[Content Note: Terrorism; injury; death.]
Last night, at the end of an Ariana Grande concert at an arena in Manchester, UK, an explosion was set off, killing at least 22 people and injuring 59 others, some seriously.
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, though there is no evidence yet of international coordination; IS now frequently claims responsibility for terrorist acts committed by individual radicalized actors. Police are investigating whether the killer was part of a network. The explosion is also being investigated as a suicide bombing, as it is believed the bomber was carrying and detonated an improvised explosive device (IED).
Two of the victims have been identified: 18-year-old Georgina Callander, who was a health and social care student, and 8-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, who was attending the concert with her mother and sister, both of whom are reportedly still being treated for their injuries.
Additional names of those killed will be released throughout the day as they are identified and their families notified.
The Guardian is posting live updates here.
My condolences to the families, friends, and communities of those who were killed. My sympathies to the injured, and to the survivors who were not physically injured but must process this extraordinary trauma. I am so sorry.
My heart always aches after any terrorist attack. Manchester is hitting me particularly hard. Of places on the Earth that have produced things which have made my life better, Manchester is right at the top of the fucking list.
This blog, originally named Shakespeare's Sister, is a Virginia Woolf reference coming by way of a Smiths song—a Manchester band. The last X Sentence on Page Y we did, mine was from the autobiography of a Manchester United player—a football team I love so much that an old photo from one of their matches hangs in my living room. Davy Jones was from Manchester—a member of The Monkees, the first concert I ever saw. James, a band I love so much that I own a jacket on which I painted their iconic daisy, is from Manchester. Joy Division. New Order. Oasis. The Happy Mondays. Simply Red. Swing Out Sister. Inspiral Carpets. The Ting Tings...
That this heinous act was carried out in Manchester, at a music concert, is unbearable. Not that it would have been any less so anywhere else. It's just the particular symbolism of hitting this particular town in this particular way. Fuck.
I don't know how to end this, so I'll just end it by linking to this: "Our response will be to try to contain the blast, by showing that the overwhelming majority of people remain kind, decent, and big-hearted. This is not a platitude. It is a political response."
My heart is with you, Manchester. On this day and always.
[NOTE: Please feel welcome and encouraged to share updates and additional information in comments. As always following such an event, let's keep this an image-free thread. Thanks.]
Bombing in Manchester; IS Claims Responsibility
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Lostshadows: "What are you reading?"
I am currently reading Hold Me, by Courtney Milan. And it's really fucking good!
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by post-it notes.
Recommended Reading:
Aiyana Bailin: [Content Note: Ablism] What the Fidget Spinners Fad Reveals About Disability Discrimination
Alex Heeney and Mary Angela Rowe: [CN: Misogyny] The Perils of Writing While Female
Erin White: [CN: Family dysfunction] Boundaries Matter: Shitty Parents and Other Family Members Are Not Worth Your Sanity
Steven Novella: Inoculating — Against Misinformation
Luis Damian Veron: [CN: Homophobia; white supremacy] Dublin Gay Bar Hit with Homophobic, Neo-Nazi Graffiti
Sidney Fussell: Pennsylvania's New Body Camera Policy Would Allow Officers Unrestricted Access to Film in Homes
Ragen Chastain: [CN: Fat hatred] Gym Gone Wild: Fatshaming Kids as a Marketing Ploy
Swapna Krishna: On Star Trek: Discovery and Michelle Yeoh's Accent
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
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 is some tentative good news: U.S. Supreme Court Agrees NC Lawmakers Created Illegal Congressional District Maps in 2011. I say it's tentative good news because: "It was not immediately clear what impact the decision would have on lingering questions over the districts used to elect the state legislature, and whether lawmakers will have to draw new maps and hold legislative elections in 2017." Still. This is a far better outcome than the Supreme Court ruling the other way.
And here is a good thing:
Here is a whale creating a rainbow. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/Tks9jgNRki
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 22, 2017
I Mean
The town of Palm Beach has announced that a sinkhole has opened up in front of Mar-a-Lago: "A 4' x 4' sinkhole has formed on Southern Boulevard directly in front of Mar-a-Lago. It appears to be in the vicinity of the newly installed water main. West Palm Beach Utilities distribution crews have secured the area and will most likely need to do some exploratory excavation today. One lane is closed but the road remains open. Please pay attention to signs."
So Trump touches a glowing orb and then a gateway to hell opens up outside Mar-a-Lago? Sounds about right. https://t.co/J6Vw9EXYLO
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 22, 2017
The appearance of a hellmouth was only a matter of time.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 22, 2017
"Please pay attention to signs." No kidding.
