Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker embees: "Pet nicknames — do yours (current or past) have them? How many? Are they meaningful or silly?"
I've mentioned many times that Iain has an endless reservoir of silly and adorable nicknames for me — Tschoobs, Bables, Honsey, Chubbs, Chunkles, Boobles, Bawheed, Wifel-nifle, Dushtels, Specs, Funhead, Funball McGee, Apple Cheeks — so you can only imagine how many nicknames each of our pets has, lol!
Between the two of us giving them ridiculous nicknames, it's a wonder any of them know their names at all.
Some highlights:
Olivia — Livs, Livsy, Large, Baby, Wrex, Mouth of a Thousand Screams
Sophie — Sophs, Sophie-Sophs, Little, Titch, Titchels, Torbie Bizness
Dudley — Dudz, Lord Dudlington, Doodletoots, Dumpster Mouth, Trots, Horks
Zelda — Zelly, Zelly-Belly, Zuzubean, Zooz, Dorito Ears, Stinks
Throwback Thursdays
Deeks and me at the Signature Room at the 95th in the Hancock Building, Chicago, January 2009. Shared with Deeks' permission.
[Please share your own throwback pix in comments. Just make sure the pix are just of you and/or you have consent to post from other living people in the pic. And please note that they don't have to be pictures from childhood, especially since childhood pix might be difficult for people who come from abusive backgrounds or have transitioned or lots of other reasons. It can be a picture from last week, if that's what works for you. And of course no one should feel obliged to share a picture at all! Only if it's fun!]
And Ballyhoo
[Content Note: References to Holocaust.]
Comedian Gary Gulman, onstage: My friend recommended a documentary to me recently about Hitler. It was about Hitler's atrocities. But my friend, god love her, she couldn't think of the word atrocities. She tried to cover for a second; she went "ahhh—" while she searched for a synonym, but it didn't come out right.An important reminder in this moment from
She said, "Gary, I saw this very interesting documentary about Hitler's shenanigans." [audience laughter] Shenanigans! [he chuckles] Not even close!
And, as a Jew, I'm obviously not oversensitive, but when people trivialize Hitler's monkey-business... [audience laughter] When the Nazis' hijinks, tomfoolery, and ballyhoo is understated, I feel it does a disservice to the millions who were, ahhh, inconvenienced by Hitler's mischief! [audience laughter]
Tomato, tomahto. Shenanigans, genocide. [shakes his head]
Yup, Still Worried About the Midterms
[Previously: Trump Suggests the Midterms Will Be Compromised, I Am Very Worried About the Midterms, I Am (Still) Very Worried About the Midterms, and I Remain Very Worried About the Midterms.]
As I have noted many times now, the midterm election won't be fair, regardless of foreign interference, because of the Republican Party's vast and long-term voter suppression scheme, including but not limited to gerrymandering, voter purges, felon restrictions, Election Day disenfranchisement, and various erosions of voting rights.
Add to that list their total failure to securing the machines on which we vote in our elections.
(This, to be clear, is not just the fault of Republicans. Plenty of Democrats are aggressively indifferent to this urgent election integrity issue, too. But, right now, the GOP is controlling all three branches of the federal government and a majority of state legislatures, so they are the primary focus of my ire at the moment.)
Shaker GoldFishy passed along this terrifying article by Brian Varner at Wired: "I Bought Used Voting Machines on eBay for $100 Apiece; What I Found Was Alarming." Varner is "a security researcher at Symantec who started buying the machines as part of an ongoing effort to identify their vulnerabilities and strengthen election security," and his full piece is worth your time to read. I strongly encourage you to read it in its entirety, but here is an extended excerpt:
If getting voting machines delivered to my door was shockingly easy, getting inside them proved to be simpler still. The tamper-proof screws didn't work, all the computing equipment was still intact, and the hard drives had not been wiped. The information I found on the drives, including candidates, precincts, and the number of votes cast on the machine, were not encrypted.Varner further notes that privacy is one concern among many. Like, for instance, the fact that proof of one tampered machine is all it might take to undermine faith in the entire election.
...I reverse-engineered the machines to understand how they could be manipulated. After removing the internal hard drive, I was able to access the file structure and operating system. Since the machines were not wiped after they were used in the 2012 presidential election, I got a great deal of insight into how the machines store the votes that were cast on them. Within hours, I was able to change the candidates' names to be that of anyone I wanted. When the machine printed out the official record for the votes that were cast, it showed that the candidate's name I invented had received the most votes on that particular machine.
...By using a $15 palm-sized device, my team was able to exploit a smart chip card, allowing us to vote multiple times.
In most parts of the public and private sector, it would be unthinkable that such a sensitive process would be so insecure. Try to imagine a major bank leaving ATMs with known vulnerabilities in service nationwide, or a healthcare provider identifying a problem in how it stores patient data, then leaving it unpatched after public outcry. It just doesn't fit with our understanding of cyber security in 2018.
