Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker lattendicht: "How ripe do you like your bananas?"
Barely! Just past green.
I will eat them nearly all the way to brown, but my preference is decidedly less ripened.
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by a babbling brook.
Recommended Reading:
Brian Kahn at Earther: [Content Note: Moving GIF at link] Hurricane Lane Could Make a Rare Landfall in Hawaii
Emma Betuel at Inverse: [CN: Bigotry; trauma] Trump Presidency Linked to Substance Use, Mental Health Issues Among Teens
Paddy Johnson at Gizmodo: Meet the Nuclear Weapons Nerds
Tim Vernimmen at Nautilus: The Self-Made Beauty of the Centriole
Adele Lim at Glamour: [CN: Racism] Crazy Rich Asians Is the Love Letter to My People I Never Had a Chance to Write
From the LA Sentinel at Good Black News: Taraji P. Henson Launches the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation to Provide Support Around Mental Health Issues in African-American Community
Kate Gardner at the Mary Sue: Mark Hamill Tweets Support for Co-Star Kelly Marie Tran After Her Powerful Op-Ed
(I linked Tran's op-ed at the top of yesterday's We Resist thread, ICYMI.)
Dorothy Snarker at Dorothy Surrenders: The Good Bloopers
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
I've Never...
This is like the drinking game, except without the drinking part, lol.
What is a notable work of fiction that you've never read, though it kind of seems like something you would have?
(I added the stipulation, which is of course entirely subjective, because there are presumably biebillions of great works of fiction each of us has never read, because there's only so much time in the day. And because I didn't want everyone's answer to be Moby Dick, lol j/k I know you've totally read Moby Dick or whatever.)
I'll start.
I've never read King Lear.
The Trump Regime Is Vile
[Content Note: Nativism; exploitation; descriptions of violence.]
Yesterday it was reported that the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old Iowan who disappeared while jogging a month ago, had been found in a cornfield, after the suspected killer led police to the site. My sincerest condolences to her family, friends, fellow students, and all the people who have been searching for her and hoping for her safe return.
The suspect in the case is 24-year-old Cristhian Bahena Rivera, whom police identified after viewing home surveillance video from the area in which Tibbetts was jogging, as indicated by her Fitbit. Rivera is reportedly an undocumented immigrant.
"Undocumented immigrants are considerably less likely to commit crime than native-born citizens, with immigrants legally in the United States even less likely to do so," but that hasn't stopped the Trump Regime from repeatedly justifying their nativist policies with lies about the criminality of undocumented immigrants.
In recent weeks, they have begun to push back on critics of their "zero tolerance" border policy which has resulted in unresolved family separations by framing undocumented immigrants who have taken the lives of citizens as having "permanently separated" grieving parents from their dead children.
The implication is that it's acceptable to tear children away from their parents who have committed no crime (it is not illegal to seek asylum at the U.S. border) because some number of undocumented immigrants have committed heinous crimes. Naturally, this is rank scapegoating and stereotyping: If the fact that a few members of any demographic group committed violent crime could be used to deny rights or safety or the basic good faith of being seen as individuals, we'd all be in trouble.
It doesn't take anything away from an undiluted condemnation of Rivera's despicable violence, for which he should absolutely be held accountable, to simultaneously acknowledge that he is an individual who committed that act, which itself is not representative of any community to which he belongs (aside from men who commit violence because of the entitlement nurtured by toxic masculinity).
Today, the Trump Regime took their obscene campaign to demonize the entirety of the undocumented immigrant community to another level, by releasing a video exploiting the discovery of Tibbett's body, featuring several relatives of people killed by undocumented immigrants gravely sharing their stories of being "permanently separated" from their loved ones.
For 34 days, investigators searched for 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts. Yesterday, an illegal alien, now charged with first-degree murder, led police to the cornfield where her body was found.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 22, 2018
The Tibbetts family has been permanently separated. They are not alone. pic.twitter.com/BBskwHEJoU
A woman looks at the camera and says, "We were permanently separated, not just for a week or a month." Another woman says, "I was at home when I got the phone call from the hospital." Another woman says, "He was hit head-on, by a repeat illegal alien criminal." Text onscreen informs us: "Their children were killed by illegal aliens in our country."
The video goes on like this, with each person telling us that they have been permanently separated from their loved one.
Their stories are terribly sad. I am so profoundly sorry for their losses.
And I am simultaneously upset that they are allowing their understandable feelings of rage and grief and sadness and whatever else they are feeling, possibly including hatred, to be misdirected at members of a community who bear no responsibility for that loss — and who are themselves largely seeking refuge from violence.
More than that, I am incandescently angry at the Trump Regime for exploiting their agony and using it to defend policies that are creating lasting trauma.
Keeping babies in cages would not have prevented any one of the crimes detailed in this video.
That is an indisputable fact. And it matters.
