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:
The Latest on Trump-Russia: Don Jr. Met with Russians During Campaign; Lied About Reason for Meeting and
"Trump has pressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader."
REMINDER: KEEP CALLING YOUR SENATORS TO TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON TRUMPCARE.
Kim Soffen at the Washington Post:
Defunding Planned Parenthood Could Overwhelm Other Clinics, Leave Women with Few Options.
Planned Parenthood would be cut off from Medicaid funding for one year under the Senate's health-care bill. That would leave other clinics scrambling to pick up the organization's Medicaid clients, in some cases needing to more than triple their contraception caseloads. And in the likely event that clinics can't expand that much that quickly, the bill would leave many of Planned Parenthood's 2.4 million annual patients without care, at least temporarily.
Republicans such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) who support the defunding say that community health centers can make up the difference. These health centers, also known as federally qualified health centers or FQHCs, receive federal funds to provide health care to low-income people, sometimes offering reproductive services such as birth control and STI testing.
But data from the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates abortion rights, shows the gap that would be left by defunding Planned Parenthood, which serves one-third of all contraception clients among family-planning clinics nationwide, would be very difficult to fill. In some states, Planned Parenthood serves six times as many contraception patients as FQHCs. Under the defunding, people on Medicaid, who make up more than half of Planned Parenthood's clients, would probably have to go to other clinics. If FQHCs in those states were to absorb those patients, as Republicans say they could, they would have to multiply their caseloads overnight. And if the budget cuts forced Planned Parenthood clinics to limit their hours or close their doors, there would be even more patients for FQHCs to take in.
"The suggestion that FQHCs become the main source of publicly funded family planning care is a matter of political convenience, not a viable policy proposal," according to a Guttmacher report.
If the Republicans can't successfully take away everyone's health insurance, they'll just start finding ways to strip healthcare facilities, procedures, and protocols for populations they don't like, one by one.
Think that's an exaggeration? Welp: Bryanne McDonough at the Rochester Institute of Technology Reporter:
No Transgender Hormone Therapy at the Health Center.
A handful of previously treated transgender students had been receiving maintenance hormone therapy at the Student Health Center (SHC). The prescriptions and laboratory tests had been ordered by Dr. Annamaria Kontor, who had attended multiple training sessions and conferences about transgender health care. She is qualified to fill and update hormone prescriptions from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. On May 24, Kontor was fired.
Reporter managed to obtain a copy of Kontor's termination letter, which stated the reason for termination:
"The Student Health Center's practice prohibits prescribing hormone therapy for the purpose of gender transition," the letter reads. It goes on to claim that this policy had been communicated to the health center staff and that Kontor had continued to prescribe treatment despite being aware of this.
So, she was fired for refusing to
not provide basic healthcare to transgender students? Oh.
Under the Obama administration, this almost certainly would have immediately prompted a Title IX investigation. But now Republicans are in charge, so.
Chris Johnson at the Washington Blade:
Rep. Hartzler Seeks to Bar Transgender Health Care in U.S. Military. "Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) has proposed an amendment that would bar the Defense Department from providing transition-related care for troops. ...Hartzler's amendment would add a section to U.S. code for the military's health care system barring funds for treatment — other than mental health treatment — related to gender transition. That would mean transition care like hormone therapy and gender reassignment would be off limits to transgender troops."
The Republicans are coming for our healthcare. In any and every way they can.
Lauren Gambino at the Guardian:
Republican Senators Return to Work on Healthcare Bill Amid Resistance. "A vote is unlikely to take place this week, with at least one Republican senator predicting that his colleagues are still 'several more weeks away' from reaching a consensus on a healthcare replacement." But they are trying. And we cannot let up the resistance.
Robyn Powell at Rewire:
Despite Arrests, People With Disabilities Continue to Fight for Their Lives.
Last week, ten protesters, most of whom have disabilities, were arrested in Denver, Colorado, after holding a "sit in" against the Senate's proposed health-care bill that lasted three days and two nights — nearly 60 hours — inside the office of Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO). At the request of Gardner's office, police eventually ordered the demonstrators to leave. Using Facebook, the protesters live-streamed their own arrests, while chanting, "Rather go to jail than to die without Medicaid!" After most of them spent nearly 30 hours in custody, the demonstrators were released from the Denver County Jail.
