We Resist: Day 469

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 03, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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.

* * *

Earlier today by me: On Giuliani: Hold the Popcorn and Nevertheless, She Resisted and Charlie Rose: 27 More Women Report Harassment.

Here are some more things in the news today...

[Content Note: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: The New ICE Age: An Agency Unleashed.
As the American Immigration Council explains, "the enforcement of US immigration laws has historically been guided by policies that emphasize prioritization": An undocumented immigrant who committed a violent crime or an immigrant believed to be a threat to national security was prioritized for enforcement and, eventually, deportation. Trump's executive orders — starting on the fifth day of his presidency with 13767, which called for the construction of a wall on the Mexican border and the swift repatriation of those living in the United States without authorization — have done away with this system, making enforcement priorities a thing of the past. Now every undocumented immigrant is deportable.

...Newly empowered, ICE is newly emboldened. Despite the many failings of Trump's White House, the administration has delivered on one of the president's primary goals: Mass deportations. Trump is giving ICE the tools, financial resources, and presidential backing to go after immigrant communities as never before.

The agency still claims to focus primarily on those with criminal records, which, often, can mean nothing more than an old DUI conviction — and raids have been based on that. Yet the fastest-growing category of arrests under Trump are of people with no criminal charges. Last year, the agency arrested more than 28,000 "non-criminal immigration violators."
There is much, much more at the link.

[CN: Nativism] Kira Brekke at ThinkProgress: Since Trump, Immigrants Are Living with a 'Monster Under the Bed'. "While there has always been an ebb and flow in how presidential administrations handle immigration, the Trump administration has waged an all out war on immigrant communities since January 2017. 'There is a viciousness in which this administration relishes targeting people and feels just shameless in the embracing of that,' Avideh Moussavian, senior policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, told ThinkProgress."

Meanwhile...


And, as yet another reminder that Trump is not an anomaly of Republican politics...

[CN: Nativism] Alfonso Serrano at Colorlines: Seven-State Coalition Sues to End DACA. "A seven-member coalition of Republican states filed a lawsuit on Tuesday (May 1) against the Trump administration in an effort to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era initiative that protects hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation. ...Last week's federal ruling ordering the Trump administration to continue DACA also called on the government to reopen the program to new applicants, a decision that could benefit hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The judge, however, stayed the decision, giving the Department of Homeland Security 90 days to produce a strong argument for ending DACA. On Tuesday, six other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia — joined Texas as plaintiffs in the case."

To be clear: These Republican states are suing the Trump administration to help the Trump administration end DACA.

* * *

Dominic Rushe at the Guardian: Over 1,000 Economists Warn Trump His Trade Views Echo Mistakes of 1930s. "Over a thousand economists have written to Donald Trump warning his 'economic protectionism' and tough rhetoric on trade threatens to repeat the mistakes the US made in the 1930s, mistakes that plunged the world into the Great Depression. ...'Congress did not take economists' advice in 1930, and Americans across the country paid the price. The undersigned economists and teachers of economics strongly urge you not to repeat that mistake. Much has changed since 1930 — for example, trade is now significantly more important to our economy — but the fundamental economic principles as explained at the time have not.'" All of that is right — except for the part where it presumes that economic collapse is not the objective.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey at the Washington Post: Amid Stormy Daniels News, Trump Expected to Announce Faith-Based Office on National Day of Prayer. "Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday to create his version of a faith-based office during a Rose Garden ceremony in front of 200 religious leaders — a move that has caused concerns about church and state under previous administrations. ...The White House announcement, which was first reported by Religion News Service, is expected to introduce the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, intended to signal to religious groups that they have a voice in the government." Not to "religious groups." To white conservative Christians.

[CN: War on agency]


Echoes of the Iowa legislator I quoted just yesterday: "He acknowledged this bill is an attempt to 'take another run at Roe v. Wade,' he said about the 1973 Supreme Court decision to allow abortion, and predicted the bill will be the vehicle for overturning that decision. 'We're not hiding that.'"

Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Oklahoma Bill Aimed at Dismantling Unions Takes 'Revenge' on Teachers for Striking. "Weeks after tens of thousands of Oklahoma teachers ended their nine-day strike after securing major wins, including teacher raises and additional education funding, legislators introduced a bill that aims to hamper membership in the teachers unions that helped organized the walkouts. The measure, Senate Bill 1150, began as a bill tackling child abuse, but was completely rewritten this week thanks to an amendment by state Rep. Todd Russ (R). ...Ed Allen, president of the Oklahoma City chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, told The Oklahoman that the legislation 'seems like a revenge bill to come back after teachers, after the walkout.'"

[CN: Misogynoir; harassment] Perry Stein at the Washington Post: Three Black Teens Are Finalists in a NASA Competition; Hackers Spewing Racism Tried to Ruin Their Odds.
The three D.C. students couldn't believe the news. They'd developed a method to purify lead-contaminated water in school drinking fountains, and NASA announced last month that they were finalists in the agency's prestigious high school competition — the only all-black, female team to make it that far.

