[Content Note: Gun violence; death.]
A school shooting in Sante Fe, Texas, has ended with the suspected shooter being taken into custody. With the usual caution about early details sometimes being wrong, CNN is reporting that "at least eight people have died."
I'm so angry and so sad that another person has done this horrible thing again.
Please use this thread for discussion and information sharing, but let's keep it image-free, as always. Thanks.
UPDATE 1: According to the Guardian, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has confirmed that 10 people were killed and 10 people wounded in the shooting.
UPDATE 2: Law enforcement have confirmed that the person in custody is 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis. Pagourtzis used a shotgun and a .38 revolver, both of which belonged to his father, who legally owned the weapons.
UPDATE 3: Pagourtzis appears to be a white supremacist.
Shooting at Texas' Santa Fe High School
Film Corner: Tag
Friends, let us talk about the major motion picture Tag, coming to theaters near you on June 15. Below, the trailer:
We open on the scene at a wedding. Jeremy Renner stands at the altar exchanging vows with Leslie Bibb. Old pals Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, and Hannibal Buress sit in the back row, having a silly dude conversation. (Trust me, its contents don't matter.) As Renner and Bibb finish the ceremony with a kiss, Ed Helms runs down the aisle toward them, leaping at Renner, who steps out of the way, leaving Helms to smash into the officiant as the congregation gasps.Wait — is this movie based on a true story?! (Yes.) I wasn't sure, because the trailer was so cagey about it. Cough.
Cut to Helms explaining to Annabelle Wallis: "Our group of friends has been playing the same game of tag for thirty years."
Text onscreen, as "You Can't Touch This" starts playing: BASED ON A TRUE STORY.
Over scenes of the dudes "tagging" each other, Helms contines in voiceover: "For the entire month of May every year, we play tag."
Text onscreen: (WE'RE NOT KIDDING.)
Helms, in voiceover, over a scene of Hamm "tagging" Helms as his wife delivers a baby: "You never know when someone's gonna pop up."
Over various scenes that also don't matter, Helms explains that Renner is the best ever. He's never been tagged, and now he wants to retire. The nerve! Montagery. Renner eludes "tags." Various slapstick violence. Synchronize your watches jokes. The wives drink wine. The game keeps their dudes connected. It's the reason they have to stay in each other's lives. Dick joke.
Text onscreen: TAG: BASED ON A TRUE STORY.
So, let me just say I really like most of the people in this cast, and I'm sure this movie was lots of fun to make, and good for them!
But all I could think when I saw this trailer was: This is a movie about a bunch of random dudes who play tag as grown-ups. There hasn't been a major American film about Marie Curie in my lifetime. Or my mother's lifetime.
Marie Curie was the first woman who came to mind. I have thought of about 200 more since, and I welcome you to share in comments all the women about whom major American films have not been made, but at least now we've got this cool TRUE STORY about guys who play tag.
Trump to Launch New Assault on Abortion Access
[Content Note: War on agency; rape culture.]
The Trump administration is planning to announce a new rule that would withhold federal funding from any healthcare facility that supports abortion or refers patients to facilities that perform abortions.
Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman at the New York Times report on the rule, a "top priority of social conservatives," e.g. Mike Pence:
The policy would be a return to one instituted in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan that required abortion services to have a "physical separation" and "separate personnel" from other family planning activities. That policy is often described as a domestic gag rule because it barred caregivers at facilities that received family planning funds from providing any information to patients about an abortion or where to receive one.Which, of course, is the entire point.
Federal family planning laws already ban direct funding of organizations that use abortion as a family planning method. But conservative activists and Republican lawmakers have been pressing Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, to tighten the rules further so that abortions could not occur — or be performed by the same staff — at locations that receive Title X federal family planning money.
Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the new proposal "outrageous" and "dangerous."
The policy, she said in a statement late Thursday, is "designed to make it impossible for millions of patients to get birth control or preventive care from reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood. This is designed to force doctors and nurses to lie to their patients. It would have devastating consequences across this country."
The new rule will certainly be challenged in court. The question is whether the Trump administration and Republican Party will have successfully stacked the lower courts — and/or Supreme Court — by that time, to guarantee a victory for the anti-choice brigade.
I know I'm the brokenest of broken records, but: Abortion is healthcare. It is a legal healthcare procedure, to which women and other people who can get pregnant must have access.
What abortion isn't is "murder." What abortion isn't is a diabolical ethical quandary that can't be resolved because people can't agree about "when life begins."
Eve granting the faulty premise that a fetus has the equivalent value of the born uterus-having person carrying it, I will observe (again) that my life, right now, is not so precious that any other human being could be compelled to use their body to support mine for the next nine months (at least). No other human being is obliged to give up an organ for me, even if it would save my life. Nor bone marrow, nor blood, nor skin. People who are forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term are being asked to do something no other people are asked to do for another person, which exposes the truth of the anti-choice position: Fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them.
Here, then, is how we resolve this disagreement: By not making an exception for the sustenance of fetal life that we make for no other life.
It isn't as though there isn't precedent in our existing law and culture. We institutionally value lives differently, some more than others, all the time. We value lives of U.S. citizens more than the lives of people who aren't. We value the lives of inmates less than the lives of the free population (among whom are many highly-rewarded perpetrators of white-collar crimes). We value the lives of the wealthy more than the poor. We value the lives of people we allow to live without healthcare access less than the lives of those who by fate or fortune have health insurance. And these are only the valuations that can and do routinely mean a visible difference between life and death.
Which is to say nothing of all the kyriarchal valuations of lives that have repercussions small and large and sometimes deadly, too.
(We also wisely value some lives over others for complex reasons, like the life of the highly-protected U.S. President over the life of an average citizen.)
But the people who are in the seats of power that legislatively prioritize U.S., supposedly law-abiding, wealthy, healthcare-having lives over others are largely very privileged men. And we are expected to understand that their agreement to globally prioritize their own lives over everyone else's is Moral Values, and an individual woman's choice to value her life over a fetus is murder.
The "when does life begin" debate is nothing but smoke and mirrors to obfuscate the reality that we routinely make valuations about different lives, some rightly and some wrongly. It is an attempt to pretend that abortion is an entirely unique scenario, and thus cannot be easily resolved. And no one knows this better than the architects of the anti-choice movement, who qualify fetal life as "innocent life," as opposed to the soiled lives of, say, the people whose lives were cut short because we lacked the political will to fund effective levees or repair a crumbling bridge.
It is the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty to indulge this garbage argument about irreconcilable disagreement over when life begins. It doesn't matter even if life does begin at conception. The calculus thus becomes which life matters more, which is an assessment we are willing to make in dozens of other situations across our political and cultural landscape.
We must actually value the actual lives of actual people who have actually been born over fetuses.
That wouldn't even be debatable if the people in question weren't almost exclusively women.
