[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
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 letters and numbers.
Recommended Reading:
Lisa Solod: The Silencing of the Hillary Clinton Supporter
Mayor Steve Adler: [Content Note: Misogyny] Letter: Wonder Woman
Jenn Fang: Trump Will Alienate the AAPI Community with his Anti-Environmentalism
Charlotte: [CN: Purity culture; anti-choicery] I Will Not Be Denied, and Neither Should You
Tierney: [CN: Misogynoir] We Need to Fix Racism in Our Institutions, Not Black Hair
Angry Asian Man: 12-Year-Old Ananya Vinay Wins National Spelling Bee
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Look, I'm Not Saying I'm Hot Shit, But My Favorite Fishmonger Thinks I Am
I know there are a lot more important things going on in the world (see: the entire rest of today's posts), but sometimes you just have to take a break to remember that Gwyneth Paltrow is still out there saying things that make you emit enough rage-laughter to fill entire galaxies.
To wit:
For Paltrow, the criticism over the phrase ["conscious uncoupling," which she and her ex-husband Chris Martin used to describe their divorce] was just another example of the blowback she feels she has received since rebranding herself as a lifestyle guru with her website Goop.LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.
"It's got a few layers to it," she says of the backlash. "People were fine with me as an actress, but with Goop it was like, 'Stay in your lane.' Women in general get a lot of pushback, especially if you're successful and attractive … I'm not saying I'm attractive. I mean when you're considered attractive."
I love Paltrow's particular brand of privileged ignorance so much. Enough self-awareness to note that she shouldn't brag about being attractive, but zero awareness of the fact that her contention attractive women "especially" get pushback is stinking horseshit.
Naturally, I'm not unaware of the fact that conventionally attractive and/or thin women are obliged to weather not being taken seriously and their own versions of body policing. But every conventionally attractive and/or thin female friend who's ever had a candid conversation with me about our respective lived experiences has been astonished by how very different my life looks as a fat and "ugly" woman.
[Content Note: Sexual harassment] Not long ago, I read a piece by a woman who said she figures she must be reasonably attractive since she is frequently the subject of street harassment and unwanted come-ons. That old chestnut.
In addition to entrenching the gross narrative that sexualized harassment is a compliment, it also reflected a common perception among conventionally attractive and/or thin women: That no fat/ugly women get sexually harassed by people who imagine they are "flattering" us.
MRAs who shout at me about how unfuckable I am will never believe it, but the fact is that I've never lacked for sexual attention—and just like any other woman who enough men find desirable, some amount of that attention is delivered in the form of unwanted sexual harassment.
I get it from both sides: The classic "wanna fuck ya" catcalling, and the specially packaged "you're unfuckable so get out of my sight" shaming.
That's not an unusual experience for women who are not conventionally attractive. We get the same shit as women who are, plus the flipside.
That's just one example. It's something I've experienced a lot—more privileged women assuming that what they experience and what less privileged women experience are two sides of the same coin. And it's rarely true. To the contrary, it tends to be that less privileged women get the same bullshit, and the extra bullshit conceived just for us.
Anyway. Leave it to Paltrow to express the perfect encapsulation of this fucked-up dynamic. Of course no one suffers as greatly as she.
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 134
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 Is Making the United States a Global Pariah.
This is the major environmental news in a week when Donald Trump pulled the United States out of a global climate change agreement: Nicola Davis at the Guardian: Giant Antarctic Iceberg 'Hanging by a Thread,' Say Scientists. "A giant section of an Antarctic ice shelf is hanging by a thread and could break off at any moment, researchers have revealed. The split in the Larsen C ice shelf of the Antarctic peninsula will release a huge iceberg 5,000 sq km in size—an area about a quarter of the size of Wales. ...'It is a big event and it will change the landscape of the Antarctic peninsula—the Larsen ice shelf will be left 10% smaller,' said [Professor Adrian Luckman, a scientist at Swansea University and leader of the UK's Midas project—an endeavour that has been monitoring the situation at the Larsen C ice shelf].
What if Trump didn't launch a nuke over a tweet, but poisoned the world over a handshake? https://t.co/NusxtJJgwe pic.twitter.com/B4morGkF34
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 2, 2017
Matt Shuham at TPM: White House Tells Agencies Not to Cooperate with Dems' Oversight Asks. "The White House is telling federal agencies not to cooperate with congressional Democrats' oversight requests, for fear the information would be used to attack the President, Politico reported Friday. Citing unnamed 'Republican sources inside and outside the administration,' Politico reported that Special Assistant to the President Uttam Dhillon had instructed various agencies not to cooperate with Democrats' requests in meetings this Spring. 'You have Republicans leading the House, the Senate, and the White House,' an unnamed White House official told Politico. 'I don't think you'd have the Democrats responding to every minority member request if they were in the same position.'" JFC.
