The Virtual Pub Is Open
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
Programming Note
Shakesville will be taking next week off, as I will be on vacation. (Technically staycation, if you're into those sorts of details, lol.)
I realize it's not ideal timing for a holiday, given that I just took off so much time being ill, but this is when Iain and I already had scheduled for our time off together.
To be honest, it's also not ideal because I wish I weren't still feeling shitty for what's supposed to be restorative time away, but, on the other hand, at least I'm getting some more time off while I'm wracked with cluster headaches and a lingeringly mysterious pain in my side.
So, it is what it is for all of us!
As always, if something major happens, I will be very inclined to show up, but I'm really going to try not to do that.
Friday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by donuts.
Recommended Reading:
Yessenia Funes at Earther: Displaced Puerto Ricans Have Another Month of Housing — But What's Next?
Katherine Olivera at IWHC: [Content Note: Nativism; misogyny; abuse; war on agency] Immigration Is a Reproductive Justice Issue
Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof: Enemy of the People
Maureen Ryan at Vulture: [CN: Misogyny; rape culture; sexual harassment] Brad Kern and the House That Moonves Built at CBS
Daniel Johnson at Black Youth Project: [CN: Racism; misogyny; disablism; appropriation] The Nation Magazine Issues Apology After Backlash for Publishing Offensive Poem by a White Guy
Dee Lockett at Vulture: [CN: Misogyny; coercion] Evangeline Lilly Says She Was 'Cornered' into Partial Nude Scene on Lost
Kaiser at Celebitchy: Do You Need to see Andy Murray Weep into a Towel at 3am? Yes, You Do.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
What I'm Reading Now
A thread for sharing what we're currently reading: Fiction, nonfiction, novels, short stories, historical fiction, biographies, romance, fanfic, comic books, graphic novels, longform journalism, research papers, stuff for pleasure, stuff for work, whatever.
I just found an old copy of The Secret Garden I had packed away while going through some still-unpacked boxes in the cellar; no idea how it ended up there, other than the usual mad dash when you're packing up before a move.
So, naturally, that's what I'm reading. For the millionth time. Affectionate sigh.
What are you reading now?
Daily Dose of Cute
Sometimes Olivia vigorously grooms Sophie with the intent of dislodging her from wherever she's lying, and sometimes she grooms her just to be affectionate. This was one of the sweet times. ♥
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 561
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 Privatization of Compassion and Suspected Russian Spy Discovered Working at U.S. Embassy in Moscow. And late yesterday ICYMI: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is a Propagandist.
Here are some more things in the news today...
[Content Note: Nativism; dehumanization; disablism] Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: During [Vile] Speech, Trump Suggests He May Still Lock up Hillary and Mimics MS-13 Stabbings.
[Donald] Trump delivered a nearly 90-minute-long speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Thursday night in which he suggested he may yet lock up Hillary Clinton and smeared immigrants as violent murderers.He is a disgusting human being, and I am relentlessly angry all day every day that he is this nation's president.
When Trump mentioned Clinton, the crowd broke out in "Lock her up!" chants. Trump responded by saying, "Some things just take a little bit longer." He then complained that his Justice Department "only wants to go after Republicans. You look at the kind of criminal actions and crime — they only want to go after the Republicans."
Trump focused much of his speech at Thursday's campaign-style rally on immigration, touting his border wall and taking his familiar fearmongering about supposedly criminal immigrants to the extreme.
Trump disclosed that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have been advising him to shut down the government unless he gets more than $20 billion in funding for his border wall before the 2018 midterm election.
Trump then lied about the wall, falsely claiming "we're building it." In reality, Trump hasn't received any money to build the structure, which he promised during his campaign that Mexico would fund.
Alluding to a possible shut down, Trump said, "We are going to start to get very nasty over the wall."
At another point, Trump sought to scare people about the risks posed by immigrants by referring to MS-13 as "slicers" and "animals" and mimicking the motions of a person being stabbed.
Susan B. Glasser at the New Yorker: It's True: Trump Is Lying More, and He's Doing It on Purpose. "The recent wave of misstatements is both a reflection of Trump's increasingly unbound presidency and a signal attribute of it. The upsurge provides empirical evidence that Trump, in recent months, has felt more confident running his White House as he pleases, keeping his own counsel, and saying and doing what he wants when he wants to. The fact that Trump, while historically unpopular with the American public as a whole, has retained the loyalty of more than eighty per cent of Republicans — the group at which his lies seem to be aimed — means we are in for much more, as a midterm election approaches that may determine whether Trump is impeached by a newly Democratic Congress. At this point, the falsehoods are as much a part of his political identity as his floppy orange hair and the 'Make America Great Again' slogan."
