Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker yazikus: "How do you get rid of an ear-worm (of the musical variety)? I've got a tried and true antidote for myself, wondering how others tackle it."
Usually I just sing the tune out loud in various silly voices until it goes away, lol.
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by sea salt.
Recommended Reading:
Your Fat Friend: [Content Note: Fat hatred] What It Means to Become the 'Fat Friend'
Shamira Ibrahim: [CN: Misogynoir; abuse; self-defense; carcerality] America Owes Bresha Meadows a Debt That Will Never Be Paid
Marlene Cimons: [CN: Class warfare; environmental racism; climate change] How Economic Inequality Exacerbates Environmental Degradation
Mustang Bobby: [CN: White supremacy] Mitch Landrieu's Eloquence
Andy: [CN: Nativism; Islamophobia] Morrissey Attacks UK Prime Minister, London Mayor, and Queen Elizabeth After Manchester Bombing
Atrios: Poor Spicey
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Resistance Twitter
By request of a bunch of Shakers, here is a thread to share your Twitter recommendations for people who are must-follows for resistance news.
I could go on endlessly, because there are just a ridiculous number of people who I find indispensable in this moment, but for now I'll just keep it to a single must must must follow: My pal @sarahkendzior.
Whom do you recommend?
"The Document Was Bad Intelligence"
According to a new report, former FBI Director James Comey's public communications during the election about the Hillary Clinton email probe were influenced by a fake Russian intelligence document. Of course.
Karoun Demirjian and Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post: How a Dubious Russian Document Influenced the FBI's Handling of the Clinton Probe.
I strongly urge you to go read the entire article, because there is a lot there and it's difficult to easily summarize.
I will only say this: Given that the FBI's own assessment has found that "the document was bad intelligence—and according to people familiar with its contents, possibly even a fake sent to confuse the bureau," there is a distinct possibility, as Eastsidekate noted in a private conversation (which I'm sharing with her permission), that "the Kremlin understood that the US intelligence community harbored an irrational hatred of HRC, and used that to its advantage."
In other words, Putin was probably well aware he isn't the only man of influence who hates Clinton, and he leveraged that hatred to play the U.S. intelligence community.
Tell me again how misogyny didn't play a role in this election.
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 125
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.
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Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Trump and the Pope; Yeah, They're Virtually Indistinguishable; Trump and Duterte: A Match Made in Authoritarian Hell.
Shaun Casey at the Washington Post: I Counseled John Kerry on Religious Affairs: Trump Has No Idea What He's Doing.
Harvard professor Bryan Hehir once famously warned that government officials who deal with the role of religion in foreign policy should see their work as akin to brain surgery — necessary, but fatal if not done well. That thesis will be tested as [Donald] Trump concludes his journey to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Occupied Territories, and the Vatican, all on the heels of his worst week as president.We hear a lot about Trump treating the presidency as an on-the-job training position, which is bad enough. But the fact is that he isn't even doing the learning that he so clearly needs to do.
I should know what the stakes are. I was Secretary of State John F. Kerry's religion adviser as the special representative for religion and global affairs and founding director of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs. I worked in all three spaces Trump will be addressing on this trip: relations with Muslims around the world, Middle East peace, and relations with the Vatican. When Kerry met with religious actors or encountered religious dynamics around the world, he had expert resources to draw on to gain a deeper understanding. That is not the case for Trump.
According to Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker's Washington Post piece last week outlining the various tutorials Jared Kushner prepared for the president ahead of the trip, there seemed to be no presidential tutorial on the religious dynamics of each visit. (Indeed, it appears the first son-in-law reduced every pertinent issue to a one-page paper.) Yet the religious dynamics Trump has and will encounter are among the most complex on the planet. The thought of a one-pager explaining the intricacies of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity is so painfully frightening it leaves one speechless.
Meanwhile, the bar has been set so low for this dangerous ignoramus that I'm seeing headlines about how "successful" his trip abroad has been, just because he hasn't made such a catastrophic blunder that he's inadvertently plunged us into a war. Congratulations? Fucking hell.
* * *
In the comments of yesterday's We Resist thread, I linked this BuzzFeed piece about European officials "expressing concern over the fact that much of the information that emerged in the wake of the Manchester bombing has been sourced back to US officials." Among that information was the name of the suspected bomber.
Even US officials were frustrated by the leak. Some called the US decision to release information about an ally's investigation before even that nation had released it "unprofessional." Others said that if it were the US investigating an attack, they could expect the UK to not release information about the case.With more on that subject, David Smith and Ewen MacAskill at the Guardian: US Leak of Manchester Attacker's Name Strikes New Blow to Intelligence Sharing.
"The least we can do is give them that same respect," one US official told BuzzFeed News.
The disclosures renewed concerns over leaks from Donald Trump's administration two weeks after the US president revealed classified information, apparently from Israel, to Russia's foreign minister in a White House meeting. Critics warn that US allies may be less willing to share intelligence in the future.As I have been saying for I don't even know how long, if the United States intelligence community stops getting intel from our allies, because they're afraid it will be leaked by Trump administration officials, we are going to exist in a dark void of information, which will leave us indescribably less safe.
...The Trump administration's apparent indiscretion seems likely to cause consternation in London and could raise questions about future cooperation in the long term.
Thomas Sanderson, director of the transnational threats project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank in Washington...warned of ill judgment and lack of discipline in the White House. "This is a leaky administration. What does that mean for sharing information we need to going forward? The UK and Israel are probably our two biggest sources of intelligence. Now they're thinking, 'Is this going to cause us damage every time we share?' Then you have to calculate every piece of information."
