We Resist: Day 678

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: The President Is a Megalomaniacal Fantasist and "Wilder, I wish you well." and Putin Really Hopes You'll Blame Ukraine for His Aggression. And ICYMI late yesterday: Trump Regime Isn't Doing Background Checks on Staff at Child Detention Camp.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Let's start out with the Democrats! In good resistance news, Stacey Abrams continues to be fucking awesome! Richard L. Hasen at Slate: Stacey Abrams' New Lawsuit Against Georgia's Broken Voting System Is Incredibly Smart.

Defeated Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and her allies are taking on Georgia's shoddy election system in the right way: through a big and bold lawsuit. At the very least, the lawsuit will shine the light of day on how Georgia makes it much harder than many other states to register and successfully cast a ballot. If the lawsuit achieves its more ambitious aims, a court could put Georgia's voting system back under federal supervision for up to 10 years.

Rather than how a typical voting lawsuit works with a singular focus on a problematic aspect of Georgia's electoral process — like overexuberant voter purges or its shoddy voting machinery — the lawsuit makes an argument that the cumulative effect of Georgia's system is to deny voters, especially voters of color, the opportunity to easily cast a ballot which will be fairly and accurately counted.

...[I]t is smart to make an argument that the system cumulatively disenfranchises voters. Rather than focusing on one of the hurdles facing voters, this suit lays out all of the hurdles together. Voting should not be an obstacle course, but the lawsuit claims that's exactly what Georgia has created through a combination of misfeasance and malfeasance.

And in more good resistance news, House Democrats are taking voters' message that their mandate is to hold Donald Trump accountable. Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The True Depths of Trump's Cruelty Are About to Be Exposed.

The House GOP's near-total abdication of any oversight role has done more than just shield [Donald] Trump on matters involving his finances and Russian collusion. It has also resulted in almost no serious scrutiny of the true depths of cruelty, inhumanity and bad-faith rationalization driving important aspects of Trump's policy agenda — in particular, on his signature issue of immigration.

That's about to change.

In an interview with me, the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee [Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)] vowed that when Democrats take over in January, they will undertake thorough and wide-ranging scrutiny of the justifications behind — and executions of — the top items in Trump's immigration agenda, from the family separations, to the thinly veiled Muslim ban, to the handling of the current turmoil involving migrants at the border.

Right on.

In not-good news... Frank Dale at ThinkProgress: WTF Is Schumer Doing? "[Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)], who has made a series of pointless deals allowing confirmations of dozens of Trump judicial nominees, said on Tuesday that he's willing to offer Trump $1.6 billion for border security. ...Schumer has previously offered Trump funding for the border wall that he keeps falsely claiming is already under construction."

Honest to Maude, I have no fucking idea why there are Democrats who think Nancy Pelosi is our biggest problem and ignore the giant turd that is Chuck Schumer's senate leadership. HAHA J/K I KNOW WHY LADIES AMIRITE.

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[Content Note: Rape culture; sexual assault; child sex abuse] Julie K. Brown at the Miami Herald: How a Future Trump Cabinet Member Gave a Serial Sex Abuser the Deal of a Lifetime. "Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls — with the help of young female recruiters — to coerce into having sex acts behind the walls of his opulent waterfront mansion as often as three times a day, the Town of Palm Beach police found. ...Facing a 53-page federal indictment, Epstein could have ended up in federal prison for the rest of his life. But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein's crimes and the number of people involved. Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal — called a non-prosecution agreement — essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes."

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: Giuliani's Bizarre Bragging About the Manafort-Trump Alliance Raises New Obstruction Questions. "The first two paragraphs of this New York Times story are remarkable enough: Despite Paul Manafort having agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation, his lawyer, Kevin Downing, continued to brief [Donald] Trump's legal team. That's a highly unusual setup, and one that is generally frowned upon in legal circles. The next two paragraphs, though, might take the cake. In them, Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani practically brags about having pulled one over on Mueller by gleaning key information from the arrangement. ...[T]he Trump team is saying this highly unusual arrangement was used to gain a strategic advantage. It isn't even pretending these were harmless status updates. Giuliani is gloating about having gamed the legal system."