The question is not really when life begins. The question is whether we recognize women and other people with uteri as humans whose lives have intrinsic value and the rights of agency, bodily autonomy, and consent. It is only because such a vast swath of our population cannot or will not answer a resounding and unqualified "yes" to that question that there is even space for a reprehensible debate about when life begins.
The "real problem" has never been some tedious, specious, allegedly unresolvable debate about when life begins — an argument which is resolved by centering the humanity, agency, bodily autonomy, and consent of women. The "real problem" is that social conservatives' position makes evident that the anti-choice movement is an extension of the rape culture, which seeks to strip women of precisely those things.
I have previously noted on many occasions that I'm hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man (or woman) who sits at a big mahogany desk in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of the man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.
It is an observation by which anti-choice folks are outraged. They are horrified to be compared, even obliquely, to sexual predators. As well they should be. I am horrified to have to make it. But anyone who holds the position that they should be able to legislate away my bodily autonomy and supersede my consent about what happens to my body shouldn't be too goddamned surprised by the comparison.
One must be ridiculously incapable of self-reflection to simultaneously argue that sexual assault (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Terrible Thing, but the denial of abortion (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Moral Imperative.
Suffice it to say I'm decidedly unimpressed with the sanctimonious social conservatives who have empowered a confessed serial sex abuser to enact a rule that denies women the right of consent over what happens to our bodies.
I don't need an ethics lecture from these oppressive scolds. I need a goddamn apology.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker yes: "Are you a crafty person? If so, what projects do you have going on? (Show us your craft stash!)"
I am not a crafty person! I am terrible at crafts. I wish that were not the case, but, alas, my craft competency begins and ends at finger-knitting very thin scarves, lol.
Discussion Thread: How Are You?
I was feeling extremely overwhelmed earlier today, as I do by about noon on most days now, so I took a break and went out into the garden to put up a new bird feeder, which is one of my great joys in life, and afterwards I felt a whole lot better, so then I paid it forward on Twitter, and other people's enjoyment made me happy, too.
Just went outside to hang a new bird feeder and refill the old ones, and I felt 100% happier after walking around the garden in the light rain, so here are some pictures in case you're stuck indoors and need some outside right now. pic.twitter.com/YKLfeTq41h
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
More. (The image of the tree with pink blossoms is a few days old, but I threw it in for good measure!) pic.twitter.com/VeGyAVbDj2
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Stretching my legs also helped a bit with my upper back/shoulder/neck, where a trapped nerve has been giving me excruciating grief for days.
So, I'm okay, all things considered.
How are you?
Submitted without Further Comment
[Content Note: Nativism; violence.]
Good lord, @politico. This is an incredibly insensitive headline. The Republican Party is *creating* an immigration nightmare for millions of people. Their president called some immigrants "animals" yesterday. A number of deported people have been killed. What are you even doing. pic.twitter.com/omfVFZwRKf
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
The Makeup Thread
Here is your semi-regular makeup thread, to discuss all things makeup and makeup adjacent.
Do you have a makeup product you'd recommend? Are you looking for the perfect foundation which has remained frustratingly elusive? Need or want to offer makeup tips? Searching for hypoallergenic products? Want to grouse about how you hate makeup? Want to gush about how you love it?
Whatever you like — have at it!
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As promised, here is a long overdue makeup thread!
I don't have anything new to share, but here is the quickest of quick looks I put together yesterday with some favorite products.
To get this look, I used Drunk Elephant's B-Hydra Intensive Hydration Gel, skipped the primer, and started with Maybelline's Dream Velvet Soft-Matte Hydrating Foundation in Warm Porcelein. On top of that, I brushed on some of Too Faced's Candlelight Illuminating Translucent Powder. Then I dabbed the tiniest amount of Glossier's Cloud Paint Seamless Cheek Color in Haze on the apples of my cheeks.
On my eyelids, I used Sephora's Colorful eyeshadow in Fresh Paint No. 317, blended out into a shimmery gold from Rimmel's Magnif'eyes Smoke Edition palette. I used Nyx's Le Chick Flick waterproof mascara on my lashes, and shaped my brows with Rimmel's Brow This Way in Clear.
On my lips is just Burt's Bees Pomegranate Moisturizing Lip Balm.
Quick and easy for just evening out my skin and giving a hint of color before I run out the door!
Anyway! What's up with you?
(As always, I'm not affiliated in any way with any of the companies whose products I mention, nor am I getting anything in exchange for my recommendations. I just like the products!)
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Please note, as always, that advice should be not be offered to an individual person unless they solicit it. Further: This thread is open to everyone — women, men, genderqueer folks. People who are makeup experts, and people who are makeup newbies. Also, because there is a lot of racist language used in discussions of makeup, and in makeup names, please be aware to avoid turns of phrase that are alienating to women of color, like "nude" or "flesh tone" when referring to a peachy or beige color. I realize some recommended products may have names that use these words, so please be considerate about content noting for white supremacist (and/or Orientalist) product naming.
Daily Dose of Cute
Yes, of course he got all the treats. All of them!
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 483
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: The Only Context to Trump's "Animals" Comment That Matters Is His Vile Nativist Agenda and A Whole Lotta News, Some of Which Will Hopefully Matter Someday and And the Award for Worst Take on #MeToo Goes to....
Here are some more things in the news today...
I already covered an awful lot of the big news of the day earlier, so this is going to be a truncated thread. As always, share the news you've seen of which we should all be aware in comments!
[Content Note: Nativism] Mark Joseph Stern at Slate: Bad Liars: ICE Claimed a Dreamer Was "Gang-Affiliated" and Tried to Deport Him; a Federal Judge Ruled That ICE Was Lying. Empahses mine:
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez shot down the federal government's efforts to strip Daniel Ramirez Medina of his DACA status. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement had arrested and detained Ramirez last year, then falsely claimed that he was affiliated with a gang and attempted to deport him. He filed suit, alleging that ICE had violated his due process rights. Martinez agreed. His order barred the federal government from voiding Ramirez's DACA status, safeguarding his ability to live and work in the United States legally for the foreseeable future.
What may be most remarkable about Martinez's decision, though, is its blunt repudiation of ICE's main claim—that Ramirez is "gang-affiliated." The judge did not simply rule against ICE. He accused the agency of lying to a court of law.
The facts of Ramirez's case are extremely disturbing. In February 2017, shortly after [Donald] Trump unleashed immigration agents to amp up arrests and deportations, ICE agents went to Ramirez's father's house in Seattle to arrest him. (The father is undocumented, and brought Ramirez to the U.S. illegally as a child.) While there, they encountered Ramirez and asked him whether he was "legally here." He responded that he was—a truthful statement given his DACA status, which he had renewed the previous May. Yet ICE officers detained him anyway. They took him to a processing center, where, once again, he told them that he had a work permit.
