As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 279
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 Russia Reversal, Continued.
And in other Russia Reversal news:
This is bad: "A Grassley spokesman also said the chairman had decided to proceed w/a Republican-only investigation." https://t.co/p5w1jIcxDi
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2017
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have broken up over Russia.
The committee's once bipartisan investigation into whether [Donald] Trump obstructed justice or his campaign colluded with Russia has hit a partisan wall, with Republicans and Democrats saying they will now conduct their own probes.
"We made the decision to go and carry it out ourselves," Feinstein told Mother Jones on Tuesday. "They can go ahead and do whatever it is they wanted to do." A Grassley spokesman also said the chairman had decided to proceed with a Republican-only investigation.
I hope everyone understands the inherent imbalance and thus absurdity of this. The minority party *lacks subpoena power*. https://t.co/SzCgFvXEXC
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2017
It is clear that Congressional Republicans are now fully on board with turning heralds of Russian meddling into the traitors. This is incredibly worrisome. This is the stuff of authoritarian regimes consolidating power.
* * *
Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: Trump Data Guru: I Tried to Team Up with Julian Assange.
Alexander Nix, who heads a controversial data-analytics firm that worked for [Donald] Trump's campaign, wrote in an email last year that he reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about Hillary Clinton's missing 33,000 emails.As you may recall, Jared Kushner has previously bragged about working with Cambridge Analytica and he is potentially being investigated for leveraging the campaign's data operation to help select Facebook targets for the Russians.
Nix, who heads Cambridge Analytica, told a third party that he reached out to Assange about his firm somehow helping the WikiLeaks editor release Clinton's missing emails, according to two sources familiar with a congressional investigation into interactions between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Those sources also relayed that, according to Nix's email, Assange told the Cambridge Analytica CEO that he didn't want his help, and preferred to do the work on his own.
If the claims Nix made in that email are true, this would be the closest known connection between Trump's campaign and Assange.
* * *
Donald Trump again calls Myeshia Johnson a liar:
“I was extremely nice to her, extremely respectful” during phone call with widow of soldier killed in #Niger. pic.twitter.com/4ZmemjguYh
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 25, 2017
Twice.
“I certainly respect LaDavid. I called him LaDavid right from the beginning."
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 25, 2017
I will never stop boiling with rage about this. Never.
* * *
🚨 This is so bad. Local news broadcasts are a critical safety resource, esp. in places w/o or w/ limited broadband. https://t.co/ZRQO7thUvO
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
It's not only that local broadcasts are a critical safety resource, although that is no small thing in and of itself. It's also that local broadcasts provide coverage of local elections. Airing local debates. Informing people on local issues.
Sinclair will run riot w/ no FCC regulation that local TV and radio must remain under local control. This will further devastate democracy. https://t.co/Svasx35Ou1
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
This is as close to state-run media as we have ever come.
By way of reminder, during the campaign, Kushner announced that the Trump campaign had "struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage."
Then the FCC, operating under the oversight of the Trump administration, voted "to ease a media ownership rule that prevents greater consolidation of broadcast television stations," paving the way for the Sinclair Broadcast Group to acquire Tribune Media in a $3.9 billion cash-and-stock agreement, "a deal that will bring more than 200 TV stations under one roof and vault Sinclair into the big leagues of national TV."
And now the FCC has voted to do away with a requirement that local radio and TV must be locally operated, so Sinclair can beam in their Trump propaganda to every community from any place.
We are so fucked.
* * *
[Content Note: Bigotry; abuse; violence; murder.] Brandy Zadrozny at the Daily Beast: YouTube Trumpkin and Former Milo Intern Kills His Own Dad for Calling Him a Nazi. The subhead to this story reads: "Lane Davis was a prolific poster on the Donald Trump subreddit, a former intern for Milo, and an editor for a prominent GamerGater's conspiracy site. Then, one day, he snapped." WHAT THE FUCK. Davis was a Trump supporter on a subreddit where the aggressively unstable participants refer to Trump as a god, an intern for a Nazi, and a manager on a site dedicated to harassing women and marginalized men. He didn't just "snap" one day. He was a dangerous, abusive shitheel for a very long time who was radicalized by toxic masculinity and escalated to interpersonal violence. Stop doing this.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
The What Happened Book Club
This is the fourth installment of the What Happened Book Club, where we are doing a chapter a week.
That pace will hopefully allow people who need time to procure the book a better chance to catch up, and let us deal with the book in manageable pieces: I figured we will have a lot to talk about, and one thread for the entire book would quickly get overwhelming.
So! Let us continue our discussion with Chapter Four: Getting Started.
* * *
This is the first chapter I didn't read through a waterfall of tears. And it's because it made me too angry to cry.
Not the parts where Hillary Clinton writes about how she wanted to run for president, and how she prepared to do it; nor the parts where she gives abundant and well-deserved credit to her amazing team; nor the parts where she talks about developing her vision for the campaign, learning from past successes and failures, seeking advice from trusted advisors including President Obama, and giving her announcement speech with the precise language she wanted to communicate how much her fellow Americans mean to her.