Those industries are governed by regulations that outline how sensitive information and equipment must be handled. The same common-sense regulations don't exist for election systems. PCI and HIPAA are great successes that have gone a long way in protecting personally identifiable information and patient health conditions. Somehow, there is no corollary for the security of voters, their information and, most importantly, the votes they cast.
...The fact that information is stored unencrypted on hard drives simply makes no sense in the current threat environment. That they can be left on devices, unencrypted, that are then sold on the open market is malpractice.
Since these machines are for sale online, individuals, precincts, or adversaries could buy them, modify them, and put them back online for sale. Envision a scenario in which foreign actors purchased these voting machines. By reverse engineering the machine like I did to exploit its weaknesses, they could compromise a small number of ballot boxes in a particular precinct.This is not a new worry, but an old one, which has become even more concerning in the current environment. And I don't even know what to recommend in terms of what we can do about it, because the people in charge are as likely as anyone else to exploit these weaknesses.
That's the greatest fear of election security researchers: not wholesale flipping of millions of votes, which would be easy to detect, but a small, public breach of security that would sow massive distrust throughout the entire election ecosystem. If anyone can prove that the electoral process can be subverted, even in a small way, repairing the public's trust will be far costlier than implementing security measures.
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 644
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: Explosive Devices Sent to Liberals: The Latest and Trump Regime Continues Attack on Transgender People.
Here are some more things in the news today...
In good news, Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum handed Ron DeSantis his ass in their debate last night!
[Content Note: White supremacy and spelled-out racist slur.]
As my grandmother used to say — a hit dog will holler. pic.twitter.com/kC34Ldd0is
— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) October 25, 2018
Debate Moderator: Mr. Gillum, I'll give you a chance to respond now.BOOM.
Gillum: Well, let me first say: My grandmother used to say, "A hit dog will holler." [crowd cheers and applauds] And it hollered through this room. Mr. DeSantis has spoken. First of all, he's got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state; he has spoken at racist conferences; he accepted a contribution — and would not return it — from someone who referred to the former President of the United States as a Muslim n-i-g-g-e-r. When asked to return that money, he said no! He's using that money to now fund negative ads. Now, I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist; I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist.
* * *
[CN: Nativism; border militarization] Dan Lamothe and David Nakamura at the Washington Post: Pentagon Plans to Dispatch 800 More Troops to U.S.-Mexico Border in Response to Migrant Caravan. "The Trump administration is expected to deploy additional U.S. troops to assist in security operations at the southern border in response to a caravan of migrants traveling north on foot through Mexico, three U.S. officials confirmed Thursday. The plan calls for about 800 more troops, including some active-duty forces primarily from the Army, to join a growing border mission called for by [Donald] Trump, one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made."
Like I keep saying: When a president talks about closing and militarizing a border, it's not just to keep people out; it's to keep people in.
[CN: Fascism; terrorism] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Rather Than Unite Against Political Violence, Trump Attacks 'Fake News' Media Hours After CNN Pipe Bomb Mailings. "Donald Trump blamed the 'mainstream media fake news' for the 'anger in our society' hours after White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admonished CNN President Jeff Zucker for 'attacking and dividing' by criticizing Trump's attacks on the media. The exchange came in the wake of a series of suspicious pipe bomb devices were sent to CNN and prominent Democrats around the country."
Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast: A President Who Hates Half the Country Doesn't Get to Call for 'Unity'. "I've cringed in these last few hours to hear journalists on TV or radio discussing Trump's appeal for magnanimity last night in Wisconsin as if we're supposed to take it seriously. Are they kidding? Yes, they are words the president spoke, and so they have to be reported. But they don't have to be discussed earnestly. They need and deserve to be discussed derisively and placed in the real-life context they merit." Correct.
Kate Riga at TPM: Gingrich: Media Has 'Earned' Label of Enemy of the People. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said at a Thursday Axios event that while [Donald] Trump's calling the press the 'enemy of the people' drives partisanship, news outlets have 'earned it.'" Just as a reminder, Newt Gingrich hates citizen journalism, too. One presumes his delicate constitution can only tolerate rank propaganda.
[CN: Murder] Tamer El-Ghobashy and Kareem Fahim at the Washington Post: Saudi Arabia, in Latest Reversal, Says Khashoggi's Killing Was Premeditated.
Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor said on Thursday that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a planned operation, citing information it received from Turkish investigators in Istanbul, according to a statement from the kingdom's Foreign Ministry.No shit.
It is the latest reversal by Saudi authorities, who last week said Khashoggi was killed accidentally in a fistfight at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul by "rogue" agents. [Donald] Trump had initially said that explanation was credible, but in recent days expressed doubts, calling it "the worst cover-up ever."
