Shakesville

"Is this remotely constitutional? I think it isn't."

At the Atlantic, Garrett Epps has a follow-up with additional legal clarification on the story about which I wrote last Thursday, regarding passengers being asked for ID after deplaning from a domestic flight. (Another update was previously posted here.)

Writes Epps:

After days of research, I can find no legal authority for ICE or CBP to require passengers to show identification on an entirely domestic fight.

...I asked two experts whether I had missed some general exception to the Fourth Amendment for passengers on a domestic flight. After all, passengers on flights entering the U.S. from other countries can expect to be asked for ID, and even searched. Barry Friedman, the Jacob D. Fuchsberg professor of law and affiliated professor of politics at New York University, is the author of Unwarranted: Policing Without Permission, a new book-length study of intrusive police investigation and search practices. "Is this remotely constitutional?" he asked. "I think it isn't. We all know generally the government can't come up and demand to see identification." Officers need to have statutory authority to search and reasonable suspicion that the person to be searched has violated the law, he said. Andre Segura, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, told me that "I'm not aware of any aviation exception" for domestic passengers.

An ID check is a "search" under the law. Passengers on the JFK flight were not "seeking admission"—the flight originated in the U.S. CBP officials told the public after the fact that they were looking for a specific individual believed to be on board. A search for a specific individual cannot include every person on a plane, regardless of sex, race, and age. That is a general paper check of the kind familiar to anyone who has traveled in an authoritarian country. As Segura told me, "We do not live in a 'show me your papers' society."

...It's quite legal for law enforcement to ask for "voluntary" cooperation. Anyone who follows criminal-procedure cases, however, knows that "voluntary" in legalese does not mean what ordinary people think it means. ...Passengers deplaning after a long flight might reasonably fear they will be "detained" if they anger the law enforcement figure blocking their exit. That officer is under no obligation to tell them they can refuse.

There is much more, and I encourage you to head over and read the whole thing.

Everything Is Fine

Everything is not fine:

An Argentine research base near the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula has set a heat record at a balmy 63.5° Fahrenheit (17.5 degrees Celsius), the U.N. weather agency said on Wednesday.

The Experanza base set the high on March 24, 2015, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said after reviewing data around Antarctica to set benchmarks to help track future global warming and natural variations.

...Antarctica locks up 90 percent of the world's fresh water as ice and would raise sea levels by about 60 meters (200 ft) if it were all to melt, meaning scientists are concerned to know even about extremes around the fringes.

And now we are two years further into global climate change, with a U.S. president who once said he believes climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.

During the campaign, I had so many conversations with friends and colleagues about the shameful display by corporate punditry, and the thing I always kept coming back to was: If nothing else, not even the faintest trace of decency, have they no sense of self-preservation? Wealth and access aren't going to save anyone from climate change.

I wonder the same thing still.

Discussion Thread: Good Things

One of the ways we resist the demoralization and despair in which exploiters of fear like Trump thrive is to keep talking about the good things in our lives.

Because, even though it feels very much (and rightly so) like we are losing so many things we value, there are still daily moments of joy or achievement or love or empowering ferocity or other kinds of fulfillment.

Maybe you've experienced something big worth celebrating; maybe you've just had a precious moment of contentment; maybe getting out of bed this morning was a success worthy of mention.

News items worth celebrating are also welcome.

So, whatever you have to share that's good, here's a place to do it.

* * *

Here's a good piece of news, care of Katharine Q. Seelye at the New York Times: After 130 Years, Harvard Law Review Elects a Black Woman President. Congratulations to ImeIme Umana!

And here's another, care of Bonnie Malkin at the Guardian: Female NASA Staff to Be Immortalised in Lego. Congratulations to the women being Lego-ized—Katherine Johnson, Margaret Hamilton, Sally Ride, Nancy Grace Roman, and Mae Jemison—and to the creator of the set, Maia Weinstock!

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Zelda the Black and Tan Mutt sitting in front of me and looking at me with big, plaintive eyes

For a moment, Zelly was worried that all the biscuits in the world had run out.
They had not.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

We Resist: Day 41

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 is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things I've read today:

The reprehensible media response to Trump's speech continues apace:

Look at this trash. pic.twitter.com/79wYufv5y8
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 1, 2017

[Tweet contains screenshot of CNN's front page, with big letters reading: "PRESIDENTIAL TRUMP."]

"PRESIDENTIAL TRUMP." On the basis that he said horrendous things, but in a pleasant voice. Shameful.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 1, 2017

Sarah Kendzior at Quartz: Trump Played Nice for a Night—a Technique Straight out of the Autocrat's Playbook. "Trump never intended to pivot, but rather to pivot America to his extremist goals. In some ways he has already succeeded, as white supremacists like Steve Bannon dominate the White House, and expectations for accountability—the release of tax returns, cooperation with the investigation into Russian meddling—have been lowered. America is pivoting towards Trump, and it is only through vigilance and compassion that we can pivot back."

Brian Beutler at the New Republic: The Worst Performance of Trump's Presidency Now Belongs to the Press Corps. "Trump's moral and ethical failings are legion. He is the villain of all his own triumphant and disgraceful sagas. But the plot of this chapter is about a political press corps (not the investigators slowly piecing together the unseemly details of Trump's foreign entanglements, but the ones who cover day-to-day news and theater) that is outmatched and completely maladapted for the challenge he poses to it."

Meanwhile, here's what Trump's presidency actually looks like...