Perry Cammack, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, added: "I don't think in and of itself this episode will do lasting harm; I sense this was a miscommunication. But the context is that we're in the midst of a political crisis in Washington of the first order. The institutions are leaking at an unprecedented rate. It feels like things are under stress here."
And now here we are. Ken Bredemeier at VOA: Israel Alters Intelligence Sharing with US. "Israel says it has changed its intelligence-sharing protocols with the United States after [Donald] Trump disclosed classified information to Russian diplomats earlier this month that had come from Israel, even though Tel Aviv had not assented to his handing it to another country. Israeli defense chief Avigdor Liberman told Army Radio on Wednesday, 'I can confirm that we did a spot repair and that there's unprecedented intelligence cooperation with the United States.' ...Liberman declined to say what changes had been made. 'Not everything needs to be discussed in the media; some things need to be talked about in closed rooms,' he said."
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More terrible news from Trump's proposed budget:
Ben Popken at NBC News: Trump Team Stands by Budget's $2 Trillion Math Error. "Donald Trump's newly unveiled budget contains a massive accounting error that uses the same money twice for two different purposes. Based on its supersized projections of 3 percent GDP, the president's budget forecasts about $2 trillion in extra federal revenue growth over the next 10 years, which it then uses to pay for Trump's 'biggest tax cut in history.' But then it also uses that very same $2 trillion to balance the budget. White House budget director Mick Mulvaney didn't deny the math, saying it was done 'on purpose,' during a press briefing Tuesday. 'I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting,' he said. 'We stand by the numbers.'" Unfuckingbelievable.
Trump's proposed cuts to AIDS treatment programs could cost more than a million lives https://t.co/gn5eCIUPGE pic.twitter.com/h40CMkC7RN
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 24, 2017
Meanwhile the dastardly Clinton Foundation has helped provide at least 9 million people w/ lower-cost HIV/AIDS drugs https://t.co/naEKeH0y8x
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post: Trump's Budget Would Cut Planned Parenthood out of All Federal Programs. "The freeze-out apparently goes beyond the House GOP's plan, which excludes Planned Parenthood only from Medicaid reimbursements. Trump's budget proposal bars the nation's largest family planning provider from participating in any federal program, including cancer screening programs funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Zika virus prevention, HIV/AIDS testing and prevention, Violence Against Women Act grants to prevent sexual assault, maternal and child health programs, and sexually transmitted disease and infertility prevention grants. No president has ever attempted to exclude a specific health provider from the entire federal budget." This fucking asshole.
Molly Hensley-Clancy at BuzzFeed: An Education Department Official Resigned After DeVos Demanded He Testify Before Congress. "A top Education Department official in charge of the government's $1.4 trillion financial aid program abruptly resigned a day before Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is set to testify about [Donald] Trump's proposed budget. 'I cannot in good conscience continue to be accountable as Chief Operating officer given the risk associated with the current environment at the [Education] Department,' the chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid, James Runcie, wrote in his resignation memo, which was obtained by BuzzFeed News." Welp.
* * *
Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: Reports: Trump Hires Marc Kasowitz as Outside Counsel Amid Russia Probe. "Donald Trump has hired Marc Kasowitz to serve as outside legal counsel and help the President navigate the federal investigation into potential collusion between his campaign officials and Russia, according to several news reports. ...Trump's decision to hire Kasowitz may have thrown a wrench into the White House's plans to consider former Sen. Joe Lieberman as the next FBI director. Trump himself said last week that Lieberman, who is a partner at the same law firm as Kasowitz, was his top pick for the job. Lieberman is no longer the leading candidate for the position, CNN reported Wednesday."
[Content Note: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: Trump Administration: 'Protected' Haitian Immigrants Have to Leave in January. "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly announced Monday a six-month extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian immigrants. Kelly said he believed 'there are indications that Haiti…may not warrant further TPS extension past January 2018.' The extension is effective between July 23, 2017 and January 22, 2018. Advocates are taking Kelly's statement to mean that in six months, the United States will begin mass deportation of the United States' 50,000 Haitian TPS recipients. TPS gives people from designated countries temporary permission, on humanitarian grounds, to remain and work in the United States during times of natural disaster or civil strife in their country of origin."
More fascist rallies, this time starring Mike Pence. Kyle Cheney at Politico: Pence Planning to Hold Rally in Louisiana. "Pence on Wednesday has scheduled a free rally in Louisiana on Wednesday that is being promoted by the state's Republican Party. An advisory from the Louisiana GOP says that Pence is headlining the event at Cajun industries in Port Allen, just outside of Baton Rouge, where he's also slated to hold a roundtable with small business leaders." Trying to shore up his popularity with the hoi polloi and the fat cats. You know. Just in case.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Trump and Duterte: A Match Made in Authoritarian Hell
[Content Note: Discussion of violence, killing, rape.]
In April, Donald Trump placed a call to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, during which he extended an invitation to Duterte to visit the White House. This was met with a significant amount of outrage, given that Duterte is an authoritarian nightmare who has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, has expressed antipathy for the LGBTQ community, and [CN: video autoplays] once said of the gang rape and murder of a woman held in prison in the town of which he was then mayor that he was disappointed the mayor wasn't given first dibs.
Now a transcript of that call has been obtained by the Washington Post, and it turns out that Trump's invite was merely the tip of an incredible iceberg.