[Related Reading: Their Bootstraps Made Them Do It; This Is Very, Very Alarming; and Trump Doubles Down on "Animals" Comment; Members of His Administration Amplify the Eliminationism.]
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 580
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: Of Course This Happened and Will Cohen Spill the Beans on Trump? Maybe!
Here are some more things in the news today...
There is a “Michael Cohen Truth Fund,” and it has raised $30,132 in ten hours: pic.twitter.com/mMTkTsPlsq
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 22, 2018
Staff at the Daily Beast: Trump: Campaign-Finance Violations 'Not a Crime'. "After he opened with a gag Wednesday morning, [Donald] Trump got back on his usual Twitter warpath to claim that the campaign-finance violations he has been implicated in by longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen are not a crime. Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani previously insisted that collusion was 'not a crime.'" This is a strategy of authoritarians: Their contempt for the rule of law eventually segues into changing the law altogether so that their criminality (but not yours) is no longer criminal at all.
Giuliani, calling Post from golf course in Scotland, says he has spoken with POTUS today and deliberated over what it all means—Manafort, Cohen, etc. Says, optimistically, they believe Mueller “might be at the end now. He has to be winding down. What else is there? Near the end.”
— Robert Costa (@costareports) August 22, 2018
Oh, okay.
Carol D. Leonnig and Michelle Ye Hee Lee at the Washington Post: Trump's Company Approved $420,000 in Payments to Cohen, Relying on 'Sham' Invoices, Prosecutors Say. "Trump's real estate company authorized paying $420,000 to lawyer Michael Cohen in his effort to silence women during the presidential campaign and then relied on 'sham' invoices from Cohen that concealed the nature of the payments, according to legal filings released Tuesday. The payments began flowing in February 2017, soon after Trump took office, when Cohen approached Trump Organization executives seeking to be reimbursed for 'election-related' expenses, prosecutors said. ...The involvement of Trump's company in the hush-money payments has been previously reported, but Tuesday's documents, released as part of Cohen's plea deal with federal prosecutors, offered the most detailed accounting yet of the full scope of the payments and the machinations inside the president's company over how they were made."
* * *
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Donie O'Sullivan at CNN: DNC Calls FBI After Detecting Attempt to Hack Its Voter Database."The DNC was alerted in the early hours of Tuesday morning by a cloud service provider and a security research firm that a fake login page had been created in an attempt to gather usernames and passwords that would allow access to the party's database, the source said. The page was designed to look like the access page Democratic Party officials and campaigns across the country use to log into a service called Votebuilder, which hosts the database, the source said, adding the DNC believed it was designed to trick people into handing over their login details. The source said the DNC is investigating who may have been responsible for the attempted attack, but that it has no reason to believe its voter file was accessed or altered."
I think we all have a pretty damn good idea about who is responsible for the attack. Meanwhile...
Congress still has no earthly idea what Trump said to or agreed to with Kim or Putin. And they have basically given up on trying to find out. A truly remarkable piece from @desiderioDChttps://t.co/GuUbgE80j4
— Sam Stein (@samstein) August 22, 2018
In other election interference news... Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Is Using Federal Disability Law to Disenfranchise Minority Voters. "A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. ...The racial implications of the closures have generated significant attention. The county is over 61 percent black, and one of the polling locations that would be shuttered serves a precinct where more than 95 percent of voters are African American. Had the U.S. Supreme Court not gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the closures would most likely have been blocked by the Department of Justice."
Sam Levine at the Huffington Post: Georgia County Can't Back Up Its Excuse for Plan to Disenfranchise Black Voters. "Randolph County doesn't have a single recent report, analysis, or document supporting the idea that it needs to close seven of its nine polling places due to accessibility issues, a lawyer for the county told HuffPost on Tuesday in response to a public records request. HuffPost requested records from the county dating back to March 1, 2018. The county hired Michael Malone, an outside elections consultant now pushing for the closures, on April 2. But according to the county, it has no written record of evidence to back his recommendations. 'There is no document, report, or analysis studying the handicap accessibility of polling places in Randolph County and the cost of fixing them within the time frame specified in your open records request,' Hayden Hooks, an attorney with the firm Perry & Walters, which represents Randolph County, wrote in an email. The county has no record of such a document in the past year, Hooks added."
Again: Remember this, in case Stacey Abrams loses her bid for the governorship of Georgia and people try to argue it's because she didn't pander sufficiently to straight white cis men.
* * *
Laura Jarrett and Maeve Reston at CNN: Rep. Duncan Hunter and His Wife Indicted in Use of Campaign Funds for Personal Expenses. "Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter and his wife, Margaret, routinely — and illegally — used campaign funds to pay personal bills big and small, from luxury vacations to kids' school lunches and delinquent family dentistry bills, according to a stinging 47-page indictment unsealed Tuesday. The charges of wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations, and conspiracy were the culmination of a Department of Justice investigation that has stretched for more than a year, during which the Republican congressman from California has maintained his innocence." Whooooooops!