Camila Domonoske at NPR: China Announces Retaliatory Tariffs on $60 Billion in U.S. Goods. "China has announced a plan to impose new tariffs on $60 billion of American goods, in retaliation for the latest tariff threats from the Trump administration. Earlier this week, the White House said it was considering boosting tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, raising those tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent. That particular set of tariffs has not yet taken effect. China promptly promised it would take countermeasures of its own. On Friday, the Ministry of Commerce described its planned response: Four different types of tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods. The Chinese government did not specify what types of American products would be affected or when those tariffs would take effect."
Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: We've Finally Learned Trump's Grand Plan for Fixing Health Care. "During his presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump promised to replace Obamacare with 'something terrific.' For a long time, that 'something terrific' was left unspecified. Now, more than a year and a half into Trump's presidency, we have finally learned his grand plan for reducing Americans' health-care costs. It is: Don't get sick. Ever. That, at least, was the message of the administration's new rule expanding the availability of junk insurance plans, finalized Wednesday."
Sophie Weiner at Splinter: Trump Donor Promised Michael Cohen $10 Million to Push for Nuclear Power Plant. "In April, Trump donor Franklin L. Haney apparently agreed to pay Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen a $10 million fee for successfully lobbying for the building of an unfinished nuclear power plant in Alabama, according to the Wall Street Journal. The contract also asked Cohen to secure a $5 billion loan from the government for the project. This new information is part of the investigation into Cohen’s unregistered lobbying efforts which he undertook after Trump took office."
[CN: Image of gun at link] Nicole Lafond at TPM: Butina Bragged She Was a Spy When Drunk. "According to people who knew her at American University where she attended graduate school, on at least two occasions [alleged Russian spy Mariia Butina] bragged about her Russian government connections after she had imbibed and even said the Russian government was connected to her Moscow gun rights group. According to CNN, classmates were unnerved by her comments and reported her to law enforcement twice. Other classmates told CNN that in classes she was a constant defender of Vladimir Putin and claimed that she was a middleman between [Donald] Trump's campaign and the Russian government."
❗️❗️❗️"With the midterm elections just three months away, campaigns are largely on their own in the increasingly challenging task of protecting sensitive information and countering false or misleading content on social media." https://t.co/iuewdt1UEN
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 3, 2018
[CN: Nativism; sex abuse of children; descriptions of sexual assault] Topher Sanders and Michael Grabell at ProPublica: Worker Charged with Sexually Molesting Eight Children at Immigrant Shelter. "A youth care worker for Southwest Key has been charged with 11 sex offenses after authorities accused him of molesting at least eight unaccompanied immigrant boys over nearly a year at one of the company's shelters in Mesa, Arizona, federal court records show. The allegations against Levian D. Pacheco, who is HIV-positive, include [assaults which] are alleged to have taken place between August 2016 and July 2017, according to a court filing last week that laid out the government's case."
[CN: Misogynoir; violence] Sam Levin at the Guardian: 'Justice Is Never Served': Nia Wilson and the Fear of Racial Violence. "'It's impossible and unreasonable for people to expect black folks to take the murder of Nia Wilson outside of white on black violence dynamic,' said Cat Brooks, a longtime Oakland activist and mayoral candidate who helped organize a vigil the day after the murder. 'Black bodies have been under attack by agents of white supremacy for over 400 years.' Diamond Rogers, a 19-year-old cousin of Wilson, said it was important to 'call it what it is ... a hate crime to black women.'"
[CN: White supremacy; class warfare]
"Despite all the ways that the government provided welfare programs to help them, white Americans are willing to cut such programs if they believe that African-Americans and other nonwhites may benefit." A must-read by @chaunceydevega. https://t.co/Ax0yOYbSQm
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 3, 2018
[CN: Violent anti-Blackness] Sameer Rao at Colorlines: See Trayvon Martin's Parents Get Real on Resilience. "Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin survived the 2012 killing of their teenage son, Trayvon Martin, by George Zimmerman — only to see their child's name dragged through the press and the trial that exonerated his the killer. His death and the legal aftermath pushed the pair into the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement. Speaking at actions around the country allowed them to build solidarity with other parents of Black children slain by police or vigilantes, as well as with the thousands of demonstrators demanding accountability for such violence. As Fulton told the hosts of 'Ebro in the Morning' radio show [on July 31], their activism remains inextricably tied to their grief and healing."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
For the Birds
In the summer of 2015, while Iain and I were contemplating whether to move to the Philly area for his job, he saw a dead bird outside his Chicago office. To two people who don't believe in signs, it seemed like a sign.
The bird was not the reason we opted for the move, of course. But it seemed to take on greater significance as we tried to decide where we were going to live once we relocated.
With (then) five pets, renting wasn't an option. We had to buy — and buy quickly, because all seven of us were shoved into a two-bedroom flat in corporate housing. It was overwhelming, trying to figure out where we wanted to buy a home when we barely knew the area.
And we kept seeing dead birds.
