Bernie Sanders, What Are You Even Doing This Time?

[Content Note: White supremacy; misogyny.]

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bernie Sanders actually said this shit (emphases mine):

RS: Do you have any thoughts about the leadership in the House?

BS: I will let them work that out themselves. I'm obviously not a member of the House anymore. We'll let them make their own decisions. But this is what I absolutely do believe. I absolutely believe that from day one, the Democrats in the House have got to come out with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working people. And that leads to — as you know, the Medicare-for-all bill I introduced, which is to be implemented over four years, lowers the eligibility age from 65 to 55, covers all of the children, and lowers the cost of prescription drugs. My guess is that about 80-percent of the American people would support a proposal like that. It's wildly popular. And that's what the Democrats have got to do. They've got to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, they've got to make public colleges tuition-free, and they've got to lower student debt. All of these proposals are enormously popular. And they're good public policy. And here's what I think, Matt, that maybe nobody else in the world believes. As you know, Trump is a 100-percent political opportunist, who has no political views other than how he can win elections.

RS: Well, that's true.

BS: Today, if he is a racist and a sexist, tomorrow he may be a great civil rights champion — if he thinks it gets him five more votes. He has no core values. I would not be shocked that if the Democrats passed popular, good legislation, that Trump would look around him and say, "Hey, why not? What do I give a damn?" And he may come on board, because ultimately he doesn't believe in anything except winning. So I believe it's terribly important that the Democrats come out of the gate full-steam ahead and start passing really good legislation that puts Trump and the Republicans on the defensive.

Bernie. No.

Sure, Trump is a deeply cynical political opportunist, and he is also a master media manipulator who understands that contrarianism gets headlines just for the sheer shock value, so there is an outside possibility he might surprise everyone by scribbling his Sharpied signature onto, say, a Democratic healthcare bill someday.

But that wouldn't indicate anything about who he fundamentally is, which is a vile wreck who loves harming people so much that malice is his agenda.

Which is why it is incredibly dangerous — and straight-up fucking stupid — to suggest that he might actually become a "great civil rights champion" because he puts his name on something unexpected in the hope it will garner him even more power that he can exploit to hurt people.

Bernie's already writing the narrative that Trump would want us to believe if he pulled this opportunistic shit. WHY WOULD HE DO THAT?

I have some uncharitable thoughts about what the answer to that question is.

Further, Bernie is dead wrong that Trump doesn't have any fixed political views. Donald Trump is as committed to white supremacist patriarchy as anyone in the whole of the United States today.

As I have previously observed: Someone does not live a life careening from housing discrimination against Black applicants, to public musings on eugenics and the superiority of one's own genes, to a crusade against exonerated men of color, to a birther campaign against the nation's first Black president, to a presidential announcement address steeped in racism and nativism, to a campaign slogan that's dogwhistled white supremacy, to anti-Semitic tweets and sloganeering, to an attack on a judge because of his ethnicity, to an entire campaign exploiting racial and xenophobic fears, to a presidential agenda centered around toxic attacks on immigrants and Muslims and demonizing cities with significant Black and/or immigrant populations, to defending Confederate monuments, to defending actual goddamn Nazis, and everything that has come before and in between, if one is merely obtuse.

Trump's record on race is not one of accidental gaffes. It is one of a lifetime commitment to white supremacy.

And despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly asserted that he cherishes women, Trump is an overt and committed misogynist.

He likes to say that nobody has more respect for women than he does, but anyone who doesn't sexually assault women; anyone who doesn't use sexist slurs or publicly insult the appearance of women they don't like; anyone who doesn't fail to support comprehensive women's healthcare including reproductive choice; anyone who doesn't tell working mothers earning low wages just to work harder; anyone who doesn't direct border agents to tear babies from their mothers' arms; anyone who doesn't use their female employees as cover for their misogynistic policies; anyone who didn't turn a political contest with a woman into a national referendum on how the country values women; anyone who doesn't defend domestic abusers who work for them; anyone who didn't put a sex abuser on the Supreme Court; anyone who doesn't value women exclusively for the way we look, who doesn't reflexively objectify women, who doesn't treat women like property, who doesn't divide women into categories of worthiness based on whether we arouse them; anyone who does not subscribe to a toxic, retrograde chauvinism that upholds systemic gender inequality and relies on a posture of inherent male superiority respects women more than Donald Trump does.

These aren't even comprehensive lists of Trump's racism and sexism. His commitment to white cishet male supremacy is long, vast, and well-documented.

Suggesting that he has no fixed principles at all is to erase Trump's demonstrable history of malice against marginalized people.

And asserting that Trump could somehow undo all of that by cynically signing some hypothetical piece of progressive legislation is as incorrect as it is gross.

This is careless, at best. But I am not feeling inclined to give Bernie the benefit of the doubt anymore. He has abetted Trump with bullshit like this far too many times.

Once is far too many. And it's been more than that.

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The Thousand Oaks Shooting: Updates

[Content Note: Gun violence; disablism; toxic masculinity.]

Over the last 24 hours, we've learned the identities of the people who were killed when Ian David Long who opened fire in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California yesterday, killing 12 people and injuring others before killing himself: Sean Adler, 48; Cody Coffman, 22; Blake Dingman, 21; Jake Dunham, 21; Ron Helus, 54; Alaina Housley, 18; Daniel Manrique, 33; Justin Meek, 23; Marky Meza, Jr., 20; Kristina Morisette, 20; Telemachus "Tel" Orfanos, 27; and Noel Sparks, 21.

My condolences to their families, friends, and all who knew them. I am so sorry.