None of that made me angry. All of that — the gratitude, the self-reflection, the value for preparedness, the love of people — was precisely reflective of who I understand Hillary Clinton to be.
(And thus it was a pleasure to read.)
What made me angry was the number of Can't Fucking Win traps in which Hillary was stuck before she's even begun to campaign.
She had to acknowledge the country's problems that still need fixing, but couldn't appear to be criticizing President Obama for not fixing them, and convey that he'd been stymied by Republican obstructionism, but not appear too reflexively partisan because voters were tired of D.C. gridlock.
She had to not act like "a queen" by throwing big rallies out of the gate, but she also had to prove that voters were enthusiastic about her by throwing big rallies.
She had to be authentic and open, but she also had to be guarded let the press twist her every word into a mendacious bullshit story.
She had to fight back against both rightwing extremists and leftwing revolutionaries, but at the same time not be seen a centrist (even though most of the United States populist is "center" to those particular bookends).
Throughout the entirety of this chapter, she details so many of these traps — without really complaining about any of them. To the contrary, she writes about Teddy Roosevelt's "Square Deal" in a way that suggests trying to pull unexpected solutions from dichotomous expectations is how she navigates through the morass of seemingly inescapable traps that is her political life.
Hillary Clinton is a woman who looks at barriers and regards them as a challenge. Not because barriers don't frustrate her, like any other human; but because there are so many. To see them as anything else would be demoralizing. So she makes a choice. And she moves forward.
Sometimes she beats the trap. Sometimes she falls into it.
And sometimes, we all do.
Still, in terms of fighting the previous war, I think it's fair to say that I didn't realize how quickly the ground was shifting under all our feet. This was the first election where the Supreme Court's disastrous 2010 Citizens United decision allowing unlimited political donations was in full force but the Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn't because of another terrible decision by the court in 2013.To our lasting regret.
I was running a traditional presidential campaign with carefully thought-out policies and painstakingly built coalitions, while Trump was running a reality TV show that expertly and relentlessly stoked Americans' anger and resentment. I was giving speeches laying out how to solve the country's problems. He was ranting on Twitter. Democrats were playing by the rules and trying too hard not to offend the political press. Republicans were chucking the rule book out the window and working the refs as hard as they could.
I may have won millions more votes, but he's one sitting in the Oval Office.
Hillary Clinton was up against a lot. She didn't even know how much she was up against until it was all over. But she knew it would be a lot. And she tried anyway.
I will never stop being grateful for that.
Today in Sexual Abusers: George H.W. Bush, Scott Brown, Leon Wieseltier
[Content Note: Descriptions of sexual assault and harassment. Video autoplays at first link.]
Ron Dicker at the Huffington Post: George H.W. Bush Apologizes After Actress Says He Sexually Assaulted Her. I hate this headline, for several reasons, not least of which is that Bush didn't apologize for sexually assaulting someone, as one would reasonably infer; he sent out a spokesperson to say it was all just a misunderstood joke, and he's sorry if his joke fell flat. Touching someone without their consent isn't an "attempt at humor."
Former President George H.W. Bush said he was sorry after actress Heather Lind accused him of sexually assaulting her during a TV show promotion in 2014.Eleanor Ainge Roy at the Guardian: Scott Brown: U.S. ambassador to New Zealand Investigated Over Inappropriate Comments. Please note as you read this that his comments were not only misogynist, but also racist and classist. Also: I speak the same US English that Brown does, and what he said is offensive as hell here, too.
"President Bush would never — under any circumstance — intentionally cause anyone distress, and he most sincerely apologizes if his attempt at humor offended Ms. Lind," Jim McGrath, a Bush spokesman, told HuffPost Wednesday in a statement.
In a now-deleted Instagram post on Tuesday, Lind said she posed with Bush, who was in a wheelchair, for a photo-op during a private screening in Houston of her AMC television series Turn: Washington's Spies. "He sexually assaulted me," she wrote in the post, according to reports.
"He didn't shake my hand," Lind wrote. "He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again. Barbara rolled her eyes as if to say 'not again.' His security guard told me I shouldn't have stood next to him for the photo."
The US ambassador to New Zealand Scott Brown has admitted he has been investigated over allegations he made inappropriate comments on his inaugural trip to Samoa, of which he is also the US representative.Michael Calderone at Politico: Leon Wieseltier Acknowledges 'Misdeeds' with Female Colleagues. A joke, a misunderstanding, misdeeds. What none of these men will ever say is I am sorry for abusing women.
Brown told New Zealand media on Wednesday he wanted to address "innuendo and rumour" about his visit to Samoa in July to celebrate 50 years of the peace corps in the country.
Brown — speaking with his wife, Gail Huff, by his side — confirmed he was the subject of an official administration inquiry by the US state department, which sent investigators to Wellington to look into what took place on the trip.
