As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
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 75
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 in the news today:
[Content Note: War; death; images of injured people at link; video may autoplay at link] Kareem Khadder, Schams Elwazer, Elizabeth Roberts, Eyad Kourdi, and Jomana Karadsheh at CNN: Syria Gas Attack Reportedly Kills Dozens, Including Children.
Dozens of people, including at least ten children, have been killed in what is suspected to be one of the deadliest chemical attacks in Syria in years, multiple activist groups say.Unbearably horrifying. I feel like I don't even have words to express my sadness and rage on behalf of the people of Khan Sheikhoun. I am so, so sorry.
Airstrikes hit the rebel-held city of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province on Tuesday morning, giving off a "poisonous gas," according to Anas al-Diab, an activist with the Aleppo Media Center (AMC).
The attack, which has been blamed on the Syrian regime by activists and condemned by international leaders, has reportedly left hundreds injured.
...[Dr.] Fares al-Jundi, lives in a nearby village and rushed to the hospital after the airstrikes.
He told CNN: "I've never seen anything like it, beyond description."
Al-Jundi estimated there were around 500 wounded people. They covered the floors of the entire hospital, from the patients' rooms to the operating rooms and the corridors.
The doctor, who was choked with emotion as he spoke, described how whole families were killed, mothers and their children. They died of asphyxiation, foam covered their mouths. Many died suddenly, he said.
"I believe this horrible memory will stay with me for the rest of my life."
CNN's Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto noted, quite rightly: "Keep in mind, if this is Assad regime, it did so under continuing protection of Russia."
And thus with the continuing refusal of the U.S. president to hold Putin to account for it.
"The largest & most toxic chemical attack since Aug 2013."
— Akbar Shahid Ahmed (@AkbarSAhmed) April 4, 2017
US response? No State briefing. Spicer off-camera today. https://t.co/tvTaMv1PqU
And during that off-camera briefing, Spicer responded to questions about Russian involvement thus: "Yeah, I'm not going to get into— I know the president was briefed on this extensively this morning by his national security team, um, and I'm gonna let the statement speak for itself, because we feel very confident in the statement that we're making." A reporter pressed: "So that means no Russian involvement?" Spicer replied: "And that means that the statement is very clear as far as who we believe is to blame and how we believe we're reacting to it."
That statement, by the way, was to blame Assad—and Obama: "On Tuesday, the White House blamed the Syrian government for the attack, which it called a 'reprehensible' act 'that cannot be ignored by the civilized world.' The White House spokesman further told reporters that, 'these heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration's weakness and irresolution.'"
Trump would rather blame a former U.S. president for this vile act than Vladimir Putin. That's where we are, friends.
* * *
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk at ABC News: Trump Campaign Advisor Carter Page Targeted by Russian Spies. "Two years before joining the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser, New York business consultant Carter Page was targeted for recruitment as an intelligence source by Russian spies promising favors for business opportunities in Russia, according to a sealed FBI complaint. Page confirmed to ABC News that he is the individual identified as 'Male-1' in a 2015 court document submitted in a case involving the Russian spies. ...Early in his campaign for president, Trump identified Page as one of his top foreign policy advisers during a Washington Post editorial board meeting. At the time, Page had almost no public profile in Washington foreign policy circles."
[CN: Anti-semitism] Lili Bayer at Forward: Controversial Trump Aide Sebastian Gorka Backed Violent Anti-Semitic Militia. "As a Hungarian political leader in 2007, Sebastian Gorka, [Donald] Trump's chief counter-terrorism adviser, publicly supported a violent racist and anti-Semitic paramilitary militia that was later banned as a threat to minorities by multiple court rulings. In a video obtained by the Forward of an August 2007 television appearance by Gorka, the future White House senior aide explicitly affirms his party's and his support for the black-vested Hungarian Guard (Magyar Gárda)—a group later condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for attempting to promote an 'essentially racist' legal order."
So, just to recap those last two items: One of Trump's foreign policy advisors was targeted for recruitment by Russians, and his chief counterterrorism advisor is basically a neo-Nazi.
[CN: Nativism] Esther Yu Hsi Lee at ThinkProgress: Trump Wants Visitors from Countries Like Germany and France to Hand Over Social Media Passwords. "The U.S. government is mulling whether to force foreign visitors to hand over their cellular phones so that officials can conduct social media screenings, check financial records, and ask 'probing questions' about ideology, according to Trump administration officials who spoke with the Wall Street Journal. Prompted by [Donald] Trump's campaign call for 'extreme vetting' to prevent foreign terrorists from entering the United States, the government is considering strict guidelines that would require embassies to spend more time interviewing visa applicants, the Journal reported. The vetting procedure could affect people around the world, including visitors from 38 countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program, including France, Germany, and Australia. That program allows citizens from specific countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without having to get a visa."
[CN: Nativism] Olivia Solon at the Guardian: Spouses of US Immigrants on H-1B Visas Could Lose Their Right to Work. "Thousands of people—mostly women—working legally in the United States under Obama-era rules could be forced to stop working under Trump. Currently, if someone has an H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to come to the US temporarily, and has applied for lawful permanent residence, their spouse can apply to work under an H-4 employment authorization. ...[T]he Trump administration wants to clamp down on the H-1B visa program and when the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was a senator he opposed Obama's decision to allow H-4s to work, describing it as an immigration law change 'that hurts American workers.'"