[Content Note: Islamophobia] Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow at the Washington Post: Trump Turns to Supreme Court to Move Forward on Travel Ban. "The Trump administration late Thursday asked the Supreme Court to revive the president's plan to temporarily ban citizens from six mostly Muslim countries, elevating a divisive legal battle involving national security and religious discrimination to the nation's highest court. Justice Department lawyers asked the court to overturn a decision of the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit that kept in place a freeze on [Donald] Trump's revised ban. ...The government's filing late Thursday asks the justices to set aside the 4th Circuit ruling and accept the case for oral arguments. It also asks the high court to lift an even broader nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in a separate Hawaii case."
Huh. I wonder how Merrick Garland would have ruled on that. Oh well.
Ouch. U.S. economy adds 138K jobs in May. 185K had been expected. pic.twitter.com/w6BBUG6eEJ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 2, 2017
So much winning with the jobs president.
* * *
Yeganeh Torbati at Reuters: Trump Administration Approves Tougher Visa Vetting, Including Social Media Checks.
The Trump administration has rolled out a new questionnaire for U.S. visa applicants worldwide that asks for social media handles for the last five years and biographical information going back 15 years.This is just an absurd breach of privacy. And will further damage tourism and business in the U.S.
The new questions, part of an effort to tighten vetting of would-be visitors to the United States, was approved on May 23 by the Office of Management and Budget despite criticism from a range of education officials and academic groups during a public comment period.
Critics argued that the new questions would be overly burdensome, lead to long delays in processing, and discourage international students and scientists from coming to the United States.
Under the new procedures, consular officials can request all prior passport numbers, five years' worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers, and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment, and travel history.
I have previously written about the intense scrutiny that Iain and I went through during his visa application process. That was 16 years ago, and, even then, the first application we submitted was more than an inch thick. The idea that visa applicants don't already face a rigorous process is manifest garbage—a notion also expressed by BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow, who writes: "My first application for a US O-1 visa ran 600 pages. The first renewal ran 900 pages. The second renewal ran 1200 pages. This is the current level of scrutiny applied to visa-seekers. The idea that people just waltz into the USA to live or work is, frankly, absurd."
There is very little justification for this gross invasion of privacy above and beyond the current requirements for entry. I will, however, note that immigrants are the canary in the coal mine for the Trump administration. We all better start figuring out what they're going to use this for against citizens next. Applying for a passport? A driver's license? Any government job?
If you have an expired passport, or don't have one at all, I strongly urge you to get on that application now.
* * *
Michael Isikoff at Yahoo News: How the Trump Administration's Secret Efforts to Ease Russia Sanctions Fell Short.
In the early weeks of the Trump administration, former Obama administration officials and State Department staffers fought an intense, behind-the-scenes battle to head off efforts by incoming officials to normalize relations with Russia, according to multiple sources familiar with the events.Like I said just yesterday: Fishy doesn't begin to describe it.
Unknown to the public at the time, top Trump administration officials, almost as soon as they took office, tasked State Department staffers with developing proposals for the lifting of economic sanctions, the return of diplomatic compounds, and other steps to relieve tensions with Moscow.
These efforts to relax or remove punitive measures imposed by President Obama in retaliation for Russia's intervention in Ukraine and meddling in the 2016 election alarmed some State Department officials, who immediately began lobbying congressional leaders to quickly pass legislation to block the move, the sources said.
"There was serious consideration by the White House to unilaterally rescind the sanctions," said Dan Fried, a veteran State Department official who served as chief U.S. coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired in late February. He said in the first few weeks of the administration, he received several "panicky" calls from U.S. government officials who told him they had been directed to develop a sanctions-lifting package and imploring him, "Please, my God, can't you stop this?"
Important--> Plans to lift sanctions were ready to go when the Trump admin came into office. Someone worked w/ Russian officials beforehand. pic.twitter.com/atdXeZb7bu
— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) June 2, 2017
This is not smoke. This is a 5-alarm f*cking fire. https://t.co/en9RO28Rs0
— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) June 2, 2017
Clint Watts at the Daily Beast: Putin's Hidden Insurgency Tore up Ukraine; Now It's Coming for Your Inbox. "Today, Vladimir Putin, during an interview in St. Petersburg, changed his previous denials admitting Russians might have meddled in the U.S. election in 2016. Similar to obfuscation in Crimea, Putin said 'patriotically minded' Russians may have conducted the cyber attacks. Hackers, he contended, 'are like artists' who choose their targets depending on how they feel 'when they wake up in the morning.' He added that Russian hackers 'fight against those who say bad things about Russia.' This response reiterates a Russian pattern, tacit omission of Russian involvement with 'plausible deniability' with regards to Kremlin responsibility. Whether it's on the ground in Crimea or online in social media, Russia's dramaturgia seeks to mask overt government actions as grassroots nationalism."