Brown said the official complaints related to comments he had made at a party in the Samoan capital, Apia, where he told attendees they looked "beautiful" and could make hundreds of dollars working in the hospitality industry in the US. Brown and Huff said they had "no idea" the comments would be regarded as offensive.
"I was told by my people that you're not Scott Brown from New Hampshire any more, you're an ambassador, and you have to be culturally aware of different cultures and sensitivities," Brown said.
"We are in a different culture: even though we all speak English, sometimes when we say one thing it means the complete different thing."
[Former New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier] acknowledged that he engaged in behavior with female colleagues that left them feeling "demeaned," and offered an apology.I hope the "good men" are starting to get a clear picture of just how ubiquitous sexual abuse really is. I hope the "good men" are beginning to understand that the not-good men create a minefield of sexual abuse through which women have to walk every step of our lives. I hope the "good men" are thinking about what they can do to change this culture, because doing nothing isn't fucking good enough.
"For my offenses against some of my colleagues in the past I offer a shaken apology and ask for their forgiveness," Wieseltier said in a statement. "The women with whom I worked are smart and good people. I am ashamed to know that I made any of them feel demeaned and disrespected. I assure them that I will not waste this reckoning."
...Wieseltier was also accused of "workplace harassment" on an anonymous list circulating called "Shitty Media Men" that's having reverberations in the industry.
The Russia Reversal, Continued
This was blasted across the Twitterverse last night as a BIG BREAKING EXCLUSIVE!!!
EXCLUSIVE: Clinton campaign, DNC helped pay for research that led to Russia dossier https://t.co/BCrMH9KndR
— Adam Entous (@adamentous) October 24, 2017
Except it wasn't exclusive and it wasn't even breaking. The information in the story has been known for more than a year.
Not sure how this is an exclusive nor how oppo research is news. But certainly fits into the Russia Reversal, where heralds become traitors. https://t.co/hz7Syn1Am1
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2017
Where Heralds Become Traitors will be the title of the book I scrawl on the walls of the gulag.
And it is so obviously choreographed I warned people of it a week ago and gave a talk on it before it happened https://t.co/rpW9mrCfwZ
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) October 25, 2017
Choreographed to the soundtrack of thousands of deplorables chanting LOCK HER UP.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2017
So that's from a member of the press. And this from a rightwing intellectual [sic]:
As I said, the right will brand Hillary Clinton a traitor in pursuit of a show trial. And here we go. pic.twitter.com/0GKRElK7t5
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2017
And this from a sitting U.S. Senator:
Whoever in DOJ is capable w authority to appoint a special counsel shld do so to investigate Uranium One "whoever" means if u aren't recused
— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) October 25, 2017
Let me as blunt about this as it's possible to be: Insisting that an authoritarian takeover can't happen here is not an effective response to evidence that an authoritarian takeover is happening here.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Sue Kerr: "Do you prefer overhead lighting or lamps?"
This is so boring, I know, but I like a combination of both. Ideally, I like recessed lighting in the center of the room, and lamps (or sconces) at the edges of the room.
And I love a lot of light. My poor old eyes always feel strained in low light. We've got dimmers on the switches for our overhead lighting, and I never use them, lol.
Your Best Photograph
If you're a photographer, even if a very amateur one (like myself), and you've got a photo or photos you'd like to share, here's your thread for that!
It doesn't really have to be your best photograph—just one you like!
Please be sure if your photo contains people other than yourself, that you have the explicit consent of the people in the photos before posting them.
* * *
I took this photo while on a girls' weekend to the Jersey Shore last month with my friend K. We were sitting on a bench, people-watching, and, as I snapped the picture, she asked me if I was taking a picture of the actual boardwalk. "I am!" I said happily. "I mean, the boards of the boardwalk are really doing all the work, but they never get any credit." And we both laughed.
Arizona Senator Jeff Flake Won't Seek Reelection
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.]
Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who isn't Donald Trump's biggest fan, says he won't seek reelection because "there may not be a place for a Republican like me in the current Republican climate or the current Republican Party."
"Here's the bottom line: The path that I would have to travel to get the Republican nomination is a path I'm not willing to take, and that I can't in good conscience take," Flake told The Republic in a telephone interview. "It would require me to believe in positions I don't hold on such issues as trade and immigration and it would require me to condone behavior that I cannot condone."Okay, but what are you actually doing about any of that while you're still in office? And what do you plan to do about when you're not in office? Simply not running again because you think you'll lose isn't an act of resistance, man.
Anyway, Flake is useless. I'm not interested in his relentless quest for cookies in exchange for occasionally being the least worst Republican in the Senate.
What concerns me is this: It seems to me it's kind of a problem that the president gets to just hand pick people for his party via tweet now.
Donald Trump hates Flake, and has gone after him repeatedly on Twitter, even proclaiming him "toxic." Now Flake can't win reelection.