Amber Phillips at the Washington Post: 10 of the Ickiest Allegations in the Duncan Hunter Indictment. "What's perhaps most galling in the indictment is how the Hunters are alleged to have covered up their purchases: often, by claiming they were for charities, such as veterans' organizations. Hunter is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...When Hunter told his wife he needed to 'buy my Hawaii shorts,' but he was out of money, she allegedly told him to buy them from a golf pro shop so he could claim they were actually golf balls for wounded warriors. ...Margaret Hunter allegedly spent $152 on makeup at Nordstrom and told the campaign it was 'gift basket items for the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Diego.' ...They allegedly described the payment of their family dental bills as a charitable contribution to 'Smiles for Life.'"
One of the most amazing (and yet entirely unsurprising!) things in the indictment is that the Hunters tried to justify spending campaign funds on a family trip to Italy by touring a naval base there. Except that the base couldn't accommodate them at the time they wanted, so sitting congressman and veteran Duncan Hunter replied, "Tell the Navy to go fuck themselves." Wow.
Hunter isn't the only Republican making the news for revealing that Deeply Held Conservative PrinciplesTM are bullshit:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT https://t.co/mjELPYlGDO pic.twitter.com/PBqf50kjLa
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) August 22, 2018
Can I just please never hear any gobshite yammering nonsense in my face about the patriotism and/or morality of conservatives ever again? THX!
* * *
[CN: Nativism] Robert Moore at the Guardian: U.S. Immigration Officers Accused of Refusing Parole for Asylum Seekers.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are ignoring a court order that says they must end a practice of blanket refusal to allow asylum seekers to go free while courts decide their fate, several detainees and their lawyers say.Huh. I guess that precipitous plummet just happened by magic then!
U.S. District Judge James E Boasberg of Washington D.C. issued an injunction in July that said ICE must decide whether to grant "humanitarian parole" to asylum seekers by examining each individual case, in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) earlier this year.
Before the Trump administration, more than 90% of people who applied for asylum at U.S. ports of entry were granted parole, which allowed them to live and work in the United States while their request was considered.
But at five ICE field offices covered by the ACLU lawsuit, virtually no paroles were granted after Trump took office, even though administration officials said there had been no change in parole policy, lawyers said.
Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica: Verizon Throttled Fire Department's "Unlimited" Data During California Wildfire. "Verizon Wireless' throttling of a fire department that uses its data services has been submitted as evidence in a lawsuit that seeks to reinstate federal net neutrality rules. 'County Fire has experienced throttling by its ISP, Verizon,' Santa Clara County Fire Chief Anthony Bowden wrote in a declaration. 'This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services. Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.'" JFC!!!
[CN: Trans hatred]
Vermont’s transgender gubernatorial candidate says she’s been getting a steady stream of death threats. https://t.co/Ey9tr062B1 via @NBCOUT
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 22, 2018
[CN: War on agency] Katelyn Burns at Rewire.News: 'We Can Stop Him': Reproductive Health Advocates Urge Action to Stop Brett Kavanaugh's Confirmation. "Brett Kavanaugh's ascension to the U.S. Supreme Court is not inevitable. That was the overriding message made to hundreds of people at the latest installment of the #RiseUpforRoe tour stop in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. ...'The first lie is that we don't know what Kavanaugh will do on Roe v Wade. The second lie is that we can't stop him; we can stop him,' said Jess McIntosh, during the evening's programming. 'Remember we've had some victories; we stopped the repeal of the Obamacare. We did that. And we did that without having either chamber of Congress or the White House, the exact scenario that we're in now. And we did it by flooding the Senate phone lines.'"
It helps to have some Democratic Senators on board and making noise, and we surely do:
I have cancelled my meeting with Judge Kavanaugh. @realDonaldTrump, who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter, does not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with his nominee—purposely selected to protect, as we say in Hawaii, his own okole.
— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) August 22, 2018
I will not take a meeting with Brett Kavanaugh. He has been nominated by someone implicated, and all but named as a co-conspirator, in federal crimes.
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) August 22, 2018
His nomination is tainted and should be considered illegitimate.
In light of yesterday’s events, the Senate should delay hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. There must be checks and balances on this President.
— Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (@SenatorShaheen) August 22, 2018
Judge Kavanaugh’s refusal to say a POTUS must comply w a duly issued subpoena & Mr Cohen’s implication of POTUS in a federal crime make the danger of Kavanaugh's nomination to the SCOTUS abundantly clear.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 22, 2018
It's a game changer & Chairman Grassley should delay confirmation hearings
I mean, it's not really a game changer, Chuck, but thanks for catching up or whatever! Let's do this!
