grant themselves additional powers at the expense of the new incoming Democratic governor and pass a grab-bag of policy priorities. One is a two-week limit on early voting.

Similar machinations are underway in Michigan, where the Republican-held legislature is using the lame-duck session to fiddle with two voter-approved constitutional amendments to expand voting access and prevent partisan gerrymandering.

In Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, measures are being floated to the press, grinding their way through the legislature, or being mishandled in ways that would restrict access to the ballot or otherwise make voting more difficult.

Not coincidentally, these large, populous, varying-degrees-of-purple states will be essential in determining the outcome of the 2020 elections.
[CN: Threat of violence] Claudia Koerner at BuzzFeed: CNN's New York Office Was Forced to Evacuate After Receiving Another Bomb Threat. "CNN employees were forced to evacuate the news network's New York offices Thursday night after receiving a bomb threat. ...The building was reopened within an hour after the NYPD's strategic response group and emergency service unit deemed it safe, police said. The threat interrupted live programming, and it came one minute before [Donald] Trump tweeted about 'fake news' — an insult he often throws at CNN. 'FAKE NEWS — THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!' the president tweeted at 10:08 p.m."

[CN: Gun violence] Luke O'Neil at the Guardian: Trump's 'Fake News' Tweet Prompts Journalist's Tribute to Murdered Colleague. "Wendi Winters was 65 years old. She was a veteran editor and reporter with four children and quick with a sarcastic quip. On 28 June of this year, she was shot dead along with four others in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Maryland by a man with a grudge against the paper. Winters, who wrote a column called 'Teen of the Week,' was remembered in a moving thread on Twitter today by one of her colleagues at the paper, photojournalist Joshua McKerrow. ...McKerrow's thread has been shared over 40,000 times with messages of love and support, but one of the first replies you might see if you click on it is from an account replying simply: 'Fake news.' In that person's Twitter bio there's one word: 'MAGA!'"

McKerrow's thread, which begins here, reads in its entirety:
1. Today I did the annual story on holiday decorations at the Governor's residence. I've done it every year, for years. A very light but very fun story. Every year my reporting partner was Wendi Winters. This year, it was Selene. Wendi was murdered in June.

[Note from Liss: The above tweet quotes Trump's latest "enemy of the people" tweet, just to be clear that McKerrow was explicitly and directly responding to that.]

2. Selene did a great job, of course. And I really thought I could hold it together. I moved through the rooms with my tripod, focusing on the trees and ornaments. All I could think about was Wendi. I felt like she was with me, that she was actually present.

3. Not in a "ghost" sense, I hope she has moved on to a better world then Capital feature stories :) But she was there in my mind. I could almost hear her voice echoing through the empty rooms. "How many cookies are you making this year?", her favorite question.

4. I was ok til the very end. Interviewed the butler, like I have every year, and when we were done she took me aside and whispered, "I really miss Wendi. Next year I'm going to name a cookie for her."

5. And that was it. The tears started, and I'm standing in the Maryland Governors home weeping to myself about my dead friend. She died in The Capital newsroom on June 28th, shot by a man who wanted to kill every journalist he could.

6. We don't know what set him off yet. After years of silence. What finally pushed him far enough that he loaded his shotgun, drove the 40 minutes from Laurel, parked his car, walked through the busy lobby, barricaded our back exit, blasted the simple fragile glass door.

7. Five people died, Rebecca, Wendi, Gerald, Rob, John. I always type their names in the order I think they were killed. I think, Rebecca first, at the door. Wendi charged him. Gerald and Rob were trapped in their cubicle. John, trying to get out the blocked exit.

8. Wendi was no ones enemy.

9. Every year Wendi made us all Oreo holiday cookies. except for the one year she made us jarred pesto. The question came up yesterday in the newsroom, who is going to make the cookies this year? Selene spoke up, I will.

10. I don't have a wrap-up to this story. I cried on and off all day. I miss her very much. I'm comforted that in a way she's still with me, when I do the work that she loved to do. Journalism. Patriotic, truth telling, American. We'll keep on doing the work.