1. Trump complimented Duterte on his murderous anti-drug campaign, insulting President Obama in the process.
[Duterte's] administration has overseen a brutal extrajudicial campaign that has resulted in the killings of thousands of suspected drug dealers.At the time it was reported only that Trump had invited Duterte to the White House, John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said: "By essentially endorsing Duterte's murderous war on drugs, Trump is now morally complicit in future killings." And that was before we knew that Trump had not merely tacitly endorsed Duterte's violent campaign, but had explicitly endorsed it and told Duterte he's doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem."
Trump has not spoken out against that strategy, and in their call he praised Duterte for doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem."
"Many countries have the problem, we have the problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that," Trump said, according to the transcript.
After Duterte replied that drugs are the "scourge of my nation now and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation," Trump appeared to take a swipe at his predecessor, Barack Obama, who had canceled a bilateral meeting with Duterte after the Philippines leader insulted him.
"I understand that and fully understand that and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that," Trump said.
2. Trump disclosed to Duterte the location of two U.S. nuclear submarines, while discussing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un's mental health.
In the April 29 call, Trump sought Duterte's input on whether Kim is "stable or not stable" and expressed some satisfaction in North Korea's recent failed missile tests, noting that "all his rockets are crashing. That's the good news," according to a transcript of the conversation...It's really something to read Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte ridiculing the stability of Kim Jong Un. The world is definitely in safe hands.
Duterte responded that Kim is "playing with his bombs, his toys" and offered that "his mind is not working well and he just might go crazy one moment." That prompted Trump to point out that the United States has "a lot of firepower over there," including "two nuclear submarines" sent by the Pentagon to the region last month.
Later in the call, Trump raised the stakes of the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula when he observed: "We can't let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has, times 20 — but we don't want to use it."
That aside, Trump's casual disclosure of the (secret) location of two U.S. nuclear subs is further evidence that this man has neither discretion nor sense. And any argument about the president having a right to share classified and/or sensitive information is moot when said information is circulated in a transcript prepared by a foreign government and we're all reading about it in the Washington Post.
On another note: It's not at all clear that the aggressively ignorant Trump even knows that a nuclear submarine is any submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, whereas a ballistic missile submarine is "a submarine deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads." He also imagines the U.S. military has only twenty times the firepower of North Korea.
3. Trump asserted that if China doesn't deal with North Korea, the U.S. will.
Most of his conversation with Duterte focused on how to deal with North Korea and whether China can exert more leverage on Kim's regime. Trump acknowledged after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in mid-April that "it's not so easy" for Beijing to alter Pyongyang's behavior."We will take care of North Korea." Rewind to Mike Pence using a dogwhistle aimed at North Korea while threatening: "Those who would challenge our resolve or our readiness should know: We will defeat any attack and meet any use of conventional or nuclear weapons with an overwhelming and effective American response!"
But when he asked Duterte whether China has "power over" Kim, the Philippines president responded: "Yes, at the end of the day, the last card, the ace, has to be with China. It's only China."
...Trump told Duterte he hopes "China solves the problem … But if China doesn't do it, we will do it." Duterte then offered to call Xi and emphasize the importance of altering Pyongyang's behavior.
"You can tell him I am counting on him," Trump replied. "I have a very good relationship with him. I had him in Florida for two days and got to know him well. He is a good guy."
...Toward the end of the call, Trump switched topics to invite Duterte to the White House, calling him a "good man."
"I will love to have you in the Oval Office," Trump said. "Any time you want to come … Seriously, if you want to come over, just let us know. Just take care of yourself, and we will take care of North Korea."
It is also extremely troubling, to put it mildly, that Trump enlisted Duterte as a go-between with Xi on such a sensitive diplomatic issue.
Bluntly: This guy doesn't have the first clue how to president.
And his terrifying ignorance, his cavalier indiscretion, and his jovial chit-chat with a murderous dictator are pointed evidence that he has neither the competence nor decency to be president.
Which was glaringly apparent long before he held the office, to anyone who bothered to look. Or care.
Yeah, They're Virtually Indistinguishable
Donald Trump's proposed budget in cruel in the absolute extreme. Its rank hatred of vulnerable people perfectly, terribly reflects how Trump was and is the inevitable endgame of Republican politics: A 100% empathy-free zone whose antipathy for his fellow humans is evident in every syllable of his disgusting budget proposal.
Last night, Hillary Clinton gave the keynote address at the Children's Health Fund annual benefit, where she was being honored. She had a few things to say about Trump's plan:
"This administration and Republicans in Congress are mounting an onslaught against the needs of children and people with disabilities, women and seniors," Clinton charged.There is more where that came from. You can watch the entire address here.
She said the budget, which was released earlier in the day, "shows an unimaginable level of cruelty and lack of imagination and disdain for the struggles of millions of Americans, including millions of children."
Here, then, is one exception to the "there's no difference between Clinton and Trump" narrative: Trump proposed a budget that will utterly destroy the safety net. Clinton said that budget "shows an unimaginable level of cruelty."
So, a wee difference there.
Yesterday afternoon, even before Clinton's address (not like I couldn't predict what her position would be), I had some thoughts about the people who incessantly chanted mendacious garbage about the false equivalence between Clinton and Trump during the election, and the other enablers of Trump.