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
What I'm Watching
This is a thread to share all the good things you're watching at the moment, or have recently watched. Serialized shows on broadcast or streaming; films; digital shorts; stand-up; documentaries; performances — whatever! Tell us what you're watching and enjoying these days.
I just watched two movies that I think a lot of y'all might also enjoy:
1. Netflix's original film To All the Boys I've Loved Before, a teen rom-com based on Jenny Han's bestselling YA novel of the same name. If you are a big rom-com head like I am, I feel fairly confident that you will love it as much as I did, which is A LOT.
2. Melissa McCarthy's latest, now available for rental, Life of the Party. I didn't catch this while it was in the theater, but I just rented it, not expecting much, to be honest — so I was pleasantly surprised by how good it is! It's funny and sweet, with some unexpectedly solid stuff on parent-daughter boundaries.
Also: Gillian Jacobs, whom I know from Love and some of you might know from Community, is so fucking great in it. Melissa McCarthy is the ultimate scene-stealer; here, she's the star, and Jacobs manages to steal some scenes from the GOAT. Legend.
In other news, since I wrote about GLOW last time, I'm excited to report that it's been renewed for a third season! Yay!
Anyway! What are you watching these days?
Will Cohen Spill the Beans on Trump? Maybe!
Last night, Lanny Davis, the attorney for Michael Cohen who is the former attorney of Donald Trump and who struck a plea deal with federal investigators yesterday, appeared on Rachel Maddow's show, where he said the following about his client:
"I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows — not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."That has understandably caused a lot of excitement in the political press and among lots of people who hope that Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation will lead to the disempowering of Donald Trump and his regime of corrupt traitors.
Davis added that Cohen is "now liberated to tell truth — everything about Donald Trump that he knows."
Once again, I just want to urge caution regarding our expectations here, for a couple of reasons.
First, Cohen's plea agreement did not include any requirement of cooperation. That doesn't mean he won't cooperate, especially when his attorney is on television teasing the possibility that he will. But his cooperation has not been legally secured, and thus it is not guaranteed.
Which means that his attorney's tantalizing suggestion could be serving as a threat to Trump. If Trump has something on Cohen, Davis could be communicating with the president through his favorite medium that he'd better keep a lid on it — unless he wants Cohen to spill the beans.
Second, even if Cohen is suddenly on the up-and-up now that the feds have his future in a vice, and even if he does testify to every single piece of dirt he's got on Trump, and even if some of that dirt constitutes lawbreaking, it remains frustratingly likely that it won't matter.
Mueller cannot indict the president. (We also have no indication that he would want to do that, even if he could.) He is tasked with an investigation with a limited scope, and, as it regards the president, if at all, he will be (presumably, at some point) producing a confidential report for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who then decides whether the report will be released to the public in full or with redactions or not at all. If that report includes a recommendation for impeachment, then the majority party in Congress takes that recommendation under advisement but is under no legal obligation to take any action.
As long as Republicans remain the majority party, and they are working hard (in collaboration with at least one foreign state) to ensure that they do, we are depressingly dependent on Congressional Republicans agreeing to do the right thing and hold their president accountable, based on anything Mueller recommends, based on anything Cohen says.
That's a lot of layers of implausibility to get through to reach Trump.
Again, it's hard to avoid accusations of being — and hard not to feel like — a "downer" for speaking the grim truth. I struggle with it all day every day. But my job is understanding and conveying the mechanics of what's happening and what is reasonable to expect based on those mechanics. I would be failing you if I encouraged you to false hopes.
Just hope that I am wrong.
And remember as always: News that the investigation is proceeding is good! So, be optimistic, but don't misunderstand that this news means that a particular outcome is any more likely than another because we want it to be so.
Of Course This Happened
All the mirthless laughter in the multiverse. https://t.co/UIvpBDSrJv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 22, 2018
Of course the deplorables are still chanting "LOCK HER UP" two years after the election. Of course they chanted it on the day that Paul Manafort was convicted and Michael Cohen struck a deal. Of course they did.
What is this — a country where we're not living in a cuckoo clock? That isn't being run by some of the worst human beings on the planet? Where it's not acceptable to call for the imprisonment of dissidents? LOL.
*jumps into Christmas tree*
*screams*
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Kathy_A: What's your earliest moviegoing memory?
My earliest moviegoing memory is being dressed up in my footie pajamas and carried out to the backseat of my parents' car with a couple of toys and books to keep me occupied, until I fell asleep while they took in a movie at the drive-in.
It was a pretty ingenious way for young parents to have a night out without having to pay a babysitter, and I have fond, if vague, memories of drifting off to sleep across the bench seat of the car to the sounds of a drive-in movie, pumped through a crackly speaker affixed to the driver's side window.
This, of course, was long before the days of carseats for older toddlers. And radio-broadcast drive-ins. And Netflix. LOL.