11. And if we die for it, someone else will pick up the threads, and report on the holiday decorations at the Governor's house. Its what we do.
[CN: Climate change] Mark Hand at ThinkProgress: Senate Narrowly Confirms Climate-Denying Nominee to Federal Energy Regulator. "The Senate voted Thursday, in a party-line vote, to approve [Donald] Trump's nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), despite video evidence that the nominee strongly favors fossil fuels over renewable energy and rejects the overwhelming scientific evidence behind human-caused climate change. The nominee, Bernard McNamee, will be replacing former Commissioner Robert Powelson, who left the agency in August to lead a water company trade group."


[CN: Worker exploitation] Michael Sainato at the Guardian: U.S. Airport Workers Struggle to Make Ends Meet as Industry Profits Soar. "As the airlines and airport companies seek to boost profits, they have increasingly relied on low-cost air carriers and contractors that drive down wages, eliminate benefits, and infringe workers' rights, according to a recent report by Airport Workers United. The report noted airlines made $38bn in profits during 2017, a fourfold increase since 2013. Nearly half those profits are made by U.S.-based airlines. ...But those profits do not trickle down to the workers that generate them. In the United States, airports have cuts jobs and outsourced them to contractors despite increases in the number of travelers."

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

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Trump Regime Continues Attack on Transgender People

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, October 25, 2018
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[Content Note: Trans hatred.]

The Justice Department has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the question of workplace transgender bias, arguing that employers are allowed under federal law to discriminate against employees based on their gender identity.

Their argument is based on asserting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was wrong in concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which prohibits worker discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion — includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Chris Opfer at Bloomberg Law reports:

Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the high court that a civil rights law banning sex discrimination on the job doesn't cover transgender bias. That approach already has created a rift within the Trump administration, contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's view of the law it's tasked with enforcing.

A Michigan funeral home wants the high court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision finding that the company violated federal workplace discrimination law when it fired Aimee Stephens, a transgender worker. The EEOC successfully sued on behalf of Stephens in that case, but the Justice Department has the sole authority to represent the government before the Supreme Court. The DOJ told the high court that the Sixth Circuit got the case wrong.

"The court of appeals misread the statute and this Court's decisions in concluding that Title VII encompasses discrimination on the basis of gender identity," Francisco said in a brief filed with the court.
The crux of the case is that Harris Funeral Homes fired Stephens after she told the business owner that she was transitioning. Harris Funeral Homes essentially argued that it fired Stephens for being transgender, not for being a woman. (Oh.)

In the Sixth Circuit's ruling, which decided that Harris Funeral Homes' position was horseshit, Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote: "It is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee's status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee's sex." Which is, of course, exactly right.

But the Trump administration is incredibly asserting that misogyny has nothing to do with discrimination against a transgender woman, and thus a transgender woman is not entitled to workplace protections conferred by Title VII.

Worryingly: "The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming months whether to take up the case. It's also been asked [by the Justice Department] to consider two other cases testing whether sexual orientation bias is a form of sex discrimination banned under the existing law."

In related news, Julian Borger at the Guardian reports that the United States "is seeking to eliminate the word 'gender' from UN human rights documents, most often replacing it with 'woman,' apparently as part of the Trump administration's campaign to define transgender people out of existence. ...For example, in a draft paper on trafficking in women and girls introduced by Germany and Philippines earlier this month, the U.S. wants to remove phrases like 'gender-based violence' would be replaced by violence against women.'"

This is rage-making for its rank eliminationist intent toward transgender people, and it is rage-making that the Trump administration is engaging this eliminationist strategy under the auspices of concern about decentering (cis) women and girls.

The Trump administration doesn't give a single fuck about preventing violence against (cis) women and girls, and I am outraged that they would pretend that they do in order to harm trans people.