If Trump gets even half what he wants in his contemptible budget proposal, countless people are going to suffer mightily. That's by design.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
And I'm thinking right now about all the folks who enabled this vile assault on vulnerable people, and having lots of feelings about them.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
The wrongest of all wrong assholes who chanted endlessly that there was no meaningful difference between Trump and Clinton.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
And the people who said, who are still saying, that some sort of leftist utopia will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Trump's policies.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
And it galls me in unfathomable measure that their lesson will come at the cost of so much needless suffering.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
I cannot emphasize this enough: The idea that from the rubble of Trump's annihilation of our democratic systems and government safety net will emerge the socialist wonderland of our wildest dream is a dangerous fantasy in which people indulge at the cost of people's very lives.
Recovering from fascism, if it happens at all, is a long and painful process. In the places it has happened, there were meaningful differences between those populations and the United States, not least of which is the availability of guns to the public. The United States is a geographically huge country, with numerous distinct regional subcultures. There has already been a massive concentration of wealth among a tiny elite. None of these things bodes well for restoring what Trump erodes every day, no less for a recovery that sees more progressive governance.
If it can be achieved, it will depend on a lot of things happening that are very unlikely and a lot of other things not happening that are difficult to prevent.
"Let him tear it down and then we'll build something better than we ever had" was always an incredibly dangerous gambit. And an incredibly foolish one.
I will never stop being angry at the people who thought that was a risk worth taking, at the cost of millions of people's safety and lives.
Trump and the Pope
On the latest stop of his whirlwind tour meeting all the greatest dudes of the world, Donald Trump met with Pope Francis.
There are stories about how the Pope told Trump to care about some stuff, like the environment and peace. And about how Trump said it was the best day ever meeting the Pope. Cool.
There are pictures. Lots of people have lots of jokes to make about those pictures. Some of them are funny.
As for me:
I have zero jokes to make about pix of Trump and the Pope. All I see is two men who have no respect for my autonomy or very humanity.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2017
And that's really all I have to say about that.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker BellsBromeliad: "What do you do when you're just so fucking sad all the time? When you can't stop crying? How do you get through the day when you're overwhelmed by all the bad?"
For me, it depends on the cause of the So Fucking Sad.
If it's something situational that I know will eventually pass, I do what I can to try to resolve the problem, and distract myself when the pieces I can't control start to overwhelm me. My key distractions are music and comedy, whether it's stand-up, films, or TV shows.
If it's something that won't change, for example the death of a loved one, I just allow myself to feel bad as long as I need to, and I give myself permission to say out loud that I'm sad and why, knowing that time is the only thing that will bring a space in which I feel better again.
If it's external stuff, like the work I do every day, some of which impacts me directly and personally and some of which makes me profoundly sad even if it doesn't touch my life intimately, I tend to dig in harder and try to find ways to engage in harm mitigation for other people, even if it's nothing bigger than validating what they're feeling. Trying to make other people feel better is an important way, for me, of coping.
I've only ever had one episode of can't-get-out-of-bed-for-weeks depression, my last semester of college. I dealt with it then by not dealing with it at all. I hid. I stayed in bed. I cried. I felt ashamed of myself. I nearly flunked out of school (and would have, if my ex hadn't been talking to my professors and bringing my papers to them). Nothing helped, because I didn't seek help. I just stayed in bed until one day I got out again. If that were to happen now, I would deal with it very differently (I hope), seeking out professional assistance.
Just Go Read This
Bob Collins at MPR NewsCut: A Longing for Mr. Rogers. Particularly the story shared by threaded tweets at the end of Collins' piece. Blub.
[H/T to Shaker GoldFishy.]
Fat Fashion
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
* * *
As I might have mentioned once or twice or three million times, I love hats! Here I am wearing a sunhat that Iain purchased for me while we were on holiday—and, proving that great accessories don't have to cost a fortune, this beauty was only twenty bucks!
Unfortunately, for twenty bucks, you get a one-size-fits-all hat, which was a little big for me, so it wasn't super functional in the wind, lol. But it did keep the sun off my face, and I felt super cute to boot.
One of the things I have always loved about accessories is that I can usually find something that feels special, even when my clothing options have been limited.
Anyway! As always, all subjects related to fat fashion are on topic, but if you want a topic for discussion: Have you learned how to rock accessories because of limitations in your wardrobe options?
Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.
Bernie Sanders, Underpants Gnome of Revolution
Another day, another white dude crediting Bernie Sanders with all things progressive.
Under the subheadline “Bernie Sanders lost the primary but reshaped his [sic] party,” Ben Smith at Buzzfeed has written a remarkable work of historical (fan) fiction that credits Bernie Sanders’ primary performance for a Clinton-allied think tank writing a plan for investing in American infrastructure.
So you’re forgiven if you missed the big development on the Democratic Party policy front: the call for “a large-scale, permanent program of public employment and infrastructure investment.” That plan, titled “A Marshall Plan for America,” came not from Bernie Sanders but from the Center for American Progress, the Clintonite Washington think tank John Podesta led. The proposal breaks in tone and substance with the Clinton–Obama focus on an economy led and dominated by the private sector.
Now I love these alternative histories where Germany wins World War I or something, but I am not sure I understand the point of writing one where Hillary Clinton didn’t pitch a massive infrastructure plan during the 2016 election. The one detailed here. That one.
And the really interesting thing about this alternate universe is if it’s not one white dude who gets credit, it’s another:
Democrats’ opportunity is to deliver on the explicit and implicit promises that Trump abandoned once he was elected: expanded and improved health care and large-scale jobs programs, cost no object.
