Suggested by Shaker DesertRose: "What is your favorite family recipe?"
My grandmother's homemade noodles. The secret is to cut the dough into noodles first and then let them rest on brown paper grocery bags, which you've carefully cut along the folds so you can open them and lie them flat on your dining room table.
Question of the Day
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by wheezing.
Recommended Reading:
Monica Roberts at TransGriot: Happy International Pronouns Day!
Lizzie Presser at the California Sunday Magazine: [Content Note: Domestic violence; nativism] Safe House: A Group of Latina Women Have Turned Their Homes into Shelters for Abused Immigrant Women
Ellen O'Connell Whittet at BuzzFeed: [CN: Injury; misogyny; hostility to consent; rape culture] Is There Such a Thing as Ballet That Doesn't Hurt Women?
Mira Jacob with Nicole Chung at Lit Hub: "Adoptees Have So Rarely Gotten to Tell Their Own Stories"
Priya Krishna at Bon Appetit: How Dunkin' Donuts Shaped My Parents' New Life in America
Britt Peterson at Nautilus: [CN: Animal harm; discussion of anxiety] Can a Cat Have an Existential Crisis?
Princess Weekes at the Mary Sue: [CN: Rape culture] Javier Bardem Is Still Willing to Work with Woody Allen
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
* * *
I have been cooking nothing but chicken stews in the crockpot while I've been sick, because chicken stew is all I want and because the crockpot is so easy that it takes hardly any energy.
(Iain would, of course, happily pick something up for dinner, but, like I said, chicken stew is what I've been craving.)
My favorite of the random combinations I've been tossing in the slow cooker every day was chicken breasts, potatoes, and leeks. To that, I just added chicken stock; some diced onions, carrots, and celery; and some spices — and wow was that a satisfying dinner! Yum.
Daily Dose of Cute
her prime position directly beside me on the sofa.
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 636
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 Latest on Jamal Khashoggi and And Right on Cue, Another Promise That Mueller Will Deliver Soon.
Here are some more things in the news today...
The Associated Press did a wide-ranging interview with Donald Trump, during which, as usual, he said a bunch of alarming shit, much of which is garnering headlines, but what you may not have heard already is the exchange with which the interview opened:
Donald Trump: How is the business of the news? We're keeping you busy?Trump has moved the goalposts so far so quickly that it no longer warrants comment in the political press that he's stating with absolute certainty that he will be reelected in 2020.
AP: Yes, sir, you are.
AP: Thank you for doing this.
Trump: What are you going to do in 6½ years with a normal boring person here?
AP: It has certainly been a busy two years.
Trump: It's going to be different, going to be different.
Lots of presidents before him have spoken with brash confidence about their reelection, but none have openly colluded with a foreign adversary to undermine our democracy in order to win the presidency in the first place.
That he said it is chilling; that he said it and it hasn't even made a blip in the news cycle is utterly horrifying.
* * *
[Content Note: Hurricane; death; displacement] Brian Snyder at Reuters: More Than a Thousand Remain Missing a Week After Hurricane Michael. "More than a thousand people were still missing on Wednesday a week after Hurricane Michael flattened communities across the Florida Panhandle, killing at least 27. Teams made up of hundreds of volunteers with the Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue organization were searching for more than 1,135 people in Florida who lost contact with friends and family, [said] Matthew Marchetti, co-founder of Houston-based CrowdSource Rescue. Most of those missing are from Panama City and many are elderly, disabled, impoverished, or live alone, Marchetti said. ...Debris, downed trees, and power lines have hampered access to stranded people, but CrowdSource said a number of its missing person reports resulted from widespread phone and power outages."
While so many friends I grew up w/ are picking through what's left of their lives w/ shattered homes, no power & no clean water, the President of the United States is watching TV & calling a woman he slept w/ & paid off "horseface."
— phillip anderson (@phillipanderson) October 16, 2018
I'm so angry that I'm shaking.
Kate Riga at TPM: $100M from Saudis Hits U.S. Bank Accounts as Pompeo Lands for Meeting. "The Saudis promised the Trump administration $100 million to help the United States' efforts in Syria this summer — and in a suspicious turn of events, that money was suddenly deposited in U.S. bank accounts as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Riyadh for what would be a discordantly friendly meeting with Saudi officials about their alleged murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi."