According to the statement, a joint Saudi-Turkish investigative team "indicates that the suspects in the incident had committed their act with a premeditated intention."
Why do I feel like this story is yet another plant that, on the surface, looks like a criticism of Trump, but will be later deployed by Trump in some narrative about, say, how China interfered in the midterms? https://t.co/YYBet07vf6
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2018
Meanwhile... Frank Dale at ThinkProgress: Trump Claims 'I Rarely Use a Cellphone' in Tweet Sent from iPhone. "Donald Trump responded to a New York Times report that Russia and China are spying on calls made from his personal cell phones in a pair of tweets on Thursday morning. Despite claiming 'I rarely use a cellphone,' CBS News' Sara Cook noticed that both of Trump's tweets were sent from his iPhone. All eight of Wednesday's tweets from Trump's account were also sent via the Twitter app on his iPhone."
Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post: Senate's Out? Nobody's Around? Perfect Time to Advance Trump's Court Picks, Says GOP. "Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has held two hearings in the past week, despite virtually every senator being back home ahead of the Nov. 6 elections. Even Grassley wasn't at his hearings: Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) chaired the first one, last week, and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) chaired Wednesday's hearing. Not a single Democrat could attend either hearing. Only one other Republican, Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), was present. That means, between those two hearings, that three of Trump's circuit court nominees and seven of his district court nominees sailed through without any real questions."
Ken Dilanian and Anna Schecter at NBC News: Mueller Has Evidence Suggesting Stone Associate Knew Clinton Emails Would Be Leaked. "Special counsel Robert Mueller's office has obtained communications suggesting that a right-wing conspiracy theorist might have had advance knowledge that the emails of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman had been stolen and handed to WikiLeaks, a source familiar with the investigation told NBC News. Mueller's team has spent months investigating whether the conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi, learned before the public did that WikiLeaks had obtained emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers — and whether he passed information about the stolen emails to Donald Trump associate Roger Stone, multiple sources said."
Dan Friedman at Mother Jones: Text Messages Show Roger Stone Was Working to Get a Pardon for Julian Assange. "In early January, Roger Stone, the longtime Republican operative and adviser to Donald Trump, sent a text message to an associate stating that he was actively seeking a presidential pardon for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — and felt optimistic about his chances. 'I am working with others to get JA a blanket pardon,' Stone wrote, in a January 6 exchange of text messages obtained by Mother Jones. 'It's very real and very possible. Don't fuck it up.' Thirty-five minutes later Stone added: 'Something very big about to go down.' ...As Mueller's team zeroes in on Stone, they have examined his push for an Assange pardon — which could be seen as an attempt to interfere with the Russia probe — and have questioned at least one of Stone's associates about the effort."
* * *
Let me put this as politely as I can: Anyone who imagines that the solution to patriarchal white supremacy is more patriarchal white supremacy is profoundly mistaken. https://t.co/QimyBpbq1G
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2018
* * *
[CN: Climate change; extreme weather. Covers entire section.]
Brian Kahn at Earther: U.S. Pacific Territories Took a Major Beating from Super Typhoon Yutu.
Super Typhoon Yutu continues to tear across the western Pacific after striking the tiny Northern Mariana Islands on Thursday local time. The U.S. commonwealth now faces a major cleanup after a direct hit from one of the strongest storms on record to make landfall anywhere in the world.
Super Typhoon Yutu struck the two islands of Tinian and Saipan, home to most of the tiny commonwealth's roughly 53,000 residents. It brought maximum sustained winds of up to 180 mph with gusts above 200 mph. That made it the equivalent of an extremely strong Category 5 hurricane, which is classified as any storm with winds in excess of 156 mph.
"We just went through one of the worst storms I've seen in all my experience in emergency management," Homeland Security and Emergency Management special assistant Gerald Deleon Guerrero said in a statement.
As it moved away from shore and day broke, the damage has become clear. The islands have been transformed by the storm as infrastructure was ripped to shreds by Yutu's powerful winds.
"We do not have power, and many, if not most, telephone poles were blown down," Ashley Beck, a resident of Saipan, told Earther. "Even concrete poles were damaged. I just drove along the two major roads in Saipan, and there are long stretches of road where every single telephone pole is down. It took months for some parts of the island to get power after the last major typhoon, Soudelor, so that is the concern now."