"Hidden figures in the making," one of the teens wrote in a celebratory text message to her teammates and coaches, a reference to the 2016 movie about the true story of three African American women who worked for NASA in the 1960s.

The next stage of the science competition included public voting, and the Banneker High School students — Mikayla Sharrieff, India Skinner, and Bria Snell, all 17-year-old high school juniors — turned to social media to promote their project.

But while the teens were gaining traction on social media and racking up votes, users on 4chan — an anonymous Internet forum where users are known to push hoaxes and spew racist and homophobic comments — were trying to ensure the students wouldn't win.

The anonymous posters used racial epithets, argued that the students' project did not deserve to be a finalist, and said that the black community was voting for the teens only because of their race. They urged people to vote against the Banneker trio, and one user offered to put the topic on an Internet thread about [Donald] Trump to garner more attention. They recommended computer programs that would hack the voting system to give a team of teenage boys a boost.

NASA said in a statement that voting was compromised, prompting it to shut down public voting earlier than expected. The federal space agency said it encourages the use of social media to build support for projects but wrote in a statement Tuesday that public voting was ended because people "attempted to change the vote totals."
Rage seethe boil. There is a whole additional level of fuckery in trying to shut down three Black girls whose project is about purifying drinking water, while Flint still doesn't have clean water.

[CN: Class warfare]


This is legislation of the profoundly racist narrative that is extremely prevalent among poor whites, which essentially argues: White people just use welfare as a bridge. Black people use it as an apartment.

It's an attempt to entrench into law the notion that Good White Folks use welfare the way it's supposed to be used, to help someone who works hard but is just down on their luck get back on their feet blah blah bootstraps, while Black people cynically and selfishly abuse the system.

Takers and makers. The Republican Party isn't even trying to hide the white supremacy central to their policymaking anymore. Thanks to Donald Trump for showing they needn't even bother.

* * *

Adam Peck at ThinkProgress: The Media's 2016 Freakout over Clinton's Pneumonia Looks Really Suspect Today.
The entire media world breathlessly covered her every movement that September day, when Clinton had to be helped into a van after baking in the summer sun at a 9/11 memorial ceremony.

...Fast forward 20 months. On Tuesday afternoon, CNN reported that longtime Trump physician Harold Bornstein admitted that the doctor's note he signed and publicly released during the campaign — you know, the one where he said Trump's "physical strength and stamina are extraordinary," that he would be "the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," and whose blood work was, in professional medical parlance, "astonishingly excellent" — was a complete fabrication, and was in fact dictated by Trump himself.

As of midday Wednesday, Fox News has yet to address the subject on its website. NPR and the Washington Post ran short stories based on CNN's reporting. The New York Times ran a short wire piece from Reuters on its website. The discrepancy between the coverage of Clinton's health and Donald Trump's by the country's newspaper of record wasn't lost on people.


And so it goes. After 16 months of the Trump presidency, we are completely deadened to monumental scandal.
This whole piece is great.

[CN: Terroristic threats; homophobia]


[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Mat Staver on Trump's Judicial Appointments: 'Literally, We Are a Few Months away from Ending Gay Marriage'. "'The nice thing about what [Donald]Trump has done, different from other Republican presidents, is that he is appointing, he's nominating, so far, judges who are what I would call constitutionalists, originalists, dedicated to the original understanding and interpretation of the Constitution and the statutes. On the other hand, Republican presidents in the past, they've been hit or miss. [Donald] Trump so far has been hitting this on the nail.' Staver could hardly contain himself while talking to VCY America's Jim Schneider about the possibility of 'one, maybe two more' SCOTUS Justices retiring and being replaced 'with someone like Gorsuch.' Said Staver: 'That means the abortion decision, the same-sex marriage decision, all of those things that went the wrong way will ultimately be in the balance to be reversed. So literally we are a few months away.'"


What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Charlie Rose: 27 More Women Report Harassment

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 03, 2018
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[Content Note: Sexual harassment and assault.]

In November of last year, eight women came forward with allegations that newsman Charlie Rose had sexually harassed and/or assaulted them.

After the story broke, I noted that an allegation against Rose was first made in 2007:


As I have previously written, one of the costs of disbelieving survivors is that their abuser will be left free to create more victims.

The Charlie Rose story, it turns out, is a perfect, terrible example of that very dynamic.

Amy Brittain and Irin Carmon at the Washington Post report:
Incidents of sexual misconduct by Charlie Rose were far more numerous than previously known, according to a new investigation by The Washington Post, which also found three occasions over a period of 30 years in which CBS managers were warned of his conduct toward women at the network.

An additional 27 women — 14 CBS News employees and 13 who worked with him elsewhere — said Rose sexually harassed them. Concerns about Rose's behavior were flagged to managers at the network as early as 1986 and as recently as April 2017, when Rose was co-anchor of "CBS This Morning," according to multiple people with firsthand knowledge of the conversations.