Dear Gloria Steinem, I Am Pro-Abortion. Sincerely, Liss.
Maggie Mallon at Glamour: Gloria Steinem: It's 'Ridiculous' to Say That Someone Is 'Pro-Abortion'.
On Tuesday [Gloria Steinem] spoke at Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio's centennial gala and fundraiser, where was greeted by about 40 demonstrators outside of the event who were protesting the women's health care organization (said one 19-year-old woman: "[Steinem] is in there helping Planned Parenthood raise money to kill more human beings"). Prior to Tuesday's gala, both Steinem and Planned Parenthood were blasted by the antiabortion group Ohio Right to Life: Steinem was called a "radical pro-abortion icon" and the health care provider was labeled "dehumanizing."I understand what Steinem was trying to say—that no person wants to be in the position of needing an abortion.
But despite the protests, Steinem was nonplussed.
"If they supported me, I'd know I was doing something wrong," Steinem told the AP, referring to the antichoice group. "It's obviously ridiculous to say somebody is 'pro-abortion.' Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'I think I'll have an abortion. It's a pleasurable experience.' The question is not pro-abortion or antiabortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government."
But that is not what she said. She said: "It's obviously ridiculous to say somebody is 'pro-abortion.'"
Well, call me obviously ridiculous, then, because I am pro-abortion.
I'm pro-abortion the same way I'm pro-heart surgery, or any other healthcare service. I want it to be accessible to anyone who needs it.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 2, 2017
And to be frank, in an era in which Democratic leaders are talking about abortion access as a negotiable policy, I will say even more loudly that I am pro-abortion.
No matter how obviously ridiculous anyone may think my position to be.
Daily Dose of Cute
She is looking to the side because I was reaching toward the treat jar while I was taking the picture, lol. Just following my hand, making sure that she was going to get a treat, as they always do when they come back in from being in the backyard. Zelda usually sits or stands politely for her treats, which is why I was able to snap this adorbz pic of her in that moment. Dudley, meanwhile, was galloping around like a loose pinball, and will only sit for his treat once I force him to, like the big old meanypants that I am.
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 123
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:
Earlier today by me: Trump on the Road and Trump vs. the Intelligence Community.
Donald Trump just did an absolutely incredible thing, revealing that the source of the top-level classified info he shared with the Russians was Israel.
Trump just said he never mentioned Israel in his meeting w/ Russians.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 22, 2017
(That was not the issue—Story never alleged Trump divulged source.) pic.twitter.com/oSi8rQmQe0
Also, didn't he just then confirm Israel was the source? https://t.co/Bp0xTKxlc8
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) May 22, 2017
He did indeed! And he did it literally unprompted. Just volunteered the information.
I asked @netanyahu if concerns re US intel sharing @realDonaldTrump says "I never mentioned the word or the name Israel" in "that" convo
— Margaret Talev (@margarettalev) May 22, 2017
This guy is a wreck. An extremely dangerous wreck.
* * *
[Content Note: White supremacy; violence; death; video may autoplay at link] Carrie Wells at the Baltimore Sun: Police, FBI Investigating University of Maryland Killing as Possible Hate Crime.
Authorities are investigating whether the stabbing death of a black college student who was visiting the University of Maryland during graduation weekend was a hate crime.I will say again: Donald Trump did not invent white supremacy, but he sure as fuck is doing everything he can to empower it. And that has consequences.
The chief of the university police said Sunday the suspect, a white University of Maryland student, is a member of a racist Facebook group. An FBI official said the federal agency will assist with the investigation.
The victim, identified by police Sunday as Richard Collins III, was due to graduate from Bowie State University this week. The Calvert County man had completed ROTC in college and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army on Thursday, according to school officials and a family spokesman. He was 23.
Police have charged Sean Christoper Urbanski, 22, of Severna Park with first-degree murder in the attack. He was being held without bail.
...Collins was waiting with two other students for an Uber ride outside the Montgomery Hall dormitory on Regents Drive near U.S. 1 at about 3 a.m. Saturday when he was attacked. ...Collins' friends told police they heard the suspect scream as he approached them.
The suspect said "Step left, step left if you know what's best for you," police wrote in charging documents. Collins said "no," police wrote. The suspect continued to approach, and stabbed him once in the chest.
Police said initially there was no indication that race played a role. But University Police Chief David Mitchell said information about the Facebook group was brought to their attention on Sunday.