Just another cool reminder that the failure to meaningfully address climate change also risks our access to drinkable water. https://t.co/CpQ1Y09oqh
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 25, 2018
Yessenia Funes at Earther: A Pacific Hurricane Completely Washed Away This Hawaiian Island. "The days of islands vanishing under the waves are here. Hurricane Walaka, a monster storm that roared through the Pacific Ocean earlier this month, wiped out a tiny Hawaiian island known for harboring green sea turtles and endangered monk seals. Scientists with the Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed the disappearance of East Island Monday, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat, and the realization has been unsettling. The 11-acre island located more than 500 miles from O'ahu is nearly all underwater after Walaka swept right over it."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
What I'm Reading Now
A thread for sharing what we're currently reading: Fiction, nonfiction, novels, short stories, historical fiction, biographies, romance, fanfic, comic books, graphic novels, longform journalism, research papers, stuff for pleasure, stuff for work, whatever.
I'm currently immersed in the amazingly titled Pies & Puds by the amazingly named Paul Hollywood. The man knows his pies. And his puds.
What are you reading now?
Trump Regime Continues Attack on Transgender People
[Content Note: Trans hatred.]
The Justice Department has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the question of workplace transgender bias, arguing that employers are allowed under federal law to discriminate against employees based on their gender identity.
Their argument is based on asserting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was wrong in concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — which prohibits worker discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion — includes discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
Chris Opfer at Bloomberg Law reports:
Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the high court that a civil rights law banning sex discrimination on the job doesn't cover transgender bias. That approach already has created a rift within the Trump administration, contradicting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's view of the law it's tasked with enforcing.The crux of the case is that Harris Funeral Homes fired Stephens after she told the business owner that she was transitioning. Harris Funeral Homes essentially argued that it fired Stephens for being transgender, not for being a woman. (Oh.)
A Michigan funeral home wants the high court to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit decision finding that the company violated federal workplace discrimination law when it fired Aimee Stephens, a transgender worker. The EEOC successfully sued on behalf of Stephens in that case, but the Justice Department has the sole authority to represent the government before the Supreme Court. The DOJ told the high court that the Sixth Circuit got the case wrong.
"The court of appeals misread the statute and this Court's decisions in concluding that Title VII encompasses discrimination on the basis of gender identity," Francisco said in a brief filed with the court.
In the Sixth Circuit's ruling, which decided that Harris Funeral Homes' position was horseshit, Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote: "It is analytically impossible to fire an employee based on that employee's status as a transgender person without being motivated, at least in part, by the employee's sex." Which is, of course, exactly right.
But the Trump administration is incredibly asserting that misogyny has nothing to do with discrimination against a transgender woman, and thus a transgender woman is not entitled to workplace protections conferred by Title VII.
Worryingly: "The Supreme Court is expected to decide in the coming months whether to take up the case. It's also been asked [by the Justice Department] to consider two other cases testing whether sexual orientation bias is a form of sex discrimination banned under the existing law."
In related news, Julian Borger at the Guardian reports that the United States "is seeking to eliminate the word 'gender' from UN human rights documents, most often replacing it with 'woman,' apparently as part of the Trump administration's campaign to define transgender people out of existence. ...For example, in a draft paper on trafficking in women and girls introduced by Germany and Philippines earlier this month, the U.S. wants to remove phrases like 'gender-based violence' would be replaced by violence against women.'"
This is rage-making for its rank eliminationist intent toward transgender people, and it is rage-making that the Trump administration is engaging this eliminationist strategy under the auspices of concern about decentering (cis) women and girls.
The Trump administration doesn't give a single fuck about preventing violence against (cis) women and girls, and I am outraged that they would pretend that they do in order to harm trans people.
Explosive Devices Sent to Liberals: The Latest
[Content Note: Terrorism; eliminationism.]
At the end of yesterday's chaos, during which there were a number of incendiary devices sent to prominent liberals and several "suspicious packages" ruled safe by law enforcement, this is where things stood: George Soros (days earlier), Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, John Brennan, and Joe Biden were all sent packages known or suspected to be IEDs, with Debbie Wasserman Schultz's name and address used as the return information to implicate her.
This morning, a package said by law enforcement sources to be identical to the other packages was sent to actor (and prominent Trump critic) Robert DeNiro at the address of his Tribeca Productions office.
pic of the package sent to DeNiro- @ShimonPro says that a former police officer who works in the building recognized that it looked like the packages sent/discovered yesterday, alerted authorities. pic.twitter.com/5Cp5PyXQEn
— Elizabeth Landers (@ElizLanders) October 25, 2018
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the person behind this terrorist act is yet finished.
Meanwhile, far from taking stock of their own role in fomenting this nightmare, the Trump cultists have decided that this is a "false flag operation" by liberals. And the messaging was sure coordinated quickly: Last night in Florida, protesters outside the gubernatorial debate were already carrying signs reading "Democrats Fake News Fake Bombs."
And in Wisconsin, where Donald Trump was holding forth at another Make America Clap for Me Again rally, the crowd immediately erupted into a "Lock her up!" chant — the same day an IED was sent to Hillary Clinton.