...The first instance identified by The Post in which a CBS News employee said a manager was told of Rose's conduct was in 1986, when he was filling in as an anchor on "CBS Morning News."

There, Annmarie Parr, a 22-year-old news clerk, delivered a script to Rose. He had made "lewd, little comments" about her appearance before, Parr said, but that day Rose took it further. "Annmarie, do you like sex?" she said he asked her. "Do you enjoy it? How often do you like to have sex?" She said she laughed nervously and left.

Parr said she reported Rose's comments to her boss — a senior producer whom she declined to name — and said she didn't want to be alone with Rose. The producer laughed, Parr said, and told her, "Fine, you don't have to be alone with him anymore."
Although 1986 was the earliest year Brittain and Carmon could identify that an official report was made to a manager about Rose's behavior, they found that his harassment and assault dated back at least a decade earlier: "The new allegations against Rose date to 1976, when, according to a former research assistant, he exposed his penis and touched her breasts in the NBC News Washington bureau where they worked."

Rose was allowed to harass and assault female colleagues with impunity for 42 years.

I am 43 years old. This man has been abusing women with whom he works for nearly the entire time I've been alive, and yet every single executive at CBS incredibly claims they had no idea.

Rose, meanwhile, responded to the new allegations via email with a single sentence: "Your story is unfair and inaccurate."

The story is not unfair. Its subject matter, however, is breathtakingly so.

I take up space in solidarity with Charlie Rose's victims.

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Nevertheless, She Resisted

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 03, 2018
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Let's all take a moment to give it up for U.S. Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning, who is not only an award-winning educator of teenage refugees, but a kickass stealth advocate:


David Smith at the Guardian reports:
Mandy Manning works at the Newcomer Center at Joel E Ferris High School in Spokane, Washington, which specialises in English language development for new refugees and immigrant students.

Trump presented her with the National Teacher of the Year award in the East Room and praised her "incredible devotion." The US president said: "Teachers like Mandy play a vital role in the wellbeing of our children, the strength of our communities, and the success of our nation."

Manning wore six badges on her black dress. According to a pooled report, they included one with a poster for the Women's March that followed Trump's inauguration, one that said "Trans Equality Now," and one in the shape of an apple with a rainbow.

The badges also represented the teacher of the year programme, National Education Association, and Peace Corps, where she began her teaching career.

Handing her the clear glass, apple-shaped award on a podium, Trump did not appear to notice the badges. He smiled as he and Manning posed for photographers. The education secretary, Betsy DeVos; the labor secretary, Alex Acosta; and the Peace Corps director, Jody Olsen, looked on.

Manning told the Associated Press after the ceremony that she used a private moment with Trump to give him stacks of letters written by her students and members of the Spokane community. She said she told Trump she hoped he would read them, and she encouraged him to visit her school.

"I just had a very, very brief moment so I made it clear that the students that I teach ... are dedicated and focused," Manning said in an interview. "They make the United States the beautiful place that it is."

Manning said the letters conveyed important messages about what coming to the US meant to the immigrants and refugees.
All the tears.

Manning is absolutely right that her students are part of the beauty of this country. So are teachers like her. ♥

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On Giuliani: Hold the Popcorn

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 03, 2018
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So, last night, Rudy Giuliani, who was recently hired as part of Donald Trump's legal team, went on Fox and gave a rather stunning interview to Sean Hannity, during which he said that Trump reimbursed his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels to silence her ahead of the 2016 election.

This seemed like a rather incredible admission, and naturally many people (myself included) quickly assumed that Giuliani had made a critical error. But, since things are often not what they seem when it comes to this administration, especially regarding their interactions with the media, I kept my eyes peeled for any suggestion that Giuliani was actually playing a long game.

And then came Trump's morning tweetshitz.


If you can't view the embedded screencapped tweets, published on Trump's account, they read (in three parts): "Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll [sic] in this transaction."

That was when I knew something was up.


And confirmation of my suspicion came directly from Giuliani himself:


He reiterated the same thing this morning during an appearance on Fox & Friends.

So here's where we are: Once again, the Trump administration is manipulating the media, and delivering talking points to their base ahead of a disclosure that would be scandalous under normal circumstances.

Here, however, many members of the media spent the entirety of last night and much of the morning publicly laughing at what a dipshit Rudy Giuliani is. So now they have a strong incentive to pretend it's not a strategy, even when it becomes obvious that it is, because to backtrack and take it seriously would necessitate admitting that they were totally fucking wrong, missed the strategy, and got played.

And we can't have that. So instead they will keep playing along, precisely as the administration hoped they would, and abet Donald Trump once more to avoid having to admit they got it wrong, keep getting it wrong, will get it wrong again, and will wrong us all right over the fucking cliff.

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Open Thread

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, May 03, 2018
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image of a yellow couch

Hosted by a yellow sofa. Have a seat and chat.

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Question of the Day

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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Suggested by Shaker Alittletiefling: "If you were to play a roleplaying game, what would your class and race be? What system would you use?"