[CN: Racism; voter suppression] Mark Niesse at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Black Senior Citizens Ordered off Georgia Bus Taking Them to Vote. "Government officials in an east Georgia county told about 40 African-American senior citizens to get off a bus taking them to vote Monday, leading to complaints of voter suppression. The bus, run by the group Black Voters Matter, was preparing to depart from a senior center operated by Jefferson County when the center's director said they needed to disembark, said LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of Black Voters Matter. A county clerk had called the senior center raising concerns about allowing the bus to take residents from the senior center in the city of Louisville, south of Augusta. 'We knew it was an intimidation tactic,' Brown said Tuesday. 'It was really unnecessary. These are grown people.'"
[CN: Nativism; child abuse] Jonathan Blitzer at the New Yorker: To Free Detained Children, Immigrant Families Are Forced to Risk Everything.
Pedro is now being held in an emergency shelter in Tornillo, Texas, a tent city where the government has transferred hundreds of minors in recent weeks, often under the cover of night, in an effort to address an escalating crisis. Nationwide, there are currently 13,200 children in O.R.R. custody, more than ever before, and five times more than were being held in the spring of last year. Shelters have become overcrowded not because more children are fleeing north than in years past but mainly because the Trump Administration has made it more difficult to release them.[CN: Class warfare] Ryan Koronowski at ThinkProgress: McConnell Sets His Sights on Medicare and Social Security, Saying the Debt Is 'Very Disturbing'. "The same lawmakers who exploded the federal deficit by gifting millionaires and billionaires a favorable corporate tax bill are now telling the public that the way to fix the deficit is to shred the social safety net. On Tuesday, after the Treasury Department released figures showing the federal deficit for Fiscal Year 2018 rose 17 percent to reach $779 billion, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was interviewed by Bloomberg. He was asked about the growing debt and deficit. McConnell said it was 'very disturbing,' and driven by Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid spending. The solution to cutting the deficit, he concluded, is making 'entitlement changes.'"
In April, the O.R.R. signed an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share information about the legal status of children's sponsors. Those who come forward to claim family members can now be arrested and deported if they are here illegally. As a result, immigrant families have had to make a choice: Sponsor children and risk deportation, or keep their distance while children languish in government custody. As families weigh the stakes, children have been spending longer periods of time in detention. Officially, the H.H.S. claims that the average time is fifty-nine days, but according to one of the department's own officials, who agreed to speak with me on the condition of anonymity, detained children now spend an average of seventy-four days in federal custody, more than double what it was at the start of 2016.
...Now, according to advocates, the Trump Administration is manipulating the mission of the O.R.R. "They've flipped their mandate from the children's welfare to immigration enforcement," Jennifer Podkul, the policy director of Kids in Need of Defense, told me. "What that's done is kept kids in detention longer, and led to sponsors backing out." As the government has requested more information, including fingerprints, from any adult who may come into contact with a released child, many undocumented family members have begun moving out of households where sponsors live. Last month, Matthew Albence, a senior official at ice, told Congress that his agency had arrested forty-one sponsors between July and September, seventy percent of whom had no criminal record.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
And Right on Cue, Another Promise That Mueller Will Deliver Soon
But not before the midterms, of course! Heavens no. Don't be ridiculous.
Chris Strohm, Greg Farrell, and Shannon Pettypiece at Bloomberg report: "Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials. ...The question of timing is critical. Mueller's work won't be concluded ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of the House and end Trump's one-party hold on Washington."
But SOON! Keep hope alive! Et cetera!
Two things:
One. I wrote exactly one week ago:
I have repeatedly expressed my grave concerns for nearly a year now that the objective of Mueller's investigation is not to deliver meaningful accountability to a treasonous president and his accomplices, but instead to create the illusion that our institutions still work, long enough to give Republicans time to consolidate power behind this presidency, ensuring that the findings will never matter, anyway.That having long been my position, you can imagine how I received the news that Mueller is so close to issuing his report, but not until after the midterms.
...There is no urgency in response to this crisis. Too much time has passed for defenses of his allegedly methodical approach to matter.