During his speech, Trump laughably told the same crowd: "No nation can succeed that tolerates violence or the threat of violence as a method of political intimidation, coercion, or control. We all know that. We want all sides to come together in peace and harmony."
National reconciliation would definitely be great, but that's simply not possible when one side is being terrorized and the other side is whining that getting heckled at restaurants for being fascist is the same as getting bombs in the mail for being critics of fascism.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Secjwick: "If you could pick any song to be your personal anthem, what would it be?"
Forever and always my answer to this question: Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation."
[Lyrics here.]
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by ice water.
Recommended Reading:
Andrés Manuel López Obrador at Lit Hub: [Content Note: Nativism; exploitation] Dear Donald Trump: No Wall Will Stand Forever
Lydia Wang at Bust: [CN: Domestic violence; murder] Murdered Utah Student Previously Reported Her Killer to the Police, But Nothing Was Done
Akanksha Singh at Bon Appetit: [CN: Discussion of depression and eating] I Was Alone, Depressed, and Spending All My Money on Delivery Pizza; Then I Learned to Cook
Kitty Sheehan at Longreads: [CN: Cancer; death] The Strongest Woman in the Room
Sheetal Sheth at Thrive Global: [CN: Bullying; racism] "But What If the Bully Is a Grown-Up?"
Megh Wright at Vulture: Tiffany Haddish Goes on Billy on the Street to Hunt for Woke Witches
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Get Your $hit Together, Conservatives
[Content Note: Stochastic terrorism; violent rhetoric.]
"The politicians who received IEDs were never in real danger b/c someone checks their mail" is the shittiest take by the shittiest people — who clearly don't give a fuck about the threat to the people who check their mail; people they're obliged to hire b/c of threats like this.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
Some of us have been criticizing right-wing eliminationist rhetoric for as long as conservatives have been normalizing it from the fringes (i.e. decades). And we have routinely been dismissed as oversensitive, hysterics, language police, the PC brigade, SJWs, snowflakes, etc.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
Let us at long last stop playing this obscene game in which those of us who urgently raise alarms about how language and culture work are dismissed as *too sensitive* about othering and eliminationist rhetoric, and get real about how the right wing isn't sensitive *enough*.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
This shit doesn't happen in a vacuum and it's time for conservatives to pull up their own goddamn bootstraps and get to work doing the hard business of self-reflection. This is one problem the invisible hand of the market can't fix for them—unless, perhaps, it's holding a mirror.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
Discussion Thread: Self-Care
What are you doing to do to take care of yourself today, or in the near future, as soon as you can?
If you are someone who has a hard time engaging in self-care, or figuring out easy, fast, and/or inexpensive ways to treat yourself, and you would like to solicit suggestions, please feel welcome. And, as always, no one should offer advice unless it is solicited.
* * *
Right now, all I can think of is that I need to get up from this desk and walk into the kitchen and make myself some lunch. So I'm going to do that. Nourishing myself is necessary, immediate self-care, and it's also all the self-care I can manage at the moment.
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 643
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: I Remain Very Worried About the Midterms and More "Suspicious Packages" Sent to Clintons, Obamas, and Possibly Others.
The political press is, quite rightly, consumed by the still-unfolding story about explosive devices being sent in attempted assassinations to multiple prominent Democrats. Regrettably, they are not talking about this story in partisan terms, despite the fact that it's clearly a partisan attack, nor as attempted assassinations, despite the fact that they are, nor as the responsibility of Donald Trump, despite the fact that the targets so far are like his own personal hit-list.
Here are some other things in the news today...
In good news, Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams handed Brian Kemp his ass in their debate last night! Jennifer Brett at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Stacey Abrams, Brian Kemp Clash in First Debate. "Abrams hit Kemp repeatedly over voting, an issue that's attracted national attention. 'The right to vote is a right. My father was arrested helping people to register,' she said."
In less good news from other states...
[Content Note: Terrorism] Dana Branham at the Dallas News: Campaign Signs for Beto O'Rourke and Colin Allred Set Ablaze. "Five yard signs for Democratic candidates were set on fire in a Richardson neighborhood Monday night, officials said. Police received three calls in a 30-minute span — one at 11 p.m., another at 11:06, and the third at 11:28 — reporting that yard signs for Beto O'Rourke and Colin Allred had been lit on fire in the Arapaho Heights neighborhood west of Heights Park, Sgt. Kevin Perlich said."
[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad: Governor Bruce Rauner Pronounces Illinois F***ed in Ad Mocking Gay Marriage. "A new ad from Illinois' Republican Governor Bruce Rauner depicts his challenger J.B. Pritzker getting married to House Speaker Mike Madigan. 'Repeat after me: I Mike Madigan, take you, JB Pritzker, as my unlawful partner in destruction,' starts the ad, which predicts corruption and higher taxes for the state should Pritzker win. 'By the power vested in me I now pronounce Illinois f**ked,' says the ad's minister."
Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Early Voter Turnout Is Down in Some North Carolina Counties Hit by Florence. "Among the 28 counties receiving federal assistance for Hurricane Florence recovery, New Hanover has thus far seen the biggest increase in early voting, with more than double the number of ballots cast compared to the 2014 midterm elections. But this isn't the case for other counties still struggling to recover from the hurricane. 'Voting is not a premier issue right now with them,' Courtney Patterson, a local organizer with the North Carolina Hurricane Relief Effort and Community Rapid Response Network, told ThinkProgress. 'Survival is…everything.'"
* * *
Kathleen McLaughlin at the Guardian: I Paid $7,348 for Healthcare Last Week — So Trump's Law Changes Are Personal. "While the illness itself dictates some of the terms of my life, the looming threat of losing insurance has always been for me the bigger obstacle. Throughout my 30s, every major decision — whether to change jobs, whether to move, where to live — revolved around not losing health insurance. Losing my insurance, even in the years when the disease goes into remission, would mean eventual ruin for my health and finances. I am a living, breathing, expensive pre-existing condition, the one who jacks up other people's insurance rates, the one who makes it difficult for insurance companies to profit on healthcare. Yet profit they do."
Speaking of preexisting conditions, this was part of a must-read Twitter thread by former head of Medicare/aid Andy Slavitt:
Effective today, “insurance” that doesn’t include coverage for the following events👇 will be eligible to count towards insurance— *and get subsidies that currently go to the ACA.
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) October 22, 2018
States need to apply for a waiver that the Trump Admin is allowing as of today. 2/ pic.twitter.com/wgdGwufte6
In case you can't see the list embedded in the tweet, here are just some of the many preexisting conditions listed that may not be covered under the new healthcare bill: AIDS, Alzheimer's, anxiety, asthma, cancer, cerebral palsy, cirrhosis, congestive heart failure, cystic fibrosis, depression, diabetes, menstrual irregularities, multiple sclerosis, obesity, organ transplants, Parkinson's, pregnancy, sleep apnea, transsexualism, and tuberculosis.
[CN: Fat hatred] By way of reminder, in 2013, the American Medical Association made the reprehensible decision to declare obesity a disease. As has been extensively- and long-documented by fat activists, myself included, accessing healthcare as a fat person is a challenge, because it's often impossible to find healthcare providers who will see you as a complete human being whose health is more complicated than "fat." Far too many healthcare providers are inclined to attribute any and every healthcare concern to fatness, even at the expense of our very lives, telling us to "lose weight" to fix problems like, for instance, shortness of breath which is actually being caused by blood clots in the lungs or cancer.
In May of 2017, during a previous round of GOP attacks on healthcare access, I noted that reinstating insurers' ability to deny care on the basis of preexisting conditions takes on a whole new urgency following the AMA classification of obesity as a disease, since anything attributed to fat can subsequently be denied.
If the GOP goes through with this, it will also be a death sentence for many fat people who would otherwise be healthy with basic healthcare.
* * *
[CN: Fascism] Kelly Weill and Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: Army Parrots Racist Right's Talking Points on Antifa. "Internal U.S. Army documents in 2017 on anti-fascists (antifa) parroted a fascist talking point about the far-right's supposedly non-racist creds, according to newly released material reviewed by The Daily Beast. ...'With the newly released documents, we again find a U.S. agency targeting anti-fascists as security threats while downplaying the menace posed by white nationalists,' said Ryan Shapiro, Property of the People's executive director."
[CN: White supremacy] Lisa Rein at the Washington Post: 'I Thought It Was Very Nice': Veterans Affairs Official Showcased Portrait of KKK's First Grand Wizard. "David J. Thomas Sr. is deputy executive director of VA's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, which certifies veteran-owned businesses seeking government contracts. His senior staff is mostly African American. Thomas said he took down the painting Monday after a Washington Post reporter explained that its subject, Nathan Bedford Forrest, was a Confederate general and slave trader who became the KKK's first figurehead in 1868. He said he was unaware of Forrest's affiliation with the hate group." The fuck he was.
Jordan Weissmann at Slate: The Actual Tax Bill Didn't Do Much for the Middle Class So Trump Wants Congress to Vote on a Make-Believe One.
Donald Trump has spent the last few days telling anyone who will listen that Republicans are about to introduce a brand new tax cut for middle class families.[CN: Nativism] Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress: Trump Tries to Own Libs by Tweeting Obama Video; Ends up Accidentally Owning Himself. "While Trump seems to think Obama's video highlights how Democrats have become supportive of 'open borders' over the last 13 years, what it really does is illustrate the dishonesty of his own messaging on immigration."