[Content Note: Police brutality] Eric Lichtblau at the New York Times: Sessions Indicates Justice Department Will Stop Monitoring Troubled Police Agencies. "Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated on Tuesday that the federal government would back away from monitoring troubled police departments, which was the central strategy of the Obama administration to force accountability onto local law enforcement amid rising racial tensions. ...At the close of the Obama administration, the Justice Department issued a scathing report on systemic civil rights abuses at the Chicago Police Department and set the stage for negotiations with the city for a federal monitoring agreement. But prospects for a deal now look doubtful, with Mr. Sessions saying this week that he was unimpressed by the report and openly questioning the value of such agreements."

Again Lichtblau at the Times: Justice Department Keeps For-Profit Prisons, Scrapping an Obama Plan. "The Justice Department said Thursday that it would continue to use private, for-profit prisons to house thousands of federal inmates, scrapping an Obama administration plan to phase them out because of problems. ...In a memo released on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prison officials to keep using the private prisons. He also withdrew a policy set out last August by Sally Q. Yates, then the deputy attorney general, who had ordered prison officials to phase out the use of the private facilities."

Julia Ioffe at the Atlantic: The State of Trump's State Department. "With the State Department demonstratively shut out of meetings with foreign leaders, key State posts left unfilled, and the White House not soliciting many department staffers for their policy advice, there is little left to do. 'If I left before 10 p.m., that was a good day,' said the State staffer of the old days, which used to start at 6:30 in the morning. 'Now, I come in at 9, 9:15, and leave by 5:30.' The seeming hostility from the White House, the decades of American foreign-policy tradition being turned on its head, and the days of listlessness are taking a toll on people who are used to channeling their ambition and idealism into the detail-oriented, highly regimented busywork that greases the infinite wheels of a massive bureaucracy."

Kimberly Dozier at the Daily Beast: Generals May Launch New ISIS Raids Without Trump's Okay. "The White House is considering delegating more authority to the Pentagon to greenlight anti-terrorist operations like the SEAL Team 6 raid in Yemen that cost the life of a Navy SEAL, to step up the war on the so-called Islamic State, multiple U.S. officials tell The Daily Beast. Donald Trump has signaled that he wants his defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, to have a freer hand to launch time-sensitive missions quickly." (And then Trump can blame Mattis when things get fucked up.)

Ed Pilkington and Oliver Laughland at the Guardian: Police Chiefs Object to Trump's Efforts to Involve Them in Immigrant Deportations. "Police chiefs from across the US, including several from states that voted for Donald Trump, are resisting White House moves to force them to become more involved in deporting undocumented immigrants. In a joint letter, more than 60 law enforcement heads are appealing to Trump in all but name to soften his aggressive drive to enlist police officers in the highly contentious job of deporting millions of immigrants living without permission in the country. They object to being thrust into 'new and sometimes problematic tasks' that will undermine the balance between the local communities they serve and the federal government, and 'harm locally-based, community-oriented policing'."

Kenrya Rankin at Colorlines: 60 Civil Rights Groups Push DeVos to Protect Students. "In her role as secretary of education, Betsy DeVos sets policy and procedure that governs the nation's public education system. As part of her duties, she is charged with selecting an assistant secretary for civil rights, who in turn runs the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. In a letter dated February 27, the 60 civil right groups who belong to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights implored DeVos to hire someone who is experienced in promoting equal education opportunities for all Americans. ...Signing groups include the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., the National Women's Law Center, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund."

Michael Fitzgerald at Towleroad: Trump Administration Considering Withdrawing from UN Human Rights Council. "State Department spokesman Mark Toner did not address the rumors, but said, 'Our delegation will be fully involved in the work of the HRC session which starts Monday.' White House press aides and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have declined to comment."

Darryl Fears at the Washington Post: Senate Confirms Ryan Zinke as Interior Secretary. "The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Ryan Zinke's nomination to lead the Interior Department by a 68 to 31 vote." This despite his resistance to addressing climate change.

And speaking of Trump's nominees... From the Wall Street Journal: "Of 549 administration positions requiring Senate confirmation: Confirmed: 15 | Nominated: 18 | No one nominated: 516." And Trump bitterly complains that the Democrats are holding up his nominees.

In other news...

[CN: Anti-semitism; terrorism] Haaretz: Gunshot Fired at Indiana Synagogue; FBI Reportedly Suspects Hate Crime. "A gunshot was fired through the window of an Indiana synagogue in what the FBI are reportedly investigating as a hate crime. The bullet hole was discovered late Monday in the window of a Sunday School classroom at Adath B'Nai Israel Temple in Evansville. Rabbi Gary Mazo told the Indianapolis Star that the shooter would have had to walk around to the back of the temple building and fire into the classroom from the temple's playground."

[CN: Homophobia; war on agency] Andrew DeMillo at the AP: Arkansas Senate Okays Bids for Marriage, Abortion Amendments. "The Arkansas Senate on Tuesday endorsed a long-shot effort to push for amending the U.S. Constitution to effectively ban gay marriage and abortion, a move one Republican lawmaker said is needed to overturn rulings from the nation's highest court. The majority-Republican chamber approved by a 19-9 vote a resolution calling for a federal constitutional convention to take up an amendment that would define marriage as between a man and a woman. A separate resolution calling for an amendment effectively declaring that life begins at conception passed on an 18-9 vote."