Manafort Guilty on 8 Counts; Mistrial on the Other 10
Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chair, has been found guilty on 8 of the 18 counts with which he was charged. The jury found him guilty on 5 counts of tax fraud, 2 counts of bank fraud, and 1 count of failing to file a foreign bank account.
On the remaining 10 charges, the extraordinarily biased Judge T.S. Ellis III declared a mistrial, after the jury could not come to an agreement regarding guilt.
Here is Manafort's attorney Kevin Downing thanking Judge Ellis and the jury after the verdict:
Paul Manafort's attorney reacts to the verdict. https://t.co/a2rvE8kY7g pic.twitter.com/MOqYGdqV5M
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 21, 2018
He would like to thank Judge Ellis for granting him a fair trial; thank the jury for their very long and hard-fought deliberations. He is evaluating all of his options at this point. Thank you, everyone.Naturally, prosecutors will be evaluating all of their options at this point, too. We will surely find out soon — reportedly by next Wednesday — whether they will retry Manafort on the 10 charges on which no verdict was delivered. That's also dependent on whether Manafort decides to make a plea agreement on those charges, of course.
[walks away as reporters shout questions]
Meanwhile:
Trump has a rally tonight. I suspect it's going to be a bigger shitshow than usual.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 21, 2018
There is probably a startlingly high probability that Trump will just completely go off-script and announce that he's pardoning Manafort.
Anyway. Lock him up, or whatever.
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!
* * *
I have previously mentioned that I love Neutrogena products because I have very fussy, extremely sensitive, combination skin, which is prone to break-outs, and Neutrogena has always been reliably non-aggravating.
Well, this past Friday, my skin was feeling a bit dry after getting back in the pool last week, so I tried their Hydro Boost Hydrating 100% Hydrogel Mask AND I LOVED IT SO MUCH.
Three bucks, y'all! Three. Bucks.
This thing did way more for my skin than masks which cost a helluva lot more. And three days later, my skin still feels very nourished. At $3, I can afford to make this a weekly ritual, and I do believe I will!
Also: As a quick update, I have been using the Becca lip gloss by Chrissy Teigen in Beach Nectar that Catvoncat bought for me a lot the past couple of weeks, and I still really dig it. It's definitely becoming my go-to, so an extra thumbs-up, in case you're looking for a new gloss to try out.
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!)
* * *
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.
Cohen Strikes Plea Deal
Or will do, shortly. Kara Scannell, Shimon Prokupecz, Laura Jarrett, and Erica Orden at CNN report:
Michael Cohen, [Donald] Trump's former personal attorney, has surrendered to the FBI ahead of a 4 p.m. court proceeding, where the government is expected to disclose a plea deal, according to a law enforcement source.Oh.
As part of the deal, Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of campaign finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud, according to three sources. The deal would include jail time and a substantial monetary fine.
...As part of the plea deal under discussion earlier Tuesday, Cohen was not expected to cooperate with the government, one source told CNN.
When it was reported last week that George Papadopoulos did not cooperate but was still getting sentenced to a mere 0-6 months, I wrote: "I have repeatedly expressed (to no small amount of pushback) concerns about the urgency and purpose of Mueller's investigation. Nothing I've seen today has disabused me of those concerns."
Rinse and repeat.
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 579
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: Hillary Is Back — and So Is Garbage Press About Her and #PrisonStrike and "It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict, and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putin's authoritarian regime."
Here are some more things in the news today...
Let's start with some GOOD resistance news!
"You might know me as Kelly.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 21, 2018
I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a 'Star Wars' movie.
I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair.
My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started."
🔥🔥🔥https://t.co/o8JXcH55av
LOVE. HER.
Jane Stancill at the News & Observer: Protesters Topple Silent Sam Confederate Statue at UNC. "The monument was ripped down after 9:15 p.m. Earlier in the evening, protesters covered the statue with tall, gray banners, erecting 'an alternative monument' that said, in part, 'For a world without white supremacy.' Protesters were apparently working behind the covering with ropes to bring the statue down, which happened more than two hours into a rally. It fell with a loud clanging sound, and the crowd erupted in cheers. After Silent Sam tumbled to the ground, people darted in and out of the crowd through a haze from smoke bombs. Atop the statue someone placed a black cap that said, 'Do It Like Durham,' an apparent reference to the toppling of a Confederate statue there a year ago." Right on!
BREAKING NEWS: Silent Sam is down! Protesters have toppled the controversial statue on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. #WRAL pic.twitter.com/JLOAERUI5P
— WRAL NEWS in NC (@WRAL) August 21, 2018
And finally: An important action in protest of Donald Trump's nativist agenda... Alfonso Serrano at Colorlines: Immigrant Caravan to Travel from L.A. to D.C. to Protest End of Deportation Protections.
A caravan of immigrants protesting the termination of deportation protections by the Trump administration began a 12-week journey on Friday (August 17) that will take them from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C.
