This list o' links brought to you by red pantsuits.
Recommended Reading:
Erika W. Smith at Bust: Here's How Maxine Waters, Kirsten Gillibrand, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Others Will Respond to Trump's State of the Union
Anh Do at the LA Times: [Content Note: Nativism] As More Cambodian and Vietnamese Immigrants Are Targeted for Deportation, Advocates Say They 'Can't Stay Silent'
Kenrya Rankin at Colorlines: [CN: White supremacy] Census Bureau to Ignore Obama-Era Recommendations for Recording Race, Ethnicity
Kevin Litman-Navarro at Inverse: The NSA Literally Removed 'Honesty' from Its Core Values
Princess Weekes at the Mary Sue: [CN: White supremacy; colorism; moving GIF at link] Rihanna's Victory in the Beauty Industry Changed the Standards for Diversity in Makeup
Katelyn Burns at Everyday Feminism: [CN: Trans hatred; class warfare] Here Are 4 Ways to Get Trans People out of Poverty Now
Angela Chen at the Verge: Americans Are Saving Energy Because Fewer People Go Outside
Scott Mendelson at Forbes: Why Marielle Heller Directing Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers Is a Huge Deal
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Monday Links!
#365feministselfie: Week 4
I am again participating in the #365feministselfie project, now entering its fifth year, and promised a thread for others to share selfies and/or talk about the project, visibility generally, self-apprecation, and related topics. So (with my apologies for forgetting to post it on Friday) here is a thread for Week 4!
A few of my selfies over the last week:
comfort this past week, as I hope I have been to them in return.
on a ridiculously lovely January day.
Please feel welcome and encouraged to share your own selfies in comments, or share your thoughts on the project, or solicit encouragement or advice, or do whatever else feels best for you to participate, if you are inclined to do so!
Bernie Stinks
I know this is hardly trenchant political commentary, but my god does Bernie Sanders stink.
A lot.
Exhibit Wev in an endless series of examples:
Sen @BernieSanders will deliver his own response to the #SOTU tomorrow through social media platforms.
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) January 29, 2018
It isn't clear when Sanders will give his rebuttal, but presumably he will deliver it immediately following the State of the Union, just like he did last year.
(It wasn't technically a State of the Union, because Donald Trump had just been inaugurated, but it was where the SOTU would have been, if he hadn't been a first-year president.)
Not only will Sanders be splitting progressives' attentions and subverting the message that will be delivered by Democratic Rep. Joe Kennedy, but, he will also be speaking opposite Rep. Maxine Waters, who will be delivering a national address on BET.
"I'm stepping on Rep. Kennedy's #SOTU response speech because there shouldn't be family dynasties in politics. By the way, if you live in Burlington, make sure to support my daughter for mayor, endorsed by Our Revolution!" https://t.co/ZMzkCr5Xm4
— Al Giordano (@AlGiordano) January 29, 2018
Bernie Sanders will never, ever, have my support as long as he keeps pulling stunts like this one, which are clearly designed to explicitly fracture the progressive coalition.
And here's something else: As long as the Democrats continue to give any support or sanction to this divisive asshole who undermines them at every turn to Donald Trump's favor, they are not getting a dime of my money. It's that simple. He is not helping them; he has been actively hurting the Democrats, and here he is doing it yet again.
When he wants to leverage the Democrats' infrastructure, he's a Democrat. When he wants to be a spoiler, then he's suddenly an Independent again. And the only people who can put a stop to his assault on the Democratic Party are the leadership of the Democratic Party.
This is what he's going to keep doing. Give up on this loser.
I sure have.
Daily Dose of Cute
There's a pink teddy bear living in my cat Olivia's paw. pic.twitter.com/96hnmMxEbp
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 28, 2018
There's also a teddy bear living in my dog Zelda's face. Mostly in her ears, lol. pic.twitter.com/GPkO0BLzGO
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 28, 2018
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 375
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) 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:
BREAKING:
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who has long been under attack by Donald Trump and is one of only three FBI officials who can corroborate former FBI Director James Comey's account that Trump pressured Comey to axe the Russia probe before Trump fired him — was just forced out.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2018
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Kathryn Watson at CBS News: Andrew McCabe Urged to Step Down as FBI Deputy Director. "FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is retiring from the FBI, CBS News' Pat Milton has confirmed. According to Milton, a source familiar with the matter confirms that McCabe was urged to step down. He is currently on leave and will official retire in March. McCabe was under considerable scrutiny from Republicans, as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and any ties to Trump associates continued. McCabe took temporary charge of the FBI after [Donald] Trump fired FBI Director James Comey earlier this year, and some skeptics viewed McCabe as too close to his former boss."
Fuck. And Trump's authoritarian march continues onward.