"It doesn't matter," an agent responded, "because you weren't born in this country."
ICE then interrogated Ramirez, fingerprinted and booked him, confiscated his work permit, sent him to a detention center, and placed him in removal proceedings. It also purported to revoke his DACA status, subjecting him to imminent deportation. Typically, the government may not rescind an individual's DACA status without giving the beneficiary an opportunity to contest its decision. But ICE claimed that Ramirez's DACA benefits could be terminated "automatically" because he presented an "egregious public safety concern" due to his alleged gang affiliation. (ICE routinely alleges that Latino immigrants with no indication of gang affiliation are members of a gang in order to detain and deport them.)
A group of renowned attorneys then stepped in to defend Ramirez, arguing that virtually every action ICE had taken against their client was unlawful. They also alleged that ICE;s key claim—that Ramirez is "gang-affiliated"—was a complete falsehood. One of his lawyers, Mark Rosenbaum, presented evidence indicating that ICE had doctored Ramirez's statement by erasing words he had written in the pencil provided to make it seem as if he had confessed to being in a gang. (The original statement asserts he has no gang affiliation.) During his initial interrogation, ICE officers asked him five times whether he belonged to a gang, and he repeatedly said no. Instead, he asserted that he had "fled California [to Washington] to escape from the gangs."
...ICE continued to press its case against Ramirez. In immigration court, agents rested their case on one piece of evidence: a tattoo on Ramirez's forearm that consists of a nautical star and the words La Paz—BCS, which represent his birthplace, the city of La Paz in Baja California Sur. Ramirez repeatedly insisted that this tattoo had nothing to do with any gang. But an ICE agent claimed that his tattoo actually proved he was "definitely a gang member" because it allegedly looked like the tattoo of the "bulldogs" gang. (It does not.)
Two different immigration judges found no indication that Ramirez was gang affiliated or a threat to public safety. Martin Flores, a gang expert who has consulted in more than 700 cases, testified that he had "never seen a gang member with a similar tattoo nor would [he] attribute this tattoo to have any gang-related meaning." Another gang expert, Edwina Barvosa, declared that there is "no apparent evidence that [Ramirez] has ever been a gang member himself." Carlos GarcÃa, a Mexican researcher who has studied gangs extensively, stated that "this tattoo does not show any gang affiliation." But ICE still insisted that Ramirez was a gang member, and thus eligible for deportation.
"ICE routinely alleges that Latino immigrants with no indication of gang affiliation are members of a gang in order to detain and deport them." Consider that as you decide if Trump's "animal" comments are worth defending if they "only" referred to gangs. https://t.co/sm23ot85Qx
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Which is to say nothing of the fact that even if Donald Trump were referring only to actual gang members as "animals," that would still be othering, dehumanizating, eliminationist, hateful, despicable, vile language.
There is no context in which that language is okay for a political leader to use, and no people about whom using that language is acceptable. None.
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Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold at BuzzFeed: The Definitive Story of How Trump's Team Worked the Trump Moscow Deal During the Campaign. "The licensing agreement came together relatively quickly. Sater turned to a wealthy Moscow developer he knew from the days when Ivanka spun around in Putin's chair: Andrey Rozov. His company, IC Expert, became the developer, and the sides traded proposals. At one point, as the letter of intent was passed back and forth during the negotiations, the Trump Organization changed an upfront fee from $100,000 to $900,000. On Oct. 28, 2015, the day of the third Republican presidential debate, Trump personally signed the letter of intent. In a celebratory email sent from his Trump Organization account, Cohen asked Sater and Rozov that the 'nature and content of the attached LOI not be disclosed' until later and said 'we are truly looking forward to this wonderful opportunity.'"
Emphasis mine. That is a very long, very detailed piece. I highly recommend reading the whole thing in its entirety. And, once again, I will say that I desperately hope, at some point, the information contained therein will matter. Meaning: I hope it is used to hold Trump accountable and remove him from office, along with the rest of the corrupt scoundrels he brought with him to the White House. Including Pence.
Miss me with Rex Tillerson trying to restore his reputation. Don't have a square to spare for that shit. https://t.co/grtknq9GrD
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
And in good resistance news... [CN: Guns]
“Last week, Sister Judy, who lives in a convent in Seattle’s Wedgwood neighborhood, helped orchestrate what is believed to be the first activist-led shareholder revolt at an American gun manufacturer.”
— Sarah Lerner (@SarahLerner) May 17, 2018
Women are amazing. https://t.co/nzJ8yBLzgJ
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
And the Award for Worst Take on #MeToo Goes to...
JOHN TRAVOLTA! Who, presumably, would like to thank his family and whatever heavy object knocked him on his head before this trash fell out of his face. [Content Note: Rape apologia.]
John Travolta doesn't do a lot of interviews. But at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of his mob drama Gotti, in which he plays embattled mafia don John Gotti, the Oscar-nominated actor sat for a two-hour conversation as part of the festival's master class series, dubbed "Rendez-vous with."HOW WAS THERE NO FOLLOW-UP TO THAT?! How does a journalist hear that arble-garble word salad of ignorant nonsense and NOT HAVE A FOLLOW-UP?!
The event was moderated by a French journalist who largely asked fawning questions about Travolta's résumé, asking the actor to go into detail about what it was like to become famous after Saturday Night Fever and whether or not he knew Pulp Fiction was going to be a hit.
The moderator did, however, ask Travolta about his feelings on the #MeToo movement and "what's happening in Hollywood right now" — a conversation, of course, that has been a big topic at Cannes, where 82 women marched on the festival's red carpet to highlight the lack of female filmmaker representation over the years and festival director Thierry Frémaux signed a charter pledging the festival would, among other things, take steps toward gender parity on its executive board.
"I honestly don't know a ton about it, because I try my best to keep people equal — men, women, races," Travolta responded. "My father was brilliant at it. He had a global viewpoint. I'm a citizen of the globe, and I'm a citizen of groups and people."
He segued into the topic of protest, saying he typically viewed it as a "last resort," and questioned its usefulness.
"Protest is valid. But how do you measure — how do you differentiate the moment where it becomes invalid?" Travolta asked. "It's an art, almost, to say, 'OK, let's protest, but we've achieved that here and these particular rights. Now, let's get smart about how we use that … protest so it doesn't get into an irrational perspective.' If we go back to the humanities of being each other's friends and wanting and caring at a deep level, then we'll make it. But it's a dwindling spiral out there."
There was no follow-up.
Like: "Wait a moment, Mr. Travolta. Are you suggesting that (mostly but not exclusively) women protesting endemic sexual violence could reach the point of invalidity, even while sexual violence remains endemic?"