The group, called "Alt-Reich Nation," contained racist posts, he said.
"When I look at the information that's contained on that website, suffice it to say that it's despicable, it shows extreme bias against women, Latinos, persons of Jewish faith and especially African-Americans," Mitchell said.
[CN: Stalking; doxxing; anti-Semitism] On that very note... Ryan Broderick at BuzzFeed: Trump Supporters Have Built a Document with the Addresses and Phone Numbers of Thousands of Anti-Trump Activists. "The document posted by kanuke7 has since been removed, but according to a copy of it obtained by BuzzFeed News, it contains the names, addresses, and phone numbers of thousands of people, as well as links to their social media accounts."
This is rank intimidation. And Trump continues to empower that shit, too, with his own fascistic behavior. We are in a dark time, and it's only going to get worse.
* * *
Daniel Hemel at Take Care: Why Hasn't Rod Rosenstein Recused Himself from the Russiagate Probe? "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should recuse himself from the probe into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia and the President's apparent attempt to obstruct the FBI's inquiry. Rosenstein himself played a key role in the events at the center of the controversy, and his continued involvement casts a shadow over the ongoing investigation."
Associated Press: AP Source Says Flynn Will Invoke Fifth Amendment. "Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn will invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination on Monday as he notifies the Senate Intelligence committee that he will not comply with a subpoena seeking documents. That's according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. ...Legal experts have said Flynn was unlikely to turn over the personal documents without immunity because he would be waiving some of his constitutional protections by doing so. Flynn has previously sought immunity from 'unfair prosecution' to cooperate with the committee."
Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: White House Trying to Block Ethics Office from Seeing Former Lobbyists Hired by Administration. "The White House is trying to keep the Office of Government Ethics from viewing documents detailing which former lobbyists have been hired by the Trump administration for positions in the federal government, the New York Times reported Monday morning. The Trump administration asked Walter Shaub Jr., the director of the Office of Government Ethics, to withdraw his request for copies of the waivers for former lobbyists, arguing that Shaub did not have the legal authority to make such a request... Shaub told the New York Times that he was surprised by the White House's response to his request. 'It is an extraordinary thing,' he said. 'I have never seen anything like it.'"
Simon Maloy at the Week: The Trump White House Is Collapsing. "All of the administration's self-made crises are pushing the people on the inside to break ranks and feed dirt to reporters. An administration cannot expect to function properly under these circumstances. The White House is just oozing poison at this point, and the growing toxicity is undermining everything the president and his aides are trying to do. The accelerating Russia investigation paired with Trump's penchant for political self-destruction guarantee that things won't improve any time soon."
And, naturally, as the White House is embroiled in chaos and corruption, their domestic agenda continues to be fucking horrific, even as it receives comparatively little attention.
Damian Paletta at the Washington Post: Trump to Propose Big Cuts to Safety Net in New Budget, Slashing Medicaid and Opening Door to Other Limits.
Trump's first major budget proposal on Tuesday will include massive cuts to Medicaid and call for changes to anti-poverty programs that would give states new power to limit a range of benefits, people familiar with the planning said, despite growing unease in Congress about cutting the safety net.Welp.
For Medicaid, the state-federal program that provides health care to low-income Americans, Trump's budget plan would follow through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this could cut off Medicaid benefits for about 10 million people over the next decade.
The White House also will call for giving states more flexibility to impose work requirements for people in different kinds of anti-poverty programs, people familiar with the budget plan said, potentially leading to a flood of changes in states led by conservative governors. Many anti-poverty programs have elements that are run by both the states and federal government, and a federal order allowing states to stiffen work requirements "for able-bodied Americans" could have a broad impact in terms of limiting who can access anti-poverty payments — and for how long.
...The White House also is expected to propose changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though precise details couldn't be learned.
...After The Washington Post reported some of the cuts Sunday evening, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump was pulling "the rug out from so many who need help."
"This budget continues to reveal [Donald] Trump's true colors: His populist campaign rhetoric was just a Trojan horse to execute long-held, hard-right policies that benefit the ultra wealthy at the expense of the middle class," he said.
* * *
Another cool snapshot from Trump's trip abroad...
Female reporters banned from Ivanka Trump's discussion of female empowerment in Saudi Arabia https://t.co/th5xibuSlT
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) May 22, 2017
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
TV Corner: The Keepers
[Content Note: Violence; sexual assault; death; Christian supremacy.]