NEW: Donald Trump told Robert Mueller in writing that Roger Stone did not tell him about WikiLeaks, nor was he told about the 2016 Trump Tower, according to two sources familiar with the matter. https://t.co/QW1WF0vhHa

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 28, 2018

Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer at Politico: Trump Threatens Government Shutdown over Border Wall Funding. "Nine days ahead of a deadline that could trigger a partial government shutdown, with no solution in sight, the president told Politico in a Tuesday Oval Office interview that he is unflinchingly firm Congress must send him a bill approving $5 billion for his wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and said he would 'totally be willing' to shut down the government if he doesn't get it. ...Sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, with a stack of papers, magazines, and a soda at the ready, Trump said he now believes that a pitched battle over the border is a 'total winner' politically for his party, and a loser for Democrats. 'I don't do anything...just for political gain,' Trump said. 'But I will tell you, politically speaking, that issue is a total winner.'"

Erin Durkin at the Guardian: 'There Is No Attempt to Hide': Ivanka Trump Defends Use of Private Email. "Ivanka Trump reportedly used her personal account up to 100 times in 2017 to contact other Trump administration officials. The news drew immediate comparisons with Hillary Clinton's use of a private server as secretary of state, which still prompts Donald Trump's supporters to chant 'lock her up' at rallies. The president apparently wanted Clinton prosecuted after he took the White House. But on Wednesday Ivanka Trump insisted there was no comparison between the two cases. 'In my case, all of my emails are on the White House server. There's no intent to circumvent,' she told ABC. 'There's no equivalency to what my father's spoken about.'" Okay, player.

And Pence led the transition. https://t.co/GS81gc57Jb

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 28, 2018

Rebecca Morin at Politico: Trump Retweets Fake Pence Account Giving Thanks for Clinton's 2016 Loss. "Donald Trump on Wednesday shared a post from a parody account of Vice President Mike Pence giving thanks 'for every day Hillary Clinton is not president.' The post was originally shared by @MikePenceVP, a profile that uses the same photo as one of Pence's verified accounts but describes itself as a 'fan account.' ...'I'm thankful for every day Hillary Clinton is not President!' the @MikePenceVP account tweeted on Thanksgiving. Trump retweeted the post Wednesday morning to his 56 million Twitter followers. ...It is unclear whether the president thought he was retweeting the vice president or knew it is a parody account."

It's equally possible that Trump was too daft to realize in the middle of another tweetshitz frenzy that he wasn't retweeting the actual veep, and that Trump knew exactly what he was doing and decided to try to create a distraction from his daughter's email scandal. Scary.

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[CN: Corruption; exploitation] Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Puerto Rican Homeowners Suffer as FEMA Pays Exorbitant Prices for Home Repairs. "More than 100,000 homeowners in Puerto Rico may be victims of a widespread corruption scheme involving a government-run program to fix their properties, according to an investigative report from the New York Times. ...The program received $1.2 billion to repair up to 120,000 homes that were damaged, but not destroyed, by Hurricane Maria. ...Luis Vega Ramos, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, said [the program] was a mixture of 'incompetence and corruption.' 'The government's responsibility is to watch out, to be custodians of the proper and effective use of those funds,' he told the Times. 'I don't understand why they need to pay hundreds of millions of those dollars to middlemen who turn around and permit overpricing.'" Because the entire Trump administration is a giant grift.

Speaking of which... [CN: Wildfires] Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Trump Officials Accused of Using Deadly Wildfires to Boost Logging. "Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, said that he hoped new legislation would allow for the 'thinning' of forests to help prevent wildfires. He said he was confident Congress would soon pass a new farm bill that would remove environmental reviews for the removal of trees and brush, as well as the building of roads through federal forests. 'We have to manage our forests,' said Zinke on a visit to the charred remains of Paradise, a town in northern California that has been razed by the so-called Camp fire. ...Zinke was joined on the Paradise tour by Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, who also backs greater intervention in forests. 'People say they want pristine forests — well, this doesn't look pristine to me,' Perdue said, referencing the ashy remains of Paradise." Rage seethe boil.

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: When Love Is Not Enough: The Health Toll of Immigration Enforcement.

Julia Perez Pacheco and Samuel Oliver-Bruno have been together for more than 20 years and for the entirety of that time, Oliver-Bruno has been Perez Pacheco's rock. He has supported her financially and emotionally, paying her medical expenses, driving her to doctor's appointments, and caring for her during hospital stays.

...The effect his deportation will have on his life is clear, after having spent over two decades in the United States. Less acknowledged has been the effect his deportation will have on the health of his family members, who have already been shaken to their core by his detainment.

For his wife, his deportation could have potentially "life-ending" and "life-changing" effects, according to her cardiology physician assistant, who wrote a letter of support for the family as Oliver-Bruno pursued deferred action.