I vary it up a lot, but I'm always a female character.

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Wednesday Links!

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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This list o' links brought to you by jewels.

Recommended Reading:

Zora Neale Hurston at Vulture: [Content Note: Slavery; white supremacy; violence] The Last Slave

Princess Weekes at the Mary Sue: [CN: Racism; misogyny] The Political Subtext of People Assuming Michelle Wolf Is Black

Sameer Rao at Colorlines: [CN: Sexual assault] Time's Up's Women of Color Amplify Calls to #MuteRKelly

Robyn Powell at Rewire: [CN: Disablism] The Trump Administration May Have Made It Even Harder for Disabled People to Access Health Care

Katherine Olivera at IWHC: [CN: Misogyny; war on agency] By Removing Reproductive Rights, State Department Sets a Dangerous Precedent in U.S. Human Rights Reports

Lori Lakin Hutcherson at Good Black News: [CN: Racism] Wrongfully Arrested Starbucks Patrons Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson Settle with Philadelphia for $2 in Exchange for $200,000 Fund for Young Entrepreneurs

Erika W. Smith: Ashley Graham Used Unretouched Paparazzi Photos for Her Swimwear Campaign

Sarah Sloat at Inverse: NASA Technology Uncovers Never-Before-Seen Text on Dead Sea Scrolls

And here's just a small, round owl being decorated with feathers. You're welcome!


Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!

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Shaker Gourmet

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?

Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.

Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!

* * *

If anyone's in search of some good one-pot recipes, I just saw "Six of the Best One-Pot Meals" in the Guardian today, and some of them look scrumptious! And, in case you're wondering, yes there are vegetarian and vegan recipes among them!

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Daily Dose of Cute

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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image of Olivia the White Farm Cat standing on her back legs between my legs as I sit at my desk, so I can rub her wee chin
Trying to work, but Olivia has other ideas. (I ain't mad!)

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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We Resist: Day 468

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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.

* * *

Earlier today by Fannie: America Hates Honest Women. And by me: Yeah, We Know and Iowa Legislature Passes "Heartbeat" Abortion Bill and Trump Doesn't Want Us to Know How Many Civilians He Kills.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Let us begin with a real thing that the President of the United States tweeted this morning:


This is clearly a response to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein having said publicly yesterday, itself a response to Congressional Republicans drawing up articles of impeachment against him: "I can tell you there have been people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now, the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted. We're going to do what's required by the rule of law. And any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job."

Ben Jacobs at the Guardian explains:
The threat of impeachment is being used as leverage for Republican to get more information about the federal investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Earlier in April, the justice department handed over a redacted document about the origins of the Russia investigation to the House intelligence committee after its chair, Devin Nunes, publicly mused about holding law enforcement officials in contempt of Congress or even impeaching them for not cooperating.

Rosenstein said on Tuesday that "if we were to just open our doors to allow Congress to come and rummage through the files, that would be a serious infringement on the separation of powers."
So, to be clear, because the Deputy Attorney General of the United States (who is in charge of the Russia investigation as the Attorney General had to recuse himself since he is under suspicion of collusion) said that he would not allow partisan operatives in Congress to violate the separation of powers to assist the president in subverting the rule of law, now the president is publicly threatening to intervene with the Justice Department to stymie Rosenstein, in an extraordinary abuse of power and almost certainly illegal attempt to obstruct justice.

I don't even know what to say anymore. This is wanton authoritarian bullying, and Donald Trump was never going to behave any other way given the vast powers of the office of the U.S. presidency.

It was always reason #1 not to let him anywhere near the Oval Office.

* * *

Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly: Ukraine Stopped Cooperating with the Mueller Investigation to Appease Trump.
In addition to dropping the investigation into Manafort's dealings in Ukraine, the government has decided that it will not cooperate with Mueller's investigation and most importantly, allowed Konstantin V. Kilimnik to go to Russia, where he will be unavailable for questioning. You might remember that Kilimnik was the go-between who facilitated the communication between Manafort and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska after he got the position as Trump’s campaign manager.

The government of Ukraine is being pretty transparent about why they are doing all of this.
The intention in Kiev to freeze cooperation with American investigators was readily acknowledged by Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament who is an ally of President Petro O. Poroshenko.

"In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials," Mr. Ariev said in an interview. "We shouldn't spoil relations with the administration."
In other words, they need the support of the Trump administration and know that they won't get that if they cooperate with an investigation that he constantly rails about and calls a "witch hunt." So we have an American president who is under investigation for conspiring with a foreign country to influence an election, while other countries fear that cooperating with that investigation will hurt their own interests.
Yes, all of that. Plus, the fact that Trump is a stooge of Vladimir Putin is extremely relevant, given Putin's aggressive disposition toward Ukraine.

In related news, Jill Stein is still a cavernous asshole.