Or: "Pardon me, Mr. Travolta, but can I clarify that you just suggested 'being each other's friends and wanting and caring at a deep level' is the solution to sexual harassment and sexual assault, and is that suggestion exclusively directed at THE PERPETRATORS OF HARASSMENT AND ASSAULT?"
Or maybe: "Johnny Trav, what in the love of Xenu's volcanoes are you even talking about?"
The only acceptable words that could have followed "I honestly don't know a ton about it" are "therefore, I'm not going to say anything. But thank you for the question, which is a reminder that I should really take the time to educate myself, so I don't sound like a dipshit the next time I'm asked about this incredibly sensitive and important subject."
[H/T to Kaiser.]
A Whole Lotta News, Some of Which Will Hopefully Matter Someday
There was just a whole lot of breaking news late yesterday around sundry corruption, collusion, and general trash in the Trump administration. Following is a recap of the major stories, some of which will hopefully matter at some point, as Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation enters its second year. Happy anniversary.
Ronan Farrow at the New Yorker: Missing Files Motivated the Leak of Michael Cohen's Financial Records.
Last week, several news outlets obtained financial records showing that Michael Cohen, [Donald] Trump's personal attorney, had used a shell company to receive payments from various firms with business before the Trump Administration. In the days since, there has been much speculation about who leaked the confidential documents, and the Treasury Department's inspector general has launched a probe to find the source. That source, a law-enforcement official, is speaking publicly for the first time, to The New Yorker, to explain the motivation: The official had grown alarmed after being unable to find two important reports on Cohen's financial activity in a government database. The official, worried that the information was being withheld from law enforcement, released the remaining documents.There is much more at the link. Clearly, there is the possibility that someone acting on orders from Donald Trump removed the reports, which would certainly constitute an attempt to obstruct justice.
The payments to Cohen that have emerged in the past week come primarily from a single document, a "suspicious-activity report" filed by First Republic Bank, where Cohen's shell company, Essential Consultants, L.L.C., maintained an account. The document detailed sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Cohen by the pharmaceutical company Novartis, the telecommunications giant A.T. & T., and an investment firm with ties to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.
The report also refers to two previous suspicious-activity reports, or sars, that the bank had filed, which documented even larger flows of questionable money into Cohen's account. Those two reports detail more than three million dollars in additional transactions — triple the amount in the report released last week. Which individuals or corporations were involved remains a mystery. But, according to the official who leaked the report, these sars were absent from the database maintained by the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or fincen. The official, who has spent a career in law enforcement, told me, "I have never seen something pulled off the system. ...That system is a safeguard for the bank. It's a stockpile of information. When something's not there that should be, I immediately became concerned." The official added, "That's why I came forward."
Seven former government officials and other experts familiar with the Treasury Department's fincen database expressed varying levels of concern about the missing reports. Some speculated that fincen may have restricted access to the reports due to the sensitivity of their content, which they said would be nearly unprecedented. One called the possibility "explosive." A record-retention policy on fincen's Web site notes that false documents or those "deemed highly sensitive" and "requiring strict limitations on access" may be transferred out of its master file. Nevertheless, a former prosecutor who spent years working with the fincen database said that she knew of no mechanism for restricting access to sars. She speculated that fincen may have taken the extraordinary step of restricting access "because of the highly sensitive nature of a potential investigation. It may be that someone reached out to fincento ask to limit disclosure of certain sars related to an investigation, whether it was the special counsel or the Southern District of New York." (The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. The Southern District is investigating Cohen, and the F.B.I. raided his office and hotel room last month.)
Whatever the explanation for the missing reports, the appearance that some, but not all, had been removed or restricted troubled the official who released the report last week. "Why just those two missing?" the official, who feared that the contents of those two reports might be permanently withheld, said. "That's what alarms me the most."
Hunter Walker and Brett Arnold at Yahoo News: Michael Cohen's Efforts to Build a Trump Tower in Moscow Went on Longer Than He Has Previously Acknowledged. "Prosecutors and congressional investigators have obtained text messages and emails showing that [Donald] Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, was working on a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow far later than Cohen has previously acknowledged. The communications show that as late as May 2016, around the time Trump was clinching the Republican nomination, Cohen was considering a trip to Russia to meet about the project with high-level government officials, business leaders, and bankers. ...In a statement to Congress, Cohen claimed he gave up on the project in late January 2016, when he determined the 'proposal was not feasible for a variety of business reasons and should not be pursued further.' However, Yahoo News has learned that text messages and emails that Sater provided to the government seem to contradict Cohen's version of events."
Karen DeYoung, Josh Dawsey, and Rosalind S. Helderman at the Washington Post: Trump's Personal Attorney Solicited $1 Million from Government of Qatar. "Michael Cohen, [Donald] Trump's personal attorney, solicited a payment of at least $1 million from the government of Qatar in late 2016, in exchange for access to and advice about the then-incoming administration, according to the recipient of the offer and several others with knowledge of the episode. The offer, which Qatar declined, came on the margins of a Dec. 12 meeting that year at Trump Tower between the Persian Gulf state's foreign minister and Michael Flynn, who became Trump's first national security adviser. Stephen K. Bannon, who became White House chief strategist, also attended."
Shawn Boburg and Aaron C. Davis at the Washington Post: FBI Agents Said to Be Probing Michael Cohen's Deal with Korean Firm. "A California man who says he served as a translator last year for Michael Cohen and a South Korean aerospace firm that paid Cohen's company $150,000 said Tuesday that FBI agents recently interviewed him. Mark Ko said in an email to The Washington Post that he spoke with the FBI about the arrangement 'a few weeks ago.' Ko declined to provide details about investigators' inquiries and said he was unsure whether the agents were part of the probe led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Ko's statement is the first indication that federal authorities are examining Cohen's contract with Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) — one of several companies with substantial business before the U.S. government that hired Cohen, [Donald] Trump's personal attorney and longtime legal fixer, after the 2016 election."
Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, and Nicholas Fandos at the New York Times: Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation. "Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark. ...[A] small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane. ...Those decisions [regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server] stand in contrast to the F.B.I.'s handling of Crossfire Hurricane. Not only did agents in that case fall back to their typical policy of silence, but interviews with a dozen current and former government officials and a review of documents show that the F.B.I. was even more circumspect in that case than has been previously known."
Dana Bash at CNN: Giuliani: Mueller's Team Told Trump's Lawyers They Can't Indict a President.
In totally unsurprising news, that was bullshit.
Key exchanges tonight between Giuliani and @washingtonpost — Mueller himself didn’t seem to say anything, but a SC deputy called days later, per Giuliani pic.twitter.com/mRGosNAh5K
— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 16, 2018
Mark Hosenball at Reuters: Mueller Issues Grand Jury Subpoenas to Trump Adviser's Social Media Consultant. "The subpoenas were delivered late last week to lawyers representing Jason Sullivan, a social media and Twitter specialist [longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone] hired to work for an independent political action committee he set up to support Trump, Knut Johnson, a lawyer for Sullivan, told Reuters on Tuesday. The subpoenas suggest that Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, is focusing in part on Stone and whether he might have had advance knowledge of material allegedly hacked by Russian intelligence and sent to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who published it."