Nathan Layne, Mark Hosenball, and Julia Edwards Ainsley at Reuters: Special Counsel Mueller to Probe Ex-Trump Aide Flynn's Turkey Ties. "Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible ties between the Trump election campaign and Russia, is expanding his probe to include a grand jury investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, three sources told Reuters. The move means Mueller's politically charged inquiry will now look into Flynn's paid work as a lobbyist for a Turkish businessman in 2016, in addition to contacts between Russian officials and Flynn and other Trump associates during and after the Nov. 8 presidential election. Federal prosecutors in Virginia are investigating a deal between Flynn and Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin as part of a grand jury criminal probe, according to a subpoena seen by Reuters."
* * *
And finally, some resistance teaspooning opportunity this weekend, for those who are able.
Marches for Truth are TOMORROW!
— leah mcelrath 🗽 (@leahmcelrath) June 2, 2017
Check out https://t.co/MNqdXGdXuz
140 cities in more than 40 states – find the one in you area!#RESIST
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Discussion Thread: How Are You?
I'm feeling pretty despondent at the moment. One of the things that is getting to me this week in particular is that the Trump administration, and the Republican Party as a whole, is so thoroughly determined to destroy everything I value it feels like there is not even the space or reason to expect more.
Never have I been faced with national leadership so supremely hostile to even the most basic decency. I am trying to focus on resistance, and all the people who are, like me, still determined to do valuable and positive things no matter how grim the backdrop, but goddamn is this a serious challenge to my optimism.
I'm far too tenacious to throw in the towel. But I am feeling very tired.
Outside of politics, I'm pretty good. Looking forward to some friends visiting this weekend.
How are you?
Hillary Clinton Previews Her Upcoming Book
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.]
At BookExpo America yesterday, Hillary Clinton talked a little bit about her upcoming memoir, to be published this fall:
Clinton called losing the election a "painful experience," one she will reflect upon in the new book.I am very excited to read this book!
She said writing it has been "an emotional experience," one that has been so exhausting that, after a couple of hours, "I literally have to get up and go for a walk or go to bed."
She promised she will reflect on some of the "bizarre, odd" events of the campaign, and that she'll reveal what she was thinking during the presidential debates. "I'm going to tell you how I saw it, how I felt, because you cannot make up what happened."
As the first female candidate for president in a major party, Clinton said she carried the burden of a double standard, and that her book will take on "sexism and misogyny. We need to pull it out and put it in the bright light."
She also revealed during her appearance that she hasn't settled on a title for the book yet, which has led to a hashtag on Twitter suggesting potential titles. I'm sure everyone is shocked to hear that it immediately became a filthy toilet clogged with misogynist turds.
Gee, I never get tired of hearing how misogyny played no role in the election! I'm sure that, despite every positive mention of Hillary Clinton on the internet being immediately inundated with rank sexists from across the political spectrum, everyone left that hatred at the door when they went to vote.
Anyway. I have a suggestion for the title of Clinton's new memoir. It's all yours if you want it, Hillary!
Trump Is Making the United States a Global Pariah
Anyone who was paying the slightest bit of attention during the election knew this would happen if Donald Trump were elected. It was what we feared, and had hoped desperately to avoid. But here we are.
After only 134 days in office, Trump is turning the United States into an object of scorn around the world, abdicating leadership and repeatedly signaling that he intends to position this nation as a global antagonist instead.
Allying with Russia. The Muslim ban. Reinstating the Mexico City policy. Chanting "America First." Provoking and alienating our allies. Cozying up to dictators. Spilling intelligence secrets from allies. Trash-talking. Pulling out of the Paris climate accord.
That is hardly a complete list. The latest move on Paris is the worst, for a number of reasons, not least of which is because Trump's decision for this country stands to have harmful consequences for the rest of the world.
The people of the world are paying attention.
The world community has already begun to levy "sanctions" on the United States: Tourism has precipitously declined. And that was before Trump stood at a podium in the Rose Garden yesterday, glibly declaring that the U.S. doesn't give a shit about the health of the planet.
It's no wonder that Disney CEO Robert Iger joined Elon Musk in resigning from the President's Council. Iger resigned, he explains, "as a matter of principle."
Which principle is not clear, but I'm guessing it has a little something to do with the fact that Disney parks have long been major international tourist destinations and a huge chunk of Disney's profits come from international box office dollars and international sale of their products.