In Springfield, outside the hotel where we stayed on our first visit. In Malvern, outside the corporate housing. In the attic of a home we were walking through. In the backyard of a home we nearly bought, until the inspection turned up proliferating mold.
It was unsettling. We began to wonder if we'd made the wrong decision.
And we were so sad about the birds! We love birds.
Then one day, we walked up to the house that would become our home, and we were welcomed by a bird.
Iain and I exchanged a glance. As we walked inside, I noticed the doorbell plate had hummingbirds on it.
Across the threshold was a house filled with bird decor. A key hook with pictures of birds, above which hung a framed print of geese in winter. A ceiling fan with a duck fob at the end of the chain. A small carving of a warbler affixed to a window frame. A glass sculpture of bluebirds. Large ceramic chickens on decorative shelving in the kitchen.
We walked out the back door into the expansive yard, with lots of room for Dudley and Zelly to run. There were a dozen birdhouses. More than that, there were countless birds chirping and singing and flying all over the yard.
Iain and I looked at each other. It was in every way a house we loved, and there were happy, thriving, alive birds everywhere!
That night, we decided to put in an offer. We learned that another offer had already come in, so along with our (full price) offer, I sent the owners a letter, telling them that we would promise to give the property as much love and care as they clearly had.
They accepted our offer.
Later, we met the former owners, who were a lovely older couple retiring to Florida. Their only reservation about leaving had been anxiety about whether the next owner would keep caring for the wild birds. They had been praying every day that the fates would send them buyers who would love the birds as much as they did.
We have taken care of the birds ever since. And I think they take care of us, too.
We certainly spend many happy moments together refilling their feeders, chirping back at them while we have coffee outside, and gazing at them from the windows.
And, for two people who don't believe in signs, we sure seem to keep getting messages from the birds.
Recently, we were sitting in the living room with a sales representative from a window company, about to make a very big financial decision. I turned and looked out the dining room window.
A Cooper's hawk was just sitting on the railing of the deck, peering at me through the window. "I'm sorry to interrupt," I said, cutting off the salesperson mid-sentence, "but there is a gorgeous hawk just sitting on the deck." Iain and the salesperson both clamored over to see, gasping at the sight.
I got up and slowly walked toward the window, where I was able to take the above photo. The hawk stayed put, then looked at me one last time before taking flight.
In the past few weeks, we've just finally finished the one room in our house with which we'd done nothing since moving in. It wasn't a conscious decision, but I realized, satisfiedly looking around the place upon its completion, that it was nonetheless an ode to the birds.
There are seven birds among the artwork and decor in the room: A tiny eagle, atop a vintage barometer; a pheasant embroidered in the design on some pillows; a glass swan; a wooden duck given to me on my birthday by Paul the Spud; a framed portrait of an owl; a statue of a dove; and Crow in Gesture 5, by Jason Tennant.
The previous owners left behind many of the birds for us: The welcome sign, the doorbell plate, the glass birds, the key hook and geese, the carving on the window frame.
They decided to take the chickens with them, but, after many visitors asked Iain and I why we kept referring to those particular shelves as the "chicken shelves," I got some vintage ceramic chickens of our own, and now it makes sense!
If you look closely, there are birds everywhere. A print in the entryway; an owl figurine on a shelf in the TV stand; Darth Vader releasing a dove in a print hanging above my desk.
And in the front yard, where crows caw for my attention so I'll throw them some peanuts; and in the backyard, where sparrows and chickadees and finches and grey catbirds and warblers and doves and robins and woodpeckers and cardinals and jays and bluebirds and cowbirds and all manner of wild birds congregate at the feeders.
We watch them from the window, talking about them with the names we've given the feeders. "Look at the cardinal at the church." "The sparrows are going bananas at apartment complex." "When the finch sock is empty, the finches head right for the highrise."
This place has been our home for a little less than three years now. We have been startled by the blood-curdling scream of a barn owl and marveled at the size of an eagle's nest in the top of the ancient tree in our front yard. We have added birdhouses and futilely tried to defeat the squirrels who steal the food. (Always a half-hearted effort, to be honest.) We have removed empty turtle shells left in the yard by littering hawks and welcomed geese onto our deck for dried corn during bitter snowstorms.
We have loved the birds, as they have always been loved in this place. And we have learned to really listen to them.
This place is for the birds. And happily so.
Suspected Russian Spy Discovered Working at U.S. Embassy in Moscow
[Content Note: Racism; sexism; sexual harassment.]
The United States Secret Service has been plagued by bad actors for many years. At the end of the Bush administration, a white Secret Service agent was fired after leaving a noose to be found by an African American agent. During the Obama administration, there was a series of Secret Service scandals: Partying with sex workers in Colombia; sexual harassment and other awful behavior; and wanton drunkenness.
In October 2014, Julia Pierson, the first woman to serve as director of the Secret Service, resigned after serving in the position for only 18 months — and after essentially being set up to fail: Brought in to be a female face for an agency getting a notorious reputation for being a boys-will-be-boys' club, but not given the resources to actually implement meaningful changes.