It’s the Trump and Bernie show, promising magic white dude stuff! Never mind the boring lady with plans to make it happen and to pay for it! Whether that's Hillary Clinton or Neera Tanden, who co-wrote the proposal the article begins with and is briefly quoted. I wonder what she--a female person of color--would think about all the White Dude Magic in the rest of the article.
I guess I'll never know, because Smith has many white dudes to quote! How about a white dude from one of the whitest states in the union?
“What happened in the presidential campaign is that Bernie ran explicitly in support of a Medicare-for-all approach” — a simple framework for single-payer — “and what the politicians saw is that voters were fine with that,” said Vermont Rep. Peter Welch, a longtime advocate of single payer.
“It’s inclusive and it doesn’t get us into the identity politics divisions that are problematic,” he said. “It gets us into inclusive politics.”
Yes, that’s right folks. Nothing says ‘inclusive’ like deriding voting rights, reproductive justice, the safety of trans folk, same sex marriage, Islamaphobia, nativism, police violence against African-Americans—you know, identity politics. It’s much more inclusive to focus on issues that directly affect white men! Take it from a straight, Christian white man, he’d know!
P.S. Mr. Welch, the plan the article started with specifically cites the need to protect civil rights--"identity politics"--alongside strengthening the economy, because we can do both.
But it really takes the cake to claim that Sanders’ primary performance has given the Democrats cover for anything, other than white dudes’ tiresome insistence on re-writing history to center themselves.
Bernie Sanders lost the primary. It wasn’t especially close. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the primary by 12%. In 2008, Barack Obama actually lost the popular vote to Clinton, by 1%. Now that’s close, and a testament to the fact that (a) Hillary Clinton is pretty great and (b) she’s not unstoppable if a candidate has the right stuff. Barack Obama did, Bernie Sanders didn’t.
And one of the reasons Bernie lost the primary is that when push came to shove, he didn’t have plans.
Because Bernie Sanders is the Underpants Gnome of Revolution.
South Park’s gnomes have plans to steal underpants, then follow an unknown second step, then get to step 3: PROFIT. Similarly, Sanders preaches that we have to want [liberal thing] very much and then somehow [that liberal thing] will happen. We know it won’t involve wheeling and dealing and making compromises, because that’s what neoliberal $HILL$ do, amirite? Amirite?
Back here in the real world, I remember the primary and Bernie Sanders’ utter inability to explain how he was going to achieve even some of his most talked-about goals. In Sanders Fanfic Universe, the New York Daily News interview never happened, but back here on Earth-1, I have receipts:
Daily News: Now, switching to the financial sector, to Wall Street. Speaking broadly, you said that within the first 100 days of your administration you'd be drawing up...your Treasury Department would be drawing up a too-big-to-fail list. Would you expect that that's essentially the list that already exists under Dodd-Frank? Under the Financial Stability Oversight Council?
Sanders: Yeah. I mean these are the largest financial institutions in the world….
Daily News: And then, you further said that you expect to break them up within the first year of your administration. What authority do you have to do that? And how would that work? How would you break up JPMorgan Chase?
Sanders: Well, by the way, the idea of breaking up these banks is not an original idea. It's an idea that some conservatives have also agreed to.
You've got head of, I think it's, the Kansas City Fed, some pretty conservative guys, who understands. Let's talk about the merit of the issue, and then talk about how we get there.
Right now, what you have are two factors. We bailed out Wall Street because the banks are too big to fail, correct? It turns out, that three out of the four largest banks are bigger today than they were when we bailed them out, when they were too-big-to-fail. That's number one.
Number two, if you look at the six largest financial institutions of this country, their assets somewhere around $10 trillion. That is equivalent to 58% of the GDP of America. They issue two-thirds of the credit cards in this country, and about one-third of the mortgages. That is a lot of power.
And I think that if somebody, like if Teddy Roosevelt were alive today, he would look at that. Forgetting even the risk element, the bailout element, and just look at the kind of financial power that these guys have, would say that is too much power.
Hey, we got all the way to Zombie Teddy Roosevelt, and you know what? He didn’t actually answer the question. He didn’t say how he would do it. And he got called on it.
Daily News: Okay. Well, let's assume that you're correct on that point. How do you go about doing it?
Sanders: How you go about doing it is having legislation passed, or giving the authority to the secretary of treasury to determine, under Dodd-Frank, that these banks are a danger to the economy over the problem of too-big-to-fail.
Daily News: But do you think that the Fed, now, has that authority?
Sanders: Well, I don't know if the Fed has it. But I think the administration can have it.
Allow me to observe: this is not a peripheral issue for Sanders. Breaking up the banks was in every fucking speech. And he’s not sure what authority the Fed has now, or even if he’s going to have legislation passed where Congress the directly grades banks or of if the legislation will give the Secretary of the Treasury authority.
Proceed, Senator.
Daily News: How? How does a President turn to JPMorgan Chase, or have the Treasury turn to any of those banks and say, "Now you must do X, Y and Z?"
Sanders: Well, you do have authority under the Dodd-Frank legislation to do that, make that determination.
Daily News: You do, just by Federal Reserve fiat, you do?
Sanders: Yeah. Well, I believe you do.
Now the Daily News wants to know what will happen to the employees and assets of JPMorgan. Sanders’ answer:
Sanders: What I foresee is a stronger national economy. And, in fact, a stronger economy in New York State, as well. What I foresee is a financial system which actually makes affordable loans to small and medium-size businesses. Does not live as an island onto themselves concerned about their own profits. And, in fact, creating incredibly complicated financial tools, which have led us into the worst economic recession in the modern history of the United States.