Nicole Lafond at TPM: Trump Lawyers Lack Security Clearance Needed to Discuss Some Mueller Questions. "Donald Trump's team of lawyers all currently lack the security clearance necessary to discuss sensitive issues related to a potential presidential interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. According to two people familiar with the situation who spoke with Bloomberg, Trump's former lawyer John Dowd — who resigned over disputes with the rest of the legal team about whether Trump should sit for an interview with Mueller — was the only lawyer on the team who had a security clearance." What a complete shitshow.

* * *

Here's one for anybody who still thinks Pence would be an improvement on Trump:


Hey, speaking of anti-choice shitbird Mike Pence... Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: Trump Policy Taking Aim at Planned Parenthood Threatens to Have Devastating Ripple Effects. "The Trump administration is expected to continue its assault on Planned Parenthood by reportedly going after the provider's federal family planning dollars — cutting the provider off to punish it for providing abortion services, even though Planned Parenthood doesn't use any federal funds for abortion. ...Federal officials are aiming to cut off Planned Parenthood from Title X family planning funding to fulfill a campaign promise to anti-abortion advocates, but the way the Trump administration would go about excluding Planned Parenthood would affect how all Title X clinics provide care to patients."

Cristiano Lima at Politico: Trump Touts Renewed 'Spirit' at State Department under Pompeo. "Donald Trump hailed newly-minted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a 'true American hero' while alluding to a boost of energy at the State Department during a ceremony marking the agency leader's swearing in on Wednesday. ...'I must say that's more spirit than I've heard from the State Department in a long time, many years,' the president said while speaking alongside Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and other administration officials. 'We can say many years and maybe many decades. It's going to be a fantastic start a fantastic day. That spirit will only be magnified.'" BARF.

* * *

[Content Note: White supremacy; Nazism]


[CN: Violence; nativism] Sarah Macaraeg at the Guardian: Fatal Encounters: 97 Deaths Point to Pattern of Border Agent Violence Across America. "The shootings are only part of a larger litany of Customs and Border Protection agency-related violence inside the U.S. Encounters have proven deadly for at least 97 people — citizens and non-citizens — since 2003, a count drawn from settlement payment data, court records, use of force logs, incident reports, and news articles. From Maine to Washington state and California to Florida, the deaths stem from all manner of CBP activity. Border agents manning land crossings and a checkpoint have used deadly force, as have agents conducting roving patrols — up to 160 miles inland from the border. Pedestrians were run over by agents. Car chases culminated in crashes. Some have drowned, others died after they were pepper-sprayed, stunned with tasers, or beaten. But the majority of victims died from bullet wounds, including shots in the back."


[CN: Misogyny; toxic masculinity] And finally: This opinion piece, "The Redistribution of Sex," by Ross Douthat for the New York Times is absolutely vile — so reverberatingly obscene that I debated whether to give it any attention at all. In the end, I decided I would mention it, just to condemn it in the strongest possible terms, and provide a space for others who may want to do the same, or seek commiseration that it was even published in the first place.

All I will say is this: It is outrageous that Douthat conflates the idea of challenging kyriarchal beauty standards to broaden sexual desirability with the idea that women owe shitty men sex to keep them from being violent. It's also deeply mendacious, twisted in a very particular way to serve his larger point in defense of violent, entitled men.

We are in a very bad place indeed when the "paper of record" is willing to publish a piece that essentially argues: Feminists wanted a sexual revolution but now they don't want to put out, so they shouldn't be too surprised when incels kill them. Shiver.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...
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America Hates Honest Women

Posted by Fannie Wolfe at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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[Content Note: Misogyny; white supremacy.]

When I say honest here, I don't mean it in the idiomatic sense of "married." I mean it in the sense of "tells it like it is." You know, that trait that many people claim to revere, but in actuality only applaud it when certain people look like they're doing it?

In 1983, in her social critique How to Suppress Women's Writing, Joanna Russ wrote about the informal ways used to erase women's writing, opinions, and, more broadly, women themselves from the public sphere:

If certain people are not supposed to have the ability to produce 'great' literature, and if this supposition is one of the means used to keep such people in their place, the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which such people are prevented from producing any literature at all. But a formal prohibition gives the game away — that is, if the peasants are kept illiterate, it will occur to somebody sooner or later that illiteracy absolutely precludes written literature, whether such literature be good or bad; and if significant literature can by definition be produced only in Latin, the custom of not teaching Latin to girls will again, sooner or later, cause somebody to wonder what would happen if the situation were changed.

...In a nominally egalitarian society the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which the members of the 'wrong' groups have the freedom to engage in literature (or equally significant activities), and yet do not do so, thus proving that they can't. But alas, give them the least real freedom and they will do it. The trick thus becomes to make the freedom as nominal a freedom as possible and then — since some of the so-and-so's will do it anyway — develop various strategies for ignoring, condemning, or belittling the artistic works that result. If properly done, these strategies result in a social situation in which the 'wrong' people are (supposedly) free to commit literature, art, or whatever, but very few do, and those who do (it seems) do it badly, so we can all go home to lunch.
In this quote, Russ makes the salient point that mechanisms of suppression are often effective and persistent precisely because of their informal nature. The very informality shields these mechanisms from intense scrutiny and critique because, after all, people can point to a law that technically does not prohibit an action and say, "You already have equality, so what's the problem?"