And, shockingly, firing a woman because she didn't magically solve an entrenched problem that existed long before her brief tenure didn't result in meaningful changes, either: Six months later, two senior agents, including the second-in-command on President Obama's protective detail, were under investigation for getting drunk and crashing a government car into a set of White House security barricades.
All of this is important background about the state of the Secret Service over the past decade — because it was the Secret Service who hired a Russian national who is now suspected of being a Russian spy, after working at the U.S. embassy in Moscow for years.
Nick Hopkins at the Guardian reports:
U.S. counter-intelligence investigators discovered a suspected Russian spy had been working undetected in the heart of the American embassy in Moscow for more than a decade, the Guardian has learned.Ah. So, are we to understand that the Secret Service first inexplicably hired a Russian national to work at the U.S. embassy, and then quietly fired her to cover up their own stupidity once they discovered she was almost certainly a spy, without even doing the most cursory probe into how she may have compromised U.S. national security?
The Russian national had been hired by the U.S. Secret Service and is understood to have had access to the agency's intranet and email systems, which gave her a potential window into highly confidential material including the schedules of the president and vice-president.
The woman had been working for the Secret Service for years before she came under suspicion in 2016 during a routine security sweep conducted by two investigators from the U.S. Department of State's Regional Security Office (RSO).
They established she was having regular and unauthorised meetings with members of the FSB, Russia's principal security agency.
The Guardian has been told the RSO sounded the alarm in January 2017, but the Secret Service did not launch a full-scale inquiry of its own. Instead it decided to let her go quietly months later, possibly to contain any potential embarrassment.
"The Secret Service is trying to hide the breach by firing [her]," the source said. "The damage was already done but the senior management of the Secret Service did not conduct any internal investigation to assess the damage and to see if [she] recruited any other employees to provide her with more information."There is much more at the link.
"Only an intense investigation by an outside source can determine the damage she has done."
Although the failure to launch a rigorous investigation into the spy's activities happened on Donald Trump's watch, the responsibility for this clusterfuck is shared by at least three presidents, from both parties, who continually kicked the can of accountability and meaningful reform down the road.
The Secret Service has needed a major kick in the pants since the George W. Bush administration, and possibly even earlier. But it hasn't happened.
And hasn't happened. And hasn't happened. And hasn't happened.
And now here we are.
The Privatization of Compassion
[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse.]
The Republican Party long ago abandoned any pretense of "compassionate conservatism," which was all the rhetoric rage during the Bush II era. Every last shred of decency had already been replaced by unmitigated greed by the time Donald Trump was elected, and he has cast aside conservative dogwhistles and thin veneers of virtue, unapologetically governing from a center of aggressive malice.
With not a trace of empathy left in the Republican platform or governance, the Trump Regime has now argued the time has come to privatize compassion.
I wish that were hyperbole, but it is not. How else to read this?
John Sepulvado at KQED News: In 'Remarkable' Court Filing, Government 'Washing Their Hands' of Reuniting Deported Parents with Their Children.
The Trump administration suggested in a federal court filing Thursday that the American Civil Liberties Union and other private organizations should take responsibility for reuniting more than 400 migrant children separated from parents deported under the government's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy.That is the privatization of compassion by a government of sociopaths and sadists.
The latest status report in the San Diego-based federal case that compelled the government to reunite separated families says the parents of 410 children are outside the United States — meaning they had been deported without their children, according to statements from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official last week. That number was revised down from 431 children on July 26 — the court's deadline for all reunifications to be completed.
"[ACLU Lawyers] should use their considerable resources and their network of law firms, NGO's, volunteers, and others, together with the information that [the U.S. government] ... provided (or will soon provide), to establish contact with possible class members in foreign countries," the Thursday government's filing says.
U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the government last week to work with the ACLU and come up with a plan to reunify those deported parents with their children. But Department of Justice attorneys had hinted for several days that they would not present a plan, according to the ACLU's lead attorney on the case.
"The court filing is remarkable," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said. "The government is washing their hands of it, and saying we'll try and do a little. They're saying, 'You all [the ACLU], find the parents.'"
The nation is being governed by a collection of people who are indifferent to the harm they cause in pursuit of their vile agenda, and people who get off on that harm. Among them, not a person who objects to this relentless cruelty is to be found.
And it shows.
Further to that, it feels like it. It feels good to their slavering supporters, and it feels like a living hell to the rest of us.
Chiefly to the families who have been torn apart by this administration.
Question of the Day
A three-parter, suggested by Shaker Angelfish: "If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what song would that be? If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what album would that be? If you could only listen to one artist or group for the rest of your life, who or what group would it be?"
1. "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, because it has the most different emotions packed into a single song, and if I'm only going to get one song, I need one that works for as many moods as possible!