[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Trump's Pick for Army Secretary Is Main Sponsor of Anti-LGBT Legislation in Tennessee. "Tennessee state senator Mark Green is Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of the Army. He would succeed Obama's Army Secretary Eric Fanning, the first openly gay man to hold that position. And what a change it would be. The HuffPost reports that Green is the main sponsor of an HB2-like bill that targets LGBT people."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
GOP Has Learned Nothing from Healthcare Debacle
Two major problems with the Republicans' recent epic failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act were: 1. They tried to do it at a breakneck pace, with little debate or care to detail; 2. It was retrogressive trash that was hardly an improvement on the current health insurance access program that's in place.
The lessons they seem to have taken away from that, however, are: 1. GO FASTER! 2. MAKE IT EVEN WORSE!
Mike DeBonis and John Wagner at the Washington Post: With Help from Pence, House Republicans Suddenly Rekindle Healthcare Talks.
With help from Pence. Of course.
Anyway.
GO FASTER! "Administration officials described the possible deal only in broad outlines, Meadows said, but legislative text reflecting the proposal was expected to be drafted by Tuesday."
MAKE IT EVEN WORSE! "The proposal, [Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Freedom Caucus] said, would allow states to apply for federal waivers exempting them from some health insurance mandates established under the Affordable Care Act—including 'essential health benefits' requiring coverage of mental-health care, substance abuse treatment, maternity care, prescription drugs and more, as well as a provision that bars insurers from charging the sick more than the healthy."
In other words: Ixnay on requiring insurers not to treat being a woman (for example) as a preexisting condition and on disallowing insurers from refusing to cover preexisting conditions.
Pence may have success in strong-arming House Republicans to pass something this shitty, but I expect (and fervently hope) that he will have a much more difficult time convincing Republicans in the Senate.
Three More Reasons I Won't Get Over It
Last week, I wrote that one of the many reasons I can't and won't get over the results of the election is that "Every time Trump says, does, endorses, proposes, or signs anything, I know what Clinton's position would have been. Every time he nominates someone, I know what Clinton's administration would have looked like. Every time he comments on some piece of shit legislation Congressional Republicans are conspiring to unleash on the public, I know what Clinton would have said about it. ...They are stark, these disparities between what is and what could have been."
In the news this morning are three critically important examples of the differences between these two candidates, about whom far, far too many people said there was no discernible difference.
1. [Content Note: Police brutality; racism] Sari Horwitz, Mark Berman, and Wesley Lowery at the Washington Post: Sessions Orders Justice Department to Review All Police Reform Agreements.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to review reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide, saying it was necessary to ensure that these pacts do not work against the Trump administration's goals of promoting officer safety and morale while fighting violent crime.Emphasis mine.
In a two-page memo released Monday, Sessions said agreements reached previously between the department's civil rights division and local police departments — a key legacy of the Obama administration — will be subject to review by his two top deputies, throwing into question whether all of the agreements will stay in place.
...Since 2009, the Justice Department opened 25 investigations into law enforcement agencies and has been enforcing 14 consent decrees, along with some other agreements. Civil rights advocates fear that Sessions's memo could particularly imperil the status of agreements that have yet to be finalized, such as a pending agreement with the Chicago Police Department.
"This is terrifying," said Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, who spent five years as the department's chief of special litigation, overseeing investigations into 23 police departments such as New Orleans, Cleveland, and Ferguson, Mo. "This raises the question of whether, under the current attorney general, the Department of Justice is going to walk away from its obligation to ensure that law enforcement across the country is following the Constitution."
Donald Trump's exclusive priority is "promoting officer safety and morale while fighting violent crime," which deliberately ignores that many of the people killed by police aren't engaged in violent crime when they are killed. Many deadly police shootings start with municipal violations, or allegations of petty crimes, or "compliance failures" resulting from disability and/or mental illness. And they are disproportionately governed by racism.
Trump, with his white supremacist co-conspirator Sessions, are endeavoring to bury all of this with "law and order" policies rooted in racist narratives that appeal to Trump's voter base, who don't want to hear anything contradictory to their firmly held belief that all police officers are heroes whose lives are constantly at risk because of violent swarthy thugs.
This was not Hillary Clinton's view. To the absolute contrary, she proposed that the federal government had an obligation to work with police forces to address overt racism, implicit bias, and woefully insufficient training on interacting with people with mental illness. Which she made clear many times along the campaign trail and during the first presidential debate:
LESTER HOLT: Secretary Clinton, last week, you said we've got to do everything possible to improve policing, to go right at implicit bias. Do you believe that police are implicitly biased against black people?People will die because of Trump's indifference to these issues. I have no inclination to get over that.
HILLARY CLINTON: Lester, I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other. And therefore, I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, you know, why am I feeling this way? But when it comes to policing, since it can have literally fatal consequences, I have said, in my first budget, we would put money into that budget to help us deal with implicit bias by retraining a lot of our police officers.