I saw a lot of "even corporate executives are criticizing Trump!" yesterday. Of course they are. Some of them even because they are human beings who like breathable air! All of them because they don't want to have to compete in a global marketplace where the U.S. is reviled.
Trump's rationale for pulling out of the accord was that staying in would have been bad for the economy and bad for U.S. workers. This is a lie on two fronts: 1. Greening the economy would not have been bad for U.S. workers and would create jobs. 2. Pulling out will certainly cost jobs, as disdain for American companies and products starts showing up on the bottom line of corporate ledgers.
A number of mayors across the U.S. and several state legislatures have already made very public promises to comply with the accord. I hope that cuts through the noise, and makes some difference to a global community who are wondering what this country is even fucking doing right now.
But the fact is that Trump is isolating us and making us a figure of contempt in the world. And that is going to have consequences.
Among them is not "making America great again."
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker ellen: "What political office would you like to hold (realistically, or In Your Dreams, or both)?"
None, lol. Never ever ever.
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!
What in Fat-Hating Hell Is This?
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
The ubiquitous narrative that fat is axiomatically ugly is something about which I have already written at length. (Go read it!) Suffice it to say here, that is some rank horseshit, and the fact that this narrative is being regurgitated so explicitly for the promotion of a children's movie is appalling.
And it's not just the marketing: At Celebitchy, Kaiser's got a clip from the film which shows two of the dwarves (?) hiding out in Snow White's house when she comes home. She first appears thin, dressed in a formal gown and high-heeled shoes. The dwarves are all hubba hubba. Then she takes off the dress and shoes and is suddenly fat. (And belching, because of course.) The dwarves are horrified.
So, it's pretty clear that fat = grotesque is a central narrative of the film.
There's a pretty good chance that this film follows the trajectory of what I call Deathbed Confession Cinema, where everyone is invited to spend two hours horrified by and laughing at the protagonist for being less than in some way, only to arrive at a conclusion where we learn that said protagonist is a neat-o person who deserves love, too. Or whatever.
Or maybe this movie doesn't even make that effort! Maybe Snow White's magic shoes just eventually turn her into a
Who knows. Who cares. Fuck this movie and everyone involved in it.
Let's Talk About These Optics
This is a very good piece by Charles Pierce at Esquire about one of my central subjects of interest: The media's special set of rules for Hillary Clinton and why, in fact, she shouldn't "go away," no matter how much members of the press insist that she should.
Filed under the wonderfully blunt headline "Hillary Clinton Must Not Be Silent," I particularly appreciated this section:
As a matter of fact, I think the nation would have been better served had Gore raised holy hell about what happened to him for as long as he possibly could. I think the nation would have been better served if some Democratic senator had stood with, say, John Lewis, to contest the results of the 2000 election. I think that Kerry should have hollered louder and longer about the shenanigans in Ohio that helped re-elect George W. Bush. Maybe if they had done this, the subsequent flood of voter-suppression laws, and the ensuing gerrymandering of various legislatures, which continues to rage through the political process today, could have been partially stemmed.I couldn't agree more.
And I want to add another observation about media double-standards, specifically with regard to the press' obsession with "optics"—the optics of Clinton's emails; the optics of her speaking fees; the optics of her continuing to speak about Russian interference in the election. So intransigent was much of the political media's focus on optics that the campaign between the most qualified candidate ever to run and the most unqualified candidate ever to run centered on optics to the almost total exclusion of policy.
But suddenly optics don't matter anymore when it comes to the optics of telling a historic female presidential candidate to fuck off and shut up.
This is something to which I alluded in my April piece, "On Hillary Clinton's Beautiful Refusal to 'Go Away'."
And I—selfishly, I readily admit—am incredibly relieved, and grateful beyond measure, that Hillary Clinton refuses to go away.The optics of media influencers sneering that Clinton should go away are not good, to put it politely.
That she continues to speak, that she continues to advocate, that she continues to be seen, that she continues to exercise her right to speak freely, and to be heard.
Though I am ever despondent about the misogyny that obliges her to model such tenacious gumption, I am exhilarated by the example she is setting (again, and always) for young women who will, inexorably, be told in their lives to "go away."
And for we not-so-young women, too. That Hillary is also an older woman who refuses to go away is tremendously important. Older women occupy a very particular space in our culture—a space frequently defined by an abandonment of listening. Rather than valuing the lived experiences of older women, and the wisdom those lives have imparted, we turn away from them, dismissing them as irrelevant; we neglect to listen, just at the moment where they may offer insights most profoundly worth listening to.
Hillary has a voice. And people listen to it. She has experience, which people respect. She has knowledge, and it is widely valued. This is not the typical experience of older women, who are devalued at the intersection of misogyny and ageism—and whatever other parts of our identity (race, disability, body size, sexuality, gender) are used to devalue us, too.