2. 21 by Adele, because I just never, ever, get tired of those songs. There are certainly other albums that fit this bill, but that was the first one that popped into my head, and I could make an equally valid argument for each of them, lol, so I'm just going with 21.
3. Nina Simone, because Nina Simone.
#365feministselfie: Week 31
I am again participating in the #365feministselfie project, now in its fifth year, and promised a thread for others to share selfies and/or talk about the project, visibility generally, self-apprecation, and related topics. So here is a thread for Week 31!
A few of my selfies over the last week:
Please feel welcome and encouraged to share your own selfies in comments, or share your thoughts on the project, or solicit encouragement or advice, or do whatever else feels best for you to participate, if you are inclined to do so!
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Is a Propagandist
A friend of mine told me that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had "a fucking meltdown" during the press briefing today, being even more belligerent, evasive, and dishonest than usual.
Which is really saying something.
Twitter reinforces my friend's account of the spectacle.
I didn't see it. I never see the press briefings anymore. Because I don't watch them.
I'm neither judging nor am I criticizing any average person who chooses to watch them, and I certainly don't blame any political writer who is obliged by an employer to watch and report on them.
But I simply won't watch them any longer. I try not to even tweet about them, unless there's something legitimately newsworthy, which is exceedingly rare.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders is not providing any good information. It's nothing but lies and spin and attacks. She is a propagandist. That is her job. To disseminate propaganda for the Trump Regime.
And, the truth is, the press should refuse to fucking cover the press briefings unless they contain actual, truthful news.
Otherwise, they're just making themselves propagandists, too.
OMG SHOEZ
Listen, the news is tough, and we all need moments of escape from the horror to recuperate and prepare for the next onslaught, and I can talk about shoes all the livelong day, so welcome to the OMG SHOEZ thread.
Got a favorite pair of shoes you want to share? Bought a new pair about which you're super excited? Have a recommendation to make, or want to caution us away from a purchase you regret? Want to solicit suggestions for a specific event, a foot issue, an elusive something for which you've been hunting? Having trouble finding something particular on a budget? Have at it in comments!
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I have owned these shoes for almost a decade, and they still look and feel amazing.
In the original post about them, I wrote that I'd "been grocery shopping in these things, and suffice it to say that is not something I can normally do (or want to do!) in heels." When I took this picture the other day, I was at a Walgreens — which was one of a few stops that day. Still able to do a lot of walking around in them after all these years.
I've owned both heels and flats by Söfft, and every pair has been super comfortable and lasted me a very long time. They're definitely one of my favorite brands!
So, that's what up with me! What's up with you?
(As always: I am not affiliated with Kenneth Cole in any way, nor have I received anything in exchange for recommending their shoes. I just really like 'em! I'm also not affiliated in any way with nor receiving compensation from Shoes.com.)
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 560
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
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Earlier today by me: What a Discovery! Tad Devine Is Shady AF and Quote of the Day and This, Too, Is Collusion.
Here are some more things in the news today...
Ivanka Trump gave an interview or whatever, so now I'm seeing a bunch of headlines starting "Ivanka Trump Says..." Yeah. Here is all I have to say about that:
I don't GAF what Ivanka Trump has to say about anything. The absurd claim that this grifter was qualified for a high-level WH job because she would "moderate" her father has long been exposed as a farce. To the contrary, she endeavors to put a nicer face on his vile agenda. NOPE.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 2, 2018
She is irrelevant. The only thing she can do is provide "hope" to fools that Trump won't be a genocidal monster. And the only way she can do that is if the media pays attention to her. Which is why they shouldn't.
P.S. Ivanka Trump definitely isn't against her father being a genocidal monster.
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Diana Olick at CNBC: Housing Demand Sees Biggest drop in More Than 2 Years. "The long list of housing headwinds is finally taking its toll on potential buyers. Housing demand fell 9.6 percent in June, compared with June 2017, according to a monthly index from Redfin. That is the largest decline since April 2016. Red-hot home prices, rising mortgage interest rates, very few listings at the entry level, and a high rate of student loan debt have weighed on buyers for a while, but a strong economy and growing employment had mitigated those factors. Now, however, a market stalemate is developing as rates and prices continue to rise, further weakening affordability."
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] David Goldman at CNN Money: Two Recession Warning Signs Are Here.
Home sales have declined in four of the past five months as housing prices have grown — but paychecks have remained stagnant. Many people can't afford to buy homes, and those who can are taking on a lot of debt to get into them.Recently, I noted and now will reiterate for obvious reasons: "A recession, inflation, and a trade war. Anyone who needs big-ticket items in the near future, especially anything with steel or aluminum — a new car, major repairs, replacement windows, new kitchen or laundry appliances — and can afford to get them now might want to do it. I fear prices are going to go through the roof very soon." For whatever that's worth.