* * *
Earlier today by me: The Entire Republican Party Is Compromised and Trump Pals Fairly Certain He'll Lie Under Oath.
[CN: Guns; misogyny; death]
The gunman was an ex-boyfriend "driven by jealousy and rage," and now four people are dead. https://t.co/dju1KAEAMG
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2018
Is now the time to have a conversation about a culture of violent entitlement, toxic masculinity, and gun access, or nah? Still going to keep punting while people are killed at the hands of violent misogynist men? Cool.
* * *
[CN: War on agency]
Tonight, the Senate will vote on a 20-week abortion ban, and I’m voting no. Personal healthcare decisions should be made by women and their doctors, not by politicians in Washington.
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) January 29, 2018
Donald Trump wants to have a big win for his white conservative evangelical base right before the State of the Union address tomorrow night. A thank-you note, for standing with him despite news of his philandering with an adult film star and paying her off to keep silent. "Thanks for having no consistent principles at all except hating marginalized people! Here's some more hating women for you!"
Let us be abundantly clear about this legislation: It will not save any fetuses, but it will kill people who carry them.
* * *
Nico Hines at the Daily Beast: Trump Tower Russian Lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, Exposed in Swiss Corruption Case.
The Moscow operation behind the now-infamous Russian-Trump Tower meeting in June 2016 included a direct attempt to enlist a foreign country's law-enforcement official as a virtual double-agent, according to a court case in Switzerland.In other news, care of the BBC: Kremlin Accuses U.S. of Meddling in Election. "An expected U.S. report that could sanction Kremlin-linked oligarchs is an attempt to influence Russia's March presidential election, Moscow has said. The US treasury report is expected to detail the closeness of senior Russian political figures and oligarchs to President Vladimir Putin, who is standing for re-election. ...Dmitry Peskov said the US report was a 'direct and obvious attempt to influence the elections' on 18 March." LOLOLOL okay.
One of Switzerland's top investigators has been fired after allegations of bribery, violating secrecy laws, and 'unauthorized clandestine behavior' in meeting with the very same Russian actors linked to the Trump Tower encounter.
Details of the explosive case have been published by investigative reporters for the Tribune de Genève and Tages-Anzeiger newspapers in Switzerland. The officer, identified only as Victor K., traveled to Moscow—against the expressed wishes of his superiors—where he spoke to Natalia Veselnitskaya, the lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower.
The meeting was reportedly set up by Russian Deputy Attorney General Saak Albertovich Karapetyan—from the same rogue department that was apparently responsible for offering intel on Hillary Clinton to be shared at the Trump Tower meeting and the Kremlin's further plots to influence U.S. politics.
I spent six months reporting this profile of Paul Manafort—which is also a portrait of the Washington he created. https://t.co/U6viPKCYOu
— Franklin Foer (@FranklinFoer) January 28, 2018
This is a very handy resource from Allegra Kirkland at TPM: Here's the Obstruction Case Against Donald Trump. "From the earliest days of Trump's administration, the president and his closest allies have used a range of tactics to obfuscate damaging information and stymie Mueller's probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. And Mueller, in turn, appears to have gathered a plethora of evidence that lays out this pattern of behavior. ...Here's a full timeline, based on reliable reports that haven't been seriously challenged, of the 2017 events Mueller could draw on to establish an obstruction case against the President."
* * *
[CN: Nativism] David Nakamura at the Washington Post: Lawmakers Call on Trump to Drop Bid for Legal Immigration Cuts. "Trump's demands to slash legal immigration levels are likely to sink a deal. Democrats have voiced fierce opposition to a White House plan, released late last week, that featured a path to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers in exchange for $25 billion for his border wall and sharp cuts to family immigration visas. Though Democratic leaders have grudgingly offered wall funding, they have accused the president of leveraging the dreamers as 'ransom' to severely constrict legal immigration, calling it a wish list for 'anti-immigration hard-liners' and 'white supremacists.'" Correct analysis by the Democrats.
[CN: Nativism; white supremacy] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: Lines Blurring Between Immigration Priorities of Trump Administration and Hate Groups. "[T]he entirety of Trump's blueprint for the country's immigration system appears to come from organizations the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has designated as anti-immigrant hate groups, like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Put another way, the current president is turning demands from anti-immigrant hate groups, groups that have ties to the eugenics movement and openly advocated for heavily restricting immigration levels in order to maintain a white majority, into U.S. immigration policy. ...A closer look at Trump's proposals — before and now during his presidency — reveal near-exact overlap with these hate groups."