Hillary's refusal to go away is a direct challenge to the habit of tossing away older women, like so much useless rubbish.
Naturally they would assert that it's not because Clinton is a woman, or an old woman, but because she's Hillary Clinton.
But.
No woman can wrench her personhood from her womanhood, nor can anyone else can do it to us, least of all for the purposes of silencing us.
And let me be abundantly clear on this point: That is exactly what the members of the press who engage in this execrable codswallop are doing. They are arguing that they're not telling the first-ever major-party female presidential candidate to FOAD; they're just telling Hillary Clinton. As if those are separable.
It's decidedly inconvenient that Hillary Clinton, the woman who they want to silence (as if they wouldn't criticize her for that, too), is a history-making candidate. But that is a stone-cold fact that even the most mendacious critics of Clinton's cannot dispute. So they're never just telling Hillary Clinton to "go away." They're telling the only woman who's ever had a real shot at the U.S. presidency.
They also, not incidentally, happen to be telling a former Secretary of State, a former Senator, a former First Lady of the United States, a former First Lady of Arkansas, an advocate for women and children, a key player in the Irish peace process, an undercover investigator of educational segregation, a researcher on educational accessability for disabled students, and a girl avenger who punched a boy in the nose for endangering neighborhood bunnies.
Among many other things. Hillary Clinton has lived an extraordinary life.
So you tell me what the optics are of telling a woman who has been and done all of those things that she has nothing to say worth listening to.
Tell me what message women all across this country, including and especially all the women who do not have Clinton's immense privilege, are meant to take away from seeing one of the most accomplished women in the nation be told that she has nothing of value to offer anymore.
Do tell why I shouldn't care about the optics of a woman giving a lifetime of service to her country and being told to go away.
Actually, don't bother. Because I do care about it. And that isn't going to change.
[H/T to Aphra_Behn.]
Trump to Announce Withdrawal from Paris Agreement
Any minute now, Donald Trump will appear in the Rose Garden reportedly to announce that he will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris agreement on climate change.
Provided he does indeed announce exactly what we expect, it will be, like many Trump decisions, not surprising but still gutting.
Military jazz quartet accompanying Trump's Paris pull-out announcement at WH: "Surreal...its like the Titanic band," 1 guy here says pic.twitter.com/LFqxOi4er0
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) June 1, 2017
Here is a thread for discussion.
UPDATE: And here it is.
"The United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord--" He pauses for applause. "Thank you. Thank you."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
"We're getting out; we'll start to negotiate. We'll see if we can make a deal that's fair. If we can that's great. If we can't that's fine."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
UPDATE 2: I am nauseous after watching that address. I can't overstate how extreme a speech that was, no less the decision it announced.
I am indescribably angry at this reprehensible lie to justify risking the planet, turning this nation into an object of scorn in the process https://t.co/7IojrpUqxY
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
Trump's constant ad-libs about how much he loves this country are making me fucking sick.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
It is not hyperbole to say this decision, and its anti-global rationale, will fundamentally alter the course of our future.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
If you were concerned that maybe there wasn't a man around to call me a hysteric, FEAR NOT.
george w bush literally lied about WMDs to justify bombing another country...relax https://t.co/JQDl7qh0k8
— Jake Woolf (@jakewoolf) June 1, 2017
You know what I don't need any the fuck more of? Men telling me to "relax" about Donald Trump. https://t.co/LwIz2CU2QE
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
This, what happened today, is exactly the sort of thing I feared with a Trump presidency, and why I flattened myself trying to prevent it. Lies. Disastrous decisions. Global peril. The United States becoming a pariah around the world.
And here we are. Maybe a few more people should have been as not fucking relaxed as I was. Goddammit.
Daily Dose of Cute
(Bonus ghost Dudley. See giant greyhound paw-mark in carpet at the bottom center, lol.)
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 133
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 Trump and Russia.
Matea Gold at the Washington Post: White House Grants Ethics Waivers to 17 Appointees, Including Four Former Lobbyists.
The White House disclosed Wednesday evening that it has granted ethics waivers to 17 appointees who work for [Donald] Trump and [Mike] Pence, including four former lobbyists.Emphasis mine. Propaganda operations and draining the swamp directly in the White House. Either one of those would have constituted a pretty significant scandal in any other administration. For Trump, it's barely a blip on the radar.
The waivers exempt the appointees from certain portions of ethics rules aimed at barring potential conflicts of interest. In letters posted on the White House website, the White House counsel's office wrote that the waivers were in the public interest because the administration had a need for the appointees' expertise on certain issues.