We're two years into Donald Trump's presidency and less than a month out from midterms, and the Republican Party has consolidated power behind Trump, including a staunchly conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
If Mueller's investigation wasn't explicitly designed to keep us complacent and trusting that our democratic institutions will save us even as the GOP obliterates them, it's effectively working that way all the same.
Suffice it to say, I don't find it reassuring that we're being asked to put our faith in an investigation that hasn't even come close to curtailing the abuses of this administration — and in an election that is indubitably compromised by gerrymandering and voter suppression, and will probably be compromised by election interference both foreign and domestic.
...Like I keep saying: I am going to vote. I hope it still matters.
Sure, sure, you might want to hit the streets immediately after the midterms if it looks like they were rigged, but keep your ass firmly in your seat, because Mueller's coming!
Two. I wrote almost exactly two months ago:
I do not believe we are going to have free and fair elections in November.We are on the verge of another compromised election during which the Republican Party will further — and possibly permanently — consolidate its power behind Donald Trump, but the Special Counsel ostensibly tasked with investigating whether Team Trump colluded with a foreign adversary to fix the previous election won't release his findings until after the midterm elections, and we've collectively inexplicably decided that the best course of action is to trust in that Special Counsel and hope that this election won't also be rigged by the people in power who rigged the last one, and trust that if everything goes wrong (again) we will be able to retroactively fix our irreparably corrupted democracy, despite the fact that we clearly haven't been able to do that after the last time around.
Let me be abundantly clear, before I go any further: That does not mean I believe there is no reason to vote. To the absolute contrary, there is urgent need to vote. And there is urgent need to pay attention to how our votes may be compromised ahead of the election, if there is any possibility of making sure that they aren't.
Late last month, I noted that the Republican Party's vast and longterm voter suppression scheme — including but not limited to gerrymandering, voter purges, felon restrictions, Election Day disenfranchisement, and various erosions of voting rights — is a reason this election, like many before it, won't be fair, regardless of Russian interference.
(Side note: Russian interference and/or the interference of other nefarious actors. As I have noted, the very public failure to hold Russia accountable for election meddling not only means that Russia feels empowered to interfere in the midterms, but certainly so does every other state with the capacity and desire to do so. I fully expect that Russia will not be the only foreign state attempting to interfere and/or successfully interfering in the midterm election.)
And yet: Despite a comprehensive voter suppression campaign by the Republican Party, despite Republicans' previous concealment of suspected election interference, despite their refusal to designate election systems as critical infrastructure upon evidence of attempted Russian hacking before the last election, despite almost certain intervention by the Russians and others, despite the sitting president's support of domestic election meddling and his implicit threat to disregard the midterm election result if it does not go in his favor, virtually everyone is behaving as though we are going to have a free and fair election in November.
We are not. That is manifestly apparent. And still there has not emerged a better plan than pretending like everything is normal when it clearly isn't.
I will vote. And I will hope that my vote counts. And I will wish as I cast it that way more of my fellow countrypeople had been far more honest about the stakes and what we needed to do to protect and defend our democracy long before Election Day.
It should be clear by now that relying on Bob Mueller to save us has never been enough.
The Latest on Jamal Khashoggi
[Content Note: Abduction; torture; murder.]
Journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was living in the United States and was critical of Saudi regime, went missing two weeks ago after going inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to finalize paperwork he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée.
It is believed at this point that a group of around 15 Saudi nationals knew Khashoggi would be arriving and met him there with the purpose of torturing and killing him; that they did precisely that, of which there is a recording; and that Khashoggi was dismembered and carried out of the consulate building in pieces.
One of the men under investigation by Turkish authorities is a Saudi intelligence officer named Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, who is a close associate of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), who also maintains close ties to Jared Kushner.
We know that the Trump administration had reportedly intercepted intelligence detailing the plan to abduct Khashoggi and failed to warn him, despite a 2015 directive requiring such disclosures. What we don't yet know is whether the Trump administration fed any intelligence about Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia.
We don't know if Kushner knew of or even helped facilitate a plan which, if not directly MBS's design, certainly took place with his knowledge and approval. We do know, however, that Kushner should have been removed from his position a very long time ago, because he broke federal law multiple times by lying on his disclosure forms, and yet there he still sits.