Piegza says that echoes what happened right before the Great Recession in 2008.
...Interest rates [are also] starting to become a bad omen.
The Federal Reserve, which is finishing up its two-day meeting Wednesday, is expected to raise its target rate two more times this year. Higher rates have boosted short-term U.S. Treasury bond rates. But the longer-term bond rates haven't risen along with the shorter-term rates, because investors are growing wary about the economy over the long haul.
With two more interest rate hikes planned, the Fed could boost short-term rates higher than long-term ones, inverting the so-called yield curve. An inverted yield curve has preceded every recession in modern history.
On a related subject: Jessica M. Goldstein at ThinkProgress: The 'Feel-Good' Horror of Late-Stage Capitalism. "In the feel-good feel-bad story, irrefutable proof of an institutional failure is sold as a celebration of individual triumph. And it's the desperate, cloying attempts to trumpet the latter as a means of obscuring the former that gives these pieces their distinct, acrid aftertaste. These headlines, and the stories beneath them, attempt to distract you by shouting, 'Look over here at this shiny act of kindness, bravery, and fortitude!' so that you do not turn to your left to notice and question the structures that made such kindness, bravery, and fortitude necessary in the first place."
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Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne at CNN: Iran Readying Massive Military Exercise in Persian Gulf, Officials Say. "Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard is expected to soon begin a major naval exercise that could demonstrate its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial conduit for global energy supplies, U.S. officials say. The exercise in the Persian Gulf could begin as soon as the next two days, according to two US officials directly familiar with the latest assessment of the Revolutionary Guard's troop movements." Okay, but are U.S. officials saying that because it's true and also presenting a real danger, or because the president wants a war with Iran?
Denis Pinchuk and Tom Balmforth at Reuters: Russia to Deploy Military Police on Golan Heights. "Russia will deploy its military police on the Golan Heights frontier between Syria and Israel, its defense ministry said on Thursday, after weeks of mounting volatility in the area. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's sweeping away of rebels in southwestern Syria has worried Israel, which believes it could allow his Iranian backers to entrench their troops close to the frontier. Underlining the tensions, Israel killed seven militants in an overnight air strike on the Syrian-held part of the Golan Heights, Israeli radio said on Thursday. Sergei Rudskoi, a senior Russian defense ministry official, said that Russian military police had on Thursday begun patrolling in the Golan Heights and planned to set up eight observation posts in the area."
"Concern among Russian elite that a new Iron Curtain, reminiscent of travel restrictions during Soviet times, has begun to descend." https://t.co/8cW8vWSv3q
— Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) August 1, 2018
Everything is fine. (Everything is not fine.)
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[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]
Richard Luscombe at the Guardian: 'It's Heartbreaking': Military Family Shattered as Wife of Decorated U.S. Marine Deported to Mexico. "On Friday, [nine-year-old Estela Juarez], an American citizen, will leave the only country she has ever known and board a plane to Mexico as U.S. officials enforce a deportation order against her mother, Alejandra. Her father, a former U.S. marine, national guardsman, and decorated combat veteran, will stay in Florida with Juarez's 16-year-old sister, Pamela. The breaking apart of American military families marks a new low point in Trump's war on immigration, some White House critics believe." Some White House critics and all decent people.
[CN: Death] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: A Child Is Among the Latest Migrants to Die Under Trump. "Over the span of several weeks, a senior woman and a child have died after being detained in federal immigration custody. These represent the latest in a series of deaths that have occurred since the Trump administration launched its "zero-tolerance" policy. The child's death was first reported on social media by Houston, Texas-based immigration attorney Mana Yegani, who tweeted that the child died after being released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, which is run by the private prison company CoreCivic. Advocates and attorneys working in the state confirmed with Rewire.News that the child died after being released from the facility. ...Rewire.News could not confirm the child's age; however, the Washington Post reported Wednesday she was a toddler."
[CN: Self-harm] Lauren Weber at the Huffington Post: Detainee Attempts Suicide After Trump Administration Jams Migrants into Troubled Prison. "A controversial federal prison complex in Victorville, California, that is currently housing roughly 800 immigration detainees despite infectious disease outbreaks and workers' concerns about inadequate medical care, is now facing another danger: Detainees at risk of dying by suicide. In the last week, one detainee has tried to kill himself, saying he was terrified he would be deported back to Cuba. Another was put on suicide watch after staffers noticed he couldn't stop crying, according to multiple staff members who requested anonymity to protect their jobs after employees were told not to speak to the press. This was the first suicide attempt and suicide watch for detainees at Victorville. Prison workers had been warning since the detainees' arrival that inadequate staffing and the resulting lack of proper care meant such risks were increasing."