Chaim Gartenberg at the Verge: FCC Chair Ajit Pai Is Opposed to a Government-Run 5G Network. "Over the weekend, Axios reported that officials within the Trump administration have been proposing the creation of a nationwide 5G network in order to protect against Chinese leadership in forthcoming networking technology. However, it seems that the unnamed senior national security officials who presented the proposal failed to talk to current FCC commissioner Ajit Pai first. Pai released a statement this morning that, in no uncertain terms, opposes the plan for a government-run 5G network. It's not a surprising stance for Pai... It's hard to imagine that someone who feels that major telecom companies need less government oversight would be in favor of suddenly allowing the government to run the entirety of America's 5G network."
Matt Novak at Gizmodo: Fitness App's 'Anonymized' Data Dump Accidentally Reveals Military Bases Around the World. "People around the world use the app Strava on their smartphones and Fitbits to track how far they run. But researchers have discovered that an 'anonymized' data dump released by Strava last year has accidentally revealed sensitive locations, including U.S. military bases around the world. The user data was released in November as a '2017 heatmap,' showing over 1 billion activities, including 13 trillion GPS datapoints. That includes where and how fast various people went for a jog, for instance. And if you look closely, something like airfields in Somalia that may house American special forces suddenly light up like a Christmas tree."
Alastair Gee at the Guardian: Amid Dangers from the Trump Administration and Climate Change, Sites Including the Grand Canyon and Zion National Park Are Facing Yet Another Threat: 'Massive Disrepair'. "The National Park Service is the protector of some of America's greatest environmental and cultural treasures. Yet a huge funding shortfall means that the strain of America's passion for its parks is showing. Trails are crumbling and buildings are rotting. In all there is an $11bn backlog of maintenance work that repair crews have been unable to perform, a number that has mostly increased every year in the past decade. 'Americans should be deeply concerned,' said John Garder, senior director of budget and appropriations at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). The National Park Service, he argued, is hamstrung by a lack of resources and is in 'triage mode.'"
Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: Trump Claims Ice Caps 'Were Going to Melt' But Are 'Setting Records'. "Donald Trump suggested to Piers Morgan in an interview that aired in full on Sunday that the polar ice caps are actually doing well, despite concerns about climate change, though it's not clear how Trump came to that conclusion. Morgan asked Trump if he believes in climate change. 'Look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn't working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place,' Trump claimed in response. He then launched into a baseless claim about ice caps. 'The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they're setting records,' Trump said."
I have no idea what the fuck he is even talking about. During the same interview, he also told Morgan that he isn't a feminist: "No, I wouldn't say I'm a feminist. I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I'm for women, I'm for men, I'm for everyone." Morgan literally pitched this as "breaking news."
BREAKING NEWS:
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 27, 2018
President Trump has declared he is NOT a feminist.
He tells me: ‘No, I wouldn't say I'm a feminist. I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I'm for women, I'm for men, I’m for everyone.'
Full interview, Sunday, ITV, 10pm. pic.twitter.com/GCviovNb6o
More like "No Shit, Sherlock" news.
* * *
[CN: Misogyny; sexual harassment; sexual assault; rape apologia. Covers entire section.]
Michele Amabile Angermiller at Variety: Grammys So Male? 'Women Need to Step Up,' Says Recording Academy President. "The only woman presented a solo Grammy during the awards telecast on Sunday night? Alessia Cara, who took home best new artist. Recording Academy president Neil Portnow was asked by Variety about #GrammysSoMale and had this to say: 'It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome. I don't have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it's upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists.'"
What the actual fuck. This "women need to step up" bullshit will not widely be identified as workplace harassment, but the fact that it's the president of an industry academy saying it means it absolutely is.
Rebekah Entralgo at ThinkProgress: 22 Senators Call on Labor Department to Assess Economic Impact of Workplace Sexual Harassment. "Twenty-two Democratic senators are calling on the Labor Department to collect additional, better data regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. ...'What is known is that harassment is not confined to industry or one group. It affects minimum-wage fast-food workers, middle-class workers at car manufacturing plants, and white-collar workers in finance and law, among many others,' the senators wrote in the letter, provided to Buzzfeed. 'No matter the place or source, harassment has a tangible and negative economic effect on individuals' lifetime income and retirement, and its pervasiveness damages the economy as a whole.' The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that anywhere from 25 percent to 85 percent of women report having been sexual harassed in the workplace."
The signatories include Democratic Senators Kristen Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker, and not a single Republican Senator. Not a one.
In a series of tweets Saturday morning, Eggert told another Twitter user commenting on Baio's support for President Donald Trump, "Ask @scottbaio what happened in his garage at his house when I was a minor. Creep" https://t.co/IJxep5lClk
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 28, 2018
After Eggert made the allegations, which she has made previously, Baio, who is a major Trump booster, and his wife took to Facebook Live to dispute Eggert's account and call her a liar, because they are gross people.