I've met with a group of very distinguished, experienced police chiefs a few weeks ago. They admit it's an issue. They've got a lot of concerns. Mental health is one of the biggest concerns, because now police are having to handle a lot of really difficult mental health problems on the street. They want support, they want more training, they want more assistance. And I think the federal government could be in a position where we would offer and provide that.
2. [CN: Misogyny] Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post: Donald Trump Defunds Global Maternal Health Organization.
Days after Melania Trump presented courage awards to 13 women working for gender equity around the globe, [Donald] Trump's administration halted all U.S. grants to the United Nations Population Fund, an international humanitarian aid organization that provides reproductive health care and works to end child marriage and female genital cutting in more than 150 countries.By way of reminder, during the third presidential debate, Trump claimed that nobody respects women more than he does, right before he called Clinton a "nasty woman."
The State Department invoked the 1985 Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which he said will ensure that "U.S. taxpayer dollars do not fund organizations or programs that support or participate in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." President George W. Bush used the same policy to defund the UNFPA from 2002 to 2008, arguing that the organization's presence in China constituted participation in the country's "one child" coercive family planning policy.
The UNFPA does not provide or promote abortions. The organization works in China to make reproductive health program voluntary and rights-based and has advocated against the country's one-child policy. The Trump administration did not explain exactly how it determined that the UNFPA violated any U.S. law.
"The UNFPA no longer provides any financial support to the Chinese government to support its family planning program. Not a dollar," said Peter Yeo, vice president of public policy at the United Nations Foundation. "So I'm not quite frankly sure how you make this Kemp-Kasten determination with a straight face."
Trump's move will pull $76 million from the UNFPA ― about 7 percent of its budget. In 2016, the funding provided access to contraceptives to 800,000 people around the world and prevented an estimated 100,000 unsafe abortions and 10,000 maternal deaths, according to the organization.
TRUMP: Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody. Nobody has more respect. [edit] Such a nasty woman.Someone who has even a modicum of respect for women does not use a demonstrably dishonest argument to justify defunding a program that has "prevented an estimated 100,000 unsafe abortions and 10,000 maternal deaths."
This program, it should go without saying, would never have been defunded under a Hillary Clinton administration.
People will die because of Trump's hostility toward women's global healthcare. I have no inclination to get over that.
3. [CN: Homophobia; violence; death] Tanya Lokshina at Human Rights Watch: Anti-LGBT Violence in Chechnya: When Filing "Official Complaints" Isn't an Option.
For several weeks now, a brutal campaign against LGBT people has been sweeping through Chechnya. Law enforcement and security agency officials under control of the ruthless head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, have rounded up dozens of men on suspicion of being gay, torturing and humiliating the victims. Some of the men have forcibly disappeared. Others were returned to their families barely alive from beatings. At least three men apparently have died since this brutal campaign began.Putin's administration is recommending that LGBTQ people file official complaints if they want help, despite the fact that it's law enforcement and security agency officials who are waging the campaign of violence. In other words: Putin will do nothing. And of course that was always going to be the case, because Putin is virulently anti-LGBTQ.
...Kadyrov's press secretary immediately described the report as "absolute lies and disinformation," contending that there were no gay people in Chechnya and then adding cynically, "If there were such people in Chechnya, law-enforcement agencies wouldn’t need to have anything to do with them because their relatives would send them somewhere from which there is no returning."
...The information published by Novaya Gazeta is consistent with the reports Human Rights Watch recently received from numerous trusted sources, including sources on the ground. The number of sources and the consistency of the stories leaves us with no doubt that these devastating developments have indeed occurred.
...On Monday, 3 April President Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stated that the Kremlin was previously not aware of the situation, but that law enforcement authorities would look into these media reports. On the one hand, this seems like good news, a signal to investigative officials to run a check promptly. On the other hand, Peskov also suggested that people who supposedly suffered from abuses by law enforcement officials should "file official complaints" and "go to court" without indicating what, if anything, Russian authorities are planning to do to protect them.
...Filing an official complaint against local security officials is extremely dangerous, as retaliation by local authorities is practically inevitable.
Trump will remain utterly silent about this brutal campaign against LGBTQ Russians, because he is no friend to the LGBTQ community and because he is Putin's puppet.
Clinton, by contrast, had no qualms about criticizing Putin (hence the Russian meddling in the election), and promised as far back as her 2008 campaign to make to make global LGBTQ rights an active "part of American foreign policy," which is a promise she kept as Secretary of State.
Now, because of Trump's obsequience to Putin and his indifference to the safety of LGBTQ people, people will die. I have no inclination to get over that.
* * *
Irrespective of increasingly popular assertions that racism, misogyny, and homophobia played no role in the last election, they are irrefutably playing a role in the Trump administration now.
They were always going to play a role. Anyone who imagined otherwise is being willfully ignorant.
And anyone who promulgated the despicable narrative that Clinton and Trump were "basically the same" bears responsibility for elevating the candidate who shamelessly trafficks in deadly bigotry, while undermining the candidate whose policies and personal decency would have made the difference between life and death for the marginalized people who will suffer under Trump's reprehensible presidency.
Elections have consequences. That is not a bumper sticker slogan. It is an immense truth, in three deceptively simple words.
I'm not making this point to be "right." I'm making it because I never, ever, want this country to make the same catastrophic mistake again.