And of course we know with certainty that Donald Trump, who wages a relentless war on the free press in the U.S., is exactly the worst person who could be occupying the Oval Office during this intense diplomatic crisis, even if his regime didn't actively participate in it.
To wit, under the blunt headline "Trump unleashes festering list of grievances during unscheduled morning," Kevin Liptak and Jeff Zeleny at CNN report:
Without any scheduled meetings, the President was free Tuesday morning to marinate in insult and injury, fueled by the constant presence of Fox News on the flat-screen televisions installed in his third-floor residence.The investigation into Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance continues, and every state party involved has its own agenda. I hope that the truth will be known, and I fear that this is only the beginning of more and greater ugliness yet to come.
The President told people in conversations Tuesday morning that he was aggravated at the coverage of Saudi Arabia crisis, which has dominated cable news, one official said. Senior White House aides have tried to impress upon him how serious the matter is.
Asked directly whether he was trying to change the subject of television coverage on Tuesday, the official said: "I don't know, but he's good at doing that."
Open Thread
I'm going to try to get some writing done today, but it'll probably be a bit slow going, as I'm still feeling under the weather. Bear with me, and thanks for your patience.
Open Thread + Programming Note
I'm still sick. Worse than yesterday, to be honest. FML. I'm sorry, y'all. I really hope I'll be feeling better tomorrow.
Open Thread + Programming Note
I've got another medical test early this morning, and I was going to do a half day afterwards, but I've come down with a terrible cold or flu or something, so I'm probably going to collapse back into bed as soon as I get home. I sure hope I will feel better tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
(And please don't forget to tip your bartender!)
Friday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by falling leaves.
Recommended Reading:
Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: [Content Note: Class warfare; racism] Flooded Coastal Communities No Safer After Being Rebuilt with FEMA Dollars
Victoria Fleisher and Josh Israel at ThinkProgress: [CN: Threats] Donald Trump Smears Former Adviser with One of His Favorite Tactics — the Treat of Exposure
Kenyetta Whitfield at Rewire.News: [CN: Fat hatred; misogynoir; privilege] Fat, Black Women's Bodies Are Under Attack. Why Did It Take a Thin White Man to Get Our Cries Heard?
Staffa at Reproaction: [CN: War on agency] Reproaction Launches Fake Clinic Database: Anti-Abortion Fake Clinics Outnumber Abortion Clinics More Than Three Times
Kristy Puchko at Pajiba: [CN: Rape culture] Jimmy Kimmel Invites Feminist to Sing About Rape Culture, But We Remember Last Week
Ray White with Aparna Nancherla at Mashable: [CN: Video autoplays at link] Comedian Aparna Nancherla Takes the Bob Ross Challenge
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
#365feministselfie: Week 41
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 41!
A few of my selfies over the last (almost) two weeks:
old for rainbow specs, I don't want to hear about it.
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!
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 631
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: An Entire Administration of Misogynist Wrecks and The Trump Regime Is Still Harming Immigrant Children.
Here are some more things in the news today...
[Content Note: Hurricane; death] J. Freedom du Lac, Mark Berman, Dana Hedgpeth, and Eli Rosenberg at the Washington Post: Hurricane Michael Aftermath: Death Toll Spikes After Five Storm-Related Fatalities Reported in Virginia. "Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane — the strongest on record to hit the area — and charged north through Georgia and into the Carolinas and Virginia, wreaking havoc and causing emergencies. In the storm's wake lay crushed and flooded buildings, shattered lives, and at least 11 deaths, a number that officials worry could rise. ...Four of the deaths were related to people being swept away in floodwaters along roads; the fifth was a firefighter who was killed in a crash along a highway, according to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management."
My sincerest condolences to the family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors of the people who died. Officials keep gravely warning that the death toll will rise as they manage to reach devastated residences through nearly impenetrable wreckage. There are also over half a million people without power in Virginia alone, which could have dangerous results if the outages persist.
My thoughts are with everyone in the affected areas.
* * *
[CN: Death penalty] In good news: Nina Golgowski at the Huffington Post: Washington State's Supreme Court Declares Death Penalty Unconstitutional. "Washington state's Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional and converted to life in prison all pending death sentences in the state. The court's decision on Thursday was unanimous, with the justices determining that capital punishment is applied 'in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.' 'The use of the death penalty is unequally applied — sometimes by where the crime took place, or the county of residence...or the race of the defendant,' the court said in its opinion. 'The death penalty, as administered in our state, fails to serve any legitimate penological goal; thus, it violates article I, section 14 of our state constitution.'" YES.