This weekend, I watched The Keepers, a 7-episode documentary series on Netflix about the 1969 murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik and the subsequent cover-up. Her murder remains unsolved. The series introduces us to the potential suspects and one very important motive: Sister Cathy had discovered that Father Joseph A. Maskell, the counselor at the Catholic girls' school at which she was a teacher was sexually abusing students and allowing other men to sexually assault them in his office.
That is the most frank way I can describe what was happening, but the extent of the abuse was vast and horrific. It is difficult to watch the survivors recount their abuse. It is also important, and, for me personally, validating and ultimately an extremely positive experience to spend time with the women, former students of Sister Cathy's, who are survivors and investigators.
who has fought for decades for accountability from the Catholic Church.
Unlike the other notable true crime docuseries and podcasts of late, this is a victim-centered crime series, which makes it very different and very special. Here, we get the perspective of crime survivors and families of the dead—including the family of Joyce Malecki, a young woman who was killed just days after Cesnik in the same neighborhood, and was a parishioner of the aforementioned priest. Here, there are no narratives about hero cops, but a stark representation of how survivors are so often failed in such extraordinary ways.
Watching The Keepers, I was (and remain) awed by the tenacious courage of these survivors, even as I am angry that they have been obliged to be courageous, and of the woman who was likely killed for being their advocate.
I also thought, over and over, of all the times I've written about rape culture and gotten pushback that's some variation of, "No one condones rape." The hell they don't. And this documentary series is one of the best exposures of the terrifying vastness of institutional rape culture.
For all of us who have been gaslighted, ignored, disbelieved, turned away by the institutions supposed to protect us, The Keepers is so personal, and so important.
It reminds us that none of us is alone. And that is not justice. But it is real.
Trump vs. the Intelligence Community
I have long been concerned about Trump's war on the intelligence community and where it would lead. On Friday, I detailed my emerging concern that it has led to what is effectively dueling coups between the Trump administration and the national security bureaucrats:
The intelligence community has its own reasons for wanting to consolidate its own power, which has frequently been abused. There is no history which suggests that the IC, given increased power through any means, is inclined to subsequently relinquish it.On Friday night, I did a little media analysis tweeting (thread begins here), during which I made this observation, with regard to many of the Big Scoops that are centered around leaks from eager leakers:
(As an aside, if you want a good picture of what governance seized by intelligence can become, look no further than Russia: Putin is former KGB.)
The way this power struggle is currently shaping up, there are no good outcomes. Just less awful ones.
At the end of this, unless something fundamentally changes from a battle between the White House and the intelligence community (started long ago by Trump), I don't believe any result is going to be a net positive for democracy.
I suspect we will look back at this time & see a lot of Big Scoops as stenography for dueling coups b/t Trump & the intelligence community.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 19, 2017
Over the weekend, with a hat tip to Shaker SKM, I read this important piece at Harper's by Michael J. Glennon, a professor of international law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a former counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The piece starts with a history of the origins and elevation of the national security bureaucracy in the United States, before Glennon provides the context for the concerns I have expressed (emphases mine):
Clearly the public has a right to know whether a president is telling the truth if he claims that his predecessor ordered that he be illegally wiretapped. The public also has a right to know whether the president's staff illegally coordinated with a foreign government during the election campaign or lied to the FBI about foreign contacts. But consider the price of victory if the security directorate were somehow to establish itself as a check on those presidential policies—or officials—that it happened to dislike. To formally charge the bureaucracy with providing a check on the president, Congress, or the courts would represent an entirely new form of government, a system in which institutionalized bureaucratic autocracy displaces democratic accountability. What standing would Trump's critics have to object to bureaucratic supremacy should an enlightened president come along, in some brighter time, and seek to free them from the "polar night of icy darkness" that Max Weber warned is bureaucracy's inevitable end point? Where then would they turn, having consecrated the security directorate as their final guardian?Glennon outlines a scenario in which Trump emerges victorious in this battle, and "a revamped security directorate could emerge more menacing than ever, with him its devoted new ally."