...As far as anybody can tell, Trump appears to have made all of this up from scratch. White House staffers are baffled. There is no tax plan. They don't even seem to know where Trump got the idea. ...And the Washington Post reports that the White House may ask congressional Republicans to take a symbolic vote on Trump's idea.
Advisers have discussed the idea of having Congress vote on a symbolic "resolution" for a future 10 percent tax cut for the middle class, people familiar with discussions said, part of their scramble to meet Trump's demand for rapid action to blunt Democrats' economic messaging ahead of the midterm elections....I want to set down a prediction: If Congress does take this vote, Trump will claim they actually passed a tax cut. Because we are that far through the looking glass.
The resolution would not be binding but would attempt to send a signal to the public that Republicans are focused on helping middle-class families.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Discussion Thread: How Are You?
I am really not fucking okay, for reasons that I presume are glaringly obvious.
I am scared and I am tired and I am grieving and I am angry.
Very goddamned angry.
I am angry about a lot of things, which generally can be collectively filed under: Angry about the loss of my country and what looks like the imminent loss of democracy around the world.
I'm not a person who was unaware that the United States had a history — and a present — of harming people under the banners of both of The American Dream and The American Empire.
The reason I am angry is not because I believe we're losing something perfect. It's because we're losing, for now and for probably a very long time, even the possibility of meaningful progress toward a more perfect union, to which I and many other people, in different ways and different fields, have dedicated our lives — often because our lives depend on it.
I'm angry because precisely the things I feared would happen are happening. The things I urgently warned, over and over, would happen if Donald Trump weren't taken seriously, if he got the Republican nomination, if he got the presidency, if Congressional Republicans made no effort to contain him at all, if the press failed utterly to hold him accountable, if everything went wrong in precisely the way it looked like it was going wrong, are happening.
I am angry because all of this was foreseeable, all of it was preventable, but all of the people who saw it and said it were dismissed, discounted, discredited.
And I am angry because a future I have done everything that I can in my own little corner of the world to prevent now feels inexorable.
I am also, as always, glad for this community, particularly in this moment. Anyone who wants to join me in another enormous virtual group hug is welcome.
How are you?
More "Suspicious Packages" Sent to Clintons, Obamas, and Possibly Others
[Content Note: Bombs; threats of violence; terrorism.]
The Clintons and the Obamas have reportedly received suspicious packages similar to the one received by George Soros, which turned out to be an explosive device.
I had a few thoughts on Twitter:
It's important to note that Trump has used stochastic terrorist strategies against Hillary Clinton since August 2016, when he bellowed at a rally: "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although, the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
Of course there won't be a direct line between people who commit these acts and Trump. That's the entire fucking point of stochastic terrorism. It's about creating an environment in which *someone* will be moved to violence, while maintaining distance and refusing accountability.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 24, 2018
It's also important to note that Trump didn't put targets on their backs. Soros, the Obamas, and the Clintons have been targeted by conservative extremists using campaigns rife with eliminationist language for decades (in the Clintons' case). Trump just exploited and amplified that existing hatred.
* * *
There are reports that a similar package was sent to CNN headquarters, which has been evacuated. It is thought to be related to the devices sent to Soros, the Obamas, and the Clintons.
Additionally, there is a report that another one was intercepted on its way to the White House. As of this writing, I have not seen any confirmation that package is thought to be similar or related. Which doesn't mean it isn't; I just haven't read that, unlike the others.
Naturally, the report that a package, related or otherwise, has been sent to the White House, too, is underwriting arguments that Trump bears no accountability. Whoooooooops that is not how it works.
As evidenced by the long history of dictators done in by the very violence that they endorsed and used to oppress.
Even if Trump is a target, he is not absolved of his own responsibility in creating the environment in which this is happening.
People get hurt when dehumanization and eliminationism become normalized. That's why decent people don't do that.
* * *
UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting "that there was no suspicious package addressed to the White House."
So, the only related "suspicious packages" have gone to: George Soros, the Clintons, the Obamas, and CNN. All routine and sustained targets of Trump's incendiary rhetoric.
UPDATE 2: Another "suspicious package" has been sent to a Florida office building where the office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is located. The building has been evacuated. No details at the moment whether this package is considered similar and related to the others.
UPDATE 3: CNN's Jake Tapper reports: "The package with an explosive device sent to CNN's NY offices today was addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan, according to city and local law enforcement officials." Brennan has been a frequent critic of the Trump Regime, and Donald Trump revoked his security clearance in August.
UPDATE 4: A suspicious package has been found outside a California building in which Sen. Kamala Harris' office is located. The building has been evacuated.