Judd Legum at ThinkProgress: The GOP Finally Released a Statement on Steve Wynn — and It's Pathetic.
[On Friday], the Wall Street Journal reported that casino mogul Steve Wynn, the Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee, had engaged in serial sexual harassment and assault. The report was based on dozens of interviews in which people described how Wynn engaged in a "decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct" including "pressuring employees to perform sex acts."I am running out of ways to say that the Republicans are hypocrites and scumbags.
For 24 hours, the Republican Party said nothing. The silence was particularly remarkable in light of the GOP's reaction to reports in October that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted numerous women. The same day the first report was published, the Republican Party demanded the Democratic Party and all Democratic officials return money from Weinstein, who was a major donor to Democrats.
On Saturday afternoon, Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel released a statement. Here it is, in its entirety:
Today I accepted Steve Wynn's resignation as Republican National Committee finance chair.The statement was released to press but does not appear on the GOP website or Twitter account. It was also not posted to Twitter by McDaniel.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Trump Pals Fairly Certain He'll Lie Under Oath
And they're shitting their pants about it, reports Axios' Jonathan Swan under the terrific headline "White House Perjury Panic."
I can't overstate the level of anxiety among sources close to Trump after the president told the NYT's Maggie Haberman last week he was willing and eager to submit himself to a live interview under oath with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.Among the many revelations in that piece: "Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff: How much of a big Manhattan real estate project he owned; the price of one of his golf club memberships; the size of the Trump Organization; his wealth; his speaking fees; how many condos he had sold; his debts, and whether he borrowed money from his family to avoid going personally bankrupt. He also lied during the deposition about his business dealings with career criminals."
What I'm hearing: One source, who knows Trump as well as anyone, told me he believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself. "Trump doesn't deal in reality," the source said. "He creates his own reality and he actually believes it." (The president's attorney, Ty Cobb, did not respond to a request for comment.)
A number of people in the president's orbit have read this article by Bloomberg's Timothy O'Brien: "I've Watched Trump Testify Under Oath. It Isn't Pretty."
So, yeah. Anyone invested in Trump's presidency ought to be worried about him testifying under oath (which is why his attorneys will be tasked with wriggling him out of doing it).
Just one of the many complications of choosing to elect a compulsive liar as president, I guess!
¯\_(ăƒ„)_/¯
The Entire Republican Party Is Compromised
That is the only explanation for why they continue to try to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation — even as the Senate's Russia investigation gathers more information that "opened a lot of new questions."
The allegedly explosive memo Rep. Devin Nunes has been peddling, which Republicans have claimed documents evidence of anti-Trump bias at the FBI and the Justice Department, reportedly contains the disclosure that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved an extension of surveillance of Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, "because the Justice Department had reason to believe he was acting as a foreign agent for Russia."
So, to be clear: The Republicans are trying to discredit Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein — who appointed Mueller because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation — by smearing him for surveilling Page, who has practically bragged about being an Russian agent.
There isn't a single Congressional Republican who will stand up and defend Mueller and his investigation, or the man who appointed him, even when their target is a dirtbag nobody like Page, who is almost certainly a traitor.
The question is why, and clearly it's more than just their intransigent fealty to party above country, because, if Trump were ousted, they'd be left with Mike Pence, who is at least as partisan as Trump and probably even more so, and, beyond him, Paul Ryan.
The only conceivable answer is because they're all compromised, in one way or another.
The more that Republicans try to discredit Mueller's Russia investigation, no matter how absurd their strategy, even in defense of characters like Carter Page, the more they implicate Mike Pence. Because clearly they fear losing the White House altogether.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2018
But, on the other hand, if they know Mueller's investigation will find that Pence, too, colluded (as we should expect it will, given that he was hand-picked by Manafort and led the presidential transition), that's an incentive to discredit Mueller's findings.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2018
Trust that there's a reason the GOP, many of whom privately call Trump "an idiot" and worse, are going to extraordinary lengths to discredit Mueller. And it ISN'T because Pence wouldn't sign his name to legislation like the tax bill just as readily as Trump did. He would.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2018
The Republican leadership has very little incentive to continue to protect Trump at this point. But if we know one thing about Republicans, it's that they're powerfully motivated by self-interest. And it seems like they've got a compelling reason to protect themselves.
Hillary Pops in at the Grammys
Host James Corden did a bit where he asked celebrities to read segments from Fire and Fury, under the comedic pretense of auditioning for Best Spoken Word album for next year. John Legend, Cher, Snoop Dogg, and then...