As a creature of the people's elected institutions, the bureaucracy was never intended to be a coequal of Congress, the courts, and the president. Bureaucracy doesn't even appear in the constitutional design that emerged from Philadelphia in 1787. Under the Constitution, power is delegated to the intelligence bureaucracy, not by it. Like other departments and agencies, an intelligence organization can exercise only those powers given to it by its constitutionally established creators. Those who would counter the illiberalism of Trump with the illiberalism of unfettered bureaucrats would do well to contemplate the precedent their victory would set. This perilous precedent would be the least of it, however, should the bureaucracy emerge triumphant. American history is not silent about the proclivities of unchecked security forces, a short list of which includes the Palmer Raids, the FBI's blackmailing of civil rights leaders, Army surveillance of the antiwar movement, the NSA's watch lists, and the CIA's waterboarding. No one passingly familiar with this record of abuse and misconduct could seriously contemplate entrusting these agencies with responsibility for preserving the nation's civil and political liberty. Without constitutional accountability, what reason is there to believe that they would not quickly revert to their old ways, particularly should a national emergency provide plausible justification? Who would trust the authors of past episodes of repression as a reliable safeguard against future repression?
…Some of Trump's antagonists blithely assume that the security bureaucracy will fight him to the death, but it has never faced the raw hostility of an all-out frontal assault from the White House. If the president maintains his attack, splintered and demoralized factions within the bureaucracy could actually support—not oppose—many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance. Security managers tend to back policies they see as ratcheting up levels of protection; that's why such programs are more easily expanded than scaled back.
Essentially, if what we are seeing is not an attempt to stop Trump, but a fight by a bureaucracy marginalized by Trump's hostility merely to restore their own influence, this could culminate in a detente in which the intelligence community rewards Trump's deescalation—signaled by a willingness to attend briefings, for example—by signing off on his worst authoritarian instincts and attendant policies.
The question, to which we don't have a definitive answer, is whether the national security bureaucracy is fighting for us (and the preservation of the nation's democratic institutions) or for themselves.
Are they really patriots, or just another entity wrestling for power?
Naturally, individual people within that apparatus have different motivations. But the overwhelming agenda does not appear, to me, to be the heroic patriotism that many regard it to be.
That is most evident, perhaps, in imagining what may happen if Trump is indeed ousted, aided by his own legitimate corruption and abuses of power. Should Mike Pence ascend to the presidency, I don't imagine that this war would continue. I imagine instead that Pence, who has been diligently attending the intelligence briefings that his boss disdains, would find an immediate ally in the intelligence community.
And we would be left wondering where all those imagined patriots had gone.
Trump on the Road
On Friday, Donald Trump left for his first foreign trip since his inauguration, and it has been expectedly terrible. Naturally, he and his family have replicated the very things for which he once criticized President Obama: The President for bowing to a Saudi king; the First Lady for not wearing a headscarf. And of course he briefly attended a men-only Toby Keith concert, because real life is a garbage nightmare.
At the Washington Post, Anne Applebaum has a good round-up of Trump's other fuckery on the road: Trump's Bizarre and Un-American Visit to Saudi Arabia.
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Meanwhile, many of Trump's diehard supporters are losing their minds because he said said "Islamic extremism" during a speech instead of "Islamist extremism"—which his team have attributed to "exhaustion." He's so exhausted that he also had to cancel "his appearance at the Tweeps Forum. Ivanka Trump filled in for her father, speaking to about 400 people at the event."
No stamina! Sad!
And back at home, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made this extraordinary observation:
Wilbur Ross says on CNBC: "There was not a single hint of a protester" in Saudi Arabia during Trump's visit.
— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) May 22, 2017
As though this is a positive thing to highlight! No protesters because Saudi Arabia jails protesters & sometimes cuts their heads off. https://t.co/4jgbeRBiOO
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) May 22, 2017
Trump continues his foreign tour today in Israel. I'm sure that will go great, too.
Tillerson asked about disclosure of Israeli intel to Russians by POTUS via pool pic.twitter.com/nEqRlcvt0X
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 22, 2017
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.
The Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by flatbread.
Recommended Reading:
Kate Moore: [Content Note: Images of injuries/disease from radium exposure] The Forgotten Story of the Radium Girls, Whose Deaths Saved Thousands of Workers' Lives
Christopher Stoop: About Those Trump Voters for God? Stop Calling Them "Fake Christians"
Jordie Davies: Jeff Sessions Is Working to Undo the Work of Anti-Prison Activists
Lindsey Adler: Instagram Won't Stop Showing Me the Mother's Day Photos I Don't Want to See
Reductress: [CN: Culture of abuse; toxic masculinity] Man Not Yet Revealed to Be Serial Abuser Bravely Denounces Man Revealed to Be Serial Abuser
Angry Asian Man: Michelle Yeoh Is the Starship Captain We've Been Waiting For
Rave Sashayed: You Guys, You Must Stop Doing This
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
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!