Meanwhile, informal pressures act as barriers to actual equality. These informal mechanisms are, oftentimes, the readymade cultural narratives which are at people's disposal — many of which (in Russ' view) don't even require active, conscious bigotry — to use in service of subordinating others.

Inequality is and has been the status quo in the United States of America, since its founding. A closely related thought, to borrow a phrase from Melissa, is that "There is no neutral in rape culture." 

This status quo was built by men who founded a political system premised on equality but imbued with contradictions in which certain groups were specifically excluded from participation and enslaved, killed, and kept in a state of subordination. The status quo, despite equality laws being on the books, was maintained not just by our government's consistent failure to acknowledge and atone for past wrongdoing, but by widespread public resentment at the very notion of acknowledging these wrongdoings, as well as politicians and pundits who coddle that resentment. See, for instance, a new lynching memorial in Alabama that leaves some locals "seething" because, per one resident, "It's bringing up bullshit."

When it comes to "telling it like it is," a significant portion of the citizenry would simply prefer that we not, at least when it comes to injustice.

A particular narrative about honesty and injustice exists for women, one that proves to be quite the riddle:
  • On the one hand, women are deceptive shrews and should be more honest;
  • On the other hand, when women are honest, they're selfish, uppity, reputation-destroying hags.
It's not difficult to grasp the resulting conclusion to this unsolvable dilemma: A woman should probably not speak at all, particularly in the public sphere, about politics, and/or in subversion of white male dominance. Speech that is not honest, but that works in collusion with injustice, is a path of lesser resistance, for many.

Looking first at the feminist revival/backlash we're currently in, let's take #MeToo, which has been an important cultural moment for survivors of sexual assault, harassment, and abuse. Some survivors find that speaking one's truth can, itself, confer dignity and help with the healing process. What is less clear at the moment is the extent to which the consequences for rapists, abusers, and predators will or will not be significant and lasting.

I suppose it was inevitable for "men these days are scared of even being alone with women, man" opinions to be a thriving genre of opining, never-you-mind the stories of millions of women who have lived in actual terror of male predators for millenia. (See also, "there is no neutral in rape culture.") But, thus far, a handful of wealthy and high-profile men have been fired and retreated to their mansions to endure temporary(?) reputation blemishes, as they seemingly plot their redemption arcs.

Editor Tina Brown, for instance, has stated that Charlie Rose, whom eight women accused of sexual harassment, approached her to produce a #MeToo series starring himself, interviewing other men accused of sexual misbehavior. (Per Brown, she declined).  And yet, why in a multiverse already saturated with pro-rape devil's advocacy would anyone care about such a TV show but for the readymade, culturally-ingrained narrative that men's feelings matter much, much more than women's actual truths?

More recently, when Tom Brokaw was accused of sexual harassment, he released a rant against his accuser that somehow manages to be almost as bad as the actual allegations. And, in one of the worst and more stupid genre of letters ever conceived ("the collusion letter of support"?), 115 women from NBC signed a letter supporting Brokaw, some of whom reported having felt pressue to sign it.

Because, well, of course.

Authenticity and honesty are often demanded from women, but only if it coddles male power. If a woman can't authentically do that, she is pressured to fake it and then she's rewarded for doing so. Not legally, usually. But informally, so that it looks entirely of her own volition, even though with every predator exposed comes with it a status-quo, cultural whisper, "How about now? Has #MeToo — has this woman's truth — gone too far this time?" Because, for too long such things have been measured not by the pain of those who have been raped or harassed, but by the anxiety, fear, and pain of abusers.

This past weekend, as another example, the press was ass-over-heels on its collective fainting couch because a woman, Michelle Wolf, made subversive, critical jokes about a grotesque, startlingly dishonest, immoral, bigoted, and incompetent Republican administration. What really induced some prominent pundits to get a bad case of the vapors was this joke:
I actually really like Sarah [Huckabee Sanders]. I think she's very resourceful. Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like, maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies.

It's probably lies.
The joke was widely, disingenuously portrayed as Wolf "mocking" Sanders' appearance, but it was actually a riff on a make-up company slogan combined with the objective fact that Sanders lies to the American people, a lot, on behalf of a president who lies an average of 5.5 times per day.

Wolf told it like it was and she shouldn't have!

Mika Brzezinski, of MSNBC (which Trump has called "fake news"), tweeted that she "hurt" for Sanders. Kyle Cheney at Politico called Wolf "unnecessarily cruel." Jeff Zeleny, of CNN (which Trump has also called "fake news"), called the performance "an embarrassment." And, to top it off, the White House Correspondents Association released a statement bemoaning Wolf's lack of civility at an event at which politicians, the media, and pundits are routinely and historically roasted.