A surprise appearance from Hillary Clinton reading Fire & Fury at the Grammys pic.twitter.com/VAYk70pqAj
— David Mack (@davidmackau) January 29, 2018
Video Description: Hillary Clinton appears onscreen in a vibrant red suit, holding a copy of the book over her face. She begins reading. "He had a longtime fear of being poisoned." The crowd erupts in cheers, and she drops the book, revealing her face. "One reason he liked to eat at McDonald's: Nobody knew he was coming, and the food was safely premade."
Corden appears onscreen, saying, "That's it! We've got it. That's the one." Hillary looks at him excitedly. "You think so?!"
"Oh yeah," he tells her.
"The Grammy's in the bag?" she says.
"In the bag," he says, and she laughs.
* * *
Of all the responses to this, the best (so far, as Donald Trump has yet to weigh in) was U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley's, registering her disdain like a good little minion.
I have always loved the Grammys but to have artists read the Fire and Fury book killed it. Don’t ruin great music with trash. Some of us love music without the politics thrown in it.
— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) January 29, 2018
LOL. Yes, if there's one thing I've always said about music, it's that the more apolitical it is, the better.
(I have never said that. Because that is very stupid.)
Anyway. I didn't watch the Grammys, because, among other reasons, I'm still angry at James Corden, but feel free to use this thread to discuss the show generally, in addition to this bit I highlighted.
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.
Friday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by clementines.
Recommended Reading:
Vivian Kane at the Mary Sue: [Content Note: Rape culture] It's Women Who Are Hurt Most When the #MeToo Movement Is Treated Like Clickbait
Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Puerto Rico: Post Hurricane Maria, Island Can't Pay Down Debt
Greg Jaffe and Damian Paletta at the Washington Post: Trump Plans to Ask for $716 Billion for National Defense in 2019 — a Major Increase
Merrit Kennedy at NPR: [CN: Sexual harassment] National Gallery Cancels 2 Upcoming Shows After Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Imani Jackson at Black Youth Project: Octavia Spencer Reveals Jessica Chastain Helped Her Make 500% More for Her Acting
Sarah Sloat at Inverse: A Never-Before-Seen Virus Was Just Found in the Sea, and it Kills Bacteria
Grown and Curvy Woman: Purple Reign
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Shaker Thumbs
Shaker Thumbs is your opportunity to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a product or service you have used and that you'd recommend to other Shakers or warn them away from.
Today I'm giving a big thumbs-up to Ikea's Lurvig litter boxes!
I got the green ones; they also come in black and white. And they are only $4.99!
(Although it may look like three different sized boxes in the image, that's just the angle of the photo. They're all the same size.)
We've had them for a few months now, and the cats like them. They're far more attractive than most litter boxes, and the cats make no more mess in and around them than most boxes — probably slightly less.
Olivia is a big, long-bodied cat, and she fits fine in these boxes. Honestly, it seems like the oval shape visually encourages her to stand in a way that looks more comfortable than she looks in rectangular boxes. Cats and their circles!
So thumbs up! Especially on that price.
Anyway! Give us your thumbs-up or thumbs-down in comments!
[Just to be abundantly clear, I am not affiliated in any way with Ikea, nor am I receiving any form of payment from them.]
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 372
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) 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: Quite a Leak: Trump Wanted to Fire Mueller Last June and We Asked Them to Step Up, and They Let Us Down.
Lauren Gambino at the Guardian: Donald Trump Denies Report He Tried to Fire Robert Mueller in June. "Donald Trump has denied a report he ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller last June, but was persuaded against it after the White House counsel threatened to resign. ...'Fake news, folks, fake news,' Trump told reporters in Davos, when asked about the report." Of course. Because Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: The Glaring Problem with Trump's Dismissal of the Mueller Story. "Trump blithely dismissed the story as 'fake news' and took a shot at the New York Times — the outlet that broke the story. 'Fake news, folks, fake news,' he said. 'Typical New York Times fake stories.' But there's an obvious problem with Trump's suggestion that the New York Times is making stuff up. The Times isn't the only outlet to report that Trump tried to fire Mueller... Trump's dismissal of the story is also in tension with what Trump's representatives told the Times. Instead of denying the story, Trump's attorney, Ty Cobb, told the Times that '[w]e decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process.' Trump representatives similarly declined to comment to Politico, the Post, and CNN."
Eric Levitz at NYMag: Trump Booed at Davos for Calling Media 'Vicious and Fake'. "And then, the Q&A began, and Trump went off-script. The president focused most of his extemporaneous remarks on a hyperbolic account of his tax 'reform' law's glorious effects. But when forum chairman Klaus Schwab asked Trump how his background as a businessman influenced his approach to governing, the mogul replied, 'As a businessman I was always treated really well by the press…it wasn't until I became a politician that I realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be.' Boos and hisses ensued."