We've also learned more about Ian David Long, a former marine who was thought to have PTSD, though apparently did not have an official diagnosis. Naturally, many people are using reports of his having PTSD to spin the old "mentally ill lone wolf" chestnut, but Long had a history of being abusive that predated his time in the military. Like virtually every other mass shooter, he was abusive toward women:

"He attacked me. He attacked his high school track coach," said [Dominique Colell]. "Who does that?"

...Colell says it happened during practice when someone found a phone and she was trying to figure out who it belonged to.

"Ian came up and started screaming at me that was his phone," said Colell. "He just started grabbing me. He groped my stomach. He groped my butt. I pushed him off me and said after that — 'You're off the team.'"

But Colell says she was encouraged by other coaches and the school to accept an apology to not ruin his future in the Marine Corps.

"I should have reported it then," said Colell.

And although she never would have predicted this, Colell says she doesn't believe this is just a case of PTSD. She says Long had issues long before he was ever a Marine.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people with PTSD," said Colell. "They don't go around shooting people. This kid was mentally disturbed in high school. There were signs and the administration knew it."

Long had also had multiple interactions with police over many years, most of them for minor infractions, but there was a serious confrontation in April of this year, during which police were seen by neighbors "drawing their guns and rifles and training them on the house," because Long was inside thrashing irately and refusing to come out. He eventually came outside to talk to police, but they decided he wasn't a threat and left.

Deputies who responded to the incident said Long was irate and acting irrationally, said Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean. The sheriff's crisis-intervention team and mental health specialist met with Long, and those who evaluated him discussed the possibility that "he might be suffering from PTSD," Dean said, because of Long's service.

Under a 5150 order, authorities are allowed to take people into custody and hold them for up to 72 hours because they are considered a threat to themselves or others. But the mental health crisis team that evaluated Long cleared him, Dean said. If they had placed him under a psychiatric hold, he would have lost the legal right to own a gun.

Long's mother was worried about him, but Long reportedly refused help. It's unclear if she was the one who called police in April, or if it was one of the neighbors who heard him violently raging inside their home, but someone certainly urged authorities to pay attention to Long.

And if they had, perhaps 12 people would still be alive.

I'm deeply troubled by the way men raising flags with people around them are "evaluated" by law enforcement: If they can calm themselves down enough to seem vaguely reasonable, and personally assure responding officers that they're cool, that's enough. Never mind that Long's mother and neighbors knew he was a ticking threat.

Surely the assessment of people who live with and beside men raising flags should carry more weight.

[CN: Description of violence] I'm reminded of that recent case in Russia in which the husband kept threatening the (now ex-)wife that he was going to take her into the woods and hurt her with a knife, so she called police to report him, and the officer who showed up asked him if he was going to do that, and he said no, so the officer just left. And then the guy took his now ex-wife into the woods and cut off both of her hands.

In court under questioning, he smirkingly noted that he simply lied to the police officer.

It seems pretty clear that Long did the same. He simply lied about being a danger to himself and to others.

Of course we need a high threshold for involuntary holds — especially because abusive men would use it against women all the damn time if it were easy. (Oh the bitter irony.) But it really shouldn't be difficult for police officers to discern the difference between someone who is trying to use an involuntary hold against someone because they're abusive fucks and a parent or partner or teacher or boss or neighbor who is desperately begging them for help.

It has to be harder for guys like Long to convince law enforcement they're not a threat. Because here we are.

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Open Thread

Hosted by a pink sofa. Have a seat and chat.

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker Quinalla: "What is the most interesting thing you've figured out about yourself lately?"

That I'm more tenacious than I even thought.

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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 haven't had a chance to read anything for the past week or so, because I've just been too busy with all the news and too tired to read when I have downtime, but I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading!

What are you reading now?

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Mueller's Investigation Is in Big Trouble, Folks

Earlier today, USA Today investigative reporter Brad Heath tweeted: "Mueller's office told the D.C. Cir. that if the acting attorney general instructs them not to take particular investigative steps, that's that. 'It is not the case that the special counsel is off wandering in a free floating environment.'"

Now, as far as I can tell, this statement is nothing more than Bob Mueller saying he doesn't view the scope of the special counsel as unconstrained; that he answers to someone.

(Usually that someone is the Attorney General, when the Attorney General isn't compromised and then obliged to recuse himself and then fired and then replaced by a nightmare who hates the special counsel's investigation.)

The statement came as part of an answer to questions from the bench this morning during a scheduled D.C. Cir. argument "that the purpose of Mueller's appointment was to make the investigation of Russian interference sufficiently independent 'that the American people could have confidence in it.'"

So, on the one hand, it's entirely innocuous. On the other, given the context and timing, it sure seems to be communicating something urgent about the fate of the investigation.

Maybe that Matthew Whitaker is already asserting his power over its direction. Maybe that the investigation has already been killed. At minimum, it seems like a plea that, without intervention, the investigation is doomed.

Which I certainly and reasonably surmised, once a fervent critic was handed control.

Still, here is what seems to be a signal for help, coming from Mueller. That is troubling, even though the crisis was entirely expected.

It's evident that Whitaker is wholly prepared to disallow any of Mueller's findings from reaching Congress. If he is even allowed to finish his investigation and make a final report, it will remain in the darkness.

At this point, I believe our best hope for seeing Mueller's report may be Mike Pence, who I still believe may be cooperating with Mueller. And even if he's not, he may be willing to use Mueller to make his own move.

Pence has wanted to be president virtually his entire life, and I can't shake the feeling that he is tired of waiting. Surely he knows that if Trump goes down in an election loss in 2020, his last chance at the presidency goes down with it. That's looking far more likely after the midterms — which means Pence's best bet at this point is to make sure that Trump goes down via resignation or impeachment.