* * *
[CN: Violence; death. Covers whole section.]
A close friend of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi tells @Isikoff and me that Saudi Crown Prince MBS may have felt emboldened by Trump’s anti-media rhetoric. “Trump hates journalists and he would not react if we kill one journalist,” says Khaled Saffuri. https://t.co/Q207QgVXFC
— Daniel Klaidman (@dklaidman) October 12, 2018
Shane Harris, Souad Mekhennet, John Hudson, and Anne Gearan at the Washington Post: Turks Tell U.S. Officials They Have Audio and Video Recordings That Support Conclusion Khashoggi Was Killed. "The audio recording in particular provides some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the Saudi team is responsible for Khashoggi's death, the officials said. 'The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,' said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence. 'You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,' this person said. 'You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured, and then murdered.'"
I don't want these recordings to be made public, because it would be so terribly traumatic for Khashoggi's loved ones. That said, I really wish that someone I felt I could reasonably trust had heard and/or seen the recordings and would give their assessment on the record, because I don't feel like I can trust anonymous Turkish and U.S. officials at this point. (Not that I'm trusting the Saudis' claims for a moment, mind you.) It's so troubling to me that I don't feel there is any reliable state agency involved, including my own government.
OMG. I'm finally catching the snag: Virginia journalist #JamalKhashoggi had criticized Trump on November 10, 2016 at the Washington Institute, and had been BANNED FROM newspapers, TV appearances and conferences IN Saudi Arabia, FOR THAT.https://t.co/osIWEYyo73
— Vote November 6th An+ Pa+ 🌳🌲🎪🐜 (@arbortender) October 12, 2018
Holy Hell.
Welp.
* * *
Today in rampaging authoritarianism...
Luke O'Neil at the Guardian: Trump Administration Plans Crackdown on Protests Outside White House.
Donald Trump has frequently and falsely crowed about the idea of so-called paid protesters, including most recently the sexual assault survivors who confronted senators in the lead-up to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. Now his administration may be trying to turn that concept on its head, by requiring citizens to pay to be able to protest, among other affronts to the first amendment.Which is the entire point.
Under the proposal introduced by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in August, the administration is looking to close 80% of the sidewalks surrounding the White House, and has suggested that it could charge "event management" costs, for demonstrations.
...Naturally, civil liberties groups consider the proposals an affront to the rights guaranteed under the first amendment. As the ACLU notes, such fees "could make mass protests like Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 1963 March on Washington and its 'I Have a Dream' speech too expensive to happen."
Susan B. Glasser at the New Yorker: I Listened to All Six Trump Rallies in October; You Should, Too. "Much of the coverage of these events tends to be theatre criticism, or news stories about a single inflammatory line or two, rating Trump's performance or puzzling over the appeal to his followers. But what [Trump] is actually saying is extraordinary... It's not just the whoppers or the particular outrage riffs that do get covered, either. It's the hate, and the sense of actual menace that the President is trying to convey to his supporters. Democrats aren't just wrong in the manner of traditional partisan differences; they are scary, bad, evil, radical, dangerous. Trump and Trump alone stands between his audiences and disaster. I listen because I think we are making a mistake by dismissing him, by pretending the words of the most powerful man in the world are meaningless. They do have consequences. They are many, and they are worrisome."
Jay Michaelson at the Daily Beast: Republicans Have a Secret Weapon in the Midterms: Voter Suppression. "With Democrats furious over Donald Trump, and many Republicans furious over the treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the 2018 elections are likely to see the highest turnout of midterm voters in recent history. But those voters will be confronted by a byzantine array of voter restrictions, voter-suppression efforts, and voter discrimination standing in their way. A review by The Daily Beast found at least five voter-suppression practices in active use today. All are led by Republicans, all have disproportionate effects on non-white populations, and all are rationalized by bogus claims of voter fraud."
* * *
Some trade and foreign policy news...
Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey at Reuters: Trump Says He Could Do 'a Lot More' on China Trade. "[Donald] Trump warned on Thursday there was much more he could do that would hurt China's economy further, showing no signs of backing off an escalating trade war with Beijing. ...Trump imposed tariffs on nearly $200 billion of Chinese imports last month and then threatened more levies if China retaliated. China then hit back with tariffs on about $60 billion of U.S. imports. ...'It's had a big impact,' Trump said in a Fox News interview. 'Their economy has gone down very substantially and I have a lot more to do if I want to do it.' ...The growing trade war prompted the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday to cut its global economic growth forecasts for 2018 and 2019."
Senior Russian corruption investigator Colonel Yevgenia Shishkina was shot dead yesterday as she was leaving her apartment.
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) October 11, 2018
She was in charge of investigating economic crimes and corruption cases https://t.co/XhOUznCw7m
https://t.co/t2Arli1IVA
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) October 11, 2018
3rd death this within a week
Patrick Wintour at the Guardian: Yemen: End Airstrikes and Give Child Victims Justice, Says UN Body. "A UN human rights body has called on Saudi Arabia to end airstrikes in Yemen and start ensuring the perpetrators of attacks on children are brought to justice. ...The latest UN report from a 15-strong panel in Geneva found that since March 2015 at least 1,248 children have been killed and the same number injured, amounting to about 20% of the total deaths and injury since the war began. The report condemns 'the dramatic consequences for civilians, and particularly for children who are being killed, maimed, orphaned, and traumatised, of military operations, aggravated by an aerial and naval blockade that has rendered many millions of people, including a high proportion of children, food insecure.' It says the independent assessments undertaken by Saudis of their air raids are 'insufficiently independent, lack detail, and have no mechanism for enforcement.'"
* * *
[CN: Clergy abuse; rape culture] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Pope Accepts Resignation of Washington Archbishop at Center of Pennsylvania Child Sex Abuse Scandal, Praises His 'Nobility'."Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of Washington Archbishop Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who was at the center of the Pennsylvania grand jury report in August which accused more than 300 Catholic priests of the sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children. ...The NYT reports: 'But instead of making an example of Cardinal Wuerl...Francis held him up as a model for the future unity of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope cited Cardinal Wuerl's 'nobility' and announced that the 77-year-old prelate would stay on as the archdiocese's caretaker until the appointment of his successor. In an interview, Cardinal Wuerl said that he would continue to live in Washington and that he expected to keep his position in Vatican offices that exert great influence, including one that advises the pope on the appointment of bishops.'"
And Republicans in Pennsylvania decided to cover themselves in shame, too:
Of course. https://t.co/l3vvLEdTHL
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 12, 2018
The Catholic Church and the Republican Party continue to abet abusers and fail survivors, deliberately and maliciously. No decent person should ever give a penny to either of these organizations ever again.
[CN: Privacy concerns] Deborah Netburn at the LA Times: So Many People Have Had Their DNA Sequenced That They've Put Other People's Privacy in Jeopardy. "A new study argues that more than half of Americans could be identified by name if all you had to start with was a sample of their DNA and a few basic facts, such as where they live and about how old they might be. It wouldn't be simple, and it wouldn’t be cheap. But the fact that it has become doable will force all of us to rethink the meaning of privacy in the DNA age, experts said. There is little time to waste. The researchers behind the new study say that once 3 million Americans have uploaded their genomes to public genealogy websites, nearly everyone in the U.S. would be identifiable by their DNA alone and just a few additional clues. More than 1 million Americans have already published their genetic information, and dozens more do so every day."
[CN: Anti-vaxxers; video may autoplay at link] Staff at CBS News: Growing Number of U.S. Children Not Vaccinated Against Any Disease. "A small but growing proportion of the youngest children in the U.S. have not been vaccinated against any disease, worrying health officials. An estimated 100,000 young children have not had a vaccination against any of the 14 diseases for which shots are recommended, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Thursday." That is so scary to hear for all of us with compromised immune systems. JFC.
And finally:
No wonder Mike Pence wants to bomb China. https://t.co/iW1ADGYCyQ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 12, 2018
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Keep Shakesville Truckin'
This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder to donate to Shakesville and an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.To keep doing this job, and to keep Shakesville a safe ad-free space, I need to be making enough through donations to support myself. Although Iain and I combine resources, like many couples, I don't want to find myself in a place where I couldn't support myself on my own if I needed and/or wanted to.