[CN: War on agency] Michelle D. Anderson at Rewire: Bill Outlawing Abortion Advances in Iowa Legislature. "A 'personhood' measure that aims to criminalize abortion care in Iowa could be on its way to the state senate floor. The bill, SF 253, would give a fetus 'the same rights and protections guaranteed to all persons by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Iowa,' and the laws of Iowa. A three-person state senate subcommittee on Monday voted to advance the bill."

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

You Don't Own Him

[Content Note: Entitlement; hostility to consent; racism.]

Something you may not know about me (or may recall, if you've been around long enough) is that I am a football (soccer) fan.

I have always loved the game. I was a Chicago Power fan when I was a teenager, seeing many a game during the now-defunct indoor league. And I was a diehard Manchester United fan even before David Beckham became a household name. I fell for them because of things I read in, of all places, British music magazines I bought to get the latest Morrissey news.

I am still a Man United fan; the reddest of Red Devils. I love them when they win, and I love them when they lose.

Last year, they acquired Paul Pogba in the most expensive player purchase of all time. (After selling him a few years back. Whooooops!) He is a terrific young player, exciting to watch and easy to cheer. At least for me.

Like any extraordinary player in the English Premiere League, Pogs (as he is affectionately known at Shakes Manor) is in demand. For endorsements and interviews. And fans are often keen to get a moment with him, a picture, an autograph.

On Sunday, Man United won the League Cup. Pogs had a great game.

On Monday, he was attacked by fans at a restaurant where he was dining, because he refused them an autograph.

Footage has emerged, via The Sun, of Pogba being Snapchatted by some fans just minding his own business in Akbar's curry house before they eventually plucked up the courage to ask the world's most expensive player for an autograph.

Much to their dismay, though, Pogba declined the request which prompted an angry reaction from the supporters, who then accused him of being disrespectful.

The video then shows the Man Utd star being backed into a corner of the room while the furious fans are being held back.

The Sun also claim things got so heated a plate was even thrown at Pogba, although that doesn't seem to appear in the footage provided.

..."The lads were furious that Pogba had the nerve to say no to their request for an autograph. But Pogba was enjoying a quiet meal with friends and felt uncomfortable with the attention."

So, to recap: They recorded him without his permission, and he did not object. Then they interrupted him to ask for an autograph, which he politely declined. So they attacked him and accused him of being "disrespectful."

Because Pogba, who is Black, did not show these fans the proper "respect" by interrupting his dinner to perform at their entitled command, he was assaulted.

Intolerable. Your favorite footballer is allowed to set boundaries, like every other human. You don't own him. https://t.co/xNuug0CMsZ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 28, 2017

Not that it would matter if Paul Pogba were the biggest asshole on the planet—he still has a right to set boundaries—but he seems, as much as one can tell from interviews and the comments of his teammates and managers, to be just a super kind and decent guy. He is generous with his time (when he's not in the middle of fucking dinner!), and he has spoken about the profound gratitude (example, starting just after the five-minute mark) and appreciation he has for being able to play a game he loves for a living. He does not take for granted his able-bodiedness, and has often (as have other players) given his jersey to a disabled child in the stands after a match.

I'm not suggesting he's a saint; just that he gives without being asked and has remarkable perspective for a young superstar in his field who broke the record for being the most desired player on the planet.

That's the human being who was called "disrespectful" because he didn't want to sign an autograph during his dinner.

And although I'm writing this about Paul Pogba, a player who I cheer every week and like very much, I'm writing it about everyone who is a lot or a little bit famous, because there is this persistent idea that doing something in public means conceding your right to consent, privacy, and self-governance.

We don't own celebrities. And fuck anyone who behaves like they do.

From the Fonts of Unexamined Privilege

Come endless streams of mundane rubbish.

That is to say, Trump's win reinforced for me that women live in a state of subordination to men and, in a trend most definitely related to this condition, we also see no shortage of corresponding white male opinions regarding what women and people of color ought to now be feeling, thinking, or doing in response to the Trump Administration.

Cultural misogyny, and widescale gaslighting about it, is a key reason why the Women's March, held the day after Trump's inauguration, was the largest protest in US history. It is also a key reason that women, rather than men who consistently fail to understand these conditions, are, and should be, leading resistance efforts.

And yet. According to the Women's Media Center's latest report (PDF), men receive 62% of byline and other credits in print, Internet, TV, and wire news. Men account for three-quarters of the guests on the big five Sunday morning news shows. The Op-Ed Project in a 2012 report entitled "Who Narrates the World?" found that only 20% of articles in Legacy Media were written by women. Legacy Media included The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

So yes, who does narrate the world, and what exactly are they narrating?

What's abundantly clear to me is that many white men, including those with hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers and/or op-ed space at major media platforms, do not understand the Trump discontent as they sit on their perches of presumed, detached objectivity and scold women and minorities for engaging in identity politics, instruct us to not call people bigots, act "stunned" that a man as incompetent as Trump could have won, suggest Chelsea Clinton shouldn't use Twitter because it's "bad for the Democrats," suggest Chelsea Clinton should never run for office, and demand that we empathize with Trump supporters so they can live happily ever after.