Daily News: I get that point. I'm just looking at the method because, actions have reactions, right? There are pluses and minuses. So, if you push here, you may get an unintended consequence that you don't understand. So, what I'm asking is, how can we understand? If you look at JPMorgan just as an example, or you can do Citibank, or Bank of America. What would it be? What would that institution be? Would there be a consumer bank? Where would the investing go?
Sanders: I'm not running JPMorgan Chase or Citibank.
Daily News: No. But you'd be breaking it up.
Sanders: That's right. And that is their decision as to what they want to do and how they want to reconfigure themselves. That's not my decision. All I am saying is that I do not want to see this country be in a position where it was in 2008, where we have to bail them out. And, in addition, I oppose that kind of concentration of ownership entirely.
You're asking a question, which is a fair question. But let me just take your question and take it to another issue. Alright? It would be fair for you to say, "Well, Bernie, you got on there that you are strongly concerned about climate change and that we have to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel. What happens to the people in the fossil fuel industry?"
That's a fair question. But the other part of that is if we do not address that issue the planet we’re gonna leave your kids and your grandchildren may not be a particularly healthy or habitable one. So I can't say, if you're saying that we’re going to break up the banks, will it have a negative consequence on some people? I suspect that it will. Will it have a positive impact on the economy in general? Yes, I think it will.
And that was the day Bernie Sanders admitted he actually had no plans for how to break up banks or transform the fossil fuel industry and not a clue what to do about the workers who would be displaced when he did so.
Also. Those very untrustworthy big banks are to be trusted to figure out how to break themselves up (I guess) and the reconfigure themselves somehow (I guess?) This is not serious policy. And remember: this is his signature theme, and has bee his signature theme for years.
Just one more quote so you can appreciate the full gloriousness of the Underpants Revolution, though the entire thing is worth a read if you haven’t.
Daily News: Well, it does depend on how you do it, I believe. And, I'm a little bit confused because just a few minutes ago you said the U.S. President would have authority to order...
Sanders: No, I did not say we would order. I did not say that we would order. The President is not a dictator.
Daily News: Okay. You would then leave it to JPMorgan Chase or the others to figure out how to break it, themselves up. I'm not quite...
Sanders: You would determine is that, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. And then you have the secretary of treasury and some people who know a lot about this, making that determination. If the determination is that Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase is too big to fail, yes, they will be broken up.
Daily News: Okay. You saw, I guess, what happened with Metropolitan Life. There was an attempt to bring them under the financial regulatory scheme, and the court said no. And what does that presage for your program?
Sanders: It's something I have not studied, honestly, the legal implications of that.
”It’s something I have not studied.” Oh.
Now maybe the Brocialist left is untroubled by these lack of plans, because they’re insulated by privilege from so many things that those of us with “identities” have to deal with. But if you want to see what this kind of thinking brings when it comes to enacting a political agenda, look no further than our current president.
Trump has the advantage of both houses of Congress being from his own party. So what, exactly, was stopping him from achieving his big goals in his first 100 days? Could it be a total lack of plans, and a total lack of the political ability to broker compromises? I’m not trying to discount the very real effects of the Resistance, nor downplay the strategies the Democrats are desperately employing as a minority party in order to save the Republic. Nor how bad it is for those suffering from what he has managed to do. But imagine if Trump were actually good at compromise and if he had an actual plan for, say, building a wall with Mexico. We’d be in some even deeper shit than the Aegean stables of oppression we’re trying to muck out now.
Bernie Sanders’ agenda, of course, is infinitely preferable to Donald Trump’s. But that doesn’t mean his plans for achieving it were much ever more realistic. And his political negotiating skills haven led to an unremarkable record of legislative success, though, to be fair, he’s surely better than Trump in that regard.
So no, back here in the real world, it’s not at all strange that a Clinton-allied think tank is drafting pragmatic progressive policy that involves an ambitious public infrastructure plan, with attention given to how it might be implemented and paid for. Rather than showing that Bernie Sanders pushed the party left, or whatever ridiculous assertion white men are making today, it means that Hillary Clinton’s economic agenda, which was always progressive, is serving as a base for new plans in the age of Trump, plans that in no way mean abandoning intersectional civil rights concerns.
Nor is it surprising that a Clinton-allied think tank would formulate plans designed to woo reachable Trump supporters. Because, again, I know we're supposed to put the entire campaign down the Memory Hole and pretend that she didn't give a fuck about the white working class, but in fact, she specifically addressed their concerns.
"We're going to make it clear that we don't want to forget those people," Clinton said. "Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on."
Don't remember that quote? Maybe because the media spent months promoting the special Republican edit of it, which only included the sentence rpeceding it, saying "we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs." Funny how that works. Turns out evil Hillary was actually addressing white working class concerns. She just didn't give them White Man Magic as an answer. And who can forget this?
But the other basket -- and I know this because I see friends from all over America here -- I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas -- as well as, you know, New York and California -- but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
Huh. It's almost as if Hillary Clinton was reaching out to those actually feeling economically anxious, without pretending that there were no racists among Trump voters. But you'd never know that in the GOP/Sanders memory Hole, where all she did was to (correctly) label Trump's neo-Nazi, neo-Confederate base a "basket of deplorables."