There is something so absurd — so Orwellian — about the political press on which we informally rely to hold power to account bemoaning a comedian's purported lack of civility toward a remarkably dishonest presidential administration that it almost defies definition. I keep coming back to misogyny and, specifically, American's hatred for honest women. And that seems to fit well enough.

Finally, no piece about America's hatred of honest women would be complete without referencing the asinine trend of "Hillary go away" pieces that have been published with clockwork regularity since the 2016 election.

I don't know what can be said that hasn't been said in this space already about this genre of misogyny, but for now, just compare, contrast, and keep in mind that it's now May of 2018.

Via The Atlantic:

screen cap of Atlantic headline reading: 'Hillary Clinton's High Profile Is Hurting the Democrats'

And, via The Week, regarding the man who was defeated by the above-referenced woman:

screen cap of Week headline reading: 'Bernie Sanders Has Conquered the Democratic Party'

The line to do a cannonball into the nearest volcano begins right here, folks. For, the gist of the Clinton piece is that, while, yes, Clinton is warning us about ongoing threats to our national sovereignty (i.e., being honest), it really is time for her to "stop whining." Yes. Really.

And why? Because American fucking hates honest women.


Now, yes, it is true that women in this country are hated for a never-ending, ever-shifting list of reasons. But a common thread that I see in all of the above recent news items is a very specific hatred of women who tell the truth. (Clinton, if you remember, was rated as objectively more honest than both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, although widely viewed as more dishonest than both. And, I still maintain that there's no lie in her widely-reviled "deplorables" comment.)

All of this is to say that a woman may be legally free to accurately charge a man with rape, roast dishonest public officials, or have the temerity to warn her nation about ongoing threats to democracy, but when she does so, it's made abundantly clear to them — and all the women and little girls watching — that she shouldn't have.

In fact, the readymade narrative goes, if a woman won't collude, she ought to be silenced so we can focus back in on the men in the story.

And, hey, I hear there are going to be some good ones come 2020.

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Trump Doesn't Want Us to Know How Many Civilians He Kills

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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[Content Note: War; death.]

With all the other daily news about the Trump administration's vast and varied horrors, this story will easily get lost, despite the fact that it's incredibly important.

Greg Jaffe at the Washington Post: White House Ignores Executive Order Requiring Count of Civilian Casualties in Counterterrorism Strikes.

The Trump administration has chosen to ignore an executive order that requires the White House to issue an annual report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by American counterterrorism strikes.

The mandate for the report, which was due May 1, was established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as part of a broader effort to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding drone operations in places such as Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. The White House has not formally rescinded the Obama-era executive order but has chosen not to comply with some aspects of it.

"The executive order that requires the civilian casualty report is under review" and could be "modified" or "rescinded," a White House spokesman said. The White House declined to say who is conducting the review, how long it has been ongoing, and when it is expected to be completed.

...Former U.S. counterterrorism officials expressed surprise at the Trump administration's failure to deliver either report on time. "It is pretty remarkable that they would simply ignore an executive order that remains on the books and also a statutory requirement passed by Congress," said Joshua Geltzer, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University and former senior counterterrorism official in the Obama administration. "That is just bad governance."

...Even though the White House refused to release numbers, a spokesman wrote in an email that there was no increase in civilian casualties in 2017.

But counterterrorism experts cast doubt on that assertion, noting that there was a big surge in drone strikes in 2017, especially in Yemen, where the United States launched 127 strikes, up from 32 in 2016.

"It's almost impossible to claim that there has been no increase in civilian casualties," said Luke Hartig, a fellow at New America specializing in counterterrorism. "It's hard to look at what we know from public reporting — both the increase in total strikes and reports of civilian casualties — and say that nothing has changed."
To recap:

1. The Trump administration has significantly increased drone strikes, which we have known for six years are "the recruiting tool of choice for militants," yet incredibly claims that there has been no increase in civilian casualties. That is a radically absurd contention. It is almost certainly a lie.

2. The Trump administration refuses to be transparent with the U.S. public about the military operations being carried out in our names.

3. In said refusal, the Trump administration is flagrantly violating an existing executive order, as well as failing to comply with a Congressional requirement for the disclosure of this information.

4. "That is just bad governance," says the Obama-era senior counterterrorism official. Yes, it is. In addition to everything else, the Trump administration's concealment of civilian casualties in their acts of war is also just bad governance.

Any one of those would be a major concern. All four of them constitute what should amount to a major scandal, demanding widespread and sustained attention by the entirety of the political press.

Instead, the political press is largely consumed by the shattering of their own unaccountable credulity that Donald Trump himself wrote a hyperbolic letter proclaiming the undiluted magnificence of his health.

And Trump's failure to adhere to the law is met with a shrug, because, in less than two years, much of this country has come to accept that the President of the United States of America's aggressive contempt for the rule of law is now normal.

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Iowa Legislature Passes "Heartbeat" Abortion Bill

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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[Content Note: War on agency; anti-choice oppression.]