All of this advice, scolding, and bloviating brings me to perhaps the worst take yet on the 2016 Election although, yes, the competition is very, very stiff:

Just as Trump continues to treat Clinton as his arch rival, so too do many male commentators along the political spectrum. It's as though, whew, she came close and maybe in their heart of hearts that scares many men in a profound way! Political commentator Josh Barro earlier this week went on a clueless Twitter tirade about why he didn't want to ever hear from Hillary, Bill, or Chelsea Clinton again. (Clinton haters can never decide if they hate her more for being silent during the resistance or for speaking out. Such a conundrum! Just see what sticks, I guess.) Per Barro, Hillary supporters are clueless "fans" who think she's a "saint" and who therefore "label every criticism of Hillary 'sexist.'" She was, to him, a "bad candidate" who ran a "bad campaign." And that's that. A man said it, that settles it.

Lordy lord!

There's such a grotesqueness to what Barro claims, given that no one. Literally. No. One. Thinks Hillary For-All-Her-Faults Clinton is a saint. Many of us, particularly feminists, simply think she's a human being who is entitled to decent, humane treatment in the public sphere. I can see how some men might get that confused.

Men like Julian Assange, an accused rapist who has fled legal process, are treated as heroes by segments of the left and right. Men like Mel Gibson and Casey Affleck can smile on camera live from the Oscars, and one of them can even win one, and that's liberal Hollywood for ya! And, of course, there's Trump himself, a man who has admitted to sexual predation, who nonetheless rose to the very top.

We see every day, repeatedly, that white men get to be imperfect and still succeed in life because they are widely recognized as human beings and, well, humans make mistakes. Humans are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Yet, that Clinton supporters demand that a decent woman be treated decently, like how even the worst of men are treated in the public sphere, and a man like Barro sneers that we've turned a "bad candidate" into a "saint."

We see this dysfunctional narrative whenever we have a candidate other than a white man run for office: the candidate is a target of bigotry, we point out the bigotry, critics claim that those who call out the bigotry are calling all criticism bigotry, and therefore nothing at all is bigotry, really. There's this facetiousness about it, as though thoughtful people don't concede that a politician can be both flawed and a target of bigotry and that, sometimes even, the two are inextricably intertwined.

The "supporters label every criticism sexist" narrative is so fundamentally rooted in misunderstanding, so insulting of people's intelligence, and in the end serves only to benefit the white male candidate. The implication always becomes, Isn't the white guy the one who is truly at a disadvantage here, since he can't play the bigotry card?

I would like to turn the tables here and offer a word of advice to white male political commentator/advice columnists.

Do better.

If you don't understand many women's discontent right now, and let's be real you probably don't if you're inclined to render any of the above unsolicited helpful hints to women, then listen more, to women. Listen especially to Black women, as they significantly rejected Donald Trump (and also disproportionately rejected "It's not good enough for someone to say 'I'm a woman'! Vote for me!'" Bernie Sanders, a statement by the way, that no female candidate has ever said in the history of the universe, the multiverse, and the upside-fucking-down).

Instead of lecturing from elite media platforms about elite liberals living in elite bubbles who supposedly lack empathy for "ordinary white people," why don't you—white male pundits—try getting out of your white-male-discourse-only bubbles and go on a listening, reading, and empathy tour. Because newflash: Many women already have empathy, and had you known anything about our lives you'd know that empathy is already conceived of and ingrained in many women as women's work.

Start viewing women as your intellectual peers, rather than as people who require your mediocre "devil's advocate" insights, "unpopular opinions," and edgy hot takes.

And what if, just hear me out, you started amplifying voices of people who aren't white men? Related: What if you started following more women and people of color on Twitter? What if you invited more women and people of color on your shows and podcasts and brainstorming sessions?

What if you sought to understand other people at least as much as you sought to be understood?

Maybe then you might come to understand that many people's support for Hillary Clinton is not unsophisticated, ignorant, or a result of millions of people having a Bad Case Of the Neoliberal Sellouts, but is instead informed by our many, varied lived experiences that differ from your own.

So yes, let's do examine who narrates the world and what exactly is being narrated.

You see, right after the flawed-yet-extremely-qualified Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college to an abusive, incompetent, and misogynistic man, she set her own pain aside for a moment and sent this message out to little girls: "Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful & deserving of every chance & opportunity in the world."

Like Clinton, I want little girls to believe that. But men, I want more than that. I want little girls to know that you believe that, as well. So please, think harder and think more about what you are saying, or not saying, in furtherance of that narrative. And please, listen to women, especially the ones who refuse to coddle your comfort zones.

So Trump Gave a Speech Last Night

[Content Note: White supremacy.]

Donald Trump delivered an address to the joint houses of Congress last night. CNN has the complete transcript. I have Storified my live-tweeted commentary, for anyone who'd like to see it.

It was an entirely typical Trump-from-Teleprompter address: The usual white supremacist fearmongering about how America is a hellscape from which only he can rescue hardworking white folks, followed by vacuous calls for "unity," all of which was peppered with a steady stream of straight-up lies. Fifty-one of them in sixty-one minutes, by one count.

We've seen this Trump before. The "disciplined" Trump, who can manage to read one address of strung-together dogwhistles and appear, for that finite length of time, vaguely like someone who isn't a compulsively erratic despot.

Every time that Trump has shown up, he gets plaudits from the pundits, who aggressively compete for who can say the stupidest thing about Trump's "reset" or "pivot" or some loathsome variation thereof.

This time was no different. Brian Williams set the bar for grading Trump on the most colossal curve by immediately declaring it was the most "speech-like speech" Trump has ever given.

There was much complimenting of his "tone." He looked "presidential." Van Jones, continuing to be an utter disgrace, declared that, in honoring a Navy SEAL's widow, "He became President of the United States in that moment, period."