Carrie Ann Lucas, an attorney who works for the state of Colorado, was the last protester to be arrested. Like all of the protesters, Lucas was cited with trespassing and will need to appear in court later this month. In addition, Lucas — who was taken to a nearby hospital before her release rather than to jail — was charged with interference with a police officer because she refused to tell the arresting officers how to use her power wheelchair.
"I don't have an affirmative obligation to tell them how to arrest me," Lucas told Rewire.
...Lucas is concerned that under the Senate's proposed bill, she and her children, who also have disabilities, will lose the long-term services paid for by Medicaid that allow them all to live in the community. She told Rewire that before this protest, she had stopped engaging in civil disobedience once she received her law license nearly 20 years ago. But for months, she said, she has been calling, faxing, and emailing Gardner's office with no response.
"This issue is just too critically important for my own independence and that of my children so I felt like it was time to do more," Lucas told Rewire.
RESIST. HOWEVER YOU CAN.
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Trump
is now equivocating on whether the U.S. will actually hand over its election and infrastructure information to Russia. We should presume that means he will still do it, but will be far less transparent about it.
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Josh Rogin at the Washington Post:
Battle Emerging Inside Trump Administration over Who Controls Immigration and Refugees. "One emerging flash point in that struggle is the internal administration debate over which part of the government should be in charge of deciding who gets into the United States. Ever since the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1952, that mission has been charged to the State Department. Thousands of diplomats not only stamp passports and issue visas, but also craft policy and make recommendations about who gets to visit, work, and seek refuge in the United States. That tradition has now come into question." This is one of those issues that won't get nearly enough attention. It's a very technical-sounding issue with massive implications for U.S. culture.
Alex Isenstadt at Politico:
Trump's Enemies List. "Donald Trump is less than six months into his presidency, yet one of the organizing principles of his political operation is already becoming clear: Payback. ...The backstage machinations provide a glimpse into Trump's approach to politics and how it is shaping the 2018 midterm election landscape. Trump's obsession with loyalty and penchant for keeping close track of personal slights — both well-documented by his biographers and in coverage of his presidency — colors his approach not only toward his political foes but toward his own party's candidates, even at the risk of jeopardizing GOP incumbents."
David Edwards at Raw Story:
Outgoing Ethics Chief Accuses Reince Priebus of Making 'Explicit Threat' to Silence His Complaints about Trump. "During a Sunday interview on ABC's
This Week, host George Stephanopoulos recalled that [White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus] had warned [Outgoing Director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub Jr.] to 'be careful' speaking out after Trump announced that he would not sell his assets or place them in a blind trust as recent presidents have done. 'Did White House pressure have anything to do with your decision to resign?' Stephanopoulos asked. 'I think the fairly explicit threat from Reince Priebus really is emblematic of how the interactions with the White House have been since the beginning of this administration,' Shaub explained."
Corey Hutchins at the Colorado Independent:
In Colorado, 'Confusion,' "Hysteria,' and Voters Unregistering at Some Local Election Offices. "Earlier this week, in the office of Boulder's election division, workers were keeping a tally on sticky notes when voters started calling to cancel their registration or to become so-called confidential voters. Since Monday, according to official counts, the office has seen 270 of its voters cancel their registration. About 70 have asked for confidential status, in which they sign an affidavit saying they feel their safety is at risk. That is a seismic boom for an office that typically sees just a handful of such asks each week — if that, says Mircalla Wozniak, an elections division spokeswoman." Why? Because Colorado has agreed to comply with Trump's "Election Commission"
request for voter data.
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David Wallace-Wells at New York Magazine:
The Uninhabitable Earth. "It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough. Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century."
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Robin Eberhardt at the Hill:
'Run the Rock 2020' Forms to Draft Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson for President. "A campaign committee has formally filed to draft actor and former WWE wrestler Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson for president. 'Run the Rock 2020,' the name of the official organization, was filed on behalf of Johnson with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Sunday, according to FEC records. ...In an interview with GQ in May, he spoke about how he would take on Trump's policies, adding that he would like to see better leadership, responsibility, and 'poise' from the Oval Office."
You know what? The answer to an unqualified, zero-experience, TV star president running the country into the fucking ground is not running an unqualified, zero-experience, film star candidate to defeat him. I've no doubt that The Rock would be a better president than Donald Trump, because
virtually any human on earth would be, but the future of this country isn't a gag. I'm frankly angry that anyone with any energy would spend their time on this stupid shit.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Open Wide...
Shut Up!