Perez Pacheco has pulmonary arterial hypertension, an "aggressive and progressive" condition caused by lupus, a diagnosis she received at 15. Lupus affects most of the tissues in the body, causing them to become inflamed and scarred. For Perez Pacheco, this primarily has meant that lupus is affecting the blood vessels in her lungs and her heart. Pulmonary arterial hypertension is not curable, the physician assistant explained in the letter, and ultimately Perez Pacheco's condition will "deteriorate."

Presently, she is devastated. She told Rewire.News the past several days have been hellish. She is tired and has "no willingness to do anything."

"I have horrible headaches and mentally, I don't know how much longer I can keep carrying all of this pain," Perez Pacheco said late Monday afternoon. "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

Although her particular situation is unique, the negative health impacts of detainment and deportation on families is an underreported, yet increasingly common, issue. Fear, trauma, and stress are having very real and damaging effects on immigrant communities that researchers are still working to understand. Adults who are subjected to immigration enforcement are experiencing severe and wide-ranging health implications. And these outcomes, medical professionals say, should be viewed as a public health crisis.

It is absolutely and unquestionably a public health crisis. Sustained anxiety and trauma are serious health concerns.

Opheli Garcia Lawler at the Cut: Another Ferguson Protester Has Died. "Bassem Masri, a Palestinian-American activist who live-streamed throughout the protests against police brutality and the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, has died. ...Masri is not the first person connected to the Ferguson protests to die in the years since the protests against the killing of Michael Brown. Danye Jones and Darren Seals have both been found dead since 2014. Jones death was considered by police to be a suicide, but his mother Melissa McKinnies — who is a prominent activist herself — suspected foul play. Seals was found shot to death and set on fire, and his murder has not been solved. The circumstances of Masri's death have not been released or confirmed." My condolences to his family, friends, and community.

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

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Putin Really Hopes You'll Blame Ukraine for His Aggression

On Monday, I noted that much of the reporting on the weekend incident in the Black Sea, during which Russia seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews, was replicating Russia's narrative, both suggesting that Ukraine somehow provoked Russia and that Russia was merely defending itself, and ignoring that this is part of an ongoing campaign of Russian aggression toward Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin is counting on that twisted version of events being the dominant narrative, and he's doubling down, further accusing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko of having orchestrated the entire thing to boost his reelection chances.

Polina Nikolskaya and Darya Korsunskaya at Reuters report:

"It was without doubt a provocation," Putin told a financial forum in Moscow.

"It was organised by the president ahead of the elections. The president is in fifth place ratings-wise and therefore had to do something. It was used as a pretext to introduce martial law."

Ukraine was successfully using the episode to sell anti-Russian sentiment and the West was ready to forgive Ukrainian politicians their shortcomings because it bought into the narrative Kiev was promoting, said Putin.

Such projection. Kiev isn't the one promoting a dishonest narrative. Lest there be any doubt about who the real aggressor is, Putin's first public comments came only after "Moscow said it would send more of its advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Crimea, the Ukrainian region it annexed in 2014."

Meanwhile: A Reuters reporter "saw a Russian warship deploying nearby as tensions with Ukraine rose."

It was also reported yesterday "that there was an increase in helicopters and troops along the Ukrainian border."

Putin wants very much for Ukraine to be seen as the aggressor, or at least an equal partner (both sides!), but that is simply not the reality. And the international community must reject his framing and reject Russian aggression toward Ukraine, unyieldingly.

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"Wilder, I wish you well."

[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse.]

This piece by Eva Ruth Moravec and Ginger Thompson at ProPublica about children in immigration court is absolutely heartbreaking. There are tiny children expected to represent themselves, pregnant teenagers in pain, and kids who are all alone save for the attorneys who help represent them and the judges who decide their fates.

It was shortly before Thanksgiving in an immigration court in San Antonio, and the third defendant to come before Judge Anibal Martinez walked into the courtroom without an attorney, wearing a gray winter hat that was stitched with a pair of blue googly eyes and a floppy red yarn mohawk.

When the bailiff asked his name, he piped up proudly: Wilder Hilario Maldonado Cabrera.

"How old is Wilder?" the immigration judge asked.

An attorney, who was there with other clients, came forward and volunteered to stand in for Wilder. She turned to the boy and in Spanish asked his age.

"Seis años," he said, 6, his legs dangling from a chair at the defendant's table.

Wilder, a smiley, pudgy Salvadoran boy, missing his two front teeth, was the youngest defendant on the juvenile docket that day.

