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:
Trump Is a Cruel, Traitorous Disgrace and
Veterans' Day and
California Wildfires: The Latest and How to Help.
Here are some more things in the news today...
[Content Note: Gun violence; misogyny; toxic masculinity]
On Friday, I noted that Ian David Long, who opened fire in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California on Thursday, killing 12 people and injuring others before killing himself, had a history of misogynistic abuse. Since then, even more information has come out about Long and his abuse of women.
A second female coach "
recalled him on Sunday as volatile and intimidating, and said that repeated complaints to school administrators about his behavior failed to prompt any discipline." Additionally, investigators are looking into the possibility that Long "
believed his former girlfriend would be at the bar."
There were a lot of warning signs about this guy for many years. At every turn, authorities decided to ignore the people urgently raising flags, because they didn't want to ruin his life.
His life.
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[CN: Gun violence; images of blood at link] In related news: Laurel Wamsley at NPR:
After NRA Mocks Doctors, Physicians Reply: 'This Is Our Lane'.
A mocking tweet from the National Rifle Association has stirred many physicians to post on social media about their tragically frequent experiences treating patients in the aftermath of gun violence.
"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane," the NRA tweeted on Thursday. "Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves."
The NRA was criticizing the American College of Physicians' (ACP) new position paper, in which the physicians' group outlines its public health approach to reducing deaths and injuries from firearms.
"We are not anti-gun: we are anti-bullet holes in our patients," Esther Choo, a doctor and professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, replied on Twitter. "Most upsetting, actually, is death and disability from gun violence that is unparalleled in the world."
The NRA posted its tweet just hours before a man shot and killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
"I would like to graciously extend the invitation to the author of this tweet and anyone else from the NRA to join me at the hospital the next time I care for a child who has been hurt or killed by a gun that wasn't safely stored or was an innocent bystander," tweeted Jeannie Moorjani, a pediatric doctor in Orlando.
More physicians weighed in, often using the hashtag #ThisIsOurLane.
"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane. It's my fucking highway," wrote forensic pathologist Judy Melinek, in a tweet that has gone viral.
A trauma surgeon in Utah tweeted a photo of his blue scrubs covered in blood. "Can't post a patient photo," he wrote, "so this is a selfie. This is what it looks like to #stayinmylane."
The Republican Party is a death cult, and the NRA is their primary sponsor.
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[CN: Authoritarianism; video may autoplay at link] Cheyenne Haslett at ABC News:
Trump, Without Evidence, Calls Florida Ballots 'Massively Infected,' Demands End to Recounts.
Donald Trump weighed in on the battle over counting ballots in Florida's Senate and governor's race Monday and, as he has done before, claimed without evidence that the integrity of the election had been compromised.
The president said the results from Election Night should be accepted and declared both Republican candidates should be declared the winners of their respective races.
He tweeted: "The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!"
The president's desire to use results from Election Night, which he tweeted on Veterans Day, would disenfranchise many votes that are counted after Election Day, including voters serving overseas in the military. Overseas and military ballots can arrive until Nov. 16 and will be counted, as long as they're postmarked on or before Election Day.
Additionally, there is no evidence that ballots "showed up out of nowhere," but rather ballots continued to be counted days after the election — largely mail-in, absentee, and provisional ballots in slow counties like Broward and Palm Beach, which lean Democrat. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has no open investigations into any claims of potential fraud, ABC News confirmed Sunday afternoon.
Disenfranchising servicemembers is quite a way to celebrate Veterans' Day.
Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Ronald J. Hansen at the Arizona Republic:
Kyrsten Sinema Widens Lead Again over Martha McSally in Pivotal Day for Arizona's U.S. Senate Race. "Democrat Kyrsten Sinema widened her lead again over Republican Martha McSally on Sunday, a pivotal day in the U.S. Senate race as the number of uncounted ballots dwindled. Sinema expanded her lead to 32,292 votes — a 1.5 percentage-point lead — as of 6:20 p.m. Sunday, according to updated counts posted by the Arizona Secretary of State. Her campaign manager predicted her victory was inevitable. The lengthy vote-count process, which has continued long after the polls closed Nov. 6, is mostly due to the need to verify signatures for voters who vote by mail.
The Arizona Republic estimates about 215,000 ballots remain to be counted statewide. To remain competitive, McSally needs to outperform all of her previous showings in Maricopa County, the state's most populous area and one that Sinema has dominated."
[CN: Racism; eliminationist imagery] Michael Brice-Saddler at the Washington Post:
A Senator from Mississippi Joked About 'Public Hanging'; Her Black Opponent Called It 'Reprehensible'. "Drawing cheers from a gaggle of supporters, the line appeared to be a throwaway one. 'If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row,' Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss) is heard saying in a video posted to Twitter on Sunday morning. ...In a statement Sunday, [Democrat Mike Espy] called Hyde-Smith's comments 'reprehensible.' He added, 'They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.' In her own statement Sunday, Hyde-Smith [said]: 'In a comment on Nov. 2, I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement. In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.'" WOW.