...On the steps of Los Angeles City Hall on Friday, city leaders and immigration advocates rallied against the administration's deportation policies and announced the TPS Journey for Justice Caravan, led by National TPS Alliance, the Central American Resource Center, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is eyeing a 2020 presidential run, was among those who underlined the fate of TPS holders and helped launch the 12-week caravan that will lead immigrants through dozens of cities before descending on Washington, D.C.
"Let me start with a message for every TPS holder in Los Angeles," said Garcetti, per the Los Angeles Times. "We will stand with you and we will fight for you. Because Los Angeles is a city where everyone belongs and you belong here at home."
* * *
The Manafort jury has submitted this question to the judge: What if we cannot come to a consensus for a single count? @MSNBC reports
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 21, 2018
Judge Ellis asked the jury to go back and continue to deliberate, and if they still could not reach a consensus on that single count (we still don’t know which it is) then he will ask where they stand on the other 17 counts. https://t.co/h8eeQUJKl2
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 21, 2018
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[Content Note: Nativism; family separation] Juan Luis GarcÃa Hernández, PÃa Flores, David Yaffe-Bellany, and Jay Root at the Texas Tribune: "Where Is My Son?": A Migrant Father Was Deported in May; His Son Is Still in a Texas Shelter. In early May, David Xol and his 7-year-old son Byron "travelled through Mexico for three days in a wooden crate stowed in the back of a tractor trailer..."
When they reached the U.S. border in mid-May, Xol and Byron crossed the Rio Grande on a raft and were apprehended by Border Patrol officers, at the height of the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy.Rage seethe boil.
A few days later, at the processing center, Xol was separated from Byron. "Don't worry, son, it's all part of the journey," he said as he was led away in shackles. On May 21, Xol pled guilty to illegal entry in a mass trial at the federal courthouse in McAllen. When he returned to the processing center, immigration officials informed him that under "the new law signed by [Donald] Trump," he wouldn't see Byron again anytime soon.
"Your son is going to the U.S. and you to Guatemala," he said the officials declared as they handed him an immigration document. "Sign, because if you don't, you are going to be sent to Guatemala anyway."
Xol, 27, begged the officials to let him stay in the country with Byron — or at least to deport them together. But when they wouldn't budge, he finally relented, signing a form the Americans described to him as his own deportation order — all of it written in English, which he doesn't understand. He was deported to Guatemala on May 28.
"To not cause any problems, I signed," he said in Spanish in an interview earlier this month. "I am the type of person who, if you tell me to do something, I complete it."
Nearly three months later, Byron remains in a shelter in Baytown, east of Houston, where about once a week he calls his mother, pleading with her in their native Q'eqchi' — a Mayan language spoken in the Americas since long before the Spanish conquest — to send him back to his family in Guatemala.
Neither the U.S. nor the Guatemalan government offered an explanation for the family's continued separation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on the case. Brian Marriott, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a network of shelters where thousands of immigrant children are held, said the agency's "focus is always on the safety and best interest of each child" and that the government is "working rapidly to reunify children and their parents." He declined to comment on Byron's case.
[CN: Nazism] Josh Marshall at TPM: Righteous Act; Malign Purpose. "Early this morning, ICE deported 95-year-old Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi SS guard at a labor camp in German-occupied Poland, to Germany. ...Palij joins a small but shameful list of one-time US citizens whose Nazi pasts were exposed and who were eventually stripped of their citizenship and deported. (One of the most notorious was John Demjanjuk.) But in this case, while the deportation is a righteous act, it is not hard to see a malign political motive in the White House's press campaign surrounding the deportation. ... The DHS recently formed a 'denaturalization task force' which has been tasked with reviewing the histories of naturalized U.S. citizens to see whose citizenship can be revoked and deported. ...Few of us would disagree that former Nazis who participated in war crimes should not be given refuge or citizenship in the U.S. But denaturalization is extreme and fraught device which should be employed only in the most extreme circumstances. There are very few Nazi war criminals left. ...[It's clear the White House] is using Palij's story to troll for denunciations of other U.S. citizens for denaturalization and deportation."
Related Reading: New Federal Office Established to Strip Citizenship and Trump's War on Immigrants Continues Apace.
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Jonathan Watts at the Guardian: Arctic's Strongest Sea Ice Breaks up for First Time on Record. "The oldest and thickest sea ice in the Arctic has started to break up, opening waters north of Greenland that are normally frozen, even in summer. This phenomenon — which has never been recorded before — has occurred twice this year due to warm winds and a climate-change driven heatwave in the northern hemisphere. One meteorologist described the loss of ice as 'scary.'"