Never mind that SEAL died because the raid was a bungled mess, and that Trump spent the preceding hours of the day deflecting accountability and blaming President Obama and the military instead.

None of that matters, because the majority of our pundits have learned nothing from the election and continue to prioritize optics over substance. Facts are as irrelevant to these arrogant commentators as they are to Trump, and they refuse to care about his abundant lies—the biggest lie of all being his temporary projection of seriousness.

Which they buy hook, line, and sinker every damn time.

And discuss ad nauseum while diligently ignoring the content of each politely-delivered speech, pretending as though Trump's one-hour vacation from screaming outright bigotry and nonsense is evidence of a newfound "civility."

While everyone is busy praising Trump for not shitting himself at a podium last night, this is what his presidency actually looks like. https://t.co/FCDDcE8iLG
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 1, 2017

I'm absolutely disgusted by the ubiquitous punditry complimenting Trump's "tone." You are normalizing white supremacy.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 1, 2017

Who cares what tone he used to deliver a message of hot racist garbage full of demonstrable lies? Optics over substance created this mess.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 1, 2017

I have not the tiniest, infinitesimal trace of an urge to find something nice to say about Trump or his contemptible speech. There exists not a modicum of inclination within me to ignore the content of what this incredibly dangerous man said in order to normalize his presidency.

Maybe that's because I don't need to make myself feel better about having abetted his ascent in the first place.

Unlike most of our pundits.

Open Thread

image of a red couch

Hosted by a red sofa. Have a seat and chat.

Question of the Day

What's for dinner? Or whatever the next meal of the day is in your part of the world.

I don't even know yet, lol. Probably fish of some description.

Remember This

Ahead of Donald Trump's Please Clap for Me address tonight, during which one of the topics will presumably be healthcare "reform," and with Paul Ryan making noise about healthcare "reform" being a priority for Congressional Republicans this spring, I thought it might be useful to return to what Trump promised along the campaign trail during a 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley in September 2015.

Pelley: What's your plan for Obamacare?

Trump: Obamacare's going to be repealed and replaced. Obamacare is a disaster, if you look at what's going on with premiums, where they're up 45, 50, 55 percent—

Pelley: So how do you fix it?

Trump: There's many different ways, by the way. Everybody's got to be covered. This is an un-Republican thing for me to say, because a lot of times they say, "No, no, the lower 25 percent, they can't afford private." But—

Pelley: Universal health care?

Trump: I am going to take care of everybody. I don't care if it costs me votes or not. Everybody's going to be taken care of, much better than they're taken care of now.

Pelley: The uninsured person—

Trump: Right.

Pelley: —is going to be taken care of how?

Trump: They're going to be taken care of.

Pelley: How?

Trump: I would make a deal with existing hospitals to take care of people. And, you know what, if this is probably—

Pelley: Make a deal? Who pays for it?

Trump: The government's gonna pay for it. But we're going to save so much money on the other side! But for the most it's going to be a private plan and people are going to be able to go out and negotiate great plans with lots of different competition with lots of competitors with great companies, and they can have their doctors, they can have their plans, they can have everything.

"They can have everything." This is what Trump promised. Remember that.

Shaker Gourmet

Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?

Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.

Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!

An Observation

Some people are very annoyed with me that I don't appreciate the virtue of their trenchant suggestion that Democrats must do more to reach out to Trump voters.

And when I point out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes, and lost the electoral college by a pittance of overall votes, they respond, inevitably, with: "SHE LOST."

Yes. But the thing is: The last two Republican presidents (Bush and Trump) only won because of extraordinary circumstances. If Republicans can't win without a hanging chad or a meddling Vlad, I fail to see why I should be more concerned with strategy than I am with election integrity.

I am very concerned indeed with the integrity of our elections.

That includes, but is not limited to: Voting rights, voting accessibility, voter purges, felony restrictions on voting, prisoner disenfranchisement, machine tampering, gerrymandering, foreign meddling, and responsible journalism that centers policy.

The best strategy in the world, no matter one's opinion on what that may be, isn't going to win elections if they're corrupt.

Daily Dose of Cute

image of Olivia the White Farm Cat sitting on the stairs, peeking around the corner

Olivia, keeping watch.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

We Resist: Day 40

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 is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

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

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Here are some things I've read today:

In more interesting (ahem) Trump real estate news, Russ Choma and Andy Kroll at Mother Jones report: Trump Just Sold a $15.8 Million Condo to a Consultant Who Peddles Access to Powerful People.

Last week, Donald Trump's company sealed its first big post-inaugural real estate transaction, selling a $15.8 million penthouse to a Chinese-American business executive who runs a company that touts its ability to exploit connections with powerful people to broker business deals in China.

New York City property records show that Xiao Yan Chen, the founder and managing director of a business consulting firm called Global Alliance Associates, purchased the four-bedroom, six-bathroom condo in Trump's Park Avenue high-rise on February 21. Before taking office, Trump signed documents removing himself from the board of directors of Trump Park Avenue LLC, the entity that sold the unit, but he remains the LLC's owner.

Chen, who also goes by Angela Chen, did not return multiple calls and emails requesting comment. Her company bills itself as a "boutique business relationship consultancy" for US firms seeking to do business in China. "For a select clientele," the firm says that it "facilitates the right strategic relationships with the most prominent public and private decision makers in China."

...According to Zillow.com, the penthouse unit Chen purchased last week has an estimated value of $14.3 million.

Zillow isn't exactly a precise estimator, but sometimes it overestimates value. So, potentially, Trump earned even more than $1.5 million over value.