Otherwise, I fear that the only other way Mueller's report will ever see the light of day is if Mueller himself breaks the law to publicly disclose it. And I don't imagine that's very likely.

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Fat Fashion

This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.

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A going-to-the-movies-with-a-friend look, part of which was seen in the last selfies thread, but here's the whole thing:

I got the t-shirt at Tee Public; the cardigan at Old Navy (they no longer sell it in a red, but still have other colors); the jeans at Torrid, where they don't sell this exact pair any longer, but here's something similar; and of course my trusty old purple Docs.

This is definitely a favorite outfit when I want to be bright, colorful, and fiercely feminist all at the same time.

Anyway! What's up with you?

Have at it in comments! Please remember to make fat women of all sizes, especially women who find themselves regularly sizing out of standard plus-size lines, welcome in this conversation, and pass no judgment on fat women who want to and/or feel obliged, for any reason, to conform to beauty standards. And please make sure if you're soliciting advice, you make it clear you're seeking suggestions—and please be considerate not to offer unsolicited advice. Sometimes people just need to complain and want solidarity, not solutions.

[Note: I am not receiving anything in return for my recommendations here, nor am I affiliated in any way with any of the companies mentioned herein. Any endorsements made are on products I purchased myself, just because I like them!]

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Daily Dose of Cute

It's too bad Zelly's never really gotten comfortable at Shakes Manor, lolololol. ♥
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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We Resist: Day 658

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

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Earlier today by me: Mass Shooting in Thousand Oaks, California and The White House Attack on Jim Acosta Is Vile and Matthew Whitaker, Sessions' Replacement, Is Awful.

We'll start today with some election news, as some races are finally getting called or are still unresolved...

Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress: Stacey Abrams Vows to Fight On as Tens of Thousands of Ballots Are Still Uncounted in Georgia. "Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams vowed on Wednesday to fight on, demanding that all provisional and mail-in ballots in Georgia's Democratic strongholds be counted before the race is called. Republican Brian Kemp, meanwhile, declared victory during a press conference Thursday and announced he'd be resigning from his position as secretary of state. 'We know our opponent has had the secretary of state's office declare he is the winner,' Abrams' campaign said on a press call Wednesday night. 'We are here to say we don't accept that.'"

Steve Bousquet at the Tampa Bay Times: Recounts Loom Larger, Legal Action Begins as Margins Tighten in Key Florida Races. "As the Senate race between Gov. Rick Scott and Sen. Bill Nelson appears headed to a statewide recount, both candidates are mobilizing teams of lawyers and legal skirmishes are well underway. Thursday dawned with Scott leading Nelson by just more than one-fourth of a percentage point. The candidates for agriculture commissioner are much closer, divided by 0.06 points, and in the contest for governor, Ron DeSantis' advantage of 0.52 over Andrew Gillum was close to the threshold for a mandatory machine recount."

⚠️ If you voted with a provisional ballot, you need to make sure your vote is counted. Contact your Supervisor of Elections office immediately before the 5 PM deadline. If you have questions, call our Voter Protection Hotline: (833) 868-3352 ☎️ https://t.co/tpd7dtEjiw

— Florida Democrats (@FlaDems) November 8, 2018

Adam Peck at ThinkProgress: Democrats Pick Up Another House Seat in the Georgia District That Once Belonged to Newt Gingrich. "Late Wednesday night, Rep. Karen Handel (R-GA) issued a statement conceding her reelection bid to upstart Democratic challenger Lucy McBath in Georgia's 6th congressional district, one of the most reliably Republican districts in the country. ...The seat will now be filled by Lucy McBath, the mother of 17-year-old Jordan Davis who, in 2012, was shot and murdered by a white man who complained Davis was playing his music too loudly. McBath made gun control a central pillar of her campaign, and was one of the handful of mothers who lost sons to gun violence to campaign across the country for Hillary Clinton in 2016." Blub. Congratulations, Lucy McBath!

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Jessica Boehm at the Arizona Republic: With Arizona Senate Seat at Stake, Republicans Sue County Recorders. "With the U.S. Senate seat hanging in the balance, the Yuma, Navajo, Apache and Maricopa County Republican parties filed a lawsuit against all Arizona county recorders and the Secretary of State late Wednesday. ...The Republican groups are challenging the way counties verify signatures on mail-in ballots that are dropped off at the polls on Election Day, according to the complaint obtained by The Arizona Republic. At stake is an unknown number of ballots that could tip the result of the U.S. Senate race. Just 17,000 votes separated Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema as of Wednesday evening, a cliffhanger that could take days, if not weeks, to call."

Michael Finnegan at the LA Times: Down Two, California Republicans Could Lose up to Four More House Seats. "California Republicans lost two House seats in Tuesday's midterm election and could surrender more as tens of thousands of ballots are counted in four other contests that remain too close to call. The party has an exceedingly small chance of holding the seats of Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Jeff Denham, historical voting patterns suggest. Two other Republicans, Rep. Mimi Walters and Young Kim of Fullerton, hold thin leads over their opponents that could also vanish."

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[Content Note: Bigotry; abuse] Goldie Taylor at the Daily Beast: Dear White Lady, What Are You Doing to Us?

I really want to understand how you — or, anyways, so many women like you — chose a man like Donald Trump over a vastly more qualified Hillary Clinton. I want to know if you honestly thought he had the moral compass, not to mention the mental wherewithal, to be president of these United States. There may be a good number of reasons that you're just flat out tired of the Clinton name. However, I can guarantee you that she wouldn't have left people to suffer in Puerto Rico. The City of Flint would have gotten the federal funding it needs to completely overhaul its water systems. We certainly would not be the laughingstock of leaders from around the globe. No one would have been snickering during her address to the United Nations.