A president choosing to endorse or not endorse a candidate is one thing. Going on the attack to make sure the party is nothing but loyalists? Is different.
Discussion Thread: Non-Appropriative Halloween Costumes
As I've been obliged to write for many Halloweens now: Other people's identities are not your costume.
This continues to be a difficult concept for many people to grasp!
Here, however, is a thread to share ideas for non-appropriative costumes. Yay!
What are costumes you have worn yourself, are planning to wear, have seen other people wearing, etc. that don't borrow someone else's identity?
The last time I attended a Halloween party, I went as Grumpy Cat! A hat with cat ears (procured from Etsy), some face make-up to recreate her markings, and a white t-shirt onto which I'd spray-painted NO. Easy and fun.
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 278
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 Standards Are Moved to Accommodate Trump and Two Facts. And by Fannie: Dispatches from the Queer Resistance (No. 4).
Hey, remember yesterday when I wrote that what I'm seeing looks like the nascent stages of a plan to silence and punish dissidents? Today Rep. Devin Nunes, who had to "step aside" from the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation because he so profoundly compromised himself, called a press conference to make a cool announcement.
Nunes just announced that the House Intel Committee is opening an investigation into the US-Russia-Uranium deal struck under Clinton.
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) October 24, 2017
Not good. Not good at all.
I have seen some people arguing the endgame here is to create the impression "if everyone's in cahoots with Russia, no one is." And I think that's true as far as what The Powers That Be want the populace to believe. If everyone's dirty, it's so demoralizing, you might as well check out.
But equivocation that protects him is not Trump's endgame. Remember: Trump doesn't do ties. A tie isn't good enough. He has to win, which means someone has to lose.
The endgame for Trump is, I fear, nothing less than what we heard chanted over and over and over throughout the campaign: "Lock her up."
* * *
[Content Note: White supremacy]
I remember writing about this in the Bush years. I can only imagine how much worse it's gotten. https://t.co/Lq4VUl4jCQ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
And from 09: White supremacists "may be using their military status to help build the white right." https://t.co/p0vso35lvb
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
This was a big fucking problem even when the president wasn't a white supremacist. That the commander-in-chief has put his stamp of approval on white nationalism makes this a situation of which every one of us should be terrified.
* * *
Dan Lamothe at the Washington Post: Caught in a Deadly Ambush, U.S. Troops in Niger Waited an Hour for French Air Power to Arrive.
The U.S. Special Forces team caught in a deadly ambush three weeks ago in Niger did not request help from nearby French forces for about an hour after the firefight began near a village the Americans had visited during a reconnaissance mission several hours prior, the Pentagon's top general said Monday.Tomi Oladipo at the BBC: How Did U.S. Soldiers Come Under Attack in Niger? "While the Americans insist the convoy was not on a special mission, including pursuing any high-value targets, some media reports quote Nigerien military officials as saying the troops had been responding to an attack on a nearby village by an armed group. These reports raise questions about whether the locals had been sympathetic to or even collaborating with the attackers, to allow the soldiers to be lured into the ambush. It is also unclear whether the US forces had enough intelligence on the threat they faced."
It then took the French another hour to get fighter jets over the American troops, according to a new timeline provided by Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The disclosure doubles the amount of time the U.S. troops were believed to have fought without significant additional help.
"This is a very complex situation that they found themselves in, and a pretty tough firefight," Dunford said.
Four U.S. soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in the battle Oct. 4. Five Nigerien troops also died. The mission has ignited a political firestorm, raising questions about the U.S. military's broader mission in Africa and why one of the fallen soldiers, Sgt. La David Johnson, was not recovered for two days.
Senior U.S. officials are fairly certain, Dunford said, that when the soldiers left their base Oct. 3, their mission was to conduct a routine reconnaissance patrol to Tongo Tongo, a village near Niger's border with Mali. Less clear is whether they deviated from that task, whether they had adequate communications to call for help, and how Johnson wound up missing. An ongoing investigation aims to answer those questions, Dunford said.
"What tactical instructions a commander on the ground gave at a given time to cause the units to maneuver, and where they may have been when Sergeant Johnson's body was found, those are all questions that will be identified during the investigation," he said, acknowledging the growing perception — both among the American public and lawmakers on Capitol Hill — that the Pentagon has not been forthcoming about the incident.
We need answers. I suspect we will never get them. Not honest answers, anyway. Not from this administration.
[CN: Threats of violence; misogynoir] Breanna Edwards at the Root: Police Investigating Illinois Man in Threat to Lynch Rep. Frederica Wilson. "Police are investigating claims that a Des Plaines, Ill., man made threats on Facebook to lynch U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.). However, according to the Chicago Tribune, Tom Keevers said that he is all but being framed and that an anonymous 'meme-maker' put words into his mouth, and now, as a result, he and his family are getting death threats of their own. ...Another alleged screenshot of a post on Keevers' page declares, 'This congresswomen (sic) is a disgusting pig. Someone should take their boot to her face.'" Shame on this guy, and shame on Trump and Kelly for empowering attacks on Rep. Wilson.