* * *

Michael Kruse at Politico: "He's a Performance Artist Pretending to be a Great Manager." There will never be a pivot. Trump is Trump is Trump.

In recent interviews, [people who worked for him at different points over the past 45 years as well as writers of the best, most thoroughly reported Trump biographies] recounted a shrewd, slipshod, charming, vengeful, thin-skinned, belligerent, hard-charging manager who was an impulsive hirer and a reluctant firer and surrounded himself with a small cadre of ardent loyalists; who solicited their advice but almost always ultimately went with his gut and did what he wanted; who kept his door open and expected others to do the same not because of a desire for transparency but due to his own insecurities and distrusting disposition; who fostered a frenetic, internally competitive, around-the-clock, stressful, wearying work environment in which he was a demanding, disorienting mixture of hands-on and hands-off—a hesitant delegator and an intermittent micromanager who favored fast-twitch wins over long-term follow-through, promotion over process, and intuition over deliberation.

..."I don't think there's anything of scale that he's had his hands on that he hasn't made a hash of," biographer Tim O'Brien said in an interview last week. ..."He's not a great manager," O'Brien said. "He's a performance artist pretending to be a great manager."

...He consistently has managed his image more effectively than he has managed his interests.

All of which is a reflection of his temperament, and thus was patently obvious to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention during the campaign.

There are a lot of ways to describe Trump's "management style" (or lack thereof), but the easiest and most accurate word is abusive. And plenty of people were raising red flags about Trump's abusiveness throughout his campaign, and further noting that it was incompatible with good governance.

Those people were ignored. At the nation's peril.

* * *

This report by Benny Johnson at the Independent Journal Review about Trump's secret dinner at the BLT Steakhouse is worth a read in its entirety. But this passage stuck out to me: "One woman shouts at him 'Donald, it's my birthday!' Trump stops and says 'Happy birthday,' as he hugs the elated woman. 'How about a birthday present? Let's take a photo,' he says to her, afterward telling the woman she looks very young and has great skin." And it stuck out to me because I've written before about Trump's obsession with women's skin. It's so objectifying and so fucking creepy.

Cynthia McFadden, William M. Arkin, and Ken Dilanian at NBC News: Yemen SEAL Raid Has Yielded No Significant Intelligence. "Last month's deadly commando raid in Yemen, which cost the lives of a U.S. Navy SEAL and a number of children, has so far yielded no significant intelligence, U.S. officials told NBC News. Although Pentagon officials have said the raid produced 'actionable intelligence,' senior officials who spoke to NBC News said they were unaware of any, even as the father of the dead SEAL questioned the premise of the raid in an interview with the Miami Herald published Sunday." This was the raid the White House declared "a successful operation by all standards."

Jonathan Swan of Axios provides screenshots of the full text of Trump's executive order rolling back environmental regulations, saying: "Trump admin starts attacking environmental regs in earnest today." Sob. At Politico, Alex Guillén reports: "The White House has proposed slashing EPA's budget by about a quarter and eventually eliminating 1 in 5 of the agency's workers, according to sources familiar with the budget proposal sent to EPA on Monday."

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Dan Hirschhorn at Fortune: Donald Trump Gave Himself an 'A+' for Effort for His First Month as President. Of course he did. And then he blamed President Obama for orchestrating the resistance against him: "Trump also blamed former President Barack Obama, without any evidence, for organizing the frequent protests against him. 'No, I think he is behind it,' Trump said. 'I also think it's just politics. That's just the way it is. You never know what's exactly happening behind the scenes,' Trump added. 'I think that President Obama's behind it because his people are certainly behind it.'" No evidence of any of that. None.

During the same interview with Fox & Friends, Trump was also asked to name when he deserved criticism, to which he responded, "No, probably I could never do that." Over and over, Trump has said he can take criticism if it's deserved, but then never feels any criticism is deserved.

Again from the same interview: "Donald Trump said he believes the extra $54 billion dollars he has proposed spending on the U.S. military will be offset by a stronger economy as well as cuts in other areas. 'I think the money is going to come from a revved up economy,' Trump said." In other words: Taxpayers. Because how the government gets money from "a revved up economy" is more taxes.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] This is an important story by Fatima Hussein at the Indianapolis Star about Veep Mike Pence and his campaign to get the Indiana Supreme Court to "stay out of his redacted emails." Note that the case in question involves Pence's attempt to ignore President Obama's executive order on immigration. Anyone who imagines Pence is less authoritarian or more decent than Trump is sorely mistaken.

[CN: Racism] Paula Reid of CBS reports that, yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said "he hasn't read DOJ's report on Chicago PD. He read summaries and found them 'anecdotal' and 'not so scientifically based.'" As Christopher Hayes notes: "This admin loves nothing more than to cheaply exploit Chicagoans' trauma but can't be bothered to set aside an hour to read a report."

[CN: Anti-semitism; video may autoplay at link] The desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, which I mentioned yesterday, is much worse than originally thought. Max Kutner at Newsweek reports: "At least 20 bomb threats were made to Jewish institutions in 12 or more states on Monday, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), causing the organization to issue a security advisory. The wave of threats was the fifth in recent weeks and came one day after Jewish community leaders found more than 500 headstones toppled at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. A similar incident at a Jewish cemetery near St. Louis occurred days before that." Emphasis mine.