The fact is that Hillary Clinton's words and actions were never without care for the Trump demographic. She just didn't lie to them, nor did she erase the concerns of the Democratic base of people of color, women, LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and others with identities along various axes of oppression. And most Democrats are continuing that approach. But now the Democrats must also take into consideration fixing the economic and social hole that Trump and the GOP are set on digging the country into, rather than starting from the relatively stable platform of Obama’s last year in office. If plans become more ambitious than Hillary Clinton's 2016 platform, it is from necessity, not because of Bernie's White Man Magic.
And how will Democrats ever be in a place to enact that agenda? By doing all the things we “identity” folk are doing right now: resisting Trump’s terrible edicts, pressuring our legislators, fighting to protect voting rights, campaigning hard and raising money for Democrats in 2017 and 2018, registering new voters and doing our damnedest to get them to the polls. If you ever get tired of the Underpants Revolution, white dudes, maybe you could see your way to giving us boring old ladies some help with the real work.
Obama v. Trump at Yad Vashem
Trump and Obama's entries in Yad Vashem guestbook - spot the differences pic.twitter.com/sFsnJOkaM7
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) May 23, 2017
President Obama visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, when he was running for president in 2008. His inscription in the guestbook reads: "I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable institution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim 'never again.' And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit. Barack Obama, 23 July 2008."
Donald Trump visited on Monday. His inscription reads: "It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends—so amazing & will never forget! Donald Trump." Melania's signature appears just below his.
Spot the differences indeed. One looks like the words of a president leaving his considered thoughts on the pages of history. The other looks like the words of a B-list reality TV star quickly scratching some bullshit on a cocktail napkin for a fan.
Which is what Trump is. Unfortunately, he is also a president.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn't very significant. There are a lot bigger things about which to worry than Trump being a tacky, ineloquent, unserious dipshit in a guestbook.
Often it's these smaller distinctions that really affect me. Of course President Barack Obama would never have engaged in any of the overwhelming corruption (and possible treason) that Donald Trump has. That's so abundantly evident that it virtually doesn't even register emotionally.
But reading their words juxtaposed like that. Damn. For some reason, that's the sort of thing that really evokes in me a pointed grief about just how much we've lost.
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 124
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 Latest on the Trump Investigations.
Today, former CIA Director John Brennan testified before the House Intelligence Committee. He said, in part: "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals, and, it raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals."
He also detailed how U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating last summer, but that information (unlike the information about Anthony Weiner's fucking laptop) was never made available to the public.
Former CIA Director John Brennan: "Russia brazenly interfered in our 2016 presidential election process." https://t.co/0zDF01gmPJ
— CNN (@CNN) May 23, 2017
—along with their talented colleagues from the FBI, NSA, and the office of the DNI, tracked and exposed Russian active measures against our presidential election.Brennan notes that intelligence experts were pulled together in late July. By way of reminder, that was the same month in which [CN: video autoplays] Trump invited the Russians to hack us, saying: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
When it became clear to me last summer that Russia was engaged in a very aggressive and wide-ranging effort to interfere in one of the key pillars of our democracy, we pulled together experts from CIA, NSA, and FBI in late July, to focus on the issue, drawing in multiple perspectives and subject matter experts with broad expertise to assess Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
The purpose was the ensure that experts from key agencies had access to information and intelligence relevant to Russian actions, so we could have as full an appreciation as possible on the scope, nature, and intentions of this Russian activity.
The experts provided regular updates and assessments through the summer and fall, which were used to inform senior U.S. officials, including President Obama. The work also was leveraged for the intelligence community assessment that was completed in early January, under the aegis of the Director of National Intelligence.
Second: It should be clear to everyone that Russia brazenly interfered in our 2016 presidential election process, and that they undertook these activities despite our strong protests and explicit warning that they not do so.
There is much more from the hearing, but I'll leave it there for now, because this is a stone cold fact:
Hard to keep up with the number of devastating statements about Trump coming out of Brennan's mouth at this hearing.
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 23, 2017
Relatedly, Matt Zapotosky and Matea Gold at the Washington Post report: Justice Department Ethics Experts Clear Mueller to Lead Russia Probe. "Justice Department ethics experts have concluded that newly appointed special counsel Robert S. Mueller III can oversee the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election—even though his former law firm represents several people who could be caught up in the matter, authorities announced Tuesday. ...Mueller, a former FBI director, had worked for the past three years in the Washington office of WilmerHale, a prominent law firm whose lawyers represent former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Trump's daughter Ivanka and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mueller resigned from the firm after Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed him last week to oversee the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election." Welp.
* * *
The other big news today is Trump's budget proposal, which is straight-up villainy.
Damian Paletta and Robert Costa at the Washington Post: Trump's Budget Proposal Slashes Spending by $3.6 Trillion over 10 Years. (Emphasis mine.)
Trump on Tuesday will propose cutting federal spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years, a historic budget contraction that would severely ratchet back spending across dozens of programs and could completely reshape government assistance to the poor.And how is the administration defending this despicable wealth redistribution upward plan?
The White House's $4.094 trillion budget request for fiscal 2018 calls for cuts that hit Medicaid, food assistance, and other anti-poverty programs. It would cut funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides benefits to the poor, by roughly 20 percent next year.
All told, the budget would reduce spending on safety-net programs by more than $1 trillion over 10 years.
OMB Dir. Mulvaney calls budget a "taxpayer-first budget." We looked it "through the eyes of the people who were actually paying the bills." pic.twitter.com/nbjeIPzcJH
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 23, 2017
Fuck these people. Fuck this disgusting narrative that sets people who need government assistance and "taxpayers" apart as mutually exclusive groups. Many of the people who need government assistance are also federal taxpayers. Fuck this deadly avarice and the shitty goblins who use it as their primary governing protocol.
