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.
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Earlier today by me: The Media Abetted Trump — and Not Just the Tabloids and F#@k Paul Ryan.
Here are some more things in the news today...
Maggie Astor at the New York Times: Holocaust Is Fading From Memory, Survey Finds.
For seven decades, "never forget" has been a rallying cry of the Holocaust remembrance movement.Part of this is, of course, a function of younger generations having fewer organic opportunities to interact with Holocaust survivors. I'm 43, and I worked for a Holocaust survivor for many years. He was a child while in the camp, and he is now retired. To work closely with a survivor as I did is something that people younger than I are vanishingly unlikely to experience.
But a survey released Thursday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, found that many adults lack basic knowledge of what happened — and this lack of knowledge is more pronounced among millennials, whom the survey defined as people ages 18 to 34.
Thirty-one percent of Americans, and 41 percent of millennials, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed in the Holocaust; the actual number is around six million. Forty-one percent of Americans, and 66 percent of millennials, cannot say what Auschwitz was. Only 39 percent of Americans know that Hitler was democratically elected.
"As we get farther away from the actual events, 70-plus years now, it becomes less forefront of what people are talking about or thinking about or discussing or learning," said Matthew Bronfman, a board member of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which commissioned the study. "If we wait another generation before you start trying to take remedial action, I think we're really going to be behind the eight ball."
And part of it is also that Republicans' decades-long erosion of public education has consequences. Among them is diminished knowledge of history, even events as significant — and necessary to understand — as the Holocaust.
Which is naturally part of the objective. It's not a bug of subverting education, but a feature, to create a populace ignorant of historical details that might raise alarms regarding your own social abuses.
On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us remember that institutional forgetting abets the replication of horrors that never should have been tolerated in the first place.
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Donald Trump is a terrible president and a terrible human being, part wev in a nightmarishly endless series:
Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all! In any event, the United States, under my Administration, has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our “Thank you America?”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2018
What a fucking ghoul he is.
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Robert Costa at the Washington Post: Bannon Pitches White House on Plan to Cripple Mueller Probe and Protect Trump.
Stephen K. Bannon, who was ousted as White House chief strategist last summer but has remained in touch with some members of [Donald] Trump's circle, is pitching a plan to West Wing aides and congressional allies to cripple the federal probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to four people familiar with the discussions.So glad (cough) that guy's back. Not that he ever really left.
The first step, these people say, would be for Trump to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and in recent days signed off on a search warrant of Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen.
Bannon is also recommending the White House cease its cooperation with Mueller, reversing the policy of Trump's legal team to provide information to the special counsel's team and to allow staff members to sit for interviews.
And he is telling associates inside and outside the administration that the president should create a new legal battleground to protect himself from the investigation by asserting executive privilege — and arguing that Mueller's interviews with White House officials over the past year should now be null and void.
(And hey — remember when I was like, "Bannon's not really going anywhere; he and Trump are still BFFs, and Bannon's just escaping the scrutiny of the White House," and a bunch of people screamed at me on Twitter that I was crazy and wrong and SHUT UP CUNT, but now here we are and the WaPo, which — among many other publications, totally bought the "Bannon and Trump are OVER!" narrative hook, line, and sinker — publishes a line like "Bannon...has remained in touch with some members of [Donald] Trump's circle" like no big whoop, we all knew that was happening, right? ANYWAY.)
I don't suppose it's a coincidence that Senate Republicans want us to believe they're getting their shit together on protecting Mueller and his investigation right as Trump has switched strategies from going after Mueller directly to going after Rosenstein instead.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) April 11, 2018
I mean, these are dots that are not hard to connect. Yesterday comes the news that the Senate is preparing bipartisan legislation to limit Donald Trump's ability to fire Special Counsel Bob Mueller. Today comes the news that Steve Bannon is advising Trump to fire Rod Rosenstein instead. Welp.
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[Content Note: White supremacy] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: Trump Judicial Nominee Won't Say She's Opposed to School Segregation. "Wendy Vitter, a lawyer nominated by [Donald] Trump for district judge of the Eastern District of Louisiana, would not tell senators she believed Brown v. Board of Education was correctly decided. During her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked her whether she agreed with the 1954 landmark case that declared state laws allowing school segregation were unconstitutional. Vitter, counsel for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, said, 'I don't mean to be coy, but I think I get into a difficult area when I start commenting on Supreme Court decisions, which are correctly decided and which I may disagree with.' When Blumenthal asked again, 'Do you believe it was correctly decided?' Vitter answered, 'My personal, political, or religious views I would set aside.'" Wow.