Nicole Lafond at TPM: 'Amnesty Don': There's 'Tremendous Support' from GOP on DACA Citizenship. "Donald Trump on Friday said he has 'tremendous support' from Republicans to make a compromise on a path to citizenship for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, despite backlash from his far-right base." This is horseshit. It's just more garbage to get headlines that helps him blame Democrats for his own failure to deliver on his promises and his party's failure to provide good governance.
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jeff Cox at CNBC: Soros: Trump Has U.S. 'Set on a Course Towards Nuclear War'.
Donald Trump has the U.S. on course for a nuclear war with North Korea, billionaire investor and progressive political activist George Soros said Thursday.Trump wasn't the only target of Soros' ire. Ben Smith at BuzzFeed: George Soros Just Launched a Scathing Attack on Google and Facebook. "The financier and philanthropist George Soros joined the rising attacks on Facebook and Google Thursday night, calling for 'more stringent regulations' on the tech giants. Soros referred to the companies as a 'menace' and denounced 'the rise and monopolistic behavior of the giant IT platform companies,' which he described as 'ever more powerful monopolies,' hurting competitors and societies alike. ...'They claim they are merely distributing information. But the fact that they are near-monopoly distributors makes them public utilities and should subject them to more stringent regulations, aimed at preserving competition, innovation, and fair and open universal access,' he said."
In a blistering critique of the country under Trump's leadership, the head of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations painted a bleak picture.
"The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real," Soros said during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power."
"This creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority preemptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy."
Relatedly... [CN: Bigotry; privilege] Nitasha Tiku at Wired: The Dirty War Over Diversity Inside Google. "In interviews with Wired, 15 current Google employees accuse coworkers of inciting outsiders to harass rank-and-file employees who are minority advocates, including queer and transgender employees. Since August, screenshots from Google's internal discussion forums, including personal information, have been displayed on sites including Breitbart... Other screenshots were included in a 161-page lawsuit that Damore filed in January, alleging that Google discriminates against whites, males, and conservatives. What followed, the employees say, was a wave of harassment. ...At least three employees had their phone numbers, addresses, and deadnames (a transgender person's name prior to transitioning) exposed. ...More than a dozen pages of personal information about another employee were posted to [a site known as] 'the web's biggest community of stalkers.'"
* * *
[CN: War on agency] E.A. Crunden at ThinkProgress: As Another Shutdown Looms, Senate GOP Focuses on 20-Week Abortion Ban. "In the midst of an unresolved dispute over funding the federal government and insuring protections for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants, Senate Republicans plan to vote on a 20-week abortion ban next week, re-opening a debate on the legal medical procedure at a politically charged moment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) moved to vote on anti-choice legislation introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday, clearing the way for a procedural vote as soon as Monday."
[CN: Sexual assault; rape apologia] Jessica Mason Pieklo at Rewire: Advocates Sue to Unwind Trump Administration Guidance on Campus Sexual Assault. "Attorneys on behalf of three advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration alleging the Department of Education overstepped its authority in issuing Title IX policy addressing campus sexual assault. ...The lawsuit alleges the Trump Administration's Title IX policy is unlawfully based on government officials' discriminatory stereotypes about the credibility of women and girls who report sexual violence, citing comments made by Acting Assistant Secretary Candice Jackson in a July 2017 New York Times interview as one example. Jackson told the paper that '90 percent' of campus sexual-assault complaints 'fall into the category of 'we were both drunk,' 'we broke up, and six months later I found myself under a Title IX investigation because she just decided that our last sleeping together was not quite right.''"
[CN: Sexual harassment] Jonathan Tamari at the Philly Inquirer: Rep. Pat Meehan Will Not Seek Reelection After Sexual Harassment Furor. "U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan will not seek reelection, he disclosed Thursday, about a week after news reports that he used taxpayer dollars to settle a former aide's sexual harassment claim — and following the harsh response to his description of the woman as his 'soul mate.' ...Meehan, 62, is now subject to a review by the House Ethics Committee, which he sat on until the reports. He has said he will repay the taxpayer money if the panel finds that he committed sexual harassment. But he concluded his letter by saying, 'I acted, at all times, within the appropriate boundaries of the close relationship I shared with the former employee.'" JFC. Good riddance to this dirtbag.
[CN: Sexual harassment] Erik Wemple at the Washington Post: CNN Reinstates Ryan Lizza. "CNN is reinstating Ryan Lizza, the Washington political reporter who was fired from the New Yorker for alleged sexual misconduct. 'Upon learning of The New Yorker's decision to sever ties with Ryan Lizza in December, CNN pulled him from future on-air appearances while the network conducted an extensive investigation into the matter,' reads a statement from a CNN spokeswoman. 'Based on the information provided and the findings of the investigation, CNN has found no reason to continue to keep Mr. Lizza off the air.'" All right then.