So Mavericky
McCain says he will vote for the rules change to confirm Gorsuch but says it's the beginning of the end of the Senate.
— Byron Tau (@ByronTau) April 3, 2017
Hey, John McCain, I wrote a letter that you should read. Not that I think it will matter, since pretending to be a man of integrity, only to put party above country every time that it counts, is kind of your defining feature as a U.S. Senator.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker invisibilia: "What lessons, good and bad, did you take away from your grandparents or elderly relatives?"
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sunshine.
Recommended Reading:
Ijeoma: [Content Note: Fat hatred] Why Don't We Think Fat People Are Worth Fighting For?
Merriam-Webster: We Added a Gender-Neutral Pronoun in 1934. Why Have So Few People Heard of It?
Angie: [CN: Racism] The 8 Main Excuses Hollywood Uses for Racially Insensitive Casting—and Why They're BS
Charlotte: [CN: Sexual assault; purity culture] True Love Waits in the White House
Rae: Rare Images Suggest Thunderstorms from Space Are Even Weirder Than We Thought
Jacob: FCC Removes Competition Requirement from Charter-TWC Merger Conditions
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Revealed: Seychelles Meeting to Establish Trump-Putin Back Channel
Another day; another key piece of reporting about Trump's ties to Russia.
Adam Entous, Greg Miller, Kevin Sieff, and Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post report:
The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladimir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.Oh, and he's Betsy DeVos' brother, incidentally. Ahem.
The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump's inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would likely require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.
Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.
Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he contributed $250,000 to Trump's campaign, the national party and a pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said: "We are not aware of any meetings and Erik Prince had no role in the transition." No official role. But note that Spicer did not immediately say the meeting did not take place.
It's worth remembering that Mike Pence assumed leadership of Trump's transition in November. Also that a number of people, myself among them, believe DeVos was Pence's pick for Education Secretary.
It is quickly getting more difficult for Pence to keep playing innocent about the Trump administration's ties to Russia. At least while retaining any credibility, because the only other option is that he hadn't the faintest fucking clue what was happening during a transition he was running.
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.
* * *
1. Here is a piece of good news in the war on agency: "A federal judge has blocked an Indiana mandate forcing women to undergo an ultrasound at least 18 hours before having an abortion, ruling that the requirement is likely unconstitutional and creates 'clearly undue' burdens on women, particularly low-income women."
2. And, on a personal note, I went to the zoo this weekend and saw lots of cute animals. Yay!
Sunday at the zoo. This sheep was like heyyyyyyy. (Also: Hay?) pic.twitter.com/Jt8lEw2d7C
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 2, 2017
There Is No Debate
#ThereIsNoDebate pic.twitter.com/xId3Xsd5yG
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 3, 2017
#ThereIsNoDebate pic.twitter.com/aouEnf7sLt
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 3, 2017
#ThereIsNoDebate pic.twitter.com/Mn44Y6G50e
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 3, 2017
[For those who cannot view the images embedded in the tweets: The first is an image of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during a debate, with text reading: "We had a choice between a woman who is the most qualified candidate ever to seek the presidency, and a man who boasted about being a serial sex abuser, and some people still want to debate if sexism played a role in the election." The second is an image of Donald Trump, with text reading: "This man launched his campaign by demeaning Mexicans; spent his entire campaign using racist dogwhistles; promised policies to harm refugees, immigrants, and citizens who are people of color; and some people still want to debate if racism played a role in the election." The third is an image of Mike Pence, with text reading: "This infamous nemesis of the LGBTQ community was chosen as Trump's running mate, and people still want to debate if homophobia and transphobia played a role in this election."]
I could literally spend the rest of my day making these. But I think anyone who will get the point, has. And anyone who won't, never will.
Daily Dose of Cute
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 74
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 in the news today:
Derek Kravitz and Al Shaw at ProPublica: Trump Can Pull Money from His Businesses Whenever He Wants—Without Ever Telling Us.
When [Donald] Trump placed his businesses in a trust upon entering the White House, he put his sons in charge and claimed to distance himself from his sprawling empire. "I hope at the end of eight years I'll come back and say, 'Oh you did a good job,'" Trump said at a Jan. 11 press conference. Trump's lawyer explained that the president "was completely isolating himself from his business interests."I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Definitely the must-read piece of the day.
The setup has long been slammed as insufficient, far short of the full divestment that many ethics experts say is needed to avoid conflicts of interest. A small phrase buried deep in a set of recently released letters between the Trump Organization and the government shows just how little separation there actually is.
Trump can draw money from his more than 400 businesses, at any time, without disclosing it.
The previously unreported changes to a trust document, signed on Feb. 10, stipulates that it "shall distribute net income or principal to Donald J. Trump at his request" or whenever his son and longtime attorney "deem appropriate." That can include everything from profits to the underlying assets, such as the businesses themselves.
* * *
#Gorsuch. At the moment, Democrats are one vote away from the 41 votes they need to successfully block him with a filibuster. *bites nails*
[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault] Donald Trump has proclaimed April 2017 as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. "My Administration, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services, will do everything in its power to protect women, children, and men from sexual violence. This includes supporting victims, preventing future abuse, and prosecuting offenders to the full extent of the law." Signed, A President Who Is Himself a Confessed Serial Sexual Abuser. I will never stop being enraged about this. Never ever.