[CN: Nativism] Shane Savitsky at Axios: Report: U.S. Will Begin Accepting Refugees Again. "The White House will announce today its plan to resume admitting refugees from all countries into the United States, per The Wall Street Journal. The refugee program was paused in June for a 120-day review of its procedures and policies under the Trump administration's revised travel ban executive order. What will change: The government will work to collect more biographical data on potential refugees — with an especially deep dive on their social media presence — to determine that they do not pose a risk to the United States." A gross violation of privacy.
This fucking guy. https://t.co/eQzGedwIdJ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
Tara Culp-Ressler at ThinkProgress: The Uninsured Rate Is Rising as Trump Successfully Sabotages Obamacare. "The uninsured rate had been on a steady downward trajectory since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, hitting historic lows over the past several years. But Gallup's most recent report, released Friday, found the uninsured rate has risen 1.4 percentage points since the end of 2016. That works out to be almost 3.5 million more Americans going without insurance this year. As the Associated Press reports, 'the increase in the number of uninsured is more striking because it comes at a time of economic growth and low unemployment.'" Also at a time of "increased uncertainty over the future of the health care law — which Trump has taken multiple executive actions to sabotage, and which Congress has voted dozens of times to repeal — that may have left American consumers confused about where Obamacare stands."
Ken Klippenstein at the Daily Beast: $300m Puerto Rico Recovery Contract Awarded to Tiny Utility Company Linked to Major Trump Donor. "Puerto Rico has agreed to pay a reported $300 million for the restoration of its power grid to a tiny utility company that is primarily financed by a private-equity firm founded and run by a man who contributed large sums of money to [Donald] Trump, an investigation conducted by The Daily Beast has found." Fucking grifters. And not even competent ones: "Whitefish Energy Holdings, which had a reported staff of only two full-time employees when Hurricane Maria touched down, appears ill-equipped to handle the daunting task of restoring electricity to Puerto Rico's more than 3 million residents." Goddammit.
Imagine being the kind of soulless grifting dirtbag who would use the devastation in Puerto Rico to make a cash grab https://t.co/yRnFJfyiOd
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Congress Could Strip Consumers of Right to Sue Banks and Credit Card Companies. "We'll just put the entire financial sector on the honor system. What could possibly go wrong?" Sob. One of the most concerning parts of this is how difficult it would be unwind in future: "Should Congress disapprove of the CFPB rule, the Congressional Review Act would prevent CFPB from issuing a new rule 'in substantially the same form.' Thus, CFPB could permanently lose much of its authority over forced arbitration and class action bans, even in future administrations." Shit.
* * *
[CN: Rape culture; sexual assault] Weinstein, Toback, Allen, Kelly...
Just an endless stream of abuse. "Models, oft young & working overseas far from home, were particularly vulnerable." https://t.co/7fRmfvMNx9
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
More than 200 women in addition to the 38 who were part of his original story. https://t.co/ysGw14Cav3
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
It's unreal to me that anyone is still willing to work w/ Woody Allen at this point, no less on this particular film https://t.co/4wKcnuzReh
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 23, 2017
"The backlash from it will make you feel like [you wish you'd] never talked about it." The strength of survivors. ❤ https://t.co/cl9AjxFR7c
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2017
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Two Facts
[Content Note: Discussion of harassment and threats.]
1. David Brooks is still being employed by the New York Times to write a garbage column.
2. David Brooks's latest garbage column is as insulting to his readers as it is embarrassing for him, confirming as it does how wildly out of touch he is with human beings who are not undilutedly privileged straight white cis men.
Entitled "How to Engage with a Fanatic," Brooks gives us this hot advice:
[T]he more I think about it, the more I agree with the argument Yale Law professor Stephen L. Carter made in his 1998 book "Civility." The only way to confront fanaticism is with love, he said. Ask the fanatics genuine questions. Paraphrase what they say so they know they've been heard. Show some ultimate care for their destiny and soul even if you detest the words that come out of their mouths.Spoken like a man who doesn't routinely receive missives in his inbox from "fanatics" telling him that he should raped and murdered, and who hasn't even begun to reckon with the fact that our biggest problems isn't "fanatics," but resurgent Nazis.
You engage fanaticism with love, first, for your own sake. If you succumb to the natural temptation to greet this anger with your own anger, you'll just spend your days consumed by bitterness and revenge. You'll be a worse person in all ways.
If, on the other hand, you fight your natural fight instinct, your natural tendency to use the rhetoric of silencing, and instead regard this person as one who is, in his twisted way, bringing you gifts, then you'll defeat a dark passion and replace it with a better passion. You'll teach the world something about you by the way you listen. You may even learn something; a person doesn't have to be right to teach you some of the ways you are wrong.