...Born in a remote mountain village at the northern edge of El Salvador, he barely knew what to make of the metal detector at the courthouse, much less why he was in court in the first place.

Before entering the courtroom, the bailiff had to gently nudge the boy through the machine, because he froze in fright at the blinking lights on its side. "No seas nervioso," she told him, don't be nervous.

The attorney helped Wilder put on his headphones, so he could hear the court translator, as if language was the only barrier to his ability to follow the whirlwind proceedings.

Then she asked the judge to set aside any decisions about the boy's asylum claim until Wilder's lawyer could arrange to be in court with him. The judge agreed.

"Wilder, I wish you well," he said, sending the boy off to uncertainty. "We'll see you soon."

Wilder, a huge Spider-Man fan, waved at the judge, then pretended he was shooting spiderwebs from his wrists. On his way out, he waved to the friendly bailiff and said, "Bye policía."

Wilder's father, with whom he traveled to the United States, is still being held at an immigration detention facility after he and Wilder requested asylum. They were separated, and Wilder was sent to temporary foster care.

Despite the fact that a federal judge ordered the Trump Regime to stop family separations, many families have not been reunited for various reasons, including the administration declaring children ineligible for reunification due to parents' criminal histories, often for infractions that would not subvert custody in any other situation. That is why Wilder has not been reunited with his father.

Authorities had determined soon after Maldonado entered the country that he did not qualify for asylum, but they refused to reunite him with his son while that decision was appealed because Maldonado, who lived in the United States more than a decade ago, had an old warrant for a DUI in Florida. It's a charge that would almost never result in a loss of parental custody in a non-immigration context, but immigration lawyers say they have seen immigration authorities use such minor, nonviolent criminal records to justify separating immigrant parents from their children at the border. Government officials say that while a federal court ordered them to stop separating children under zero tolerance, it exempted cases involving parents who posed security risks to their child.

And so Wilder goes back into the system, while his father languishes in detention, and his mother and siblings struggle to survive back in El Salvador.

And the judge wishes Wilder well, because that's all he can do.

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The President Is a Megalomaniacal Fantasist

That Donald Trump is a fantastical liar who simply asserts that any inconvenient fact he doesn't like isn't true and substitutes what he wants to be true as reality is not breaking news. That arrogant, contemptible, toxic behavior was evident even long before he was president — and the power of the office he now holds has only exacerbated an already corrosive personality defect.

The longer he is in office, the worse it seems to get, which was fully apparent during a remarkable (not in a good way) interview with the Washington Post's Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey. The complete transcript, aside from Trump's repeated off-the-record comments, has been published with annotations by the Post, noting where Trump is wrong, outright lying, or simply defying belief with his wretched nonsense.

The whole thing is worth your time to read in its entirety, but I will just highlight two passages that exemplify how deeply unfit Trump is to be president owning to his being an intransigent megalomaniacal fantasist. (Which, of course, is just one of many reasons he is unfit to be president.)

One. Asked why he is skeptical of his administration's own climate change report, Trump offers a typically rambling and nonsensical response, which opens with this incredible line: "One of the problems that a lot of people like myself — we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers."

The Post's annotation there reads: "Few Trump quotes have epitomized him like this one. He has been skeptical of U.S. intelligence, the judiciary, the legal system, climate change, and many other institutions and other sources of expertise." That about sums it up.

Two. In the middle of a long exchange on the economy, during which Trump blames the Fed for what looks like an imminent recession and then claims he's not blaming the Fed, he asserts: "So I'm doing deals, and I'm not being accommodated by the Fed. I'm not happy with the Fed. They're making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."

The infallibility of the presidential "gut" was, of course, a claim made by George W. Bush, too. That's no coincidence. It's the last refuge of Republican presidents who are obliged to face the uncomfortable fact that conservative policies simply do not work the way their architects claim that they do.

It is also the first refuge of dangerously arrogant men who refuse to be wrong, refuse to learn, refuse to adjust.

Their "guts" tell them that they're right, despite all evidence to the contrary.

And we suffer the results of their abject wrongness, which they refuse to acknowledge.

Something to consider the next time, say, a lady who has gotten shit wrong and apologized meaningfully for those mistakes runs for president. Everyone gets it wrong. There's no value in demonizing the people who admit it and lionizing the people who won't.

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Open Thread

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

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker Suzy: "What book or movie do you think would make a great musical?"

One Hundred Years of Solitude. I can only imagine it as a musical, because there is so much story, and, if there is even a way to compress it without destroying it, it would have to be through expositional song.