So this full-time gig has to pay me a livable wage for my time, and enough to pay contributing writers for their work, or I need to find another way to make a living. I'm not looking to get rich off this work. I simply want to make enough money that I am able to support myself modestly, in exchange for my full-time labor.
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I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value; because women's work has value.
So! If you value my work here and/or on Twitter — if you appreciate being able to tune in for coverage of politics and culture, for curated news about the Trump administration and/or the resistance, for media analysis, for a safe and image-free space to discuss difficult subjects, for the Fat Fashion or Makeup or Shaker Gourmet threads, or for whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, community in the Open Threads, video transcripts, or anything else — please remember that Shakesville is run exclusively on donations. I would certainly be grateful for your support, if you are able to chip in.
Thank you to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am deeply appreciative. This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.
My thanks as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways, whether as a contributor, a moderator, a guest writer, a transcriber, and/or as someone who takes the time to send me a note of support and encouragement, some cool art, or anything else you think might give me a smile or fill my lungs with air. (You're usually right!) This community couldn't exist without you, either.
Finally and essentially: Please note that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. There is a big enough readership that no one needs to donate if it would be a hardship, and no one should ever feel bad about that.
I mean that. We're all in this thing together.
One of the things I hate most about fundraising is knowing that it might make some people feel bad, if they want to donate but aren't able. I would never presume to tell you how to feel, but please know that I don't want you to feel bad.
What I want is for you to know that, some days, your kind words are the only thing that keeps me going. I need money to survive. It is your encouragement that keeps me doing this work. You support me in many ways, and I am immensely thankful for them all. ♥
The Trump Regime Is Still Harming Immigrant Children
[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse; reference to Holocaust.]
When Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration in June, purportedly putting an end to family separations at the border, I wrote: "The truth is that Donald Trump, with the aid of the nativist scum in his administration and the complicit media, created a problem with the explicit intent of provoking protest that he could abuse to make himself look heroic while actually making a historically significant white supremacist move that will be a lasting shame on this nation."
My concern was that the executive order was actually an expansion of the administration's nativist policies, designed to appear as though it was fixing the problem of separating families and incarcerating infants and young children; that the purpose was to evade accountability and give the public an excuse to stop paying attention, as the administration quietly escalated its war on immigrants.
That is exactly what has happened.
At the New Yorker, Sarah Stillman highlights the ongoing atrocity by telling the story of one child: Five-year-old Helen, who fled Honduras with her grandmother, Noehmi, because the family had been threatened by gang violence. The bluntly titled "The Five-Year-Old Who Was Detained at the Border and Persuaded to Sign Away Her Rights" is a must-read in its entirety, but I have included an excerpt below which details how Trump's vile nativist agenda has flourished in and because of public inattention. Emphases are mine.
As the summer progressed with no signs of Helen's return, Noehmi and Jeny [Helen's mother, who had already established herself in the U.S. when her mother and daughter fled to the States] contacted LUPE, a nonprofit community union based in the Rio Grande Valley, to ask for help winning Helen's release. Founded by the famed activists César Chávez and Dolores Huerta in 1989, LUPE fights deportations, provides social services, and organizes civil mobilizations on behalf of more than eight thousand low-income members across south Texas; Jeny, employed as an office cleaner, was one such member. Tania Chavez, a strategy leader for the organization, met with the family to hear their story.This is a profound human rights crisis in which children are being systematically abused, and far too many people decided it no longer warranted their attention after a compulsive liar driven by malice put his name on a paper that he claimed solved the problem.
Helen's case didn't fit the typical LUPE mold. "Historically, we have served longtime residents of the Rio Grande Valley," Chavez told me, "but since this new surge of refugees came about, we've been on the front lines of advocacy against family separation." Freeing Helen struck Chavez as a tangible and urgent goal. "Right away, we said, 'How do we help this little girl?'" she said. As Chavez saw it, the girl's seizure by the government showed that the family-separation crisis hadn't been resolved, as many Americans believed — it had simply evolved.