Second, you greet a fanatic with compassionate listening as a way to offer an unearned gift to the fanatic himself. These days, most fanatics are not Nietzschean supermen. They are lonely and sad, their fanaticism emerging from wounded pride, a feeling of not being seen.
If you make these people feel heard, maybe in some small way you'll address the emotional bile that is at the root of their political posture.
The "fanatics" I deal with email me photos of bullets onto which they've photoshopped my name and publicly post offers of a reward for proof of my rape and/or murder and say things like "Too bad that terrible rapist didnt kill your fat ass. Cunt."
David Brooks thinks it would make me a better person if I responded to those people with "love." That I should respond with compassion and a willingness to learn how I'm wrong, presumably about how I have the right to exist in this life without being repeatedly subjected to threats of harm and actual physical violence.
Hard pass.
To extend "love" to fanatics is a luxury only of those who aren't in imminent danger at the hands of those fanatics. And conceding they have a point just to make them "feel heard," for the benefit of your own self-image, puts the rest of us at risk.
Surely David Brooks can find a better way to fluff his own ego than at the cost of our safety.
Dispatches from the Queer Resistance (No. 4)
[Content Note: Transphobia, homophobia, torture, Christian supremacy.]
Here's a periodic reminder that 77% of LGBT voters chose Hillary Clinton over any other contender in the 2016 general election.
Many reasons exist for this disproportionate level of support for Clinton. I suspect that a big one was the accurate prediction that, as signaled by his selection of Mike Pence as his VP candidate, Donald Trump would become a hypocritical Christian Cultural Warrior for the far-right.
During the lead-up to the 2016 election, it was hip for some folks to claim that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, or more generally Democrats and Republicans, were just as bad as one another. As someone who came of age as a lesbian during George W. Bush's presidency, in which he leveraged the hatred of LGBTs for political gain, I knew these comparisons were irresponsible.
Let that false equivalence marinate when you read this post.
1) Trump "Jokes" That Pence Wants to Hang Gay People
A New Yorker article recently alleged that Trump likes to mock Pence's religiosity and has "joked" that, when it comes to gay people, Pence wants to "hang them all."
When the Washington Blade, an LGBT newspaper, asked Pence's spokesperson if the "joke" was true, Pence's spokesperson didn't specifically deny it.
Neat.
What I'll observe here is that maybe even just a few years ago, during the Obama presidency, this sort of joke might have been career-ending, even for a Republican. The press might also have widely demanded an answer as to whether the vice president really did want to execute gay people. Today, it barely makes a ripple in the news cycle.
So, what, then? We're supposed to just add the possibility of hanging to the ever-growing list of ways this Republican Administration might kill us?
More broadly, I'll note that Donald Trump doesn't make "harmless jokes." He knows that his words are under constant, intense scrutiny even when he's off-camera. He whines about this constantly. This "joke" is a prime example of the straight-up abusive way he uses his platform to instill, at the very least, a persistent state of low-grade fear in marginalized populations.
2) More Torture Allegations in Chechnya
Via The Guardian:
"A Russian man who alleges that he was kidnapped and tortured in Chechnya's 'gay purge' has appealed to the government in Moscow to properly investigate the actions of Chechen authorities.Reports have also emerged that pop singer Zelimkhan Bakaev has been detained and murdered in this purge.
Maxim Lapunov is the first person to go public with torture allegations without hiding his identity. At a press conference in Moscow on Monday, he said he was held in a basement for 12 days in March and beaten by Chechen security forces, who demanded to know whether he was gay and for him to give the names of his sexual partners."
As I noted previously, the Putin-backed Head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has denied allegations of a gay purge by claiming there are no gay people in Chechnya and saying that even if there were, they should be removed to "cleanse our blood." Ah yes, the old we're totally not purging gays, because gays don't exist; but if gays did exist, we would totally purge them defense. Somehow that's not very convincing.
Donald Trump has still not addressed these reports.
3) Trump Speaks at the Values Voter Summit
Earlier this month, Donald made an address at the conservative Christian Values Voter Summit (VVS), something no sitting president had ever done before. Per its website, the VVS "was created in 2006 to provide a forum to help inform and mobilize citizens across America to preserve the bedrock values of traditional marriage, religious liberty, sanctity of life, and limited government that make our nation strong."
The event's primary sponsor since its inception has been FRC Action, the legislative arm of Family Research Council (FRC). The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated FRC as an anti-LGBT hate group for its long history of denigrating LGBT people (full profile here). From 2013-2015, Josh Duggar was the Executive Director of FRC Action, before resigning after he was revealed to be a sexual predator, and later admitting to adultery.
At the VVS gathering of Americans who have bedrock values, Donald Trump, who has admitted on tape to grabbing women's genitals without consent, referenced the familiar culture war talking points that he stokes among his base. These topics include kneeling NFL players, saying "Merry Christmas," vowing to take on "radical Islamic terrorists," and protecting "the unborn."