Kira Lerner at ThinkProgress:
Trump Properties Made Millions off the Midterm Election. "Trump-owned and branded properties cashed in during the midterm elections, according to a CNN analysis which found that campaigns and outside groups spent at least $3.2 million at the hotels and resorts. The CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission data found that the Republican National Committee was the biggest customer, spending at least $1.2 million at Trump-branded properties since the beginning of 2017." How nice for him.
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[CN: Nativism] Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast:
ICE Is Imprisoning a Record 44,000 People. "The steep rise in detentions is 'indicative of the fact that the Trump administration has weaponized ICE into an entity that far exceeds the agency's original mandate and fits with the anti-immigrant actions of this administration,' Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, told
The Daily Beast. 'With little accountability and oversight — and a long track record of abuse — I'm concerned that the vast majority of those in ICE custody include many innocent people who've done nothing wrong.' ...'From a moral perspective, 44,000 is an astonishing number of people to be separated from their families and communities and held within a system that DHS's own Inspector General has criticized for abusive conditions,' added the Detention Watch Network's Mary Small."
[CN: Misogyny] Jessica Glenza at the Guardian:
Planned Parenthood's New President Warns of 'State of Emergency' for Women's Health.
Dr. Leana Wen takes over as president of Planned Parenthood — America's biggest, best-funded, and most vilified reproductive healthcare institution — at a time of unprecedented attacks on the organization's values and work.
Last week, Alabama voters passed a fetal rights law; the Trump administration finalized rules to allow employers to opt out of health insurance requirements to provide birth control; and liberal women collectively held their breath as one of their champions — 85-year-old supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leader of the court's liberal wing — was hospitalized with three cracked ribs.
To all this, Wen's answer is to play offense.
"There is huge unmet need across our country, and it is our moral imperative to provide care for all those who need us," Wen said, with the torch-carrying conviction of an emergency room physician who has seen too much in too little time. "I plan to expand our services, and expand our reach."
..."There is no question we are in a state of emergency for women's health," said Wen. When a society "treats one type of healthcare differently than everyone else, that's when we get to where we are, which is the biggest healthcare crisis of our time."
[CN: Authoritarianism] Matt Shuham at TPM:
Conway on Doctored Video White House Released: 'That's Not Altered; That's Sped Up'. "White House counselor Kellyanne Conway asserted Sunday that a 'sped-up' video is not the same as an 'altered' video, while defending the White House's
use of an altered video of a hand motion made by CNN reporter Jim Acosta in order to justify suspending his press pass. 'That's not altered; that's sped up,' Conway told
Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. 'They do it all the time in sports to see if there's actually a first down or a touchdown. So I have to disagree with the, I think, overwrought description of this video being doctored as if we put somebody else's arm in there,' she added."
Staff at the Daily Beast:
North Korea 'Continuing Missile Program at 16 Secret Sites,' Satellite Images Show. "North Korea is carrying on with its ballistic missile program at 16 secret facilities, new satellite images have revealed, undermining [Donald] Trump's boasts that he persuaded the hermit kingdom to abandon its weapons production and work toward denuclearization. The images, reported by
The New York Times, show North Korea is continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen launching sites. The development suggests North Korea's promise to shut down one major test site was an attempted deception. The secret missile bases were identified in a study to be published Monday by the Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank."
[CN: Homophobia] Andy Towle at Towleroad:
Boston Gay Bars Receive Threatening Phone Calls. "At least two Boston gay bars received threatening phone calls around the same time on consecutive nights over the weekend, according to police. What the threats were was not disclosed. dbar in Dorchester received a threatening call on Friday night, and Alley Bar in downtown Boston received a similar call on Saturday. ...
The Boston Globe reported on the threat to Alley Bar: 'Rocco LaMonica, the bar's manager on duty, said a doorman answered the bar's phone and heard the threats. LaMonica would not comment on what happened during the call but said it 'was threatening enough that we needed to call the police.' 'We're not going to stand back for anybody,' LaMonica said. 'You can't take a chance now.''"
Martin Rosenbaum at BBC News:
Pseudonyms to Protect Authors of Controversial Articles. "Academics who are frightened to explore controversial topics, in case it provokes a backlash, will soon have a safer route to publish such work. An international group of university researchers is planning a new journal which will allow articles on sensitive debates to be written under pseudonyms. They feel free intellectual discussion on tough issues is being hampered by a culture of fear and self-censorship.
The Journal of Controversial Ideas will be launched early next year." Yeah, this is going to be bad.
[CN: Rape culture; clergy sex abuse] David McFadden and David Crary at the AP:
Bishops Will Delay Votes on Steps to Combat Sex Abuse Crisis. "In an abrupt change of plans, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops opened the group's national meeting Monday by announcing it will delay for at least several months any votes on proposed new steps to address the clergy sex abuse crisis that is rocking the church. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, said the delay was requested by the Vatican, which asked that the U.S. bishops wait until after a Vatican-convened global meeting on sex abuse in February." The literal opposite of urgency. Fucking disgusting.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
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