Olivia Solon at the Guardian: Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Says Bannon Wanted to Suppress Voters. "Former White House senior strategist Steve Bannon and billionaire Robert Mercer sought Cambridge Analytica's political ad targeting technology as part of an 'arsenal of weapons to fight a culture war,' according to whistleblower Christopher Wylie. ...During his testimony to the Senate judiciary committee, Wylie also confirmed that he believed one of the goals of Steve Bannon while he was vice-president of Cambridge Analytica was voter suppression. 'One of the things that provoked me to leave was discussions about 'voter disengagement' and the idea of targeting African Americans,' he said, noting he had seen documents referencing this."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW): CREW Files Criminal Complaint over Trump Financial Disclosures. "Following the release of [Donald] Trump's 2018 public financial disclosures, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today filed a criminal complaint against the president, calling for an investigation into whether he knowingly and willfully failed to report Michael Cohen's payment to Stormy Daniels as a liability on his 2017 public financial disclosures. After much reporting and multiple complaints from CREW, [Donald] Trump disclosed the liability to Cohen on his just-released 2018 disclosures, as he was legally required to do, which raises the question of whether he knowingly kept the loan secret, in violation of federal law, before it was public knowledge."
Note: All of these items are things which Mike Pence is willing to abet in his quest for power.
* * *
So much corruption; so much unethical and possible illegal behavior. This is one day's worth of news about the Trump administration and associated figures.
Not even one day, as all of this was late-breaking news yesterday.
And it's not all the news about the Trump administration, either. There's plenty more going on, like Donald Trump calling undocumented immigrants "animals."
It's just a relentless onslaught of terrible fucking news. I have no idea how the average person, who hasn't immersed themselves in politics and history and law and foreign policy for their entire adult lives and who doesn't have hours and hours to understand the details of each of these stories every day, has any hope of following and understanding and piecing together everything that is happening.
All of it is overwhelming.
And of course Donald Trump knows that better than anyone. If everything you do is corruption and chaos, you'll leave people scrambling to figure out what your last three or thirteen or thirty-seven scams were while you're already onto the next dozen, each one bigger (more harmful) and better (worse) than the ones before.
That, among many reasons, is why I keep saying the time to resist Donald Trump was before the election. It's exponentially more difficult to stop a conman after you give him virtually limitless power.
Fuck.
The Only Context to Trump's "Animals" Comment That Matters Is His Vile Nativist Agenda
[Content Note: Dehumanization; eliminationism; nativism; anti-Semitism.]
The apologia for Donald Trump's "animals" comment has begun, and the general shape it's taking is: "He wasn't talking about all undocumented immigrants; just members of MS-13!"
Here is the full context of President Trump’s “animals” comment during the immigration/sanctuary city roundtable, which came as a Sheriff was complaining about restrictions placed on ICE databases, and MS-13 gang members. pic.twitter.com/sI9uWXr1Sc
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 17, 2018
As you probably guessed, I have some thoughts about that.
"Here is the full context of the President of the United States using vile dehumanizing language against a population he has relentlessly targeted with lies, bigotry, othering, and displacement." Okay, thanks. https://t.co/jtVtAo13yM
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Here's more relevant context for Trump's eliminationist rhetoric. Just one example of the violent othering happening across the country. https://t.co/2VbqBHiB5m
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Trump has been narratively conflating undocumented immigrants with violent criminality since his very announcement address (at least). To parse that he's "only" talking about violent criminals ignores that he routinely suggests most undocumented immigrants ARE violent criminals.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Exactly this. https://t.co/Jj4n1M9vsM
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
Clearly when Hitler published, "Der Jude Kriminell" he was just speaking of criminal Jews and it wasn't part of a broader campaign to stoke racist fears. #Animals #MS13 pic.twitter.com/YPmOS4ifBH
— David M. Perry (@Lollardfish) May 17, 2018
Even if Trump didn't routinely conflate all undocumented immigrants with violent criminality, and even if his "animals" comment referred only to gang members, dehumanizing language ISN'T OKAY to use against anyone. It's especially dangerous in the mouths of political leaders.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
If you want to talk about context, let's talk instead about the context that is Trump's heinous, nativist, white supremacist agenda, and how his othering language furthers that agenda and endangers undocumented immigrants by whipping up resentments toward them.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 17, 2018
I resist this sinister trash with every molecule of my being. This is not okay. This is intolerable. And fuck anyone who tries to make it "acceptable," in any way.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker carovee: "Do you or your family use made up words? What are they and what do they mean?"
Omigod, Iain and I have zillions of 'em.
We practically have our own language at this point, lol.
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by storms!
Recommended Reading:
Gideon Kidd at BuzzFeed: I'm a 9-Year-Old Who Loves Dogs and I've Pet More Than 300 Dogs and They Were All Good Dogs
Your Fat Friend at the Establishment: [Content Note: Fat hatred; sexual violence] Why Don't We Hear Fat Women's #MeToo Stories?
Heather Denkmire at Black Girl in Maine: [CN: Racism] If You Are a Witness to Injustice, Will You Intervene?
Angela Helm at the Root: [CN: Racism] Black Father Stopped by Security After White Woman Called About a "Suspicious Man with a Baby" in D.C. Park
Andy Towle at Towleroad: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Rips 'Disgusting' White House Leakers as Trump Threatens to ID and 'Make an Example' of at Least One
Chelsea Steiner at the Mary Sue: Mindy Kaling, Riz Ahmed, and Kumail Nanjiani Want to Write the Ms. Marvel Movie
Kimberly Ricci at Uproxx: Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder Loathe Each Other to Perfection in the Destination Wedding Trailer
Rae Paoletta at Inverse: Science Just Determined When Your Dog Is the Cutest
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Trump Calls Undocumented Immigrants "Animals"
[Content Note: Dehumanization; eliminationism.]
During a roundtable on Sanctuary Cities today, Donald Trump said, referring to undocumented immigrants who have been deported, which includes children and refugees seeking asylum from violence: "These aren't people. These are animals."
President Trump during California #SanctuaryCities Roundtable: "These aren't people. These are animals."
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 16, 2018
Full video here: https://t.co/alyS47LI5V pic.twitter.com/ifXicTHHP0
We have people coming into the country — or trying to come in; we're stopping a lot of 'em. But we're taking people out of the country — you wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. And we're taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that's never happened before.He speaks about undocumented immigrants as though they are vermin he's trying to keep from entering his house.
And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get 'em, we release 'em, we get 'em again, we bring 'em out — it's crazy.