...Surely, you heard the way he talked about women on that Access Hollywood tape? You weren't convinced when he called undocumented immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers'? Or when he said in a nationally televised interview that women who seek reproductive healthcare to end an unwanted pregnancy should be punished? Seriously, I think he meant jail. According to a Pew public opinion poll, 40 percent of Republican women are pro-choice. Overall, more than half of all women believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But, y'all still voted for this guy.

...Did you not hear the fight in Stacey Abrams' voice? Did you not hear her when she dropped all the ideological talking points and crafted a plan for her state that prioritizes an investment in families? Did you not hear her when she said Republicans are actively declining $8 million a day in federal dollars because they refuse to expand Medicaid?

...I sincerely hope that one day I will be able to count on you as an ally, to call you — without hesitation — my sister.

This is a very good piece by Goldie. I don't pretend to know the minds of white women who vote Republican, and I don't know what on earth will reach them, but I desperately hope that they accept this plaintive but firm invitation.

Surely setting high expectations for conservative white women and inviting them to meet those expectations is a better strategy than calling all white women trash, without exception or caveat, of which I have seen far too much lately, especially from progressive white women.

That, by the way, is not a suggestion to take it easy on conservative white women — they're doing immense harm. It's an observation that there is a space between giving them a pass and dismissing them all out of hand, and, in my estimation, Goldie blazed a good path in the middle ground here, holding conservative white women accountable while also communicating that they could, and should, do better.

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Eileen Sullivan and Adam Liptak at the New York Times: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospitalized with 3 Broken Ribs. "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court was hospitalized on Thursday morning, with three broken ribs after falling in her office Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman said. Justice Ginsburg, 85, went home after her fall, but experienced discomfort over the night. She was admitted to George Washington University Hospital, where doctors found three broken ribs on her left side, Kathy Arberg, a Supreme Court spokeswoman, said in a statement. The next sitting of the Supreme Court begins on Nov. 26, and Justice Ginsburg's history suggests the injuries are not likely to keep her away. She broke two ribs in 2012, without missing work." Get well soon, RBG!

Josh Rogin at the Washington Post: Democrats Prepare to Investigate All Aspects of Trump's Foreign Policy. "For two years the Trump administration has largely ignored attempts by congressional Democrats to oversee — much less investigate — the execution of U.S. foreign policy by the executive branch. But the incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), told me his committee will waste no time before beginning inquiries into how the White House, the State Department and even the Trump Organization have been conducting foreign policy. 'The White House needs to take us seriously, and if they don't, we are going to make sure they take us seriously,' Engel said in an interview Wednesday. 'I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. …But if not, I intend to use every prerogative that I have to ensure oversight.'"

[CN: White supremacy] Elliot Hannon at Slate: White Nationalist Leader Posts Pictures of Casual White House Visit a Day After Midterms. "A day after the midterms, the stakes of the Trump presidency were again on display Wednesday, as Patrick Casey, the leader of the white nationalist neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa visited the White House. Casey posted pictures on Twitter of the South Lawn of the White House along with the caption 'Evropa has landed at the White House!' It's unclear the nature and extent of the visit, but the area Casey is accessing is pretty clearly outside the bounds of what would be a normal White House tour. For access to the working parts of the White House, visitors must be accompanied by a staff member. Casey posed for photographs outside the South Portico of the White House and in front of the Oval Office from South Lawn Road."

[CN: Racist apologia] Gideon Resnick at the Daily Beast: Bernie Sanders on Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams: Many Whites 'Uncomfortable' Voting for Black Candidates. "'I think you know there are a lot of white folks out there who are not necessarily racist who felt uncomfortable for the first time in their lives about whether or not they wanted to vote for an African-American,' Sanders told The Daily Beast, referencing the close contests involving Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia and that ads run against the two. 'I think next time around, by the way, it will be a lot easier for them to do that.'"

[CN: Threats; rape culture] Tim Mak at NPR: Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Blasey Ford Continues Receiving Threats, Lawyers Say. "Christine Blasey Ford is still being harassed after leveling sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, her lawyers say. 'Justice Kavanaugh ascended to the Supreme Court, but the threats to Dr. Ford continue,' said Ford's lawyers, Debra Katz, Lisa Banks, and Michael Bromwich, in a statement to NPR. ...She's had to move four times, she wrote last month. She has had to pay for a private security detail. She hasn't been able to return to her job as a professor at Palo Alto University. A spokeswoman for the school did not respond to a question about whether there was a timeline for Ford to return."

Josh Kovensky at TPM: Ex-Manafort Son-in-Law Allegedly Bragged About Aiding Mueller Probe as Part of Scam. "Paul Manafort's former son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai boasted about having 'turned state's evidence' on his ex-father-in-law in order to to swindle investors into a real estate scam, according to a newly unsealed criminal complaint. ...Yohai's bragging about his nonexistent ties to the Mueller probe — though false — allegedly earned him a brief payday. The investor agreed to go into business with Yohai, and claimed to have lost $200,000 from the venture."

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[CN: War; violence] Bethan McKernan and Patrick Wintour at the Guardian: 'The Violence Is Unbearable': Medics in Yemen Plead for Help.

Aid agencies and medical staff on the ground in Hodeidah have begged the international community to intervene to stop the violence in the besieged Yemeni city as coalition and Houthi rebel forces struggle to gain the upper hand ahead of a planned ceasefire at the end of the month.

"The violence is unbearable, I cannot tell you. We're surrounded by strikes from the air, sea, and land," said Wafa Abdullah Saleh, a nurse at the barely functioning al-Olafi hospital in the Houthi-controlled city centre.

