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 Write Letters and
Jamal Khashoggi: So Many Questions Remain and
Tech Companies Still Don't Get It.
Here are some more things in the news today...
[Content Note: Synagogue shooting; anti-Semitism; nativism. Covers entire section.]
Donald Trump definitely went to Pittsburgh yesterday, even though leaders there begged him not to come. And it went about as well as you'd expect.
Dominique Jackson at Raw Story:
Trump's Motorcade Forced to Turn Around After Thousands of Protesters Flood Pittsburgh Streets. "During CNN's Jake Tapper's Tuesday show, national correspondent Miguel Marquez said that he was shocked at how 'how big' and 'how quickly' the protest against Trump's visit grew. According to Marquez, there were two different protests taking place. Marquez said that protest he was at, which was about a block away from the Tree of Life synagogue, was not planned 24 hours [earlier]. According to CNN, police had tried to clear path for Trump's motorcade." Unsuccessfully. So Trump was forced to reroute. Wow. Also: Good.
Naturally, it only got worse from there.
Staff at the Daily Beast:
Trump Boasts About 'Great Respect' Shown to Him in Pittsburgh. "Donald Trump has boasted about being treated 'very nicely' and with 'great respect' by the people of Pittsburgh while attempting to dismiss the protests that greeted him Tuesday as 'fake news.' Demonstrators filled several blocks during Trump's visit to the Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman killed 11 people Saturday in the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. In a Wednesday morning tweet about his visit, Trump insisted he got a warm reception, failed to mention the 11 victims, and then went on to attack the media for reporting on the protests that happened."
Aaron Rupar at ThinkProgress:
Trump Keeps Pushing 'Invasion' Narrative That Motivated Pittsburgh Gunman to Kill 11 People.
The shooter who murdered 11 people in Pittsburgh on Saturday was motivated by a narrative pushed by Fox News and Trump allies that a caravan of people traveling through Mexico toward the U.S. border represented a potential "invasion" of the country.
On Wednesday — hours removed from visiting the synagogue where the shooting took place — the president made clear that he has no plans to stop pushing that narrative, despite the bloodshed it helped inspire 96 hours earlier.
"Our military is being mobilized at the Southern Border," Trump tweeted. "Many more troops coming. We will NOT let these Caravans, which are also made up of some very bad thugs and gang members, into the U.S. Our Border is sacred, must come in legally. TURN AROUND!"
Trump posted that tweet minutes after one in which he described the caravan using language that is usually reserved for invading armies.
"The Caravans are made up of some very tough fighters and people. Fought back hard and viciously against Mexico at Northern Border before breaking through," Trump tweeted, misleadingly, as the clashes he refers to in fact took place along Mexico's southern border.
The connection between the caravan and anti-Semitism, in case you've managed to miss the vile rightwing talking point, is that Holocaust survivor George Soros is funding the migrants. It's a narrative that persists even despite reports that the people making their way to the U.S.'s southern border can't afford to buy water or purchase new shoes as theirs fall apart after walking thousands of miles.
Brad Heath, Matt Wynn, and Jessica Guynn at USA Today:
How a Lie About George Soros and the Migrant Caravan Multiplied Online. "Lies, of course, are not new either. But social media can turn a breeze into a hurricane. It carried this falsehood to millions with a few taps on a screen. It also left a distinct trail that makes it possible to follow how lies spread and who told them, a map of their trajectory from the darker corners of the internet to the political mainstream."
* * *
It's still a steady stream of amazing news and terrible news from campaign trails across the country.
In
good news... Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post: [CN: Description of racist harassment of campaigners at link]
Georgia Domestic Workers Mobilize for Stacey Abrams in the Birthplace of Their Movement.
On a Thursday in October, six black women wearing bright orange T-shirts and jeans pull into this squeaky-clean north Atlanta suburb just before sundown, after what should have been a half-hour drive from the city took more than twice as long in traffic. They are domestic workers by day ― nannies, housekeepers, and home care workers ― but they spend their evenings knocking on doors for Stacey Abrams, who would be the first black female governor in the history of the nation.