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Trump Regime Isn't Doing Background Checks on Staff at Child Detention Camp

[Content Note: Child endangerment; nativism.]

This is absolutely fucking appalling:

A new government watchdog memo says the Trump administration waived rigorous background checks for all staff working at the nation's largest detention camp for migrant children.

The memo, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, says the former director of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement personally signed off on sidestepping requirements for child abuse and neglect checks at the tent city in Tornillo, Texas.

None of the 2,100 staff has gone through FBI fingerprint checks either, but the Tornillo contractor says staff are vetted in other ways.

What ways? Who knows!

That is comprehensively inadequate. There are more than 2,300 teens being held in this desert concentration camp, and every single one of them is at risk for trauma, exposure, and abuse.

We are offering abusers virtually unlimited access to children who are trapped.

We are torturing children as national policy.

This is intolerable.

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The NaNoWriMo18 Thread

Every November is National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, during which countless writers commit to writing a 50,000-word novel in the 30 days of the month, or 1,667 words every day.

Here's a thread for discussion for anyone who's participating this year. How's it going? Are you going to make it?!

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Ouch! This Review of Bernie's Book Is Brutal

NPR's Annalisa Quinn did not hold back in her review of Bernie Sanders' new book, Where We Go from Here. The whole thing is gonna leave a mark, but this was particularly hilarious to me:

Chapters are structured like diary entries spaced over the last two years, which he has spent visiting 32 states to advance progressive candidates and position. A standard entry will describe his platform and quote a previous speech at length, with some notes about audience size — he has an almost Trumpian interest in crowd sizes — and then finish with a vague injunction to unity or progress.

A vague injunction to unity or progress! LOL! That should be his campaign slogan.

Quinn spends a lot of time criticizing Sanders for his take on the political press, and, while I do think she too carelessly breezes by the obvious effect of corporate ownership on editorial decision-making (if not individual journalists' work), she is absolutely spot-on that Sanders seems completely oblivious to what is actually being reported, in what measure.

Which is kind of a refrain with the senator. It was just yesterday that I observed he is profoundly and intractably mistaken about the ideological composition of the nation. We are so far away from his perception of the country as a collection of leftists and future leftists who just haven't heard his terrific ideas yet that it sounds more like a punchline than the serious contention of a national politician.

There is only one person in U.S. politics who is more wrong than Bernie Sanders and just as certain of his rightness. And I don't guess I need to tell you who that is.

There is a part of me that wants to get a copy of this book and tear every page a new asshole each day, but there is an even bigger part of me that absolutely will not do that because I too ardently value the tiny capacity to find joy in this world I still have left.

Relatedly, this is something:

“This is not a time for despair.”

Bernie was counting on Democrats losing the midterm elections https://t.co/XupmueVPpj

— 𝙋𝙖𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙆𝙖𝙧𝙡𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙣 ⚡️ (@Patrickesque) November 26, 2018

Welp.

[H/Ts to Fannie for the NPR review and to Scott Madin for the tweet.]

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Daily Dose of Cute

I love this fuzzy little monster so much. ♥
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 677

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: Manafort Deal Collapses. Or So It Seems. and All They Did Was Look Across the Border and The Trump Economy Is Garbage for Working People. And ICYMI late yesterday: GM Announces Massive Layoffs, Production Reduction.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post: Russia's Latest Attack on the Ukrainians Is a Warning to the West. "Whatever the other motives for this staged attack, this kind of passivity may well be what the Russians are counting on. This is the modus operandi they have followed in the past: Take a few steps forward; wait for a reaction. If there isn't one, move farther. If there is one, wait for the emotions to die down — and then move farther. This incident may or may not end here, but consider it a warning: If we don't have a broader strategy for ending this war, that will be the pattern for years to come."

The timing and location of this is something to keep an eye on. This may be nothing or a serious escalation especially that Putin will be with Trump this week https://t.co/w5lY3Su0MC

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) November 27, 2018

Emily Holden at the Guardian: Trump on Own Administration's Climate Report: 'I Don't Believe It'. "Donald Trump has told reporters he doesn't believe his own government's climate change findings that the U.S. economy will suffer substantially with continued warming from greenhouse gas pollution. 'I've seen it, I've read some of it, and it's fine,' he said outside the White House on Monday. 'I don't believe it.' The report, called the National Climate Assessment, was quietly released the day after Thanksgiving. ...The Trump administration also published another report on climate change on Friday, laying out that oil and gas produced from drilling on public land accounted for almost a quarter of carbon dioxide pollution in the U.S. between 2004 and 2015."