"The hospital treats the hungry and people injured in airstrikes day in and day out, but there is a serious shortage of medicine," she said. "Even if we try our hardest we cannot treat patients because we lack the necessities for basic operations."

...In a joint statement on Thursday, several international aid agencies condemned the intense new violence in Hodeidah, calling it a "deeply disturbing development," and calling on all parties to the conflict to cease the fighting and engage with the UN-sponsored peace process.

A new round of peace talks to end the war — which has killed an estimated 56,000 people and left 14 million on the brink of starvation — are scheduled for early December in Sweden.

At the UN, diplomats were working frantically to get agreement on a draft resolution by next Friday that would demand a ceasefire and the free flow of humanitarian aid. But there is concern that the U.S. is demanding the draft include passages criticising Iran's role in Yemen that might be sufficient to prompt a Russian veto.

Fucking hell. The Democrats' scrutiny of Trump's foreign policy cannot come soon enough. Literally.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Matthew Whitaker, Sessions' Replacement, Is Awful

Any sensible person fully expected that outgoing Attorney General Jeff Sessions' replacement would be even worse than he was. The only question was what particular flavors of terrible it would be.

Sessions' interim (and possibly permanent) replacement, Matthew Whitaker, who's been handed control of Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation, is already shaping up to be a total fucking nightmare.

Last year, he penned a piece for CNN entitled "Mueller's Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far."

In a piece by Betsy Woodruff et. al. at the Daily Beast about the secretive, anti-Democrat group he led, a Department of Justice trial attorney is quoted saying, "Whitaker is on record as being more interested in propping up Trump than in upholding the rule of law. It's hard to have confidence that he'll do anything other than what the president had said in his tweets."

Like Donald Trump, Whitaker is a con artist who was "involved in a Miami-based invention-marketing company the Federal Trade Commission shut down last year after calling it a scam," and like Mike Pence, Whitaker is a Christian Supremacist who believes that judges should have "a biblical view."

In July of 2017, Whitaker was a guest on a CNN panel where he defended Don Trump Jr.'s taking the Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, because: "You would always take that meeting."

Speaking of Don Jr., his father is reportedly (and take that with a grain of salt) very worried that his son is about to be indicted by Mueller: "In recent days, according to three sources, Don Jr. has been telling friends he is worried about being indicted as early as this week. One person close to Don Jr. speculated that Mueller could indict him for making false statements to Congress and the F.B.I. about whether he had told his father about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting."

If Trump is worried about his son being indicted, presumably it's less out of actual concern for his son but because he is worried about his own guilty hide. He may feel like he's next, which is why he has "already begun reviewing with his lawyers the written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller."

And why he acted swiftly to oust Sessions and shove Rod Rosenstein aside to put Whitaker in charge of the Mueller investigation.

Trump and Whitaker share one very important thing in common: They both believe Whitaker's primary role at the Justice Department is to shield Trump from justice.

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The White House Attack on Jim Acosta Is Vile

[Content Note: Authoritarianism; misogyny.]

Yesterday, during Donald Trump's post-midterms press conference, CNN's Jim Acosta, who has been a regular target of Trump's ire, was dismissed and scolded by Trump when he asked about Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation and questioned Trump's incendiary language about the migrant caravan headed toward the southern border.

Trump sneered at Acosta: "That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. Put down the mic. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. You're a very rude person."

Acosta continued to try to ask his questions, as is his job, and a White House aide, a young woman, was sent over to him to try to grab the microphone away from him. He held onto it, persisting as Trump shouted at him that he'd had enough.

Later in the day, the White House announced that it was suspending Acosta's press pass "until further notice." In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said he would be stripped of his "hard pass," which grants access to the White House grounds.

Sanders defended the decision by accusing Acosta of "placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern," which she added was "absolutely unacceptable."

This was, to be clear, an outright lie. The video clearly shows that Acosta did not "place his hands" on the woman who was trying to rip the microphone away from him, casting furtive glances at Trump the entire time she was doing it.

At one point, Acosta's hand does come in contact with her arm, but only because he was trying to get away from her as she was grabbing at the mic. It is clearly a defensive and accidental contact.

Sanders, however, was determined to make the case that Acosta assaulted the young woman, so she deployed doctored video, slowed down in that section, to make it appear as though Acosta is making a downward "chopping" motion.

1) Took @PressSec Sarah Sanders' video of briefing
2) Tinted red and made transparent over CSPAN video
3) Red motion is when they doctored video speed
4) Sped up to make Jim Acosta's motion look like a chop
5) I've edited video for 15+ years
6) The White House doctored it pic.twitter.com/q6arkYSx0V

— Rafael Shimunov 🔥 (@rafaelshimunov) November 8, 2018

The White House had this accusation and the doctored video ready to go alarmingly quickly — and as Leah McElrath noted on Twitter, "Within moments of Acosta asking his question at the presser this morning, hundreds of accounts began spamming multiple hashtags accusing him of assault."

The White House was quite evidently trying to set up Jim Acosta to accuse him of assault. When he didn't respond as anticipated (by a bunch of abusive men), they resorted to using doctored video to try to make it look like an assault.

Note that part of this plan was using a woman with the hope she'd be assaulted.

And we haven't heard anything from her.

The White House has asserted on multiple occasions (Trump, Corey Lewandowski, Rob Porter, Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh) that women who accuse men of assault are liars, being used by Democrats for political purposes. That's rank projection. Here they are, doing precisely what they accuse Democrats of doing.

(Also note that the "assault" the White House is saying Acosta made on their aide is almost exactly what Donald Trump actually did to reporter Alexi McCammond along the campaign trail in 2016.)