Goddammit. I am so fucking angry about this, and I feel so completely impotent to do anything about it. We are being governed by vile scoundrels, and the devastating havoc they wreak will do lasting damage that will take a very long time to undo.
Speaking of damage not easily unwound, lots of folks are having a chuckle over this story about a belligerent white man in a MAGA cap being greeted by chants of "Lock him up!" as he was escorted off a flight, but the empowered entitlement that white male Trump voters (in particular, but not exclusively) feel after Trump's election is something, too, that will have lingering consequences that won't be easily contained.
* * *
[CN: War on agency] Teddy Wilson at Rewire: Texas Republicans Advance Sweeping Abortion Restrictions. "Texas lawmakers in the Republican-controlled house voted Friday to create the state's the most sweeping abortion restrictions since the passage of the omnibus anti-choice bill known as HB 2. After six hours of debate on Friday night, lawmakers passed a bill that would prohibit certain types of abortion procedures, codify state regulations requiring the burial or cremation of fetal tissue as well as banning the sale of fetal tissue, and create additional reporting requirements for physicians who provide abortion care."
[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Gay Couple and Their 3 Kids Denied 'Family Boarding' Privileges by Southwest Airlines. "A gay man says he was stopped and 'humiliated' by a Southwest Airlines gate attendant in Buffalo who told him, his spouse, and their three kids that they could not board because 'it's for family boarding only.' ...'[M]y spouse looked up and said, 'Well, we are a family. It's myself, my spouse, and our three children.' She said it's family boarding only and got very sarcastic.'"
[CN: Police brutality; racism; guns; death.] In September 2016, Tyre King, a a 13-year-old Black boy from Columbus, Ohio, was fatally shot by a police officer. At Colorlines, Kenrya Rankin now reports: Grand Jury: No Charges For Cop Who Killed Tyre King. "The Columbus Dispatch reports that the jury proceedings lasted two days and included appearances from 15 to 17 witnesses. Family attorneys with Walton and Brown issued a statement following the decision. In it, the family says it is 'saddened and completely dissatisfied with how the entire investigation was handled by the City of Columbus, the Columbus Division of Police and the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office,' and alleges bias in how evidence and witnesses were presented to the jury."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
TV Corner: Master of None
I finished season two of Aziz Ansari's Netflix series Master of None last night, and there is so much I loved about it.
I love that it's a show set in New York with a cast that actually represents what New York City looks like. I loved the entire arc with Bobby Cannavale: I saw exactly where that was headed, and it's saying something that I trusted it would handled well. I love that it's a show written by people who love people.
Without giving away any spoilers, the Thanksgiving episode (with guest star Angela Bassett!) was one of my favorite episodes of both seasons.
After we finished season two, I said to Iain, "Between Parks & Rec and Master of None, Aziz Ansari has teleported directly to the top of my Please Don't Turn Out to Be a Fucking Creeper list." You get it.
Discuss.
The Latest on the Trump Investigations
It looks like James Comey wasn't the only person Donald Trump tried to pressure to influence the FBI's investigation into his campaign's possible collusion with Russia.
Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post: Trump Asked Intelligence Chiefs to Push Back Against FBI Collusion Probe After Comey Revealed Its Existence.
Trump asked two of the nation's top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.I suspect it's not an either-or situation. Trump almost certainly lacks an understanding of the FBI's role and doesn't care. That confluence of ignorance and belligerence is pretty much the defining feature of his presidency.
Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.
Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president.
...In addition to the requests to Coats and Rogers, senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said the White House appeared uncertain about its power to influence the FBI.
"Can we ask him to shut down the investigation? Are you able to assist in this matter?" one official said of the line of questioning from the White House.
...Current and former officials said that Trump either lacks an understanding of the FBI's role as an independent law enforcement agency or does not care about maintaining such boundaries.
Once again, I wonder why it is that an administration whose members continually insist that there is no validity to the allegations they colluded with Russia would try to shut down an investigation that would exonerate them, if what they are asserting is true.
Especially since they are well aware that Congressional Republicans are eminently willing to run interference for them. There is zero chance of the majority party fixing an investigation to their disfavor, so it seems that the Trump administration would have a vested interest in allowing the investigations to go forward and alleviate the cloud of suspicion.
It's almost like maybe they do have something to hide. Huh.
Speaking of which...
Ned Resnikoff at ThinkProgress: Michael Flynn Said to Have Lied to the Pentagon About His Russia Connections.
On the same day former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn rejected a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena by asserting his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee issued a letter saying Flynn misled the Department of Defense in order to cover up links to the Russian government.Chaffetz, meanwhile, has "said he will postpone a hearing scheduled for Wednesday after speaking with former FBI Director James Comey, who had been invited to testify. 'Spoke with Comey. He wants to speak with Special Counsel prior to public testimony. Hearing Wed postponed. @GOPoversight,' Chaffetz tweeted." Hrm.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) wrote to Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) that the committee "has in our possession documents that appear to indicate that General Flynn lied to investigators who interviewed him in 2016 as part of his security clearance renewal."
Specifically, Flynn allegedly told the Pentagon that he had been paid by "U.S. companies" for a December 2015 trip to Moscow, when in fact he received $45,000 from the Russian state-owned media company RT.
If Flynn did in fact lie to investigators, he could face "up to five years in prison," the New York Times reports.
Trump, for his part, is busily lawyering up. Welp.