The Latest on Trump and Russia and the Relentless Catastrophe That Is the Current State of the American Experiment
So this happened. Then @nytimes and @washingtonpost each dropped bombshells moments after Air Force One was wheels up. pic.twitter.com/U20atZeIdw
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 19, 2017
If you can't view the image embedded in the tweet, it's a screencap of the New York Times tweeting "#FF @washingtonpost," and the Washington Post responding with a photo of Mulder and Scully clinking beer bottles in a toast.
The bombshells:
Matt Apuzzo, Maggie Haberman, Matthew Rosenberg at the New York Times: Trump Told Russians That Firing 'Nut Job' Comey Eased Pressure from Investigation.
Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved "great pressure" on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.What an amazing negotiating tactic from an amazing negotiator. Holy fucking shit.
"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job," Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
Mr. Trump added, "I'm not under investigation."
...The White House document that contained Mr. Trump's comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, did not dispute the account.
...A third government official briefed on the meeting defended the president, saying Mr. Trump was using a negotiating tactic when he told Mr. Lavrov about the "pressure" he was under. The idea, the official suggested, was to create a sense of obligation with Russian officials and to coax concessions out of Mr. Lavrov — on Syria, Ukraine and other issues — by saying that Russian meddling in last year's election had created enormous political problems for Mr. Trump.
Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky at the Washington Post: Russia Probe Reaches Current White House Official, People Familiar with the Case Say.
The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter.My best guess is that the White House official in question is Jared Kushner, given the detail about investigators' focus on financial crimes.
The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official.
...While there has been a loud public debate in recent days over the question of whether the president might have attempted to obstruct justice in his private dealings with FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired last week, people familiar with the matter said investigators on the case are more focused on Russian influence operations and possible financial crimes.
In sum, things continue to move. And they do so in a way that won't end well for any of us.
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 120
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:
Earlier today by me: The War Between Trump and Comey Escalates, and It Won't End Well for Any of Us.
Hey, you know how I keep saying over and over like the brokenest of all broken records that Mike Pence is definitely lying when he said he didn't know anything about Michael Flynn? Yeah, about that:
@RepCummings Well, here's #Trump team's official receipt to @RepCummings promising to "review your letter carefully." pic.twitter.com/7Bu3WGFIwv
— House OversightDems (@OversightDems) May 19, 2017
Pence knew.
And yet, he's still sticking with the babe-in-the-woods act.
Vaughn Hillyard at NBC News: VP Mike Pence Was Never Informed About Flynn: Source. "Vice President Mike Pence has been kept in the dark about former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn's alleged wrongdoing, according to a source close to the administration, who cited a potential 'pattern' of not informing the vice president and calling it 'malpractice or intentional, and either are unacceptable.' ...This would be the second time that Pence claims he was kept in the dark about possible Flynn wrongdoings, despite the White House's alleged knowledge of them. Earlier this year, Pence said he was not made aware of Flynn's discussions with Russian officials until 15 days after Trump and the White House were notified."
Utterly ridiculous.
Given that Pence was head of the transition, this garbage excuse invites us to view him as incompetent and ineffectual. Ringing endorsement. https://t.co/ByZCEJ67sD
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 19, 2017
And if the national political press had done their homework on Pence, the fact that he pulled this same shit in Indiana would be included in every one of these denial stories. It's important context. This is how he operates. That should be made clear to readers.
Meanwhile, Pence is taking to Facebook to accuse the media of sabotaging Trump and fundraise off of their victimhood.
This fucking guy.
* * *
One of the first conversations Rosenstein had with Sessions, when he was still a senator, was about removing Comey. https://t.co/iAaE4z7syZ
— Pema Levy (@pemalevy) May 19, 2017
I said I was reserving judgment of Rosenstein, and I'm still not drawing any conclusions, but this makes me less inclined to believe that Rosenstein is playing a long game. Or, to be more accurate, it makes me more inclined to believe that if he is playing one, it's only in service to his own self-interest.
Julie Bykowicz at the AP: Trump Attorney Didn't Want Him to Sign Financial Disclosure. "Donald Trump's attorneys originally wanted him to submit an updated financial disclosure without certifying the information as true, according to correspondence with the Office of Government Ethics." RED FLAG.
Lena H. Sun at the Washington Post: Nearly 700 Vacancies at CDC Because of Trump Administration's Hiring Freeze. "[R]esearchers say [the freeze] affects programs supporting local and state public health emergency readiness, infectious disease control, and chronic disease prevention. ...A senior CDC official said unfilled positions include dozens of budget analysts and public health policy analysts, scientists, and advisers who provide key administrative support. Their duties include tracking federal contracts awarded to state and local health departments and ensuring that lab scientists have the equipment they need."