This was clearly a set-up. And it should terrify and enrage all of us that the White House is engaging in this sort of manipulation, propaganda, and personal attacks on journalists as the president's war on the free press continues to escalate.

And fuck everyone who is calling this "a distraction." This isn't a distraction. This is what life looks like under an authoritarian regime, and we had better damn well be paying attention.

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Mass Shooting in Thousand Oaks, California

[Content Note: Gun violence; terrorism.]

Last night in Thousand Oaks, California, an armed man went into the Borderline Bar & Grill on "College Country Night" and starting shooting, killing 12 people and injuring about around a dozen more. The gunman was later found dead; it is not known at the time of this writing whether he killed himself or was shot by Ron Helus, a veteran sergeant in the Ventura County Sheriff's Office who was killed while responding to the shooting.

Isaac Stanley-Becker, Mark Berman, Lindsey Bever, and Allyson Chiu at the Washington Post report:

The only weapon recovered by early Thursday was a handgun, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said. Officials have not publicly identified the shooter.

"It's a horrific scene in there," Dean told reporters. "There's blood everywhere. The suspect is part of that."

...The attacker is a white male who may have used a larger clip for his handgun or was able to reload, according to a person familiar with the matter. Investigators were still working to determine the motive and other details.

...Claire Gietzen told an ABC affiliate that she ran behind the bar when gunshots broke out, but then joined a man who pulled down a ladder leading into the attic.

"He motioned for me to follow him. I thought that was the best option at the time," she said. "[We heard] gunshot after gunshot. I heard glass breaking. I heard commotion and screaming. …We kept thinking it would stop for a while, that we were okay, and then it would start up again."

...The shooting unfolded just 13 months after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas, when a lone gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Some people who were at Borderline Bar on Wednesday night had also apparently survived the shooting last year in Las Vegas. Chandler Gunn, 23, told the Los Angeles Times that when he heard about the shooting, he called a friend who works at the bar and who was also at Las Vegas festival.

"A lot of people in the Route 91 situation go here," Gunn told the newspaper about the tragedy in Las Vegas. "There's people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there's people that have seen it twice."

I am just filthy angry that more people are dead and more people are injured and more people are traumatized because of a man with toxic ideas and access to guns.

My condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of those who died. My thoughts are also with those who survived, and I hope those who were physically and/or psychologically injured have access to the resources they need to heal.

Of course law enforcement are offering the standard line about how this shooting doesn't appear to be connected to terrorism, but I honestly don't even know what the hell that is supposed to mean anymore. This is terrifying every time it happens.

Even if the shooter isn't connected to some ideological clusterfuck of vile bigotry (and it's very likely he is), his actions don't exist in a vacuum. He didn't get this idea out of nowhere, and his decision to act on it will have far-reaching ramifications, as people across the country make choices about whether to go out and be part of a public community knowing the risk that their day or night will end with gunfire.

If that isn't terrorism, tell me what the fuck it is.

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Open Thread

Hosted by a yellow sofa. Have a seat and chat.

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker merryns: "What does your perfect holiday/vacation day look like?"

No politics.

I don't care where it is. At home or on the most beautiful beach in the world or atop the highest mountain. Just as long as I don't have to think or read or hear about politics for the entire time, even if it's only a single day.

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Wednesday Links!

This list o' links brought to you by Democrats.

Recommended Reading:

Shay Stewart-Bouley at Black Girl in Maine: [Content Note: White supremacy; anti-Blackness] If We Don't Universally Shun the Hatred, Little Will Change

Jessica Luther and Dan Solomon at Texas Monthly: [CN: Rape culture; descriptions of sexual assaults] Meet the Women Whose Persistence Made Texas A&M Change Its Sexual Assault Policies

Lauren Zanolli at the Guardian: [CN: Child abuse] Can People Be Saved from a Terrible Childhood?

Patricia Hernandez at the Verge: Half of YouTube Viewers Use It to Learn How to Do Things They've Never Done

CBC Archives: Both Sides of Joni Mitchell's Art: The Visual and the Musical

Alyse Whitney at Bon Appetit: This Crispy Skin Salmon Is All I Want to Eat Right Now

Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!

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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!

* * *

As I mentioned, yesterday was Iain's birthday, and I spent part of the day baking his birthday cake.

I wanted to make something really special for him, because LOVE, but also baking is a pleasant and effective distraction for me, and Maude knows I needed a distraction yesterday.

I really had to pay attention to what I was doing, because I have never made a layer cake or frosting totally from scratch before, nor have I ever frosted a layer cake.

Given that this was my first go, I am very chuffed with how it turned out!

One rustic-frosted vanilla buttercream three-tiered cake with raspberry buttercream layers and walnuts on top!

For the cake itself, I used a modified version of Robyn Stone's Best White Cake Recipe, and for the frosting, I used a modified version of her Classic Vanilla Buttercream Frosting Recipe.

The major modification I made to each was using less sugar. She also recommends doubling her frosting recipe for the white cake recipe, but I wanted to do a rustic frost, because I love the aesthetic and, more importantly, neither of us loves a lot of frosting on a cake.

Less is more when it comes to both sweetness and amount of frosting, as far as we're concerned.

(And yes I know how fortunate it is we have CAKE AGREEMENT at Shakes Manor, lol.)

I also decided to do raspberry filling between layers, because Iain loves raspberries. For the raspberry layers, I just mixed some of the frosting, approximately 3 tablespoons, with about twice as much raspberry jam and some smashed raspberries.

And I added walnuts to the top of the cake because I liked the look of it and it gave some added texture to the cake. Plus: Yummy!