[CN: Anti-choicery] Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post: Trump Court Pick Thinks Planned Parenthood 'Kills Over 150,000 Females a Year'. "Vitter, a New Orleans lawyer and Trump's choice for a lifetime seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, [claimed in a May 2013 speech in protest of a new Planned Parenthood clinic in New Orleans that Planned Parenthood kills more than 150,000 women every year]. ...[W]hen Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked her if she stands by that claim, she avoided answering over and over again. ...'My personal views in this role, I need to a make a conscious effort and will do so to set this aside…' Blumenthal cut her off. 'I'm really not asking you about setting aside personal views,' he said. 'I'm asking you, very simply, you said Planned Parenthood kills 150,000 females a year. 150,000 people. Do you stand by that statement? It's a yes or no.'" Wow the Squeakquel.
[CN: Sexual violence; assault; description of sexual assault] Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Woman Testifies That Missouri Governor Hit Her, Sexually Assaulted Her. "A Missouri House committee released a report Wednesday regarding allegations of sexual assault against Gov. Eric Greitens (R), saying in the report that they believe the woman who made the allegations is credible. Greitens called the investigation a 'political witch hunt' and has refused to step down as governor or as a candidate for reelection. The 25-page report marks the first time the public has heard sworn testimony from the woman who has said Greitens assaulted her. In her testimony, the woman told a graphic story in which Greitens invited her to his home in 2015 while his wife was away, tied her up in the basement, and ripped open her clothes, all without her consent. Greitens then allegedly blindfolded the woman and took photos of her, called her 'a little whore,' and threatened to make the photos public if she ever spoke about the incident. Greitens attacked the woman when she tried to leave the basement and forced his penis into her mouth."
[CN continued from above] This is an act of sexual violence, and yet the headlines and various descriptions of what happened have been shockingly inadequate. Greitens did not merely "sexually harass" her or "force her to give him oral sex." It's not sex. Of any kind. Sex is consensual. What he did was sexual assault. And even outlets that don't completely soft-pedal it are still stumbling badly. I mean:
I wish there was a word for "violent, non-consensual sex." https://t.co/QQyO5slYVm
— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) April 12, 2018
The failure to call sexual violence what it is, bluntly, will never stop enraging me. Never.
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[CN: Privacy violations; video may autoplay at link] Brian X. Chen at the New York Times: I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me: Yikes. "When I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data last week, I didn't expect to see much. My profile is sparse, I rarely post anything on the site, and I seldom click on ads. (I'm what some call a Facebook 'lurker.') But when I opened my file, it was like opening Pandora's box. With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact information, which could include my email address, phone number, and full name. Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, including my exes."
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] This isn't so much as a resistance item, but a heads-up about precautions you may need to take, depending on where you live... Sean Rossman at USA Today: What You Need to Know About the E. Coli Outbreak, Now in 7 States. "An e. coli outbreak with no known source has spread to seven states, infecting 17 people and prompting an investigation by state and federal health officials. The state hit hardest by the outbreak is New Jersey, which has six cases that led to the investigation of a Panera Bread. Other states include: Idaho, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Missouri, and Washington. The cases resulted in six hospitalizations and started between March 22 and March 31, affecting mostly women. Those sick range in age from 12 to 84, notes the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, there is no known source at the time. ...To avoid E. coli, wash your hands regularly and thoroughly, cook meat completely, wash fruits and vegetables, avoid raw milk, and don't prepare food when you're sick."
[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Ricardo Cano, Lily Altavena, Lorraine Longhi, and Kaila White at the Republic: Thousands of Teachers, Parents, Students Participate in #RedForEd Walk-Ins. "Thousands of parents and students across Arizona joined teachers walking into their schools Wednesday morning as a show of solidarity for the #RedForEd effort to boost education funding in the state. Participants wore red and carried signs during the rallies scheduled before the first school bell rings. The walk-ins were planned so as not to disrupt class time." Seriously, Betsy DeVos or anyone else who wants to accuse teachers of not caring about their students during these protests can kiss my fat ass. They're fighting for themselves and their students while planning that fight "so as not to disrupt class time." Goddammit. Blub.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