The first stage of the family-separation crisis unfolded largely out of public view, not long after Trump took office. By January, 2018, when I began collecting the stories of parents who had been separated from their children at the border, the government denied that these separations were happening without clear justifications, and insisted that they weren't encouraged by official policy. In the late spring, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, was still espousing this line, even as she ramped up "zero tolerance" prosecutions — criminally charging parents with "illegal entry," and seizing their kids in the process.
Stage two of the crisis unfolded in the national spotlight. As the number of separations soared past two thousand, and their wrenching details surfaced, hundreds of thousands of Americans protested in the streets. Laura Bush said that the practice broke her heart. The American Academy of Pediatrics denounced it as "abhorrent," noting that the approach could inflict long-term, irrevocable trauma on children. On June 20th, the President issued an executive order purporting to end the practice.
Now stage three has commenced — one in which separations are done quietly, LUPE's Tania Chavez asserts, and in which reunifications can be mysteriously stymied. According to recent Department of Justice numbers — released because of an ongoing A.C.L.U. lawsuit challenging family separations —a hundred and thirty-six children who fall within the lawsuit's scope are still in government custody. An uncounted number of separated children in shelters and foster care fall outside the lawsuit's current purview — including many like Helen, who arrived with a grandparent or other guardian, rather than with a parent. Many such children have been misclassified, in government paperwork, as "unaccompanied minors," due to a sloppy process that the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General recently critiqued. Chavez believes that, through misclassification, many kids have largely disappeared from public view, and from official statistics, with the federal government showing little urgency to hasten reunifications. (O.R.R. and U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to requests for comment.)
...Jess Morales Rocketto, of Families Belong Together, told me that Helen's reunion — the result of the first known public mobilization to free a specific kid from O.R.R. custody — holds lessons for a broader organizing effort. "One of the things Helen's story really showed us is that the Trump Administration never stopped separating children from their families," Morales Rocketto said. "In fact, they've doubled down, but it's even more insidious now, because they are doing it in the cover of night." She added, "We believe that there are more kids like Helen. We have learned we cannot take this Administration at their word."
People wonder how it is that average German people could possibly claim they didn't know what was happening in the death camps in their country. Well, surely some of them were liars. And the rest simply weren't paying attention, because they didn't have to.
Talk about this. Amplify Helen's story. Make people uncomfortable. Make noise. RESIST.
An Entire Administration of Misogynist Wrecks
[Content Note: Misogyny; xenophobia.]
The Trump Regime is truly an administration of pathetic, abusive men (and a few women) who hate women. And, like most vile misogynist wrecks, the members of the Trump Regime are intimidated by any woman who doesn't prostrate herself in service to their patriarchal agenda. Like Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Even "the generals," who Donald Trump told us were the strongest men in the nation and who are supposedly the "moderating" influences in his shitshow of an administration, are at core just shivering misogynists who have to insult any woman who asserts herself as their equal (or better). Like John Kelly.
Jason Leopold at BuzzFeed: John Kelly Called Elizabeth Warren an "Impolite Arrogant Woman" in an Email.
White House chief of staff John Kelly called Sen. Elizabeth Warren an "impolite arrogant woman" in a private email he exchanged last year with his top aide following a telephone conversation with the Massachusetts Democrat about the Trump administration's travel ban.Fucking hell.
"Absolutely most insulting conversation I have ever had with anyone," Kelly, then serving as the Secretary of Homeland Security, wrote to Kevin Carroll, who was then his senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, in an email from Feb. 8, 2017. "What an impolite arrogant woman. She immediately began insulting our people accusing them of not following the court order, insulting and abusive behavior towards those covered by the pause, blah blah blah."
Carroll responded to his boss's criticisms of Warren in an email the same day. "Too bad Senate Majority Leader McConnell couldn't order her to be quiet again!"
Imagine if the "most insulting conversation" you "ever had with anyone" was talking to Elizabeth Warren about policy. What a truly privileged life John Kelly has led.
I suppose observing such a thing makes me an impolite arrogant woman, too. Oh well. Nevertheless, I persist.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Lady Blanchester: "What is your favorite regional food?"
Philly cheesesteaks and New York slices.
And I was never a huge fan of Chicago style pizza generally, but I do miss the heck out of Lou Malnati's!