UPDATE 5: Law enforcement officials have told NBC that the return address name on the packages sent to Soros, the Clintons, and the Obamas is "Debbie Wasserman Schultz." Which, in addition to trying to blame DWS of harming fellow Democrats, also suggests that the package sent to her office is indeed related.
UPDATE 6: A suspicious package was intercepted on its way to former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, too.
UPDATE 7: The package intended for Holder (or perhaps a second package) was apparently the package that arrived at Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office — because, as mentioned in Update 5, her name and address were used as the sender's info. Holder's address was incorrect, so it was "returned to sender."
So, suspicious packages have been sent to: George Soros, the Clintons, the Obamas, John Brennan, Kamala Harris, and Eric Holder, with Debbie Wasserman Schultz's information used to implicate her.
UPDATE 8: Law enforcement has cleared the package reported at the building in which Senator Kamala Harris' office is located. Tom Winter at NBC News: "Per a statement from Sen. Kamala Harris' office and local police there is NO suspicious package at the Senator's office in San Diego and the item police did check out was not addressed to her and was found to not be a device of any kind."
UPDATE 9: Another package was sent to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: "Feds wouldn't disclose during the press conferences exactly what was in the package, but said 'it was consistent with the other packages.'"
UPDATE 10: Tara Palmeri at ABC News: "Suspicious package intercepted by Capitol Hill police was addressed to Democratic California congresswoman Maxine Waters, according to three sources."
UPDATE 11: Law enforcement has cleared the package sent to Cuomo. Via the New York Post: "'A device has been sent to my office in Manhattan, which we were just informed about,' Cuomo said at a press conference outside CNN's Columbus Circle headquarters. But police later said his office didn't receive a bomb — it was actually an envelope that said 'From Proud Boys' and contained the thumb drive inside."
It sounds to me like the Proud Boys (or someone pretending to be the Proud Boys) exploited what is happening to try to intimidate Cuomo, who recently ordered state police to investigate the Proud Boys, a patriarchal, white supremacist group.
I Remain Very Worried About the Midterms
[Previously: Trump Suggests the Midterms Will Be Compromised, I Am Very Worried About the Midterms, and I Am (Still) Very Worried About the Midterms.]
Donald Trump is relentlessly hammering the idea that the Republicans are going to prevail in the midterms. The polls are wrong. The Republicans are fired up. The election is going to be a referendum on Kavanaugh and immigration. He relentlessly tells lies about the caravan of refugees headed for the southern border, including that they are being funded by Democrats and will illegally vote in the midterm election.
He is reportedly fixing to question the integrity of the midterms if Democrats win, preparing to "throw legal challenges into the courts, sow confusion, declare a victory actually, and say that the election's been illegitimate — that is really under discussion in the White House."
Sitting members of the Republican Party are helping him lay the groundwork, creating the expectation of a GOP win and preparing to line up behind whatever democracy-killing maneuvers he deploys in case of a loss.
The Republicans' various propaganda outlets — Fox, Breitbart, etc. — are endorsing and amplifying all of this mendacious noise.
And now the mainstream political press is falling in line.
To wit, this AP article, headlined "Senate Slipping Away as Dems Fight to Preserve Blue Wave," opens thus: "In the closing stretch of the 2018 campaign, the question is no longer the size of the Democratic wave. It's whether there will be a wave at all."
The entire piece is rank propaganda for the Trump Regime. Take this, for instance: "Republican lawmakers are increasingly optimistic, in part because of Trump's recent performance as the GOP's campaigner in chief. Republicans say the often-volatile president has been surprisingly on-message during his campaign events, touting the strong economy and doubling down on the Kavanaugh fight to promote his efforts to fill courts with conservative jurists."
This is straight-up horseshit. Trump has not been "surprisingly on-message" at his fascistic rallies. He's been his usual rambling self, going off on bigoted, self-aggrandizing, and variously vile tangents as always, in between vaingloriously basking in the echo of "Lock her up!" chants and declaring himself a "nationalist."
Trump is only "on-message" so much as he can never be off-message, as far as his cultists are concerned. They lap up whatever he says, because he is an effective fear-monger and validator of their sundry resentments.
The Republicans continue to do everything they can to undermine free and fair elections, and that includes creating noise about how they are likely to win — while simultaneously either actively colluding with Russia to steal the election or passively colluding by failing to enact consequences for previous interference — and implying that if they lose it will indicate election rigging.
As opposed to the other way around.
And a significant portion of the political press is helping them transmit these messages.
I am worried that the midterms are not going to be free of interference, even beyond the usual Republican efforts at voter suppression and disenfranchisement.
I am worried that, even if they are free of additional interference, the Trump Regime and the rest of the Republican Party will claim that they weren't in order to further subvert our democracy.
I am worried about the political press' inclination to help them destroy our democracy.
I am worried that we are going to lose, even if we win.