[CN: Nativism] Meanwhile, Trump also decided that, this being National Crime Victims' Week, it would be a good time to remind us, as promised during his address to the joint houses of Congress, that his administration is establishing an office within the DHS called VOICE, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, which will "assist victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens."
No word on establishing an office to support victims of crimes committed by the president. https://t.co/vmAzvWFcZs
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 3, 2017
Nolan D. McCaskill at Politico: Trump Revives Clinton Criticisms in Early Morning Tweets. LOL! That's a very polite way of saying that Trump doesn't know how to govern and he's feeling the pressure from investigations closing in on him and he is a big sad baby because everyone hates him, so he's trying to distract from being the woooooorst by pretending anything he has to say about Hillary Clinton actually matters.
Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post: New Details Emerge About 2014 Russian Hack of the State Department: It Was 'Hand to Hand Combat'. "Over a 24-hour period, top U.S. cyber defenders engaged in a pitched battle with Russian hackers who had breached the unclassified State Department computer system and displayed an unprecedented level of aggression that experts warn is likely to be turned against the private sector. Whenever National Security Agency hackers cut the attackers' link between their command and control server and the malware in the U.S. system, the Russians set up a new one, current and former U.S. officials said. The new details about the November 2014 incident emerged recently in the wake of a senior NSA official's warning that the heightened aggression has security implications for firms and organizations unable to fight back."
This, of course, is why we need a meaningful independent investigation into Russian interference in the election. Despite the caterwauling of TrumpCo and anti-Clinton lefties, this ain't about sour grapes. It's about protecting the nation.
Ellen Mitchell at the Hill: Trump Makes Little Headway Filling Out Pentagon Jobs. "Trump so far has only seen one Pentagon nominee—Defense Secretary James Mattis—make it through the confirmation process and has 52 additional positions to fill. Many in the defense world are bothered by the holdup. One defense consultant told The Hill there are rumblings that the slow pace of the process is causing the Pentagon 'to kind of grind.'" And, contrary to Trump's oft-repeated assertion that the Dems are holding up his nominees, the issue is that he isn't nominating people in the first place: "The top lawmakers on the House Armed Services oversight subcommittee this week sent a letter to Trump urging him to fill the existing vacancies at the DOD Office of the Inspector General and Office of Special Counsel."
I guess Jared Kushner can just do all those jobs, too, while he's also being a senior advisor and running a task force to make the federal government run more like a business.
Speaking of which! Maggie Haberman at the New York Times: Jared Kushner Visits Iraq on Invitation from Joint Chiefs Chairman. Cool.
Jared Kushner is traveling with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Iraq. He literally has no experience that qualifies him to do such. But, white.
— deray mckesson (@deray) April 3, 2017
Yessenia Funes at Colorlines: Indigenous and Environmental Groups Sue Federal Government on Keystone XL. "The Indigenous Environmental Network and the North Coast Rivers Alliance first sued the federal government—more specifically, the State Department, the Fish and Wildlife Service and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke—on Monday (March 27) in the U.S. District Court of Montana. Their suit claims that the federal approval of the presidential permit violates four principal environmental laws: the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Eagle Act. ...The second lawsuit was filed yesterday (March 30) in the same court on behalf of the Northern Plains Resource Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and others. They, too, targeted the federal government."
Chris Liedle at KATU News: Immigration Lawyer Shortage Nearing Crisis. "Amid the current political climate, the demand for immigration lawyers is skyrocketing. It's creating a significant shortage of experts qualified to represent immigrants, families and employers. Lewis & Clark law professor Juliet Stumpf says supply of immigration lawyers, however, has remained level, and non-profit organizations and advocacy groups are already overwhelmed or overextended."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Everything Is Fine. (Everything Is Not Fine.)
As you may recall, I have been saying for some time now that the most present national security threat outside the U.S. is the escalation in East Asia.
In news on that front, ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida this week, Trump said in an interview with Financial Times published Sunday that his administration "might deal with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs on its own if need be."
"China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don't it won't be good for anyone," Trump was quoted as saying, according to an edited transcript published by the newspaper.Meanwhile, a prominent North Korean defector "has told NBC News that the country's 'desperate' dictator is prepared to use nuclear weapons to strike the United States and its allies."
Asked what incentive the United States had to offer China, Trump replied: "Trade is the incentive. It is all about trade."
Asked if he would consider a "grand bargain" in which China pressured Pyongyang in return for a guarantee the United States would later remove troops from the Korean peninsula, the newspaper quoted Trump as saying: "Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you."
Thae Yong Ho is the most high profile North Korean defector in two decades, meaning he is able to give a rare insight into the secretive, authoritarian regime.Admiral James Stavridis, an NBC News analyst and dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told NBC News that the situation is increasingly dangerous for three reasons: "One is [Kim's] own precarious situation in command of the nation. Number two is the instability in South Korea. We've just seen the South Korean president indicted, arrested, and incarcerated. And, number three, a new and more aggressive American foreign policy coming from Washington."
According to Thae, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is "desperate in maintaining his rule by relying on his [development of] nuclear weapons and ICBM." He was using an acronym for intercontinental ballistic missiles — a long range rocket that in theory would be capable of hitting the U.S.