...More than 300 domestic workers in Georgia ― nearly all black women, plus two men ― are running the largest independently funded ground game in the state ahead of this historic election. Their organization, Care in Action, is the political arm of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which represents 2.5 million domestic workers across the country. They're talking to voters of color in four critical counties, from the Atlanta suburbs to rural southwest Georgia, that could feasibly turn from red to blue if more non-white voters showed up at the polls.
While the proximate goal is getting Abrams elected, the domestic workers' efforts are a continuation of an activist movement that began in earnest at the midpoint of the last century. For the most part written out of the popular history of postwar social movements, domestic workers, in fact, were a driving force in the fight for labor and civil rights. They played a central, if largely invisible role in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott in 1955 and 1956. "Beginning in the 1960s, household workers organized forums, spoke publicly, circulated pamphlets, gave testimonials, and lobbied legislatures," writes Premilla Nadasen in Household Workers Unite. What began as "a grassroots movement of domestic workers," Nadasen adds, "evolved into a mass movement which fundamentally redefined black women's relationship to the world of work."
"Yes, we want to get Stacey elected, but it's not just about getting a person elected," says Nikema Williams, a state senator and the Georgia state director of Care in Action. "It's about reclaiming our power, reclaiming our voice, and making sure that our issues are uplifted, because we are living these issues every day as women of color here in the South."
This is what living in and fighting for a democracy looks like.
In bad news... Andy Towle at Towleroad: [CN: Homophobia; anti-choicery]
Dozens of Democratic House Candidate's Signs Defaced with 'Gay Lover' and 'Baby Killer'. "Dozens of signs for Perry Gershon, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York's 1st District of Suffolk, Long Island, noticed approximately 50 of his campaign yard signs had gone missing. They later returned, defaced with the words 'GAY LOVER' and 'BABY KILLER.' ...News12 reports: 'Gershon's opponent, Republican incumbent Lee Zeldin, denounced the defaced signs, and says his campaign has nothing to do with them.'" In the sense that his campaign didn't personally deface the signs, that may be strictly true.
But this shit doesn't happen in a vacuum. And of course Zeldin's
record is both homophobic and anti-choice.
And in depressing election interference news... Kevin Poulsen at the Daily Beast:
Americans Are Easy Marks for Russian Trolls, According to New Data. "An examination of Twitter's new dump of Russian troll data this month shows that the [Internet Research Agency]'s tactics worked far better in the U.S. than in Russia or the Eastern European nations where the troll farm cut its teeth. English-language tweets by the IRA's sockpuppet accounts enjoyed nine times the engagement than tweets in Russian and other languages. And, remarkably, Americans fell for the Russian interference even harder after the 2016 presidential election than before." Fucking hell.
* * *
[CN: Murder] Louisa Loveluck and Kareem Fahim at the Washington Post:
Turkish Prosecutor Says Khashoggi Was Strangled and Dismembered in Saudi Consulate. "Turkey's public prosecutor said Wednesday that Jamal Khashoggi was strangled and dismembered upon arrival at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul earlier this month as part of 'advance plans' to kill the prominent Saudi journalist and dispose of his body. The statement, delivered as Saudi Arabia's own prosecutor left Istanbul for Riyadh, appeared to mark the most conclusive official description to date of what happened to the prominent journalist and Washington Post contributing columnist when he entered the diplomatic mission on Oct. 2." But still no information on where his body was taken, or where it might be found.
* * *
[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]
Jorge Ramos at Splinter:
The Children of the Caravan. "I've seen the ignorant, xenophobic rants on social media about the caravan. They're terrorists in disguise. They're criminals. They're invaders. They've been sent to invade and destabilize the United States. ...According to a United Nations estimate, there are about 2,000 children in the caravan of perhaps 7,000 Central American migrants trying to make their way to the U.S. border with Mexico; the exact number is impossible to determine. ...Terrorists wouldn't be carrying their children across entire countries. Terrorists wouldn't be pushing strollers in their slippers or their worn-out shoes, traveling over 1,000 miles in temperatures nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit, trying to reach Texas or California."