Two additional notes:

1. I do not have a rotating cake stand, so I just did the frosting by hand, the old-fashioned way. It's intimidating to try new cooking and baking techniques without the latest and greatest tools, but I'm really glad I gave it a shot. I felt like I could accomplish anything after I finished!

2. I was so worried that I was going to destroy the cake when I frosted it, so I took the extra step of wrapping each layer in cling wrap and letting them cool for a few hours in the fridge. Minimal crumbling! It was worth the additional energy and time.

Most importantly, Iain loved his cake. He said it was the best birthday cake he's ever had. Which means I'm probably going to be making it next year, too. And every year after that, lol!

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Jeff Sessions Resigns (at Trump's Request)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has handed in his resignation to Donald Trump, who has been furious with Sessions ever since, under massive public pressure, he made the uncharacteristically ethical decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

Right from the opening line of his resignation letter, Sessions wants us to know that he was actually fired: "Dear Mr. President: At your request, I am submitting my resignation."

It has long been expected that Sessions would be part of a "realignment" at the White House following the midterm elections, but Trump really didn't waste any damn time. Just one day after House Democrats got subpoena power and Sessions is out, opening up a slot for a loyalist who will leverage the power of the Justice Department to obstruct justice on behalf of the president.

Whoever fills the vacancy left by Sessions' departure will also be tasked with stymieing Special Counsel Bob Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (if he isn't unceremoniously booted out the door, too), as well as making sure that any report Mueller issues, should he ever issue one, never sees the light of day.

We don't know yet who Trump will nominate to replace Sessions, but, in the meantime, MSNBC's Kyle Griffin notes on Twitter: "The new acting Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker, wrote this last year: 'Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far.'"

So things aren't looking up in the interim, and I fear that some of the odious bootlickers who just lost their elections yesterday, like Kris Kobach or Dana Rohrabacher, will end up on the shortlist for Sessions' permanent replacement.

Senator Lindsey Graham has been shamelessly angling for the job for quite some time, despite protestations to the contrary, so I suppose he's got as good a shot as anyone if Trump decides not to just zerofucks Ivanka into the role, or something equally ludicrous, while he's still got a stranglehold on Congress.

Also: I don't know the law on this (not that it matters), but I'm wondering if Trump will try to wrest the oversight of the Mueller investigation away from Rosenstein when the new AG doesn't have the same conflicts that Sessions had (or the same compunction about recusing himself because of said conflicts). Unless, of course, Rosenstein secretly struck an ugly deal with Trump in one of those recent meetings, to secure the AG position in exchange for his cooperation. My feeling is that Trump will do whatever the fuck he wants, without regard for laws, norms, or precedent, because he has aggressive contempt for the law.

Sessions is a horrible dude with a reprehensible commitment to bigotry against marginalized people. He's spent an inglorious career being as corrupt as he is indecent. I was horrified when he was selected to be the nation's Attorney General, and I'm not sad to see the back of his vile tenure — but I know whoever comes next is going to be even worse.

UPDATE: Trump has removed Rosenstein from oversight of the Mueller investigation. Acting AG Whitaker has now been given control.

Rep. Ted Lieu notes on Twitter: "Normally the president would elevate the Deputy AG to Acting AG until a nominee is confirmed. Donald Trump is specifically bypassing Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and putting supervision of the Mueller probe in the hands of Matthew Whitaker, a person biased against the probe."

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Daily Dose of Cute

Olivia is comfy on my lap, but if something needs pouncing on, she'll do it!
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.

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We Resist: Day 657

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

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Earlier today by me: Midterms 2018: Democrats Win the House and Something Stinks in Florida and Georgia and Trump Is Losing His Shit About the Election, Of Course.

The news is still highly focused on yesterday's election, naturally, so here are some more election items, plus a few other things in the news today...

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress with more on The Problem with the Senate That I Keep Talking About: The Senate Is So Rigged That Democrats May Never Control It Ever Again. "In the outgoing Senate — the Senate that placed Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court — the 49 senators in the Democratic 'minority' represent almost 40 million more people than the Republican 'majority.' In the incoming Senate, the Democratic 'minority' will still represent millions more people — despite the fact that Republicans grew their 'majority' last night. And this malapportionment is only going to get worse. By 2040, according to Baruch College's David Birdsell, about 70 percent of Americans are expected to live in just 15 states. That means that the vast majority of Americans will control just 30 percent of the Senate, while the remaining 70 senators are elected by just 30 percent of the nation."

Matt Shuham at TPM: McConnell Warns New House Dem Majority Against 'Presidential Harassment'. "Asked what Senate Republicans would do in the event House Democrats attempt to obtain [Donald] Trump's tax returns, McConnell referenced 'presidential harassment' three times — that is, harassment of the president. ...'So the Democrats in the House will have to decide just how much presidential harassment they think is good strategy,' McConnell said. 'I'm not so sure it'll work for them.'"

Brian Kahn at Earther: Congress' Bipartisan Coalition to Tackle Climate Change Just Collapsed, But That May Be a Good Thing. "The bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, known for doing basically nothing but holding meetings, saw its Republican members get decimated. Of the 43 Republicans with voting power, 16 lost their bids for re-election or are in races that haven't been called but lean Democrat. A number have been replaced by scientists who intimately understand climate change, while elsewhere Democrats with big climate ideas won."

Rosalind S. Helderman, Matt Zapotosky, and Carol D. Leonnig at the Washington Post: With the Midterms Over, Mueller Faces Key Decisions in Russia Investigation. "For more than seven weeks, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been silent. In the run-up to Election Day, there were no indictments or public pronouncements by the special counsel's office, in keeping with Justice Department guidelines that prosecutors should avoid taking steps that could be perceived as intending to influence the outcome of the vote. With the midterm elections now over, Mueller faces key decision points in his 18-month-old investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign."