"Once he sees that there is any kind of sign of a tank or an imminent threat from America, then he would use his nuclear weapons with ICBM," he added in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
That last reason is a very polite way of saying that Trump's belligerent provocation is making us less safe.
Bernie Sanders, Please Stop Denying Bigotry
[Content Note: Gaslighting; bigotry.]
One of the defining moments, to me, of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign is captured in this video. In it, Trump encourages people at his rallies to engage in violence against protestors, even promising to pay legal fees his supporters might incur in the process.
A specific moment comes at the 01'09" mark. Trump is standing at a podium and says:
"We're not allowed to punch [protestors] back anymore. I love the old days. You know what they used to do guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out in a stretcher folks. I'd like to punch him in the face, I tell ya."In response, the crowd cheers and applauds. Behind him, three men can be seen in the background laughing, while others smirk.
I haven't been able to forget this moment. It's one of a handful of snapshots that communicated to me what was headed our way, should Trump win: cruelty. And, not just cruelty, but the celebration, threat, and promise that he would carry out cruelty in the names of his supporters, during the course of implementing his platform. His was an explicit rejection of "political correctness," that dog whistle for understanding marginalized people's lives, and a chief appeal that drew many to his side.
Concern for the plight of the purported platonic ideal of the ordinary American—that white male factory worker—excused all cruelty. The chief aggrievement was: The country has forgotten about white people and somebody had better pay!
How many people supported Trump because of his cruelty we may never know, but that at least some supported him because of it seems undeniable, whether the cruelty was aimed at protestors, subversives, critics, women, Hillary Clinton, "the swamp," "the establishment," people of color, Muslims, the press, other politicians, immigrants, Mexicans, and more.
Regardless of whether Trump supporters were disgusted, delighted, entertained, or titillated by Trump's cruelty, Trump supporters share at least one commonality. Trump's parade of cruelties during Election 2016 was not a dealbreaker.
And yet. Oh my, and yet.
On Friday, Bernie Sanders repeated a remarkable claim:
"Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree, because I've been there."Sanders' statement here is not careful, qualified, or precise. It instead sets up a false dilemma that encapsulates why the Democratic Primary battle will not go away: that people can be either poor or bigots, but never both. And so, when you read articles about Bernie Sanders being the "most popular politician" in the US right now, I cannot underscore enough how much it appeals to white people to hear politicians deny that masses of white people are bigoted.
But, it's extremely polarizing. Sure, it appeals to many white people, who need their guilt assuaged, but Sanders' claim is also rejected as false by many marginalized people. It asks a lot of the marginalized, to go along with a charade for the sake of building a movement.
Likewise, I can already hear (indeed have already heard) defenders of Sanders saying we ought to interject assumptions of good faith into his statement. After all, they say, even though Bernie said this, he's actually a good ally to marginalized people because he marched with Dr. King and wants to enact single-payer healthcare and so forth. We see white people, often men, hopping into marginalized people's Twitter mentions, questioning the sincerity of our concern for marginalized people, because we dare to criticize Bernie Sanders.
Now, I would agree that Bernie Sanders is a good ally to marginalized people in some respects. But, categorically denying the existence of bigotry in a population that elected a bigot as President does not, actually, constitute being a good ally to people of color, women, immigrants, LGBT folks, and others. (For the record, Hillary Clinton didn't say all Trump supporters were "deplorable".)
It is, after all, the lived reality of marginalized people that we are both on the receiving end of bigotry and are continually gaslit about its existence. We must do a lot of work to convince people that this bigotry is real and not figments of our imagination. Indeed, with a lifetime of navigating this world as a queer woman—and a feminist—my self-preservation instincts have been on high alert since Election 2016, precisely because of the bigotry that Trump tapped into and stoked during his campaign.
However, if Bernie Sanders somehow just knows that no Trump supporter is a bigot, does that mean I can let down my guard? Does it mean that when Trump starts doing some (more) scary shit to immigrants or people of color or women or queers, Trump supporters won't stand for it, because after all, they're not bigots and they certainly won't stand for bigotry even though they voted for a bigot?
Could it be, in fact, that Donald Trump is the only actual bigot left in the United States?
Or, could the situation be something other than what Bernie Sanders says it is. I, for instance, keep this quote by Liel Leibovitz, at the forefront of my mind, still:
"Voters are all adults, and all have made their choices, and it is now you who must brace for impact. Whether you choose to forgive those, friends and strangers alike, who cast their votes so deplorably is a matter of personal choice, and none but the most imperious among us would advocate a categorical rejection of millions based on their electoral actions, no matter how irresponsible and dim. So while you make these personal calculations, remember that what matters now isn’t analysis: It’s survival."I cannot reconcile the terror I feel about what Trump is inflicting on us—with the support of his voters standing behind him—and the fact that Bernie Sanders is touted by his followers as the only true progressive in US politics while he acts so thoroughly dismissive of the bigotry Trump has stoked, provoked, and wielded during the course of his Electoral College win.
We survive and resist, I contend, not through a craven, dignity-destroying, white-man-centered capitulation to a mythical narrative wherein Trump supporters are something other than what they have shown us to be, but rather by speaking the words that our lived experiences have shown us to be true.