[CN: Islamophobia] Meanwhile, the Kansas City Star Editorial Board publishes: Trump's Silence on Deadly Olathe Shooting Is Disquieting. "At some point, embarrassingly late begins to verge on something more disquieting. President Donald Trump has silently planted himself in that space. Nearly a week has passed since two India-born engineers were singled out and shot at an Olathe bar, presumably because they were immigrants, darker in skin tone and possibly viewed by the shooter as unwanted foreigners. People around the world were immediately and rightfully horrified. But our president? Mum. Not a word has been spoken, tweeted, or prepped for Trump's teleprompter."

Finally: Tonight, Trump will deliver an address to a joint session of Congress. It's the address first-year presidents give in lieu of a State of the Union address. It will be broadcast starting at 9:00pm ET.

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

Urgent Threat to Net Neutrality

Last month, I warned a rollback of Net Neutrality was coming and shared some action items.

If you were on social media, you may remember that I got some pushback for that, for being a reactionary alarmist. That shit never gets old.

Today, Jacob Kastrenakes at the Verge reports: "FCC Chairman Says Net Neutrality Was a Mistake."

FCC chairman Ajit Pai said today that net neutrality was "a mistake" and that the commission is now "on track" to return to a much lighter style of regulation.

"Our new approach injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market," Pai said during a speech at Mobile World Congress this afternoon. "And uncertainty is the enemy of growth."

Pai has long been opposed to net neutrality and voted against the proposal when it came up in 2015. While he hasn't specifically stated that he plans to reverse the order now that he's chairman, today's speech suggests pretty clearly that he's aiming to.

...Pai has been chairman of the commission for just over a month now, and in that time, he's already begun chipping away at net neutrality in a few different ways: approving zero rating, scaling back transparency rules, proposing to halt major new privacy requirements. After this speech today, it's evident that Pai is just getting started.

It is impossible to overestimate how critical this issue is. Start pushing back NOW.

Ajit Pai today: "Our new approach injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market. And uncertainty is the enemy of growth."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 28, 2017

Again: I don't have a crystal ball. I just PAY ATTENTION. And I am strongly urging you at this point to make noise to save Net Neutrality.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 28, 2017

Again: Suggestions for taking action, should you need them.

Absolutely Unreal

[Content Note: Racism.]

Yesterday, the White House met with presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, wrote about the meeting:

On Friday I learned that I was selected to give remarks [Monday] for the meeting at the White House with members of the Trump administration, most notably Secretary Betsy DeVos. We learned this weekend that there would be closing remarks by Vice President Pence, but the goal was for officials from a number of Federal agencies (about 5 were there including OMB) and Secretary DeVos to hear about HBCUs.

That all blew up when the decision was made to take the presidents to the Oval Office to see the President. I'm still processing that entire experience. But needless to say that threw the day off and there was very little listening to HBCU presidents today—we were only given about 2 minutes each, and that was cut to one minute, so only about 7 of maybe 15 or so speakers were given an opportunity today.

Emphasis mine.

Following the meeting, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released an absolutely incredible statement:

Statement from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos Following Listening Session with Historically Black College [sic] and Universities Leaders

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos released the following statement after meeting with presidents and chancellors of Historically Black Colleges and Universities at the White House:

A key priority for this administration is to help develop opportunities for communities that are often the most underserved. Rather than focus solely on funding, we must be willing to make the tangible, structural reforms that will allow students to reach their full potential.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have done this since their founding. They started from the fact that there were too many students in America who did not have equal access to education. They saw that the system wasn't working, that there was an absence of opportunity, so they took it upon themselves to provide the solution.

HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice. They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.

Their counsel and guidance will be crucial in addressing the current inequities we face in education. I look forward to working with the White House to elevate the role of HBCUs in this administration and to solve the problems we face in education today.

Wow. Okay. So, this is garbage.

What DeVos has done here, with breathtaking audacity, is appropriate and rewrite HBCUs' purpose and mission, to suit her own personal bailiwick of privatizing education. HBCUs were not about "school choice," but about providing opportunities to Black students because of institutional segregation.

As Ben Mathis-Lilley notes at Slate [CN: descriptions of racist violence]: "[T]his official 2017 federal government press release celebrates legal segregation (!!!) on the grounds that the Jim Crow education system gave black students 'more options,' as if there was a robust competition between HBCUs and white universities for their patronage. (When black Mississippian James Meredith chose the 'option' of enrolling at the University of Mississippi in 1962, a massive white mob formed on the campus; two people were shot to death and hundreds injured in the ensuing battle/riot, during which federal marshals came under heavy gunfire, requiring the ultimate intervention of 20,000 U.S. soldiers and thousands more National Guardsmen.)"

It is abhorrent that DeVos would engage in this particular appropriation, given that the school privatization schemes for which she passionate advocates have been found to actually entrench inequality. In Indiana, where "school choice" has been on offer for years, the Indiana Coalition for Public Education concluded that such proposals stand to "reverse the state's progress on desegregation efforts."

And indeed, Indiana charter schools were found to be turning away homeless and disabled students, in violation of federal law.

And as Carlton Waterhouse, a professor of law and dean's fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, wrote in a recent column, "school choice" will not fix the rot at the core of the "educational crisis," because that rot is white supremacy:

Educational reform efforts over the past five decades have all been efforts to overcome white parents' taste for discrimination. These plans were routinely intended to lure white children into urban schools. Busing, magnet schools, theme schools, home schooling and now vouchers and charter schools have largely been embraced because so many white parents find educational environments with too many African-American and Latino students unsuitable for their children. This unspoken belief that African-American and Latino children threaten the moral and intellectual development of other children has a strong emotional power that drives public education in America.