[CN: Sexual harassment] In today's New York Times, there is a piece authored by Maggie Haberman and Amy Chozick, neither of whom are fans of Hillary Clinton (to put it mildly), about a man who worked for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign and sexually harassed a woman who also worked for the campaign. The piece is filed under the headline: "Hillary Clinton Chose to Shield a Top Adviser Accused of Harassment in 2008." That's somewhat mendacious, because what happened was that he "was docked several weeks of pay and ordered to undergo counseling," which is a consequence, not a shield.
For the record, I don't think that was a sufficient consequence. I believe he should have been fired.
I also think that headline is misleading. And the responses to this story are obviously terrific. Note that the backlash narrative so far has been that men losing their jobs over sexual harassment is disproportionate overreach and "ruin's men lives," and that sexual harassers should be sent for sensitivity training etc.
But when Hillary Clinton did exactly what these apologists ostensibly want people to do, which is not "ruin a man's life" but get him help, she's a monster who must be destroyed.
Gee, it's almost like these aren't principled positions at all, but just arguments used to lash out at women, no matter what approach we take.
ETA. [CN: Sexual harassment and assault]
Steve Wynn, one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas and a man who Trump has called a “great friend,” engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct and pressured employees to perform sex acts, according to dozens of interviews conducted by the WSJ. https://t.co/wj9nBBH1yZ
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 26, 2018
Should be noted: Steve Wynn is also the Finance Chair of the RNC. https://t.co/nUDDiDPpu8
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 26, 2018
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[CN: Nativism; privacy violations] Russell Brandom at the Verge: ICE Is About to Start Tracking License Plates Across the U.S. "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from [privacy advocates]. The source of the data is not named in the contract, but an ICE representative said the data came from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data. 'Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,' spokesperson Dani Bennett said in a statement. 'ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.' (Vigilant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)"
[CN: Privacy violations] Dell Cameron at Gizmodo: Kris Kobach's Office Leaks Last 4 Social Security Digits of Nearly Every Kansas Lawmaker and Thousands of State Employees, Including Kris Kobach. "Prior to receiving notice from Gizmodo this morning, Kris Kobach's office was leaking sensitive information belonging to thousands of state employees, including himself and nearly every member of the Kansas state legislature. Along with a bevy of personal information contained in documents that, according to a statement on the website, was intended to be public, the Kansas Secretary of State's website left exposed the last four digits of Social Security numbers (SSN4) belonging to numerous current and former candidates for office, as well as thousands — potentially tens of thousands — of high-ranking state employees at virtually ever Kansas government agency. ...Gizmodo notified the Kansas Secretary of State's office of the exposure on Thursday morning, and the site was taken down within roughly an hour. A request for comment was not returned." Yeah, let's trust this guy with voter data. Jesus fucking Jones.
John Abraham at the Guardian: In 2017, the Oceans Were by Far the Hottest Ever Recorded. "[I]n terms of understanding how fast the Earth is warming, the key is the oceans. This important ocean information was just released today by a world-class team of researchers from China. The researchers (Lijing Cheng and Jiang Zhu) found that the upper 2000 meters (more than 6000 feet) of ocean waters were far warmer in 2017 than the previous hottest year. We measure heat energy in Joules. It turns out that 2017 was a record-breaking year, 1.51 × 1022 Joules hotter than any other year. For comparison, the annual electrical generation in China is 600 times smaller than the heat increase in the ocean."
Emily Chung at CBC News: Plastic Ocean Litter Boosts Deadly Infections in Corals. "Garbage like disposable diapers, plastic bags, and snack wrappers is getting into the ocean and snagging on coral reefs, leading to deadly infections that literally eat the corals alive, a new study suggests. A four-year survey of 125,000 corals in 150 reefs in the Asia-Pacific region found that corals in contact with plastic debris had an 89 percent chance of having three nasty diseases... Corals that weren't in contact with garbage had just a four per cent chance of being visibly diseased."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
TV Corner: Murphy Brown Reboot
Does anyone want to talk about CBS bringing back Murphy Brown for a minimum 13-episode run? Because I am pretty excited about it!
I loved Murphy Brown, and I am really interested to see what the show makes of current politics and especially current news media.
I wouldn't be as interested if the show's star, Candice Bergen, weren't reprising the titular role, and if the show's creator, Diane English, weren't also back on board at the helm, but they both are. Yay!
There was a lot I loved about Murphy Brown, but let's just get right to the most important detail: Candice Bergen had the best hair of the '90s. Fight me.
Anyway, let's see if Murphy Brown can drag yet another insufferably sanctimonious vice-president from Indiana into a battle of wits that he will definitely lose!