It's unclear to me whether hanging gay people fits into this Christian-supremacist agenda.
4) Republican State Rep. Suggests HIV/AIDS Quarantine
Georgia State Rep. Betty Price (R), the wife of former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, recently asked in a Committee meeting if people living with HIV/AIDS could be legally quarantined.
For context, this question is a throwback to the early days of the crisis circa 1987, when homophobic Republican Jesse Helms called for the quarantine of those living with AIDS, suggested that prisoners with AIDS should be kept imprisoned indefinitely, publicly referred to men who have sex with men as "perverts," and opposed prevention efforts that were affirming of gay and bisexual men.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV/AIDS, per the most recent year for which data is available (2014). According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, approximately 55,000 people are living with HIV in Georgia, about two-thirds of whom are Black.
Price didn't seem to delve into the specifics of where/how these individuals might be interned. But, after receiving criticism, Rep. Price issued a statement that read in part:
"I made a provocative and rhetorical comment as part of a free-flowing conversation which has been taken completely out of context. I do not support a quarantine in this public health challenge and dilemma of undertreated HIV patients. I do, however, wish to light a fire under all of us with responsibility in the public health arena — a fire that will result in resolve and commitment to ensure that all of our fellow citizens with HIV will receive, and adhere to, a treatment regimen that will enhance their quality of life and protect the health of the public."Here's a phenomenon we're going to keep seeing, thanks in part to Trump's war on "political correctness." People in positions of power are going to feel more and more emboldened to "just put ideas out there" to be "provocative." These ideas might sound reasonable to a general populace ignorant of pertinent historical and political context, such as HIV/AIDS. So then, it becomes a "reasonable debate we need to have" because free speech/political correctness or what-have-you. These ideas, if enacted, would actually be quite horrific to the marginalized people impacted.
5) Conservative Evangelicals Sign "Nashville Statement"
In 2009, conservative Christians put forth a document called the Manhattan Declaration, urging Christians to sign on to this statement affirming that, among other things, same-sex marriage and abortion are both immoral and more properly within the jurisdiction of "God" rather than the state. In 2010, some Christian leaders then tried to get lawmakers to sign on to this statement.
Those efforts, for a variety of reasons, mostly fizzled out.
Flash forward to August 2017: Conservative Evangelical leaders have signed the so-called Nashville Statement laying out their beliefs on homosexuality and gender. It's everything you'd expect, but here's a sample: "We deny that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God's holy purposes in creation and redemption."
In 2010, the pro-LGBT Barack Obama was president, which likely played a role in the Manhattan Declaration not going anywhere. In the 2016 election, 81% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump. More to the point, he has to use his position of power to keep delivering them culture war wins in order to retain their support.
As I wrote previously, "Donald Trump may not be a legitimate Christian, but under the guidance of Pence, Donald and Evangelical Christians seem to have made a bargain to use each other for their own mutually-beneficial ends." Stay tuned. I don't think this is the last we'll be seeing of this Statement.
To end on a more positive note, here is some better news:
6) California Recognizes Nonbinary Gender Designation on Official Documents
Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed a law earlier this month allowing Californians to designate a nonbinary gender option on their birth certificates and driver's licenses.
Hurrah!
7) Small Town Hosts First LGBTQ Pride
Orange City, Iowa (population 6,200) hosted its first pride this past weekend. Congratulations!
8) This Is Not a Drill
Carol is currently on Netflix right now, in case you were wondering and want to watch it on repeat until this hellscape nightmare ends!
The Standards Are Moved to Accommodate Trump
Of the biggest U.S. newspapers, the Washington Post is doing the best job covering the Trump administration, in my estimation. And I think Philip Rucker and Michael Scherer do incredibly good work on a regular basis.
Which is why I'm using this article, and its headline (surely written by someone other than Rucker and Scherer), to illustrate how much the standards have already been adjusted to accommodate Donald Trump's extraordinary presidency. The WaPo sets the highest mark, and so it's notable how short the work there can still fall.
The title: "In Sparring with a Grieving Widow, Trump Follows His No-Apology Playbook." This is not a game, and yet here are two sports metaphors jammed into one headline.
Sparring, as though Donald Trump and Myeshia Johnson are boxers, just practicing in a ring together. As though they are equals. They are not equals. They aren't even both named in the headline. It's Trump, the president of the nation, versus an unnamed "grieving widow."
And Trump is just following his "playbook," as though his refusal to apologize to someone he has grievously — and, by this point, repeatedly — harmed is a clever strategic move and not the grotesque personal failing of a vile abuser.
It's all just too flippant. And it sets the stage for the rest of the piece, which uses similarly minimizing language that suggests all of this is bad, but still within the bounds of normal.
For example, instead of saying straightforwardly, and accurately, that Trump called Johnson a liar: Trump merely "rejected Johnson's account." Instead of dodging the press and every attempt at accountability, Trump "ignored questions about the issue shouted by reporters later in the day."