Consider DeVos' statement in that context. She is eliding the history of segregation from which HBCUs emerged, in order to praise them for providing opportunities to Black students.

The very students to whom she and her (white) supporters don't want to provide opportunities alongside their (white) children.

All of this, during Black History Month.

Donald Trump, Wilbur Ross, and the Russians

Last night, billionaire Wilbur Ross was confirmed as Secretary of Commerce. Only 27 Senators voted against him, despite the fact that, as Senator Elizabeth Warren noted: "Mr. Ross has extensive ties to Russia. He plans to keep making money from his major oil shipping companies while working as Commerce Secretary. He's made billions off the backs of struggling homeowners. He is practically a cartoon stereotype of a Wall Street fat cat."

Ross' business ties to Russia were never brought up during his confirmation hearing. He was never asked about them, and he certainly never volunteered any information about them.

This was the backdrop to an extended segment on Rachel Maddow's show last night. It's 20 minutes, but I strongly encourage you to carefully watch the entire thing, as it's a very important piece in the Trump-Russia puzzle.

The transcript is not yet available, but, when it is, you'll be able to find it here.

In the meantime, here's a summary of the key points: Deutsche Bank (who we already know appears to be helping Trump play a shell game with his real estate assets) was fined $630 million by the U.S. Department of Justice last month for helping Russian oligarch launder their money. The reason the U.S. DoJ was involved is because the three Deutsche Bank sites engaged with the money-laundering scheme were in Moscow, Cyprus, and NYC.

The last chairman of Deutsche Bank is now the chairman of the Bank of Cyprus, which has a history of helping Russian oligarchs launder their money. He was appointed chair by the Bank of Cyprus' two largest shareholders, one of whom, Viktor Vekselberg, is a business associate and personal friend of Vladimir Putin.

Another major investor in that bank is a Russian mega-billionaire named Dmitry Rybolovlev. In the last decade, he went through what's said to be the most expensive divorce in modern history; his ex-wife was awarded $4.5 billion as her divorce settlement, and even that was probably a pittance based on his actual worth. But that worth is unclear, because he conspired to hide his money from her.

One of the ways he accomplished this was by sinking his money into real estate trusts in foreign countries. He bought, for example, an $88 million apartment in NYC for his daughter, as well as a $100 million estate in Florida. The seller of that estate? Donald Trump.

Trump had bought the estate two years earlier for $40 million in a bankruptcy auction. He never lived there, never refurbished it, etc., and then sold it to Rybolovlev in 2008 for $100 million. Two-and-a-half times what Trump paid for it two years earlier. Why would Rybolovlev overpay? To hide as much of his money as he could.

Rybolovlev never lived there, and he and Trump both claim they never met during the deal, and it was all handled through intermediaries. Who were those intermediaries? Well, the other vice-chair (in addition to Putin's pal) of the Bank of Cyprus, who installed the former Deutsche Bank chair, is none other than newly-confirmed U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Ross is, in fact, the single largest shareholder in the Bank of Cyprus, and Rybolovlev is another major shareholder. Ross is also the only American shareholder, and a longtime friend of Trump.

It isn't clear if Ross was the intermediary in this deal that netted Trump a $60 million profit on a garbage piece of real estate, but it had to be someone who knew Rybolovlev was going through a divorce and was looking to hide his assets in real estate trust and also knew that Trump needed an influx of cash to repay at debt to (surprise!) Deutsche Bank.

Now Ross is a cabinet secretary, so if any scandal about his ties to Russia come out, it will be a scandal inextricably tied to Trump.

Meanwhile, Evan Osnos, David Remnick, and Joshua Yaffa have a huge new piece in the New Yorker, "Trump, Putin, and the New Cold War," which says, in part, regarding that infamous 35-page intelligence dossier on Trump:

The thirty-five-page dossier, which included claims about Trump's behavior during a 2013 trip to Moscow, had been shopped around to various media outlets by researchers opposed to Trump's candidacy. The dossier concluded that Russia had personal and financial material on Trump that could be used as blackmail. It said that the Russians had been "cultivating, supporting, and assisting" Trump for years. According to current and former government officials, prurient details in the dossier generated skepticism among some members of the intelligence community, who, as one put it, regarded it as a "nutty" product to present to a President. But, in the weeks that followed, they confirmed some of its less explosive claims, relating to conversations with foreign nationals. "They are continuing to chase down stuff from the dossier, and, at its core, a lot of it is bearing out," an intelligence official said. Some officials believe that one reason the Russians compiled information on Trump during his 2013 trip was that he was meeting with Russian oligarchs who might be stashing money abroad—a sign of disloyalty, in Putin's eyes.

Emphases mine.

Welp.

Open Thread

Hosted by a turquoise sofa. Have a seat and chat.

Question of the Day

What is your most beloved book from childhood, the one you just read over and over and over because you loved it sooooo much?

Longtime readers will surely be unsurprised at my answer: Beautiful Joe.

image of my tattered copy of Beautiful Joe, featuring a brown dog with cropped ears on the cover

Beautiful Joe is based on a true story of an abused and rescued dog, and was written by Marshall Saunders—actually Margaret Marshall Saunders, who entered (and won) a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane and Educational Society under her middle name because female authors weren't getting published. It was first published in 1893; my tattered copy, which I read and reread and reread as a child, is a 1955 edition.