Julián Aguilar and Teo Armus at the Texas Tribune:
Texas' Border Lawmakers Say They're in the Dark on Troop Deployment. "A day after federal officials announced that active-duty military will descend on the border to thwart the caravan of Central American asylum-seekers slowly approaching the United States, border lawmakers said they've been left in the dark about any further details surrounding the estimated 5,200-troop deployment. ...So far, [U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela's] office said it doesn't have more information than what officials told reporters on Monday, when Air Force Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, the chief of U.S. Northern Command, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan announced the deployment." JFC.
Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News:
Here's Why ICE Is 'Mass Releasing' Immigrant Families from Detention Centers. "Federal immigration authorities are quietly releasing an unusual number of immigrant families from detention centers, '
dumping [them] on border city streets,' and leaving some stranded at bus stations in the middle of the night. The Trump administration's '
mass release' of immigrant families is in anticipation of hundreds of asylum-seeking families coming to the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming weeks. ...News outlets from San Diego to El Paso are reporting that the Trump administration has begun 'shifting the burden' of managing immigrant families on the border 'to local organizations and cities across the southwest border,' as the
Los Angeles Times reported."
* * *
Deborah Netburn at the LA Times: [CN: Anti-choicery]
When a Woman Wants an Abortion But Can't Get It, the Children She Already Has Suffer the Consequences. "When women are denied abortions, it doesn't just affect their lives, it also affects the lives of the kids they already have, according to a study published Tuesday in the
Journal of Pediatrics. The new work finds that the young children of women who are refused access to an abortion are less likely to hit development milestones on time, and more likely to live in poverty, than the children of women who sought an abortion and got one. 'The research here is clear,' said Diana Greene Foster, a demographer at the University of California San Francisco who led the work. 'Restricting abortion access doesn't just harm women. It harms their children as well.'" Which is hardly surprising,
since 73% of women who seek abortions cite "can't afford a baby now" as the reason for the termination.
Brian Kahn at Earther: [CN: Moving GIF at link]
An Iceberg Five Times the Size of Manhattan Just Popped Off West Antarctica. "The Pine Island Glacier has been breaking off monstrous icebergs over the past five years, presenting a worrying sign that the West Antarctic is destabilizing. The latest occurred this weekend. Satellite imagery shows an iceberg roughly 115 square miles — five times the size of Manhattan — breaking off the front of the glacier. ...In the 2000s, so-called iceberg calving events of this magnitude used to occur roughly every five years. But since 2013, there have been four calving events including one last year." Oh.
Jennifer Dobner at the Guardian:
U.S. Insurer Sends Public Employees to Mexico for Cheaper Drugs. "Owing to the soaring cost of medicine in the US, the state of Utah is offering its public employees a new incentive: $500 and a trip to Mexico to buy prescription drugs at a cheaper price. ...Currently the plan applies to a specific set of expensive drugs used in the treatment of arthritis, autoimmune disorders, psoriasis, Crohn's disease, and prostate cancer. According to the
Salt Lake Tribune, in the U.S. a 28-day supply of the MS drug Avonexruns about $6,700, while in Tijuana it might cost approximately $2,200. 'Everybody loves a good deal,' said Norm Thurston, the Republican congressman who sponsored the 'right to shop' legislation."
Republicans: OMG THE SOUTHERN BORDER IS A NIGHTMARE SHITSHOW BECAUSE OF MIGRANT GANGS AND TERRORISTS EEEEEEEEEE IT'S SO DANGEROUS THAT WE HAVE TO BUILD A WALL CLOSE THE BORDER SEND TROOPS POOP OUR PANTS! Also Republicans: Head to the border to buy your life-saving meds, 'k?
*
jumps into Christmas tree*
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Open Wide...
Shut Up!