The dumbest laws, as I said before, the dumbest laws on immigration in the world. So we're gonna take care of it, Margaret. We'll get it done.
Trump's routine dehumanization of undocumented immigrants is what's called eliminationist rhetoric. It's the language that precedes genocides, if decent people don't urgently intervene. https://t.co/M6p3fvyIUz
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 16, 2018
Note: This, too, is something on which Mike Pence is willing to abet in his quest for power.
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 482
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: Who Could've Guessed Kim Jong Un Would Be Erratic and Unreliable? and Don Jr: The Liar Doesn't Fall Far from the Tree and On Mike Pence's Destructive Ambition.
Here are some more things in the news today...
Lachlan Markay at the Daily Beast: Trump Formally Admits He Reimbursed Michael Cohen.
Donald Trump has officially acknowledged that he reimbursed his attorney, Michael Cohen, for a payment the lawyer made on Trump's behalf in 2017. The purpose of the payment is not named, but it was almost surely the one Cohen made to a porn actress with whom Trump allegedly had an affair."Expenses were incurred." Oh, they were, huh? LOL this fucking criminal clown.
"In the interest of transparency," reads a footnote in Trump's newly filed 2017 financial disclosure form, "while not required to be disclosed as 'reportable liabilities' on Part 8, in 2016 expenses were incurred by one of Donald J. Trump's attorneys, Michael Cohen. Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and Mr. Trump fully reimbursed Mr. Cohen in 2017. The category of value would be $100,001 - $250,000 and the interest rate would be zero."
That line almost certainly refers to the $130,000 payment that Cohen made to Stormy Daniels in October 2016 in exchange for her signing a non-disclosure agreement regarding her alleged tryst with Trump.
The Stormy Daniels reimbursement to Michael Cohen is listed in Trump's financial disclosure. So it's official, both Trump and Cohen initially lied about the Daniels payment. https://t.co/1wAWYzDfP3 pic.twitter.com/LC2dXBMpoK
— Emily C. Singer (@CahnEmily) May 16, 2018
And there's the rub.
FINGERS CROSSED THAT THIS WILL MATTER AT SOME POINT BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE GREAT.
NEW: Ethics office sending letter to Rod Rosenstein stating that Michael Cohen's payment on behalf of Trump was a debt and may be relevant to "any inquiry" Rosenstein may be pursuing. pic.twitter.com/e22Jfuozic
— Ari Melber (@AriMelber) May 16, 2018
Huge news—the Ethics Office concluded that Trump made a false statement on his prior ethics disclosure, which is a crime if it is done knowingly and willfully, and referred the matter to Rosenstein for potential criminal prosecution. https://t.co/OecIBkdGwE
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) May 16, 2018
* * *
Adrienne Mahsa Varkiani at ThinkProgress: Nikki Haley Walks out of U.N. Security Council Meeting as Palestinian Envoy Begins to Speak. "The Security Council was holding an emergency meeting to discuss the violence in Gaza. Israeli forces killed at least 62 Palestinians protesting along the border fence on Monday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. That number included several children, one of whom was just 8 months old. More than 3,100 others were wounded. ...'I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: Who among us would accept this type of activity on your border?' she said. 'No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.' Haley did not mention the Israeli soldiers and snipers firing at the Palestinian protesters or the death toll from Monday. Less than two hours later, when Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour began to speak, she walked out of the meeting." Wow. What a disgrace.
"Giuliani's point, echoed by many conservatives, is Mueller's year-old investigation has run too long and is causing Trump unacceptable political damage." That's rich, considering as long as Trump's in office, it's giving the GOP time to consolidate power. https://t.co/M1BcKFQOx7
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 16, 2018
Which is to say nothing of the fact that "the impression the president may have broken the law is inconvenient to him politically" is no reason to end an investigation, nor to engage in obstruction, nor to repeatedly express contempt for the rule of law. https://t.co/5yhPMrDqgq
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 16, 2018
Michael Birnbaum at the Washington Post: E.U. Leader Lights into Trump: 'With Friends Like That, Who Needs Enemies?'
Even by the stressed standards of relations between Europe and the United States in the Trump era, European Council President Donald Tusk's Wednesday criticisms were unusually cutting.Just as a totally random (cough) reminder: President Obama hired Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State because her reputation with leaders around the world was so stellar.
At the outset of a summit of European leaders whose agenda items, point by point, have to do with the flames of crises that many Europeans see as ignited by [Donald] Trump, Tusk ripped into what he called "the capricious assertiveness of the American administration" over issues including Iran, Gaza, trade tariffs, and North Korea.
...Tusk, a former prime minister of Poland who now presides over one branch of E.U. policymaking, went full zen in his angry description of Trump's effect on Europe.
"Looking at the latest decisions of Donald Trump, someone could even think: With friends like that, who needs enemies?" Tusk told reporters in English ahead of a summit in Sofia, Bulgaria. "But, frankly speaking, Europe should be grateful by [Donald] Trump. Because, thanks to him, we got rid of all the illusions. He has made us realize that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm."
Sob.
* * *
Ughhhhhhhhhhh. "With two of 51 Republicans committed to voting against Haspel, and five Democrats indicating that they will support her, she appears to be set to become the agency’s first female director." https://t.co/bDj2NNAbfo
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 16, 2018
The Democrats really failed on that one, in my estimation, but it's important to remember that, by and large, they are still fighting the good fight day in and day out, despite many forces working against them.
To wit: Eric Levitz at NYMag: The Democratic Party Has an 'MSNBC Problem'.
"The Democrats need to stop obsessing about Trump and Russia, and start talking about the bread-and-butter issues that matter to ordinary people." Since Donald Trump took office, that sentiment has been a refrain for the party's leading critics on both the left and right. It is also fundamentally unfair.There is much more at the link, and I highly recommended reading the whole thing.
In truth, the Democratic Party is quite focused on promoting a progressive critique of the GOP's positions on taxes, health care, and social spending, because it knows that Republicans are deeply vulnerable on those issues. MSNBC, CNN, and the broader mainstream media, however, are obsessed with the White House's myriad scandals — because they know that a federal investigation into the American president's potential ties to the Kremlin (and/or porn stars and/or white-collar crime) is ratings gold — while daily broadcasts reiterating the regressive implications of the GOP's tax law and health-care plans would be anything but.
If you get your news from Democratic Twitter accounts, then you might well think that the biggest "scandal" in American politics right now is the Republican Party's war on the middle class.
But if you get your news from cable television — or secondhand from friends and family who watch cable news — then you will think that "Russia-gate" is the Democratic Party's central concern; because that is just about the only thing that cable news channels invite Democratic officeholders to go on television to discuss.
...It is not MSNBC's job to promote the Democratic Party's economic message. And the Mueller investigation is an important and fascinating story that's tailor-made for television news. It would not be realistic for Democrats to expect any for-profit media company to prioritize conveying its preferred political narratives over covering the most sensational events of the day.