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We Resist: Day 554

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, July 27, 2018
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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 Fannie: Here's Why Some People Can't Stand Bernie Sanders. And by me: Collusion, But His Tweets, and Maybe Something Will Matter Someday and BrianWS and Liss Talk About Their Election Terrors.

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

Lots of news about Michael Cohen, of course, and the presumption that he's fixing to "flip" on Donald Trump. I sure hope that is the case! But I have my doubts. On Wednesday, I noted:


I haven't, however, been able to figure out what the Cohen theater is all about, but seeing this at the Daily Beast today gave me an idea:

screenshot of an article at the Daily Beast, showing an image of Michael Cohen and Donald Trump facing off, with a headline reading 'Team Trump Ready to 'Bury' Cohen, 'Weakling' and 'Traitor'' and a subhead reading 'This could get ugly.'

If it is indeed theater, the point is may be to send a message to anyone who would actually contemplate turning on Trump.

What's in it for Cohen? Well, he's probably neck-deep in real criminality that is being concealed beneath all of the theatrics.

He'll probably do anything he can to protect Trump, because as long as Trump is protected, he's protected. Either via Trump obstructing any investigation that would find Cohen guilty, or via subsequent pardon.

Just a thought. But maybe Cohen is the person who will surprise me, and defy his reputation as the premiere Trump loyalist to become a key witness against him. Dare to dream!

* * *

Rebecca Morin at Politico: Putin Invites Trump to Moscow for a Second Meeting. "Russia President Vladimir Putin on Friday said he invited [Donald] Trump to Russia for another face-to-face meeting — a meeting the White House says Trump is open to. 'We are ready to invite [Donald] Trump to Moscow. He has, by the way, such an invitation, I told him about it,' Putin said."


Everything is fine. (Everything is not fine.)

* * *

[Content Note: Nativism; abuse. Covers entire section.]

Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: Trump Plans to Rescind Work Permits for Spouses of Immigrants on H-1B Visas.
[In 2015], Barack Obama's administration implemented a rule that granted work permits to certain immigrants on H4 visas. Known as H4EAD, the policy enabled the spouses of H-1B workers who were already awaiting green cards to apply for employment authorization.

But now Donald Trump's administration is expected to formally rescind the Obama-era rule — potentially upending the lives of tens of thousands of immigrants who took advantage of the H4EAD work permits.

The proposed rules change, which was anticipated last month, but has not yet been announced, is part of the Trump administration's efforts to reshape America's immigration system.

Advocates laboring to save the Obama-era policy say doing away with the rule could once again confine immigrant spouses, mostly women, at home and strip their families of a necessary second income.
Staff at the BBC: U.S. Child Migrants: Over 700 Not Reunited with Families by Deadline. "Some 711 migrant children taken from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border have not yet been returned to them, despite a court-ordered deadline. U.S. government lawyers said the children were not eligible to be reunited with their parents. ...In 431 cases the parents were no longer in the U.S., a court filing said." BECAUSE THE TRUMP REGIME DEPORTED THEM.


Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: ICE to Deport the Wife of Decorated Marine Veteran. "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents notified Orlando, Florida resident Alejandra Juarez Tuesday that she will be deported to Mexico on August 3, according to the Military Times. Juarez, the wife of veteran Marine Sgt. Cuauhtemoc 'Temo' Juarez, also a former member of the Florida National Guard, entered the United States in 1998 and the two married in 2000. ...The mother of two has fought for her right to stay in the country for years, but a crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration has left her with no other choice."

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Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Trump Uses Taxpayer-Funded Trip to Campaign for GOP Candidates. "[Donald] Trump on Thursday used a taxpayer-funded trip to Illinois to openly advocate for electing Republicans to Congress — blurring the line between official and political events in the heat of the midterm campaign season. 'You've got to vote Republican, folks, you've got to vote Republican,' Trump said during the speech at a steel plant in Granite City, Ill., that had recently reopened. ...White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters on Air Force One that 'there is no legal prohibition' on endorsing political candidates at official, taxpayer-funded events. 'It is no surprise that the president would want people in Congress who support his agenda,' Gidley said."