Julie Schoo at the National Press Club: Reporter Manhandled by FCC Guards Because He Asked Question. "Security guards at the Federal Communications Commission headquarters here manhandled a well-regarded reporter at a public hearing today and forced him to leave the premises after he had tried to politely ask questions of FCC commissioners. The reporter, John M. Donnelly of CQ Roll Call, is an award-winning journalist. He is also chairman of the National Press Club's Press Freedom Team and president of the Military Reporters & Editors association. He has chaired the NPC Board of Governors and formerly served on the Standing Committee of Correspondents in the U.S. Congress, which credentials the Washington press corps."
Borzou Daragahi at BuzzFeed: The Stakes Have Never Been Higher—and the Bar Lower—As Trump's Trip to the Middle East Begins. "For the first time since he was elected, Donald Trump is taking his show on the road, with a trip abroad that has many observers watching nervously through their fingers—especially with visits to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Vatican, which host major holy sites of all three Abrahamic faiths. ...'There's so much room for it to go wrong, and that seems to be amplified with this president. The potential for Trump to say something inappropriate is really high, and this is a part of the world where personal slights and loss of face are a big deal.'"
Adam K. Raymond at New York Magazine: How Foreign Nations Are Preparing for a Visit from the First Toddler-President.
[C]ountries that will receive Trump have been preparing for weeks. With the help of Washington-based consultants and Trump's team, foreign officials have put together a tip sheet on how to keep the 70-year-old Trump happy. From the Times:What a fucking embarrassment. Good grief. And his being merely embarrassing is the best-case scenario. There is genuine concern that he will do something legitimately destabilizing. Fucking hell.
Keep it short — no 30-minute monologue for a 30-second attention span. Do not assume he knows the history of the country or its major points of contention. Compliment him on his Electoral College victory. Contrast him favorably with President Barack Obama. Do not get hung up on whatever was said during the campaign. Stay in regular touch. Do not go in with a shopping list but bring some sort of deal he can call a victory.Onetime British ambassador to the U.S. Peter Westmacott emphasized that first point: "This is a guy with a limited attention span. He absolutely won't want to listen to visitors droning on for a half-hour — or longer if they need an interpreter."
Trump's occasional distaste for interpreters has already been on display at the White House. When Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe visited in February, Trump left out his earpiece while Abe delivered remarks. If Trump wasn't feeling the Japanese interpreter, the feeling was apparently mutual. After Abe's visit, The Japan Times reported that Japanese interpreters "struggle to make sense of 'Trumpese'." Their colleagues in Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Belgium, and Sicily will soon know their pain.
Food will be an issue for Trump too. The president has the palate of a first-grader and he will be accommodated on the trip. At dinner in Saudi Arabia, for example, he will have well-done steak and ketchup on the table along with the traditional cuisine, the AP reports.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Dear Joe Biden: Hillary Clinton Was a Great Candidate
In March, former Vice-President Joe Biden had some garbage to say about Hillary Clinton's campaign. At the time, he didn't explicitly name Clinton, despite the fact it was plain she was about whom he was speaking.
Now he's opened his yapper again, and this time he at least has the integrity to name her as he criticizes her—though he could hardly avoid it, since it's such a personal criticism.
Appearing at the SALT hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, the possible 2020 presidential candidate weighed in on Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy in a way that Clinton supporters sure won't like.Three things:
"I never thought she was a great candidate," Biden said, according to reports. "I thought I was a great candidate."
Biden clarified, according to CNN, that "Hillary would have been a really good president."
One: It's always easy to say that this or that candidate "woulda won" in a vacuum. Biden may believe, and he may even be right, that he would have had some strengths that Clinton didn't have (although I hope we can all agree that many of the "strengths" with which male candidates are credited often come down to being male, which is not actually a "strength" so much as it is undeserved privilege trading on institutional sexism).
What gets far less consideration in these calculations is what role those candidates' weaknesses may have played. The presumption is, inevitably: Candidate X would have been just as good as Hillary Clinton, plus these other things. But that is neither fair nor accurate.
Biden would have been a weaker candidate in a number of ways. For instance, he would have had far less credibility to push back on Trump's misogyny and sexual assault history, given his disgraceful behavior toward Anita Hill. Similarly, the multiple plagiarism scandals during the campaign, most famously Melania Trump plagiarizing Michelle Obama, would have invoked Biden's own history of plagiarism.