And yet, Republicans do get that courtesy from the nation's most-watched cable news channel. Fox News puts the GOP's messaging needs ahead of maximizing eyeballs: When big breaking news about the Mueller investigation reflects poorly on the Republican president, Fox lets its competitors own the day's top story.
This puts Democrats at a profound structural disadvantage — especially in the war for the hearts and minds of working-class white voters in the deindustrializing Midwest.
Democrats are also at a disadvantage because the political press largely doesn't explain that foreign collusion is itself a "bread-and-butter issue." You know who cares even less about providing livable wages for working class Americans than the Republican Party? Vladimir Putin.
* * *
[Content Note: Anti-Blackness; misogynoir; harassment] Blue Telusma at the Grio: 'Humiliated' Black Woman Strip-Searched by Macy's Clerk Because 'People Like You Have Been Stealing'. "Conteh Moore was shopping at a San Jose Macy's on May 8th when a sales associate accused her of stealing a bottle of cologne. Shortly thereafter, the employee performed an invasive strip search on her without her consent, but came up empty handed. 'They searched my purse and stripped my sweater off me,' Moore said. She also claims the employee made comments that demonstrated her suspicions about Moore being a thief were based on racial bias. 'She said, 'People like you have been stealing from Macy's, stealing stuff,'' Moore explained." JFC.
[CN: Self-harm; misogyny] Maggie Fox at NBC News: More Girls Are Attempting Suicide; It's Not Clear Why. "A new study out Wednesday finds that more kids are either thinking about or attempting suicide. 'When we looked at hospitalizations for suicidal ideation and suicidal encounters over the last decade, essentially 2008 to 2015, we found that the rates doubled among children that were hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or activity,' Dr. Gregory Plemmons of Vanderbilt University told NBC News. ...Girls made up nearly two-thirds of the cases. ...'I don't have any one magic answer that explains why we're seeing this,' Plemmons said. ...But there was a hint in Plemmons' data. The rate of hospital visits was much higher during the school year. ]On average, during the eight years included in the study, only 18.5 percent of total annual suicide ideation and suicide attempt encounters occurred during summer months,' the team wrote." Goddammit.
Tony Perkins, head of hate group Family Research Council, has been tapped for a spot on the International Religious Commission.
— Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) May 15, 2018
He'll be taking his anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT views to a federal board overseeing religious freedom violations around the globe.https://t.co/py7sKIhBYe
Mike Elk at the Guardian: North Carolina Teachers Join Wave of Strikes with One-Day Walkout. "Thousands of teachers and their supporters are set to rally at the state capitol on what will also be the first day of the session for the North Carolina general assembly. The walkout aims to highlight low wages and poorly funded public schools. Since 2009, real wages for teachers have fallen by 9.4% in North Carolina. Following a successful teachers' strike in West Virginia in March, union organisers in North Carolina began discussing what they could do. Then they watched teachers in several other states go on strike too. 'We saw Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona, of course, and that momentum that has been building in these 'right-to-work states' is inspiring,' said Kristin Beller, a teachers' union leader in Wake County, North Carolina." Go get 'em, teachers!
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
On Mike Pence's Destructive Ambition
At Vanity Fair, David Drucker has written a piece about the possible existence of a "shadow campaign" being run by Mike Pence, as he takes the lead on rallying the Republicans through midterms, becase that, like many other responsibilities of being president, is something in which Donald Trump has no interest.
Naturally, there are Republicans quick to assert that "dispatching the vice president is only logical," but, noting that Pence has built a political operation that now outmatches the president's, a "Republican insider and former leadership aide in Congress" told Drucker that Pence's maneuvering is "unusual. Most V.P. offices haven't dreamed of having separate political operations from that of the president of the United States."
Yes, well, most vice presidents aren't Mike Pence. Most vice presidents weren't about to lose their gubernatorial reelection before they were plucked to serve as second to a president who explicitly wanted a vice-president to "be in charge of domestic and foreign policy," leaving his boss free to "Make America great again," whatever that means on any given day.
The subhead on the Vanity Fair piece is: "Could Pence's ambition make him the president's next mortal enemy?" But that isn't the right question. The right question is whether Pence's ambition makes him the nation's next mortal enemy.
* * *
Mike Pence has the kind of insatiable ambition that is supposed to be disqualifying, at least when it's attributed to a woman.
Although Hillary Clinton didn't think about running for president until late in her life, following a life and career that nonetheless prepared her exquisitely for the role, during the last election we were greeted regularly with headlines like this one at the Atlantic: "The Curse of Hillary Clinton's Ambition." Commentators routinely questioned whether she was "too ambitious," using thinly veiled euphemisms — or not. When his hacked emails were made public, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was revealed to have said that Clinton had "unbridled ambition" and was "greedy."
Whatever women are accused of, you can be sure there's a man for whom it's true. And if there is a man whose ambition is truly destructive, it's Pence.
Unlike many women his age or older, for whom the presidency, or politics in general, didn't seem like a realistic option until much later in their lives, Pence has wanted to be president his entire life.
In a piece for the New Yorker, Jane Mayer recounted visiting Pence's hometown of Columbus, Indiana, where the retired editor of the local paper told her that Pence "wanted to be President practically since he popped out of the womb," and that he is "very ambitious, even calculating, about the steps he'll take toward that goal."
And he wasn't shy about broadcasting his ambition: His family told Mayer that Pence "was talking to classmates about becoming President of the United States" by his senior year of high school.
He climbed his way through failed Congressional bids, conservative radio, and eventually successful Congressional bids into the Indiana Governor's office, positioning himself all the way as a conservative, born-again, evangelical Christian. In a profile for Indianapolis Monthly, published soon after Pence was elected governor, Craig Fehrman noted one of Pence's oft-quoted slogans: He's "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order."
Fehrman also observed that "Mike Pence has been running for office basically since grade school."
There has always been a fundamental — and unresolved — tension between Pence's claims of principled piety and his willingness to do anything to win. The way that Pence has bridged that irreconcilable conflict is to keep his ambition concealed; to be a snake who prefers the shadows rather than the sunshine.
In April, Axios' Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen detailed Pence's strategy for keeping in Trump's good graces, despite the fact that it's manifestly obvious Pence is maneuvering to assume the presidency, as soon as possible.
He rarely offends or challenges Trump — and never in public or in front of others. In TV interviews, he treats the boss with deference that makes many cringe but delights the Big Man.Indeed. As I wrote even before the inauguration: "His stealth is the perfect complement to Trump's theatrical egotism: Pence will exploit every second of being ignored to enact a radical conservative agenda in the long shadow cast by Trump's attention-grubbing megalomania. Mike Pence would like nothing more than our inattention. Which is precisely why we must keep our eyes on him."