I know from experience that while some white people will take an "if Bernie said it, that settles it" approach, the mere words of many women, people of color, and queers will never be taken as similarly authoritative on the matter of whether bigotry exists. So instead, I ask:
The interests of Trump supporters coincide with the interests of David Duke and the KKK, but how can that be, if no Trump supporters are racist?
Progressive women writers received, and continue to receive, death threats and other forms of abuse from Trump supporters, but how can that be, if no Trump supporters are sexist?
Muslim activists are targeted with Islamophobic smears by Trump supporters, but how can that be, if no Trump supporters are bigots?
Anti-LGBT organizations see the Trump Administration as an opportune moment to roll back LGBT rights, but how can that be, if no Trump supporters are homophobes or transphobes?
Thousand of people across the nation regularly chanted their fantastical wish to see a woman locked up, although she has been convicted of no crime, but how can that be if no Trump supporters are sexist?
2016 saw a surge in white nationalism and anti-Muslim harassment that coincided with Trump running a campaign that appealed to white nationalists and Islamophobes, but how can that be, if no Trump supporters are racists or bigots?
Actual statistics show that sexism and racial resentment were key to Trump's win, but how can that be if no Trump supporters are racist or sexist?
Nobody is a bigot, it seems, and yet bigotry is somehow all around us.
Nobody is a bigot, it seems, and yet a bigot was somehow elected as President.
Nobody is a bigot, and yet the day after a bigot was inaugurated, women of color led a grass-roots four-million-people-strong march, which was the largest single-day protest in US history.
A song from this march went viral, in fact, because its lyrics so resonated with the people: "I can't keep quiet." But why can't we keep quiet? Because of Wall Street, perhaps, but also could it be because the United States is built upon a silence that is so often demanded of marginalized people, by the powerful, for some purported greater good? As Neera Tanden tweeted, "I don't think the country has understood how psychologically wounding it was to so many women that Trump won after the Access Hollywood tape."
So tell me. What were the people protesting, if not—at least in part—the bigotry that Trump and his supporters engaged in? Do we—marginalized people—constitute "the people" too, Senator Sanders? Does our resistance count, even if its not spear-headed by you? Is it real, even though we say out loud that yes, bigotry does exist in the world, within actual people?
Perhaps it is a mystery lost to the sands of time as to how bigotry can spring forth, never from actual people, but from a shapeless aether.
Perhaps, though, it's not a mystery at all.
Perhaps it's simply this. Many people are bigoted.
And, even if these people are victims of a corrupt economic system, Donald Trump's supporters also witnessed his cruelty—his countless bigotries—and they supported him anyway. And now, Bernie Sanders is there to re-assure them that what they did was okay. He is, in fact, just one of a long line of white man after white man after white man who in the wake of Election 2016 is making the grotesque request that "our revolution" help Donald Trump supporters live happily ever after by denying the existence of the cruel bigotries that elected a cruel bigot into the White House.
So, Bernie Sanders, I plead. If you are the politician of the people that you claim to be: please stop gaslighting us.
You talk a lot about bringing about a revolution. However, if your movement can only be built by denying that bigoted people are bigoted, you might want to consider that you're not leading a revolution, you are—to many of us—just staging a change in management.
A Terrible Trifecta
[Content Note: Privilege; bigotry.]
Between Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Bill Maher, yesterday was a banner day in White Men Know What's Best for You So Shush 2017.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 1, 2017
Late Friday, I wrote about former Vice-President Joe Biden's objectionable comments regarding the last election. He was, as it turned out, just leading a parade of white men who wanted to weigh in with their wisdom on Friday.
At an Our Revolution rally in Boston, Senator Bernie Sanders had this to say:
Dear Bernie: We are not going to out-white the Republicans, nor should we want to. Stop erasing the 68 million people who beat Trump. pic.twitter.com/OXvjeisUWf
— Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) April 1, 2017
Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and just deplorable folks. I don't agree. I don't agree, 'cause I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you may not agree with, and that is: It wasn't that Donald Trump won the election; it was that the Democratic Party lost the election!I had quite a few things to say about Sanders' contention that Trump voters, full-stop, are not racist, sexist, or homophobe, and I have Storified all of my tweets about it from the weekend. There will also be a dedicated piece on Sanders' comments, authored by Fannie, which will follow this one.
My Twitter commentary focuses, as does Fannie's piece, on the first part of Sanders' comments, so here I want to highlight the second part, in which he asserts that Trump didn't win the election, but Democrats lost it.
There is a whole lot wrong with that statement, starting with the fact that blaming Democrats—especially the specific Democrat, Hillary Clinton, whom Sanders, like Biden, doesn't have the decency to name—won the popular vote by 3 million votes. Clinton did indeed lose the election, but not because her ideas and policies and values were less popular. Which makes this smug posturing incredibly mendacious. And counterproductive.
Clinton got millions of more votes, and Trump is already, ten weeks into his presidency, historically unpopular. He reached the Oval Office in large part because of election interference. It's extremely difficult to reasonably justify shitting all over Clinton's campaign, given these facts, even though she is not president.