Among the high-profile figures who received waivers: White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, who were both permitted to engage with their former employers or clients. In addition, a blanket waiver was given to all executive office appointees to interact with news organizations — a move that gives chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon permission to communicate with Breitbart News, the conservative website he used to run.
Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker: Trump's "Good Job" Call to Roger Stone. "On May 11th Roger Stone, Donald Trump's on-again, off-again political adviser for several decades, had just wrapped up a pair of morning television appearances when, according to two sources with direct knowledge, he received a call from the President. Just a night earlier, Trump claimed that he was no longer in touch with Stone. In the weeks and months ahead, the relationship between Trump and Stone is expected to be a significant focus of investigators, and their call raises an important question: Why is the President still reaching out to figures in the middle of the Russia investigations? Previous reports have noted that Trump has also been in touch with Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, two figures targeted by the F.B.I.'s Russia probe. Add Stone to the list of former top Trump aides who, despite being under investigation, are still winning attention from the President."
Two useful timelines on the Russia stuff:
Steven Harper at Moyers & Company: A Timeline: Pence's Role in the White House's Russia-Related Mess.
Michelle Ye Hee Lee at the Washington Post: Every Russia Story Trump Said Was a Hoax by Democrats: A Timeline.
* * *
Hurricane season begins today. FEMA has no administrator. It's the little things.
— justin cronin (@jccronin) June 1, 2017
Fucking hell.
[CN: Homophobia; transphobia] Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Trump Breaks Tradition of Recognizing LGBTQ Pride Month. "Donald Trump, who has long claimed to be an LGBTQ ally, could have become the first Republican president to acknowledge Pride Month with a proclamation, but he didn't—and the silence is deafening. ...President Bill Clinton was the first president to issue a Pride Month proclamation. ...President Barack Obama not only embraced the tradition, but also set a new precedent for it. In addition to issuing a proclamation at the beginning of each Pride Month of his two terms, he also held an annual White House reception to celebrate the movers and shakers of the LGBTQ movement. There is no reception on Trump's agenda, and the absence of a Pride Month proclamation is quite conspicuous."
Reminder that it's not just what Trump is doing; it's what he isn't doing, too. https://t.co/LXEou6FO5K
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 1, 2017
[CN: Nativism] Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard, Grace Napolitano, and Pamila Jayapal at the Hill: Harsh U.S. Immigration Policies Are Causing Mental, Social Harm to American Children. "Roughly one in four American children younger than 18 live in immigrant families, and over four million U.S.-citizen children have at least one undocumented parent. A sense of safety and belonging is key to their psychological development. Feeling secure is critical to them thriving emotionally, academically, and socially. Conversely, evidence has shown that adverse childhood experiences, like intense uncertainty and fear, are detrimental to their health. Currently, too many children live in daily fear that their parents could be arrested, detained, or deported at any moment."
[CN: Misogynoir; threats] Rich Smith at the Stranger: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Cancels West Coast Tour After a Fox News Report Spurs Death Threats. "Princeton University professor of African-American studies, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, was scheduled to speak at Town Hall Seattle this evening about her latest book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. But on Sunday, Fox News aired a brief clip of her 20-minute-long commencement speech to Hampshire College's graduating class of 2017, during which she said what anyone with two eyes, a pulse, and more than three chapter books on their shelf would say about the President of the United States, namely that he's a 'racist, sexist, megalomaniac.' The media arm of the Republican party showed the clip with the headline: 'Anti-POTUS Tirade: Princeton Prof Slams Pres During Speech.' Then, according to a statement Taylor's publishers released on Facebook, like cowards, a number of Fox News viewers felt compelled to send racist, sexist, megalomaniacal messages to Taylor from the relative safety of their own computers."
In (tentative) good news...
[CN: Carcerality; racism] Imani Gandy at Rewire: Breaking: ACLU Files Lawsuit to End Debtors' Prison Practices in Lexington County, South Carolina.
Thursday's lawsuit, filed on behalf of five indigent plaintiffs, including Brown, alleges that Lexington County has been engaging in the equivalent of modern-day "debtors' prison" practices: issuing arrest warrants for people who are unable to pay court fees or court-ordered fines for minor infractions like parking tickets, and jailing them without offering them lawyers or determining whether they have the ability to pay in the first place.Let's fervently hope that the plaintiffs prevail.
The lawsuit names as defendants Lexington County; the sheriff of Lexington County, Bryan Koon; a judge of one of the magistrate courts, Rebecca Adams; and a few other Lexington County court officials.
At issue in the case are two county policies: The Default Payment Policy and the Trial in Absentia Policy. Under the Default Payment Policy, a court will impose a payment plan for fees or fines, requiring steep monthly payments that are often beyond the individual's financial means. If the person fails to pay, the court issues a bench warrant ordering law enforcement to arrest and jail the individual unless the full amount owed is paid.