He has assembled his own team, loyal to him, and mostly savvy enough to keep their heads down and mouths shut. Pence is the happy, on-message Christian warrior.
Since the campaign, Pence has played on his "aw shucks" second-fiddle role, even joking about how much poorer he is than Trump. He told members at a Republican retreat that he comes from "the Joseph A. Bank wing of the West Wing." Trump loves that.
Former campaign officials used to joke that if Newt Gingrich had been chosen as V.P., he would've lasted about a week before Trump ripped his head off.
Trump couldn't stand having a V.P. with whom he'd have to compete with for media attention. There's no risk of that with the studiously sober Pence.
Pence is a savvy manipulator, more sinister than the people who buy his cornpone persona could ever imagine. He is patient and opportunistic. And he depends on the endless good will extended by white conservative evangelicals to anyone who makes them a promise to destroy feminists and kissing boys and brown people in the name of Jesus forever and ever amen, which is why he is forgiven his association with the vile Trump.
But the rest of us should note keenly that Pence's eminent willingness to abet this administration and its profoundly disgusting president means he is no longer "a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order," if he ever really was. (He wasn't.)
Consider the number of articles published about Hillary Clinton's destructive ambition, based on rumors and rank misogyny, and then consider there has been nary a one about how Pence's ambition is so destructive that a man who has built his career on being a sanctimonious Christian is abetting the most indecent president in the nation's history.
Pence has always been a Republican first. A Republican who has wanted to be president since he was a child. His guiding principle is not anything one will find in a religious text; it's Do Anything to Be President.
Including being the odious Trump's vice president, no matter how off-brand it is for Pence, because that's his best shot at the presidency.
After all, he was going to lose his reelection in Indiana, before Paul Manafort rescued him with the offer to be Trump's running mate.
* * *
Shockingly little has been written in the national media about Mike Pence's tenure as governor of Indiana. If you've heard anything about Pence's deplorable reign, perhaps it was his signing a horrendously homophobic "religious liberty" bill, or perhaps it was his sustained attack on reproductive choice which included harassing Planned Parenthood and jailing Purvi Patel, or perhaps it was the HIV outbreak in Austin, Indiana.
Maybe, although less likely, it was how Pence was telling the same lies Trump now tells about the refugee screening process in order to justify a court battle over the settlement of refugees in Indiana, which looks exactly like what Trump is now replicating on the national stage.
There's a chance, although a small one, that you heard about Pence's email problem. Last year, Pence turned over 13 boxes of emails in an "effort to make sure they are archived as required by law." The fact that he only turned these over after his email became a minor national news story is indicative of the fact that he wouldn't have complied if he hadn't been caught.
Pence also waged a campaign to get the Indiana Supreme Court to "stay out of his redacted emails." When I linked that story last February, I noted: "Anyone who imagines Pence is less authoritarian or more decent than Trump is sorely mistaken."
It's Pence's authoritarianism and corruption that has gotten the least amount of coverage, even as investigations in his home state continue — and even despite the fact that it was his authoritarianism, his willingness to do anything to win, that is what led to his vast unpopularity in Indiana.
Let me again tell you the story of Glenda Ritz: Glenda Ritz, a Democrat, was elected in 2012 to be Indiana's Superintendent of Public Instruction. She was a huge underdog—but defeated the incumbent because a majority of Hoosiers, both progressive and conservative, supported her willingness to challenge Republican proposals that would destroy public education in Indiana.
Ritz was the first Democrat to serve as Superintendent in 40 years.
Pence was elected during the same election. One of his first acts as governor was to remove Ritz from the union-centered Educational Employment Relations Board. The Republican-controlled House Education Committee then proposed a bill to "strip the superintendent's position as chair of the State Board of Education. …The bill would allow Republican Gov. Mike Pence's 10 appointees to the 11-member board to elect their own chair."
In other words, as soon as a Democrat was elected to an influential state position (with 53% of the vote, higher than Pence received), the Republican governor and legislature set to rendering her office utterly without power and empowering themselves to oust her and prevent the reforms she was elected to champion.
The Republicans claimed their power grab, with Pence leading the charge, was merely intended to "clarify control of education policy."
Which is quite an extraordinary euphemism for seize unilateral control of education policy, in direct contravention of the will of the voters.
Who weren't happy about it.
This is how Pence does business. And his hostility toward the democratic process has been evident even as he sits the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency, chairing the Orwellian-named Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, the raison d'être of which was to undermine the integrity of the nation's elections.
He will do anything to win. He will abandon all pretense of his much-lauded morality to align himself with a confessed serial sex abuser and white supremacist; he will invite and exploit hatred of marginalized people; he will change the rules; he will rig elections; and he will demonstrably lie about his knowledge of collusion with a foreign adversary that happened right under his nose as he ran the presidential transition.
And although he wouldn't launch a nuke over an insult he hears about on Fox & Friends, Pence is just as likely as Trump (and maybe even more so) to start another kind of war over reasons conjured from prejudice and lies. Just like the last Republican president did. There is absolutely no reason to believe — none — that Pence is any less likely to replicate the strategy that worked so well for George W. Bush and cook up some garbage rationale for invading another country.
Trump's and Pence's methods are different. The depth of their malice is precisely the same.
And Pence's ambition is just as destructive as the man under whom he currently serves. Destructive for Trump, perhaps. Destructive for the nation with absolute certainty.
As a vice-president, and thus president of the Senate, who has been handed extraordinary power by the president, and a former member of the House with deep ties to many members of the GOP caucus, Pence has been and remains perfectly positioned to simultaneously: Assist Trump with his dreadful executive agenda; support Congress in their nefarious legislative aims; and work with the Cabinet (clearly shaped by his influence) to destroy every federal agency.
And he's still one step away from the position of power he has desired nearly his whole life.
* * *
There has been far too little scrutiny of Pence in the political press. What questions have been asked of his willingness to abet Trump have mostly presumed, wrongly, that Pence largely doesn't support Trump's agenda, but instead is holding his nose and tolerating it as he bides his time to get his turn.
That should not be an excuse for failing to turn a critical eye to Pence's destructive ambition. To the contrary, that should be the starting point for those questions.
What does it tell us that Mike Pence is willing to sacrifice his claimed principles in order to stand next to the president? Nothing good. What does it tell us that Mike Pence is willing to abet all manner of indecency in order to gain more power? Nothing good. What does it tell us that Mike Pence will manipulate and betray the people he purports to fully support, to his own benefit; that he will sell out our very democracy if it gives him the opportunity to consolidate Republican control?
Nothing good about him, and nothing good for the rest of us.
That is what destructive ambition actually looks like. Would that it was given half the attention dedicated to ambitious women who seek office because they love this country and want its federal government to work, not because they want to destroy it.