Further, if there is a Democrat who deserves blame for losing this election, it's fairweather Democrat Bernie Sanders, who spent the entirety of the Democratic primary amplifying three decades of Republican tropes about Clinton and validating those viciously dishonest narratives about her. He endlessly repeated an inaccurate and misogynist mischaracterization of Clinton, until millions of progressive voters believed it was true. He straight-up lied about Clinton calling him unqualified, only to give himself an excuse to call her unqualified. When his campaign got called out for using misogyny against her, they accused her of attacking them. And on and on and on.
Sanders did everything he could to weaken Clinton as a candidate, and now has the unmitigated temerity to suggest that she lost the election and allowed Trump to win. Breathtaking.
Finally on Friday night, Bill Maher's Real Time showcased Maher and Rick Santorum finding agreement that liberals are stupid and oversensitive and don't know how to take a joke and that's why we lose.
In which 3 white dudes tell @neeratanden that racism and sexism are no big deal. pic.twitter.com/mC3zhK4bqf
— Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) April 1, 2017
Maher: ...because Bill O'Reilly made a joke about Maxine Waters' hair. [He is referring to O'Reilly's misogynist and racist commentary on Rep. Maxine Waters' hair.] This is so typical of—There are a whole lot of reasons that "we" didn't win the last presidential election, but chief among them—and this becomes clearer every day—is the fact that straight white cis men still refuse to listen to people who don't share their privileges.
Neera Tanden: Okay, she spoke out against racism and sexism, Bill. That's what she spoke out against, all right?
Maher: She spoke out about a joke! [crosstalk] You know that? This is why the Democrats lost the election in the first place—because they cannot get their priorities straight, and they never fail to take the bait about little bullshit issues—
Tanden: I don't think racism and sexism are little bullshit issues—
Maher: Why is that racist?! Why is it racist?! Because he compared two Black people?!
Tanden: Okay, do you know how April Ryan was treated, or are you saying he would have treated a man like that? Is that—
Maher: Yes!
Tanden: —what you're saying? A white dude would be treated like that? I don't think that's right!
Maher: You're referring to the fact that—
Tanden: That Sean Spicer—
Maher: —said to a woman in the audi— [crosstalk] in the briefing, April Ryan, who is an African American, and they were going back and forth, and she was shaking her head, and he said, "Please stop shaking your head," and you go immediately to, "It's a racist thing about [puts on stereotypical imitation of a Black woman holding up her finger and rolling her head] oh no he didn't!"
[crosstalk between men as Tanden makes a face and a disgusted noise]
Rick Santorum: If I may—
Maher: Yes, please.
Santorum: If I may, as someone who comes on this show who can take a joke—
Maher: Right!
Santorum: —and, about Catholic priests, and doesn't scream and holler how offended I am, and how horrible this is— [crosstalk with Tanden] I shook my head and said, "You know, off-color joke. You know what? We're big boys and girls here—
Maher: Right!
Santorum: —you know, don't be outraged at every offense." That's one of the problems we have. Stop the fake outrage!
Tanden: It's not fake! It's not fake outrage!
Santorum: Well, if it isn't fake outrage, then you should learn to take a joke and move on.
Tanden: You're right, there's not enough— You're right, you're right, you're right. The first four or five months of Trump there've been no— We're all oversensitive about the attacks on women and people of color. You're right! That's exactly the issue.
Maher: There are real issues about that. Not jokes.
Many of them, far too many, didn't want to listen to a woman who told them the truth, and they still aren't listening to marginalized people. And the refusal to listen would be bad enough on its own, but it is an active not listening: It is auditing our lived experiences; it is gaslighting; it is silencing.
It is telling us, over and over, that we are the reason we lost. When we were the ones who got it right.
I have said it before, and I will no doubt regrettably have reason to say it again: The most radical act that any privileged person can do in this moment is shut the fuck up and listen.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
Very Interesting
Richard Greenberg at NBC News: Obama Officials Made List of Russia Probe Documents to Keep Them Safe.
Obama administration officials were so concerned about what would happen to key classified documents related to the Russia probe once [Donald] Trump took office that they created a list of document serial numbers to give to senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a former Obama official told NBC News.This is something about which we've heard many rumors over the past months, but here is confirmation.
The official said that after the list of documents related to the probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election was created in early January, he hand-carried it to the committee members. The numbers themselves were not classified, said the official.
The purpose, said the official, was to make it "harder to bury" the information, "to share it with those on the Hill who could lawfully see the documents," and to make sure it could reside in an Intelligence committee safe, "not just at Langley [CIA hq]."
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by rain.
Recommended Reading:
Eastsidekate: [Content Note: Trans hatred] A White Trans Lady Circle of Life
Sarah: [CN: Misogyny] What We Actually Gained From Hillary's Loss
Lance: [CN: Bigotry] I Alone Is Not a Populist Message
Karnythia: Let's Talk About Education—Public Education
Jess: [CN: Misogyny] What Women's Basketball Coaching Shows About Sexism in Sports
Keith: [CN: White supremacist murder] Dylann Roof to Plead Guilty to Murder Charges, Avoid Death Penalty
Vivian: Iceland's Government Wants to Make Sure Women Really and Truly Get Equal Pay
Maddie: [CN: Moving GIF at link] Oh My God, Look at Saturn's North Pole
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