"The fight pitting the commander in chief's words against those of the pregnant widow of a fallen soldier...has distracted from the administration's agenda."
"The episode has also threatened to stain the credibility of White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly."
"The drama began last Monday with a falsehood by Trump."
"Trump's actions since then have followed a careful formula that he long ago devised for winning a skirmish."
"The conflict bears all the hallmarks of a typical Trump rumble."
"The whole hullabaloo."
Et cetera. Trump's harmful mismanagement of what should have been a simple phone call to express his sympathy to Myeshia Johnson, and his subsequent bellicose refusal to express his regret for making a dreadful situation even worse for her, is not a fight, nor a drama, nor a skirmish, nor a rumble, nor a hullabaloo.
It's not a falsehood that he told; it's a lie.
Kelly's credibility is already gone. He told a rank lie about a sitting member of Congress. If that only "threatens to strain" his credibility, what in all hell would actually strain it?
The standards keep moving. And the reason is because the political press is insistent on maintaining the pretense that this is a normal presidency. Unusual, but not comprehensively and irretrievably abnormal.
So they're working to normalize this indecent deviance. And in the process they are demolishing even the most basic standards to which we held the nation's leaders.
Once gone, those standards will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to recover.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Charlie: "What do you always pick up when getting groceries?"
Any staples I can get in bigger packages — paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, fizzy drinks, canned cat and dog food, coffee, anything else that won't quickly go off — I do, so those tend to last longer than a week, which is how often I do grocery shopping.
So in terms of things I always get when I'm shopping, it's just whatever fresh food we're going to need for the week plus whatever sundries from the above list of which we've run out.
And that tends to change from week to week, and season to season. In hot months, I tend to get more salad type (to eat raw/cold) stuff, and, in cold months, more stew type (to be cooked/eaten hot) stuff.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by the smell of chlorine.
Recommended Reading:
Jenny Listman: [Content Note: Sexual assault] When I Was Nineteen Years Old, Elie Wiesel Grabbed My Ass
Shay Stewart-Bouley: [CN: Racism; misogyny; abuse] Real Talk Is Sensitive, or How the Truth Is Silenced
Marykate Jasper: [CN: Disablism] Betsy DeVos Just Rescinded 70+ Guidelines That Protect the Rights of Students with Disabilities
Damien Sharkov: [CN: Trans hatred] Putin Ally Wants Transgender People Banned from Russia
Catherine Lizette Gonzalez: [CN: Police brutality] Study: Body Cameras Make No Detectable Difference in Police Use of Force
R.O. Kwon: [CN: Misogyny; white supremacy] The Asian American Women Writers Who Are Going to Change the World
Schuyler Swenson with Hari Kondabolu: Guilty Pleasure: Hari Kondabolu Loves Untamed Heart
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Hello
I see you. The news has been a lot lately, even more so than usual during this waking nightmare of a presidency.
The things you are feeling right now are valid, no matter how much Donald Trump, his administration of vandals, and large swaths of the corporate media try to gaslight you.
Whether you feel angry, scared, confused, hopeless, resolved to fight, or any combination thereof, those feelings are legitimate.
And you are not alone.
How the F#@k Would You Know, Matt Damon?
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Now all the Good MenTM whose careers were made by Harvey Weinstein are giving dissertations on how great it was that all his victims spoke up, which makes me want to cover the planet in barf, because women are always, always talking about sexual assault, and men endeavor mightily not to hear us until they are shamed into doing so.
So the last thing I want to hear from any of these guys is their congratulations on women's bravery. The only thing I want to hear is: I'm sorry I wasn't listening until now.
George Clooney and Matt Damon are being particularly insufferable, especially because they won't shut up.
Here is them still not shutting up even more, if you care to read any more of their pandering nonsense. I'm only going to highlight one bit, because it is doing my head in.
As for what he hopes to do to be a part of the "major change," Damon quips, "I've been in the business for 20 years. I know a lot of great men in this business and men who don't use their power in that way. I like to feel that I've always done that and that women have always felt safe in the environments I've worked in and the men that I've worked with, the George Clooneys and the Steven Soderberghs [where] the workplace is sacred and valued and equal and fair."Matt Damon just came off a week of trying to convince us that he wasn't aware of the extent of Harvey Weinstein's abuse, but he's totally certain that the (other) "great men" he knows "don't use their power in that way."
Adding, "Everybody's got a new awareness about it now."
He can't have it both ways.
He can't tell us he was clueless about Weinstein's abuses, and simultaneously reassure us that other men he knows aren't leveraging their power to abuse women.
That he doesn't see the inherent conflict there is indisputable proof that he's learned absolutely nothing.
(And even then only if he really had something to learn, as opposed to being a conscious colluder who plays this game as expertly as the predator he's acted to protect.)
"Everybody's got a new awareness" my fat fucking ass.