Relatedly, I'm really digging the trend of reviving old shows for new seasons, as opposed to simply remaking them with a new cast. It's a new trend in the United States, but it's very common on British television, and I like it a lot.
I do, however, hope that, irrespective of how many of the old cast come back, producers diversify the cast in the new season.
Discuss!
We Asked Them to Step Up, and They Let Us Down
For reasons I'm guessing I don't need to recount, I've been really let down by a lot of ostensibly progressive men recently.
I just feel constantly overwhelmed with disappointment at how many of them can't rise to the occasion, even when literally everything is at stake.
I'm disappointed by how many of them, men who I've seen publicly declare themselves "one of the good guys," are actively making things worse, and by how many of them further still are carelessly causing pain to people who are already hurting.
And I'm angry that appeals to them to do better, to get all in, to be more sensitive and thoughtful in response to endemic abuses, are met with sneering refusals or persistent silence.
I'm reminded of a relationship dynamic that a lot of women partnered with men experience: The woman does all of the emotional labor to make the relationship work, and eventually she's just tapped out, and she asks for him to step up, and maybe he promises he will and maybe he doesn't bother, but, either way, he doesn't.
And this might go on for days or weeks or months or years, until she finally gives him a desperate ultimatum: Seriously, you need to step up, because I don't have anything left. And he says, "It's too hard. Bye." The moment he is asked to put in a modicum of effort, the relationship isn't worth it to him anymore.
I feel like that dysfunction is playing out in the United States on a grand scale. Marginalized people have been putting in most of the emotional (and physical) labor to keep our democracy vaguely functional, even when it has been mostly (and the most) dysfunctional for us — and now that we're asking privileged men to carry some of the burden, they're like, "Pass. I'mma be fine either way."
And that is really fucking disappointing.
Quite a Leak: Trump Wanted to Fire Mueller Last June
On the one hand, the disclosure — reported by both the New York Times and the Washington Post — that Donald Trump wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller last June is hardly surprising. Of course he wanted to fire Mueller. We all knew that.
On the other hand, it's a pretty big leak. And, given that White House Counsel Don McGahn comes out looking like a person with ethics in this story — he threatened to quit if Trump went through with it — it's a good bet that McGahn himself was the leaker.
If that's the case, the reason for the leak is almost certainly because McGahn is trying to find a piece of detritus to keep him afloat among the other rats jumping ship. Or maybe:
I'm probably not the first person to observe that the likely reason we're getting this leak now about Trump trying to fire Mueller in June is because Trump is thinking about it again and someone's trying to stop him.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 26, 2018
I also want to echo what the WaPo's Mark Berman noted: "Now that it emerged today that Trump sought to have Mueller fired, this paragraph from [Josh Dawsey, David Nakamura, and Devlin Barrett] becomes much more interesting: 'People who have appeared before Mueller's team say prosecutors have detailed accounts of events, sometimes to the minute, and have surprised witnesses by showing them emails or documents they were unaware that the team had or that their colleagues had written. One person said Mueller's team has asked about Trump's private comments around key events and how he explained decisions.'"
It's likely the person who leaked the story about Trump wanting to fire Mueller in June, who is also providing such "detailed accounts of events" to Mueller's team.
That said, I'll also note that there's still no mention of Vice-President Mike Pence anywhere. Which could be because, as I've previously speculated, he's angling for the presidency by turning on Trump and is thus the one providing these up-to-the-minute accounts to Mueller.
Or he's convinced Mueller's team that he really doesn't know anything, golly gosh, and he's going to skate like the slippery eel he is.
I continue to find it both curious and consternating that I'm not hearing anything about Pence, in leaks from Mueller's team and in leaks from the White House.
In any case, this was an interesting leak. Not because it tells us anything about Trump we didn't already know, but because it tells us something about the people around him. Who look increasingly unwilling to protect him.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker KaterTot: "What language do you wish you could learn? Why?"
Spanish. Because it would be the most useful to me in everyday interactions. I know a very little bit of Spanish, but I would love to be fluent.
If I had the time to immerse myself in it to learn on my own, I would. Because Rosetta Stone looks amazing but DAMN IS IT EXPENSIVE LOL!
ART
I have been referring to the current president as "gold toilet aficionado Donald Trump" for a very long time. So you can imagine the delight with which I received this news from fully one biebillion people (and thanks to each and every one of you)!
The W.H. asked the Guggenheim to “borrow” a Van Gogh painting for Trump’s private living quarters.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 25, 2018
The curator denied the request, offering instead an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet — an interactive work entitled “America,” WaPo reports. https://t.co/FaZ1BwIAH4
A couple of points:
1. "America."
2. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