Under the Trial in Absentia Policy, the complaint says, Lexington County courts order the arrest and incarceration of people unable to pay fines and fees in connection with trials and sentencing proceedings that are held in their absence. Even if the individual contacts the court to request another hearing date and to explain why they cannot appear at the scheduled hearing, courts will convict them in absentia, and sentence them to jail pending payment of fines and fees. Before notifying these individuals of their sentences, courts issue bench warrants ordering law enforcement to arrest and jail the individual, again unless the full amount owed is paid.
Simply put, courts cannot jail people because they are too poor to pay fines—sometimes called "pay or stay."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
The Latest on Trump and Russia
A few important items of note today...
As you may recall, back in December 2016, President Obama announced punitive measures against Russia, which included shutting down two Russian intelligence compounds in Maryland and New York. I wrote about it at the time for Shareblue: Obama Administration Hits Back Hard Against Russia for Election Interference.
Now, Donald Trump is restoring those compounds to Russian control. Karen DeYoung and Adam Entous at the Washington Post: Trump Administration Moves to Return Russian Compounds in Maryland and New York.
Before making a final decision on allowing the Russians to reoccupy the compounds, the administration is examining possible restrictions on Russian activities there, including removing the diplomatic immunity the properties previously enjoyed. Without immunity, the facilities would be treated as any other buildings in the United States and would not be barred to entry by U.S. law enforcement, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.One might also consider it "controversial" that the Trump administration is considering handing control of the compounds back to Russia given that Russia publicly threatened "counter measures" last week unless the property was given back to them.
Any concessions to Moscow could prove controversial while administration and former Trump campaign officials are under congressional and special counsel investigation for alleged ties to Russia.
The administration is also considering handing back compounds thought to be used for intelligence operations inside the U.S. even as more evidence is revealed every day about the myriad ways Russian intelligence fucked with our election—and, as a significant report by Ali Watkins for Politico details, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that "the Kremlin is waging a quiet effort to map the United States' telecommunications infrastructure, perhaps preparing for an opportunity to disrupt it."
Donald Trump says he did not collude with and is not compromised by Russia. But everyone around him has ties to Russia, which they've sought to conceal. He is so desperate to stop an investigation that would exonerate him (if he is innocent as he claims), that he may have obstructed justice by trying to coerce the former FBI Director to halt the investigation and then firing him when he wouldn't. And, in the last week, he has delivered to Russia their chief foreign policy goal for 70 years, and now stands to hand back compounds from which they orchestrate intelligence ops, even as U.S. intelligence officials warn they are committing espionage that appears to have the objective of massive disruption for the U.S.
Fishy doesn't begin to describe it.
Meanwhile...
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jim Sciutto, Jamie Gangel, Shimon Prokupecz, and Marshall Cohen at CNN: Sources: Congress Investigating Another Possible Sessions-Kislyak Meeting.
Congressional investigators are examining whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an additional private meeting with Russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign, according to Republican and Democratic Hill sources and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation.Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Nick Hopkins, and Luke Harding at the Guardian: Nigel Farage Is 'Person of Interest' in FBI Investigation into Trump and Russia.
Investigators on the Hill are requesting additional information, including schedules from Sessions, a source with knowledge tells CNN. They are focusing on whether such a meeting took place April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, where then-candidate Donald Trump was delivering his first major foreign policy address. Prior to the speech, then-Sen. Sessions and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak attended a small VIP reception with organizers, diplomats, and others.
Sources with knowledge of the investigation said the former Ukip leader had raised the interest of FBI investigators because of his relationships with individuals connected to both the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder whom Farage visited in March.Naturally, Farage has denied that he has anything to do with Russian interference in the U.S. election, and his spokesperson told the Guardian that their questions about Farage's activities were "verging on the hysterical."
...Farage has not been accused of wrongdoing and is not a suspect or a target of the US investigation. But being a person of interest means investigators believe he may have information about the acts that are under investigation and he may therefore be subject to their scrutiny.
Sources who spoke to the Guardian said it was Farage's proximity to people at the heart of the investigation that was being examined as an element in their broader inquiry into how Russia may have worked with Trump campaign officials to influence the US election.
"One of the things the intelligence investigators have been looking at is points of contact and persons involved," one source said. "If you triangulate Russia, WikiLeaks, Assange, and Trump associates the person who comes up with the most hits is Nigel Farage. He's right in the middle of these relationships. He turns up over and over again. There's a lot of attention being paid to him."