Amanda Holpuch at the Guardian: 500 Detained Fathers and Sons to Go on Strike After Being Separated. "More than 500 migrant fathers and sons detained in Texas after being separated from each other for weeks and months have launched a strike against unfair conditions. The fathers plan to resist orders and refuse food at three sites at Karnes detention center, while the sons are set to refuse to participate in school activities. The demonstrators are asking U.S. officials to expedite their immigration cases because of the unjust conditions they face."
Sob.
* * *
Paul A. Eisenstein at NBC News: Trump Administration Revokes Obama-Era Fuel Economy Standards. "The White House announced Thursday that it is moving ahead on its much-anticipated plan to roll back the fuel economy mandate set by the Obama administration. The move is likely to mean fewer high-efficiency, zero-pollution cars on the road. The previous guidelines, which were reached during Obama's first term, call for automakers to each reach a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 — though with credits and other modifications, the actual figure is expected to wind up in the low to mid-40 mpg range. Thursday's announcement means the new standard is set at 37 mpg."
[CN: Wildfires] Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Wildfire Smoke: Experts Warn of 'Serious Health Effects' Across Western U.S.
As climate change helps push up the number of wildfires in the western U.S., communities face losing lives and properties to the flames. But another threat also looms large — dangerous exposure to wildfire smoke.[CN: Sexual assault] Kate Riga at TPM: Ex-Ohio State Wrestling Coach Pushed Jordan Accusers to Retract Statements. "Retired Ohio State University wrestling coach Russ Hellickson texted two former wrestlers, pushing them to reverse their statements accusing Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) of lying about his ignorance of rampant sexual assault on the team, according to a Wednesday NBC report. The two wrestlers — Dunyasha Yetts and Mike DiSabato — told NBC that the texts made it clear that Hellickson was acting at the behest of Jordan to shore up support."
Huge wildfires in California have killed at least six people and razed hundreds of homes. A pall of smoke has shrouded much of California and has wafted eastwards, with NASA satellites showing fingers of smoke billowing as far as Salt Lake City, Utah.
Much of the smoke from the two fires — near the city of Redding and another close to Yosemite national park — has remained close to ground level, prompting air quality warnings.
"A big wildfire event not only impacts local communities but also people hundreds of miles away," said Richard Peltier, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts. "Even if your home isn't being destroyed, and you think 'this isn't my problem,' you could suffer serious health effects."
[CN: Anti-Semitism; violence] David Ovalle at the Miami Herald: Nazi Enthusiast Who Tried to Torch Condo Committed Hate Crime Toward Jews, State Says. "Prosecutors have upgraded charges against an elderly man accused of trying to kill Jewish people by torching a Miami Beach condo building. Walter Edward Stolper, 72, was formally charged with attempted first-degree murder, arson, and possession of a destructive device. Because they believe he was acting with prejudice toward Jewish people, prosecutors added the 'hate-crime' enhancement, which means he faces stiffer penalties if convicted. Stolper faces life in prison if he is found guilty."
[CN: Anti-Blackness] Emily Williams at the Boston Globe: A Black Smith College Student Was Eating Her Lunch When an Employee Called Police. "The rising sophomore at Smith College was quietly eating her lunch in a campus common room when a police officer approached her Tuesday afternoon. A college employee had called police to report someone who 'seemed out of place' in a Smith building that was being used for a summer program. But when campus police arrived, they found a Smith student, taking a break from her campus job. There was 'nothing suspicious about the student's presence,' the school said in a statement released Wednesday about the incident, the latest example of police being called to investigate black people in everyday situations." STOP CALLING THE POLICE ON BLACK PEOPLE JUST LIVING THEIR LIVES FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
This, Too, Is Collusion
Oh for fuck's sake! "The Senate on Wednesday rejected a bid by Democrats to appropriate an additional $250 million in grants to individual states to bolster the security of their voting systems." https://t.co/CjIYKvRNjJ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 2, 2018
Let me be perfectly blunt here: There is a known and demonstrable ongoing threat from the Kremlin, who interfered in our last election and will certainly interfere in this one.
One might reasonably argue that they are already interfering, via a continuing campaign to exploit partisan divisions among the populace.
And the Russians are only interfering (thus far) on behalf of Republicans.
So the fact that Senate Republicans refuse to do anything to prevent that interference is itself collusion.
They know what has happened, they know what is happening, and they know what's going to happen, and they are actively blocking Senate Democrats' attempts to protect our elections from foreign interference that exclusively benefits their own party.
They are traitors. It's that simple.
Quote of the Day
"If standing up for women who have been wronged makes George Soros mad, that's on him. But I won't hesitate to always do what I think is right. For nearly a year, we have seen countless acts of courage as women and men have spoken hard truths about sexual assault and sexual harassment and demanded accountability. I stand with them in this new watershed moment of important change in our society on what we deem as acceptable. It is clear that we must put our morals and the valuing of women ahead of party loyalty." — Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, quoted by Amanda Terkel at the Huffington Post, in her terrific but infuriating piece, "Kirsten Gillibrand Pays the Price for Speaking out Against Al Franken."