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[Content Note: Misogynist violence; domestic violence; injury; death. Videos may autoplay at links. Covers entire section.]

Even as we celebrate the strides made by women in politics, here are three stories I read this morning that are a painful reminder of how dangerous the world still is for women because of toxic masculinity, even and especially at the hands of our intimate partners.

Chris Boyette and Steve Almasy at CNN: Colorado Man Pleads Guilty to Killing Pregnant Wife, Daughters as Part of Plea Deal. "Shanann Watts' body was found in a shallow grave, and the bodies of Bella and Celeste were discovered in commercial oil tanks at a company where Chris Watts had worked. Autopsy results have not been released. In court Tuesday, Watts took responsibility for all three deaths, pleading guilty to nine charges, including first-degree murder and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. In exchange for his pleas, Watts will not face the death penalty, according to Weld County District Attorney Michael Rourke."

As you may recall if you've been following this story, not only did Watts kill the woman to whom he was married and their children, but, at one point, he claimed that he had killed Shannon because she had killed their daughters.

Marlena Baldacci and Darran Simon at CNN: Husband of Florida Woman Who Went Missing at Sea Pleads Guilty to Involuntary Manslaughter. "[Lewis Bennett] reported his wife missing in a distress call to the Coast Guard, who rescued him from a life raft about 30 miles west of Cay Sal, Bahamas, not far from Cuba in May 2017. [Isabella Hellman's] body was never found. On Monday, the 41-year-old Bennett, who is a dual citizen of Australia and the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of his wife. ...Hellman's death resulted in part from her husband's 'gross negligence, amounting to wanton and reckless disregard for human life,' prosecutors said. He did not require that his wife wear a life vest or harness despite her inexperience, nor did he deploy flares or turn the boat around to search for her when he couldn't find the 41-year-old real estate agent from Delray Beach, Florida, prosecutors said."

Prosecutors originally sought a second-degree murder charge against Bennett, whose trial was scheduled for December, but they struck the deal for an involuntary manslaughter plea to avoid the cost of a trial. And honestly it sounds like he got off easy, because the only account they have of events is his. For all we know, he killed her and threw her body overboard.

Will Stewart at the Express: Woman Confronts Husband Who Cut Off Her Hands After He Suspected Her of Cheating. "[Margarita Grachyova's] left hand was sewn back on by surgeons, and she now has a robotic right arm which she is learning to use. In emotion-charged scenes in a courtroom in Serpukhov, footage shows how she stood beside her lawyer and fired questions at the man she divorced after he severed her hands. Branded 'evil' by the Russian media, he claimed he wanted her 'forgiveness' but also smirked as he told how he lied to a policeman called Alexander Gruznov, later fired for failing to prevent the barbaric attack."

Grachyova filed a report with Gruznov that Dmitry Grachyov had threatened to drive her into the woods and hurt her with a knife, but when Gruznov questioned Grachyov, he denied it, and Gruznov did nothing.

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JUST IN: Pentagon says it will no longer refer to the US military mission at the Mexico border as “Operation Faithful Patriot;” no reason given for the change on the day after the US midterm elections - @ckubeNBC

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2018

Huh.

And finally, in good news... Jonathan Stempel at Reuters: Motel 6 to Pay $7.6 Million for Giving Guest Lists to U.S. Immigration. "Motel 6 will pay up to $7.6 million to Hispanic guests to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that it violated their privacy by regularly providing guest lists to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Terms of the preliminary settlement with eight Hispanic plaintiffs — seven from Arizona and one from Washington state — were disclosed in a Nov. 2 filing with the federal court in Phoenix. Motel 6 also agreed to a two-year consent decree barring it from sharing guest data with immigration authorities absent warrants, subpoenas, or threats of serious crime or harm."

Not objectively good news, since they never should have done that shit in the first place, and they shouldn't need to be told not to share guest data with immigration authorities in the future, for two years or ever again. But it's better than nothing even approaching justice at all.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Trump Is Losing His Shit About the Election, Of Course

One of the nicest things about the election results last night was that I haven't even thought about Donald Trump for most of the morning! WHAT A GIFT!

Then I saw this:

Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018

LOLOLOLOLOL someone explain to this dipshit what it means that House Democrats now have subpoena power.

J/k he already knows. Which is why the entire rest of his Twitter timeline is filled with additional tweets bragging about his big win, because we are all living in a cuckoo clock, and why he is also tweeting shit like this mess:

If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018

Yeahhhhhhhh that's just the President of the United States threatening Democratic Senators if Democratic Representatives do the job that Republicans refuse to do.

Meanwhile, Trump is definitely going to pivot to campaign mode (not that he ever really left campaign mode) and start explicitly campaigning for his 2020 reelection bid:

Trump's 2020 effort is poised to swing into gear almost immediately, with the RNC redirecting its infrastructure to assist the Trump reelect and its political director Chris Carr. RNC officials say that a massive midterm mobilization effort — in which the party invested over $275 million in its field, digital, and data programs, and recruited hundreds of field staffers — was a dress rehearsal for the 2020 campaign. Once the Trump campaign, overseen by Parscale, melds with RNC, the result will be a nearly $400 million behemoth focused on the next election 726 days from Wednesday.

And we can all trust that with the Democratic pick-ups despite widespread election interference, whether by gerrymander or voter suppression or other means, the Republicans are going to amp up their subversion of democracy in the next two years, led by their cowardly, corrupt, compromised president, who never could have won without illicit help.

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