And if Clinton's "corporatism" was a problem for many left-leaning votes, imagine what they'd have made of Biden's record, which reflects his service to Delware, whose "laws and courts...are the most pro-management in the nation. Corporations based there are held to the laxest possible standards of disclosure, shareholder rights, and fiduciary responsibility. Indeed, as the state has admitted in the past, its laws are specifically crafted to appeal to the interests of corporate executives."
Biden has mounted two failed runs for the presidency already. In 1988, he had to withdraw because of his plagiarism scandal. In 2008, he lost the nomination to Barack Obama—and to Hillary Clinton, who outlasted him in the primary.
Might he have been the strongest contender in 2016 if he'd run? Maybe. But that is far from certain.
Two: Hillary Clinton was a pretty great fucking candidate! I'm not sure why so many Democrats are behaving as though she was a disaster, when she ended up winning the popular vote by 3 million votes.
I'm further not sure why so many Democrats are quick to argue that her popular vote total doesn't really matter, because it was concentrated in progressive centers.
Sure, urban elites blah. But millions of the people who are concentrated in cities like New York, Chicago, Austin, and San Francisco (among others) are there because they were persecuted in their homes, and find greater safety in spaces where laws have been passed to protect them. Millions of queer people who are targeted by Republican legislatures in their home states; millions of women who fear childbearing in an area without robust reproductive choice; millions of Black people who are the descendants of elders who were kept out of small Northern sundown towns. Etc.
It is unfathomably shitty to sneer at the concentration of Clinton's voters when that concentration exists in large part because of the very barriers she campaigned on tearing down.
Three: A number of people have observed that Clinton herself said very much the same thing as Biden when she said during a primary debate: "I am not a natural politician, in case you haven’t noticed, like my husband or President Obama."
And I will repeat what I wrote at the time:
When Clinton describes herself as "not a natural politician," I am sure she says it because she genuinely believes it; it isn't a false humility, but an honest assessment of what she perceives as her own limitations.I stand by that. And revolutionary politicians don't always win. But they change the landscape, so that there is more space for people who are also not traditional politicians.
I suspect she also says it as a self-defense mechanism, to undercut charges of arrogance and to deflect other criticisms about her stage presence, voice, delivery, demeanor.
She says it for a lot of reasons, purposefully and thoughtfully.
Which itself is an indication that, even if she is not a natural politician, she is nonetheless a good one.
Because although Clinton saying she is not a natural politician is received as self-deprecating, embedded within it is also an imploration to consider what she has achieved despite not being a natural politician.
Here she stands before us, the first female contender with a real shot at the US presidency, and she has gotten to this place not because of innate talent as a politician, but because she has worked her ass off.
Because she has practiced becoming a speaker, when she was not by nature someone who could command a room. Because she has studied until she has an unfathomable breadth of policy knowledge, when she cannot charm her way through not knowing something. Because she has mustered the courage to overcome her discomfort with campaigning, when campaigning is a part of the job.
I'm not a natural politician...and here the fuck I am anyway.
If there is anything that speaks to the humanity of Hillary Clinton, it is that. She isn't a politician because it came naturally to her. She's a politician despite the fact that it didn't.
And then there is this: Clinton is only not a natural politician according to expectations and standards of politicians defined almost exclusively by men.
She is not naturally a traditional politician.
Not like her husband. Not like President Obama. As she is wont to say.
I am reminded again of that quote from former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau: "Her husband charms by talking to you; Hillary does it by listening to you—not in a head-nodding, politician way; in a real person way."
She's a politician powered by empathy rather than charisma, who makes people feel like they're standing in the sun rather than staring at it.
Maybe that just makes her a natural politician of a different sort. Of the sort who can challenge our expectations of what natural politicians look like altogether.
Hillary Clinton isn't a natural politician, but she just might be a revolutionary one.
That space, that much-needed space, will close if there aren't people there to protect and defend it. If instead, people in positions of power and influence decide to be gatekeepers for the traditions that benefit and privilege people like them.
An unprecedented number of women have declared an intent to run for office in the wake of the 2016 election. If Joe Biden doesn't want to shit all over their potential and opportunity, then he needs to recognize that perhaps there is a new breed of great candidate in town. And that we must celebrate that, if we ever want women to lead.
Failing such recognition, and attendant robust support of a future that reimagines what politics has to look like, he could do us all a favor and just shut the fuck up.