The Iowa legislature's Republican majority has passed a bill that would ban abortions after the point at which a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is around the sixth week of pregnancy and often before many women et. al. know they are pregnant. No Democrats voted for the bill, which now goes to the desk of Republican Governor Kim Reynolds.

"The time is now," bill manager Rep. Shannon Lundgren, R-Peosta, said early Tuesday afternoon when debate started on Senate File 359 that started in 2017 as a prohibition on the transfer of fetal body tissue. At about 11 p.m., the House passed the bill 51-46 and sent it to the Senate where debate started shortly before 1 a.m.

It's time for the GOP to "quit playing doctor and stop using your positions of power to harass, control, and disrespect Iowa women," Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said. And Sen. Liz Mathis, D-Hiawatha, said the bill isn't about reducing the number of abortions. Instead, its sponsors seem "hell-bent on making a name for those who are set to challenge Roe v. Wade," she said.

"Never mind how women's rights will be run over by the Family Leader bus that's headed to the U.S. Supreme Court," Mathis said.

Even though it was the middle of the night, Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux City, who led a group of Republicans who refused to vote for budget bills until getting a chance to vote for the fetal heartbeat bill, said it was a "good day for life."

He acknowledged this bill is an attempt to "take another run at Roe v. Wade," he said about the 1973 Supreme Court decision to allow abortion, and predicted the bill will be the vehicle for overturning that decision. "We're not hiding that."
Grim stuff.

Presuming Reynolds signs the bill into law, as she is expected to do, the law will be challenged in court. Which is precisely what its supporters are hoping.

And once again, the future of reproductive rights hangs in the balance. But do tell me again how there was "no difference" between an abusive misogynist with zero respect for women's agency and consent who chose as his running mate one of the most virulently anti-choice politicians in the nation, and a feminist who has spent her life advocating for healthcare access, including and especially reproductive healthcare.

Seethe.

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Yeah, We Know

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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No shit. No fucking shit.

The fact that so many news outlets and individual members of the press are reporting this as though it's surprising news, as opposed to straightforwardly noting this is just confirmation of what any reasonable person assumed in the first place, is frankly a perfect example of what is wrong with the political press right now.

"Oh, my stars and garters! Donald Trump is a manipulative, unethical liar?! Why I never!" is not an appropriate response to any of this.

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Open Thread

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, May 02, 2018
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image of a red couch

Hosted by a red sofa. Have a seat and chat.

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Question of the Day

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 01, 2018
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Suggested by Shaker RachelB: "Do you have an internal musical soundtrack? If so, what is at least one piece of it?"

There is always a song playing in my head. Tracks will come and go, but there are a few dozen that are permanent fixtures. Among that latter group, the song currently playing in the background as I work is Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now."


I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars on a collision course! I am a satellite; I'm out of control!

True facts.

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Signs of Spring

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 01, 2018
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It has been such a long winter, and spring still hasn't quite sprung yet, but at least I'm finally starting to see signs of spring outside. Yay!

image of a tree with pink blooms

image of green and purple hosta shoots pushing up through the earth

image of purple blooms which I think are wild hyacinth

image of a tree with white blooms

image of a large, round tree with bright green buds

Please feel welcome to share pictures of signs of spring, or anything else that's making you happy at the moment!

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Unsolicited Advice from Auntie Liss

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 01, 2018
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Facebook CEO and antidemocratic supervillain Mark Zuckerberg announced today at an annual deverloper conference in San Jose that Facebook is launching a new dating app to rival apps like Tinder, which he hopes will be used to forge "real long-term relationships — not just hookups." He reassured the dubious crowd: "We've designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning."

LOLOLOLOL okay!

I am not generally in the business of offering unsolicited advice, but: DO NOT USE FACEBOOK'S DATING APP.

There is zero reason to trust Facebook, and every reason not to trust Facebook. With your data. With your privacy. With your safety.

They have never cared about protecting any of those things; they have only cared about them insofar as they could exploit them — and you — for profit.

The mere fact that Zuckerberg thinks it's reasonable, that it's not utterly ghastly, to be introducing a dating service in the middle of a wave of criticism over the rank violation of millions of people's privacy, is evidence that this company cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Ever.

Do what you want to do, but my advice is to avoid this shit at all costs. Meet a nice person the old-fashioned way like your Auntie Liss: By talking to weirdos 4,000 miles away who will run in front of a shitty webcam broadcasting from the construction site of the Scottish Parliament Building to prove they're who they say they are.

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Quote of the Day

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 01, 2018
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"I wouldn't change a single word that I said. I'm very happy with what I said, and I'm glad I stuck to my guns."—Michelle Wolf, in an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, following the firestorm of criticism after her gig at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

Right on.

If you still haven't seen/read Wolf's set, and would like to, the complete performance is below and the WaPo has a full transcript.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 01, 2018
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image of Dudley the Greyhound running in the yard
"YAY I'M A DOG! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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