Lisa Friedman at the New York Times: E.P.A.'s New Coal Pollution Rules Will Lead to More Deaths, Agency's Numbers Show. "The Trump administration on Tuesday made public the details of its new pollution rules governing coal-burning power plants, and the fine print includes an acknowledgment that the plan would increase carbon emissions and lead to up to 1,400 premature deaths annually. The proposal, the Affordable Clean Energy rule, is a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was an aggressive effort to speed up the closures of coal-burning plants, one of the main producers of greenhouse gases, by setting national targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and encouraging utilities to use cleaner energy sources like wind and solar. The new proposal, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, instead seeks to make minor on-site efficiency improvements at individual plants and would also let states relax pollution rules for power plants that need upgrades, keeping them active longer."
Brian Kahn at Earther: Can We Afford to Keep Rebuilding in the Line of Wildfires? "California has been at the epicenter of a fiery crisis over the past year as everything from iconic locales like Wine Country to interstate towns like Redding burn. More generally, across the West towns small and large have been decimated by wildfires in recent years thanks to rising temperatures, more human-sparked fires, and more humans living in harm's way. It raises an uncomfortable question that coastal residents, policymakers, and insurance underwriters have been forced to grapple with in recent years: Is it worth it to build (or rebuild) in a landscape primed for explosive fires? The answer — for now — is yes, but that calculus could change as rising temperatures and more frequent droughts conspire to make the forest a riskier place to live."
John Tibbetts and Chris Mooney at the Washington Post: Sea Level Rise Is Eroding Home Value, and Owners Might Not Even Know It. "Boineau is one of many homeowners on the front lines of society's confrontation with climate change, living in houses where rising sea levels have worsened flooding not just in extreme events like hurricanes, but also heavy rains and even high tides. Now, three studies have found evidence that the threat of higher seas is also undermining coastal property values as home buyers — particularly investors — begin the retreat to higher ground."
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I Just Hacked a State Election. I’m 17. And I’m Not Even a Very Good Hacker. #Midterms #MidtermElections #hacking #DemocracyInDanger #democracyhttps://t.co/ceeGx9RZJY
— Chris Sampson (@TAPSTRIMEDIA) August 21, 2018
[CN: Police misconduct; racism] Kia Morgan Smith at the Grio: Police Use Stun Gun on Black Father as He Holds onto His Two-Month-Old Baby. "Westland Police Chief Jeff Jedrusik said that a confrontation with Ray Brown resulted in the father being stunned with several volts of electricity while holding his baby because he allegedly was being 'aggressive' and uncooperative when police approached. ...In a video, Brown can be seen, holding the baby while officers order him to give the baby to its mother. Police said that Brown refused causing them to react. Brown was stunned with the taser while holding the child, but the mother, Nichole Skidmore, was close enough to grab the baby as the infant fell from the father's arms. Thankfully, the baby wasn't hurt. ...After the cellphone video of the incident was posted, Westland police are now being heavily criticized on how they handled the situation."
[CN: War on agency] Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Rand Paul Introduces Amendment to Cut Planned Parenthood Funding. "Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is continuing his years-long crusade against Planned Parenthood, filing an amendment to a massive Senate appropriations bill last week that would cut federal funding from the organization, as well as others that perform abortion procedures. ...The amendment would bar any clinics that perform abortions — except in cases where pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if the abortion-seeker's life is in danger due to the pregnancy — from receiving federal funds." The Hyde Amendment already prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion procedures, so this is a bill that would deny federal funding for other healthcare services if they are provided in a facility that also performs the healthcare service of abortion. It's a direct attack on (primarily) women's healthcare.
[CN: Trans hatred] Caitlin Emma at Politico: Transgender Students Asked Betsy DeVos for Help; Here's What Happened. "After his graduation in 2017 Howe filed a complaint with federal civil rights officials at the Department of Education, hoping to ease the way for other transgender students at his school to use the bathrooms of their choice. But an examination of federal records by Politico shows that his complaint is one of at least five involving transgender students denied bathroom access that was thrown out by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has halted such investigations. Another transgender student interviewed by Politico and also speaking publicly for the first time said his bathroom-related complaint hasn't been dismissed, but his case has stalled for three years."
Esther Wang at the Slot: Congratulations to Scott Pruitt on His $43,000 Phone Call. "Remember shameless grifter and former Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt's $43,000 phone booth, which he argued was 'necessary for me to be able to do my job?' It turns out that he made only one, five-minute phone call to the White House from the safety of that phone booth, according to a new report from the Washington Post. The existence of this call, which happened on January 29, came to light as part of a Sierra Club lawsuit. An EPA spokesperson declined to tell the Post what the call was about. According to acting EPA administrator and former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, the lightly used phone booth is still in his office, sitting there like a turd."
One turd in an entire bowl full of 'em.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
"It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict, and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putin's authoritarian regime."
Following their successful interference in the 2016 election, naturally the Russians did not merely call it a day and retreat to enjoy their success. To the absolute contrary, they have been emboldened by the comprehensive lack of accountability for undermining the U.S. democracy.