And finally: The House Intelligence Committee has issued seven subpoenas related to its investigation into Russian interference. It's enough to make one imagine the Republicans on the committee are actually interested in finally doing their jobs—until you find out that three of them "are related to questions about how and why the names of associates of [Donald] Trump were unredacted and distributed within classified reports by Obama administration officials during the transition between administrations."
Well. It was a nice democratic country while we had it.
NMAAHC and LeBron James Targeted by Anti-Black Hatred
[Content Note: White supremacist, anti-Black imagery and language.]
Yesterday afternoon, tourists at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) found a noose in an exhibit on segregation.
"The noose has long represented a deplorable act of cowardice and depravity—a symbol of extreme violence for African Americans. Today's incident is a painful reminder of the challenges that African Americans continue to face," wrote Lonnie Bunch, the director of the museum, in an e-mail to staff.Also yesterday, professional basketball player LeBron James' Los Angeles home was vandalized by someone who spray-painted the N-word on the front gate. The LAPD is investigating it as a potential hate crime. James made this statement, visibly shaken:
The disturbing incident comes only four days after a noose was found hanging from a tree outside the Hirshhorn Museum.
...These ominous reminders of America's dark history with lynching have appeared around the country, from a school in Missouri to a series of four nooses hung around a construction site in Maryland. Other nooses have been found on the Duke University campus, the Port of Oakland in California, a fraternity house at the University of Maryland, a middle school in Maryland, and at a high school in Lakewood, California.
All of them seem to be part of a larger wave of violence, intimidation and hate crimes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 1,300 hate incidents were reported between the 2016 election and February 2017. Of those 1,300, anti-immigrant incidents have been the most prevalent, followed by anti-black.
LeBron James responds to racial slur sprayed on front gate of his LA home with strong statement on race issues in America pic.twitter.com/CjUvCXixGB
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) May 31, 2017
As I sit here on the eve of one of the greatest sporting events that we have in sports, you know, race and what's going on comes again, and on my behalf and my family's behalf. But I mean, I look at it as, if this is to shed a light and continuing to keep the conversation going on my behalf then I'm okay with it. My family is safe; they're safe and that's the most important.Many people have complimented James on the quality of his statement, which is very fine indeed. (No surprise, since James has always seemed an eminently decent and thoughtful guy.) But I'm just incredibly angry that he was obliged to make a statement at all by a hateful person committing a disgusting act of racism against him and his family. And I'm concerned about the tone policing inherent in complimenting him for being measured and profound in such a terrible moment. Is there room for him to express anger, if he wanted to? I'm not sure that there is, and that's a problem.
But it just goes to show that racism will always be a part of the world, a part of America. You know, hate in America, especially for African-Americans, is living every day. Even though that it's concealed most of the time, you know, people hide they faces and will say things about you; when they see you, they smile in your face. It's alive every single day.
And I think back to Emmett Till's mom, actually. That's kinda one of the first things I thought of. [chuckles mirthlessly] And the reason that she had an open casket is 'cause she wanted to show the world what her son went through as far as a hate crime, and, you know, being Black in America.
No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being Black in America is—is tough. And we've gotta long way to go, for us as a society—and for us as African Americans, until we feel equal in America.
And, you know, but. My family is safe, and, you know, that's what—that's what important.
The aggressive escalation of visible white supremacist acts is intolerable. Donald Trump ran a campaign stoking racist resentments, and his election has empowered and normalized violent expression of that hatred. I don't believe we've even begun to truly reckon with the scope of what he's unleashed.
We all need to be angry about that, and we need to make space for the people who are the targets of this rank bigotry to express an entire spectrum of emotion about it, including anger, too.
I take up space in solidarity with James, his family, his community, the staff and visitors at the NMAAHC, and every Black American who feels less safe today because of these crimes.
Can't F#@king Win
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton appeared at the tech conference CodeCon for an interview. Naturally, this prompted a whole new round of the Hillary Clinton Can't Fucking Win game in the press.
I did two short threads on Twitter, which I combined into a single moment, for those who would like to read it: The Hillary Can't F#@king Win Game.
I will note that, once again, Clinton did say during the interview that she took responsibility for the things that went wrong in her campaign. You wouldn't know it from the criticism she's getting.
The fact is, there are things that contributed to her loss which were within her control, and things that weren't. And no matter how many times she flatly states ownership and responsibility of the things within her control, every time she talks about the things that weren't (when she is asked about them), she is lambasted for "blaming everyone else but herself." That is mendacious in the extreme.
And there's something particularly ugly about a political press who are publicly patting themselves on the back for their "big scoops" about Trump's ties to Russia simultaneously shredding Clinton for talking about Russian interference, especially when she warned us.
About Russia and much, much more.
UPDATE: The full transcript of her interview is available here.