Relatedly, my pal Dianna E. Anderson, who is a Minnesotan, published a great Twitter thread on this subject: "What this is, really, is a lot of people grasping for a reason to justify their misogyny. Plain and simple."
Indeed. What a depressingly familiar refrain.
What a Discovery! Tad Devine Is Shady AF
At the Washington Post, Dana Milbank has written a piece about Tad Devine: "The Deep Cynicism of Bernie Sanders's Chief Strategist." It's all about Devine's gross history of working for despots alongside Paul Manafort, for lots of money. And also working for Sanders, on a campaign ostensibly opposed to big money and establishment politics, for lots of money.
The information is solid. There's just one problem with the piece: If this information is important enough to write about now, it was sure as shit important enough for Milbank to write about while Sanders was running for president.
Milbank did write about Sanders hiring Devine during the campaign: In February 2016, he wrote an entire column on how Sanders isn't a revolutionary, but instead a pretty conventional politician — and cited as one example "his hiring of Tad Devine, a veteran of the Kerry and Gore campaigns, as a top adviser." Yes, Devine was indeed an adviser to Kerry and Gore, and the rest of his résumé was public then, too.
Milbank tries to justify his failure to do this basic vetting on Sanders' chief strategist by asserting that the Manafort trial has given us all some new insight into Devine, who was the prosecution's first witness: "Thanks to Robert S. Mueller III's prosecution of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman and sometime business associate of Devine, we now have an unusual glimpse into the role the Democratic ad man had in electing and preserving the power of Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych, a crooked pro-Putin autocrat."
That's just straight-up garbage. Devine's work on behalf of Yanukovych has not been a secret, nor has the immense amount of money Devine made working for Yanukovych and Sanders.
A year and a half ago, I wrote about Devine's collaboration with Manafort in Ukraine, and a month later tweeted about the exorbitant sums he earned working for Sanders (which I also noted many times during the campaign).
I've previously written about Devine continuing to work for Yanukovych even after his rival, Viktor Yushchenko, barely survived a poisoning attempt, obliging Yushchenko to "campaign with his face half paralysed and a catheter inserted into his back to inject painkillers into his spine."
And about how curious it is that Devine, with all his experience in Ukraine, which Putin uses as his own personal test lab, would be unfamiliar with the Kremlin's strategies; how truly extraordinary it would be if such a person did not see the proliferation of anti-Clinton disinformation on social media among his candidate's own supporters, especially as reports began to emerge about Russian interference, and did not even suspect that Russia was interfering on behalf of the Sanders campaign.
And about how perplexing it is that the campaign for which Devine served as chief strategist would abruptly adopt a policy of working with Russia in Syria that did not make sense then and does not make sense still, just like every other campaign of Hillary Clinton's chief rivals.
I was hardly the only person writing about this stuff: There were articles on much larger platforms, too, like Gabriel Debendetti's 2016 piece at Politico, "Inside Bernie's Wild Ride," and Eli Clifton's and Joshua Holland's 2016 piece at Slate, "Bernie's Fundraising Was Revolutionary; How He Spent His Money Was Not," the latter of which Milbank even links in his piece. And there were other people with exactly as few resources as I have who wrote about Devine when it really mattered, too.
Devine's background isn't news, and neither is the enormous amount of money he's made working for bad people, and neither is his questionable behavior working for Sanders, from being the person who convinced Sanders to run as a Democrat to railing against superdelegates, despite the fact that he "was instrumental in the creation of the superdelegate process."
It's possible, of course, that Milbank is only now finding out about Devine's shady dealings.
What's also possible is that Milbank knows damn well who Tad Devine is and what he's done, and knew it while Devine was working for Sanders. That would certainly explain why he inserted the lie that the Manafort trial exposed this history, which is manifestly false. It's possible that Milbank knew it, but didn't write about it then, because it would have discredited Sanders, and thus harm Hillary Clinton's most effective critic.
But maybe I'm being uncharitable again. Maybe Milbank didn't have any agenda regarding the candidate about whom he once "joked" that her beer of choice ought to be "Mad Bitch."
Maybe he really didn't know about Devine, or think his background was important until now — in which case, he's just super shitty at his job.
The press has got to do better. Though I'm singling out Milbank for criticism here, his piece is emblematic of what's broken across the landscape of the political press.
There is a midterm election coming up, and then the next presidential election will start immediately thereafter. And I am horrified (if entirely unsurprised) that the press has largely failed to learn any meaningful lessons from their catastrophic failures the last time around.
The press is constantly under attack from the sitting president, and his relentless stoking of his base's hostility toward the press endangers them. I am keenly aware of that sort of pressure, and what it means to have to work under the threat of harm. That's all the more reason why the press has to get this stuff right.
Dig the first time around. It should be abundantly clear by this point that there won't always be a second bite at the apple if we don't make the first one count.