Elizabeth Dwoskin and Craig Timberg at the Washington Post: Microsoft Says It Has Found a Russian Operation Targeting U.S. Political Institutions.
A group affiliated with the Russian government created phony versions of six websites — including some related to public policy and to the U.S. Senate — with the apparent goal of hacking into the computers of people who were tricked into visiting, according to Microsoft, which said Monday night that it discovered and disabled the fake sites.There is much more at the link.
The effort by the notorious APT28 hacking group, which has been publicly linked to a Russian intelligence agency and actively interfered in the 2016 presidential election, underscores the aggressive role that Russian operatives are playing ahead of the midterm elections in the United States.
...Among those targeted were the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank active in investigations of corruption in Russia, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonprofit group that promotes democracy worldwide.
..."This apparent spear-phishing attempt against the International Republican Institute and other organizations is consistent with the campaign of meddling that the Kremlin has waged against organizations that support democracy and human rights," said Daniel Twining, IRI's president, who blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin. "It is clearly designed to sow confusion, conflict, and fear among those who criticize Mr. Putin's authoritarian regime."
Not only is Russia waging a war on our democracy, but now the Kremlin is waging a war on dissidents and critics within our borders. This cannot be tolerated. And it wouldn't be, if the United States president wasn't a puppet of Vladimir Putin and the Republican Party a collection of reprehensible traitors.
But to members of the GOP, Russian interference in U.S. elections is a literal joke:
The Republican Party, folks. "By the way, the Russians are going to help me with Tom Wolf. If I have to use Paul Manafort, I will."—PA state Sen. Scott Wagner, the Republican challenger of Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. Terrific "joke." https://t.co/uBngqPxCvG
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) August 21, 2018
We are not going to have free and fair midterm elections, and the people in charge aren't going to do anything about it, because they will be ousted from power if they do.
#PrisonStrike
Today begins a prison strike across the United States, launching what is planned to be nineteen days of peaceful resistance organized by prisoners and organizations that support them, in protest of inhumane conditions in the U.S. prison system.
The strike is being spearheaded by incarcerated members of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a group of prisoners providing mutual help and legal training to other inmates. A few days ago they released an anonymous statement setting out their reasons for calling a protest that carries the risk of substantial penal retaliation.Prison Strike 2018 has issued a list of 10 demands, which include the immediate end to prison slavery, the end of the death penalty and lifetime sentencing without the possibility of parole, and the restoration of voting rights for all currently or formerly incarcerated people.
"Fundamentally, it's a human rights issue," the statement said. "Prisoners understand they are being treated as animals. Prisons in America are a warzone. Every day prisoners are harmed due to conditions of confinement. For some of us it's as if we are already dead, so what do we have to lose?"
...Inmates who join the action know that they face potentially serious consequences. Participants face being placed individually into isolation cells, while past prison strikes have been met with lockdowns of entire institutions.
Communications too are certain to be blocked, leading potentially to a blackout of news on the protest.
According to prison reform activists engaged in planning the strike, retaliatory measures have already started. Karen Smith, who runs the Gainesville, Florida chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee that is backing the strike, said that prison authorities have moved most of the local strike organisers into solitary confinement wings where they will be unable to communicate with others.
"Other inmates have been warned that if they continue to contact advocacy groups they will be moved to the most brutal camps."
...This year's strike was triggered by the riot at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina in April in which seven inmates died in what was the most deadly prison unrest in a quarter of a century. The bloody melee, fueled by gang rivalry over contraband, lasted for seven hours while prison guards did next to nothing to stop it.
Within days of the South Carolina carnage, and the renewed spotlight it put on the gross overcrowding, understaffing, and inhumane living conditions in American prisons, the idea of a nationwide strike began to form.
At the links, you will also find action items to support the strike and/or to support the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.
I am a prison abolitionist. As long as we have prisons, I fervently take up space in solidarity with the striking prisoners advocating for their rights, dignity, and humanity.
Follow #PrisonStrike on Twitter to learn more and follow the protests.
Hillary Is Back — and So Is Garbage Press About Her
I can't decide which is my favorite paragraph in this NBC News piece by Heidi Przybyla about Hillary Clinton returning to the political fray to fundraise on behalf of Democratic candidates.
This one:
Clinton, the former secretary of state whose stunning loss to Republican Donald Trump in 2016 led to widespread criticism of her campaign strategy and message, has maintained a fairly low profile over the past year and a half.Or this one:
"The longer a scandal-plagued Hillary Clinton lingers in American politics, the worse off House Democrats will be," said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.I mean, obviously the first one is terrific in its complete disregard of EVERYTHING WE KNOW AT THIS POINT ABOUT WHY DONALD TRUMP WON THE 2016 ELECTION, but the second one is so great because if there's one thing Hillary Clinton definitely needs to do, it's take advice from some dipshit at the NRCC.
*jumps into Christmas tree*
*screams*