Robyn Powell at Rewire.News: Judge Kavanaugh's Supreme Court Nomination Could Put the Americans with Disabilities Act in Danger. "Judge Kavanaugh is known for being anti-regulation, which worries advocates because federal regulations are critical to how disability rights laws — including the ADA — are interpreted and enforced. Moreover, businesses increasingly oppose the ADA. Many, for example, support the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 (HR 620). This bill, which has passed the House, would significantly weaken the ADA and greatly limit its enforcement. But even if HR 620 does not pass the Senate, advocates worry that if a case challenging the ADA came before the Supreme Court, Judge Kavanaugh's pro-corporate leanings could mean he would vote to undermine it."

E.A. Crunden at ThinkProgress: Two Michigan Communities Given Bottled Water After Hazardous Chemicals Found. "Residents of two Kalamazoo counties will receive bottled water on Friday morning after 'high amounts' of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, were detected during testing conducted by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). A PFAS test yielded 1,410 parts per trillion in their drinking water, 20 times higher than the lifetime health advisory given by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ...City officials said they were unsure how the man-made chemicals entered the water source."

Nicole Knight at Rewire.News: Walmart Accused of Unlawfully Punishing Pregnant Hourly Workers. "A pair of former hourly Walmart workers allege in a court filing that the corporation fired them for seeking treatment in a hospital for extreme nausea, vomiting, severe cramps, and fears of miscarriage. Although the women told their supervisors they would miss work and later furnished doctors' notes, the retail giant considered the absences unauthorized under its 'absence control' policy, the women allege. Dina Bakst, co-president and co-founder of A Better Balance, the legal nonprofit that brought the lawsuit, said the Walmart policy 'flouts New York's pregnancy accommodation law by punishing pregnant workers for lawful absences.'"

Mark Bergen and Josh Eidelson at Bloomberg: Inside Google's Shadow Workforce. "Every day, tens of thousands of people stream into Google offices wearing red name badges. They eat in Google's cafeterias, ride its commuter shuttles, and work alongside its celebrated geeks. But they can't access all of the company's celebrated perks. They aren't entitled to stock and can't enter certain offices. Many don't have health insurance. Before each weekly Google all-hands meeting, trays of hors d'oeuvres and, sometimes, kegs of beer are carted into an auditorium and satellite offices around the globe for employees, who wear white badges. Those without white badges are asked to return to their desks."

Martha Bebinger at NPR: Some Doctors, Patients Balk at Medicare's 'Flat Fee' Payment Proposal. "The Trump administration announced a plan Friday that would affect about 40 percent of the payments physicians receive from Medicare. Not everybody's pleased. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services calls its proposed plan a historic effort to reduce paperwork and improve patient care. But some doctors and advocates for patients fear it could be a disaster."

Why? Because it will deteriorate the quality of patient care and reduce doctors' income. Both are individually concerning — and if you imagine doctors concerned about their income are just being greedy, consider the effect of dramatically reducing anyone's income when we're also in the middle of a student loan crisis, no less someone who took out loans for seven years or more of required education. I know some doctors who are in their 40s and still paying off massive student debt. For a generation now, we've been asking a lot of doctors to take on enormous amounts of student debt on the same salaries doctors used to make when education was more affordable. It's a different world for doctors of Gen X and younger.

Essentially, what this change will do is ensure there are few doctors who accept Medicare patients, leaving Medicare patients without adequate healthcare options.

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[CN: Sexual abuse cover-up]


[CN: Sexual harassment/assault]


Michael Balsamo and Michael R. Sisak at the AP: Avenatti: 3 Women Paid 'Hush Money' for Trump Relationships. "Michael Avenatti, the attorney for [Stormy Daniels], said Thursday that he now represents three additional women who he says had relationships with [Donald] Trump and were paid 'hush money' before the 2016 presidential election. ...Asked if he had evidence that the women had relationships with Trump, Avenatti said: 'Yes.'"

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

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