Explosive news from parliament today. Colins reveals Facebook knew in 2014 that Russia hacked users' data. Mueller's indictments show this was exactly when the Kremlin set up troll factory to target US voters. Why wasn't this disclosed to congress?? What else isn't it telling us? https://t.co/x2yzsb1fPo

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) November 27, 2018

Luke Harding and Dan Collyns at the Guardian: Manafort Held Secret Talks with Assange in Ecuadorian Embassy, Sources Say. "Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015, and in spring 2016 — during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump's push for the White House. It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers."

Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Emails Reveal Cozy Relationship Between Fox & Friends and Pruitt's EPA. "The close relationship between the Fox News network and the Trump administration is no surprise, but new emails reveal the extent of the coordination between the two. Fox coordinated its interviews with former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt with the EPA's press team, according to the emails. As The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday, Pruitt's team would choose the interview topics, and Pruitt would know the questions in advance. In one instance, his team even approved part of Fox & Friends' script."

Brian Faler at Politico: House Republicans Unveil Giant Tax Package. "House Republicans on Monday evening unexpectedly released a 297-page tax bill they hope to move during the lame-duck session of Congress. The legislation would revive a number of expired tax provisions known as 'extenders,' address glitches in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and make a range of changes to savings- and retirement-related tax provisions. Other parts of the bill would revamp the IRS, provide new tax breaks for start-up businesses, and offer assistance to disaster victims. The measure amounts to House Republicans' opening bid in negotiations with the Senate. They'll need Democratic support there to move any changes, and it's unclear lawmakers will agree to any of the provisions before adjourning for the year."

Seems like the entire point was to retroactively not make Trump a liar, since he recently said that a tax bill was imminent. And of course by throwing in a disingenuous disaster relief provision, Republicans can accuse Democrats of not wanting to help disaster victims when they refuse to support the bill. Such assholes.

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[Content Note: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Garance Burke and Martha Mendoza at the AP: Desert Detention Camp for Migrant Kids Still Growing. "The Trump administration announced in June it would open a temporary shelter for up to 360 migrant children in this isolated corner of the Texas desert. Less than six months later, the facility has expanded into a detention camp holding thousands of teenagers — and it shows every sign of becoming more permanent. By Monday, 2,349 largely Central American boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were sleeping inside the highly guarded facility in rows of bunk beds in canvas tents, some of which once housed first responders to Hurricane Harvey. More than 1,300 teens have arrived since the end of October alone. ...More people are detained than Tornillo's tent city than in all but one of the nation's 204 federal prisons, yet construction here continues."

Quint Forgey at Politico: Contradicting Border Chief, Trump Claims 3 Officers 'Very Badly Hurt' by Migrants. "Donald Trump, back on the campaign trail for the first time since the midterm elections, made a slew of dubious statements Monday about Central American migrants at the southern border. Speaking with reporters in Mississippi, where he held two rallies for Republican Sen. Cindy-Hyde Smith, the president claimed that three border patrol officers 'were very badly hurt, getting hit with rocks and stones' Sunday during a melee with migrants attempting to enter the United States at a border crossing in San Diego. 'We've had some very violent people and frankly we don't want those people in our society,' Trump said, according to a pool report. 'We don't want those people in our country. We have tremendous violence.' Trump's account contradicted U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan."

Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: Sanctuary Leader 'Kidnapped' by ICE at Immigration Appointment.

The day after Thanksgiving, federal immigration agents in plainclothes tackled a North Carolina man to the ground in front of his son before throwing him into the back of a waiting car.

Advocates are calling what happened to Samuel Oliver-Bruno — who is known as one of several sanctuary leaders across the country — "a kidnapping."

Bruno had been in sanctuary at CityWell United Methodist Church in Durham, North Carolina, for 11 months when he left the grounds of the church on Friday with a large group of supporters to attend what should have been a routine biometrics appointment at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Morrisville, North Carolina.

Submitting biometrics is the next step in petitioning for deferred action, an immigration benefit that would have given Bruno a temporary reprieve from detention and deportation. He sought sanctuary last December after receiving an order for deportation.

...Following his arrest over the holiday weekend, advocates claim Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worked with USCIS to lure Oliver-Bruno out of his sanctuary church to quickly detain and deport him. [Democratic U.S. Reps. David Price and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina] also said it appeared as if ICE "acted in concert with officials at USCIS" in a joint statement condemning the federal agency's actions.

...UPDATE, November 27, 8:00 a.m.: On Monday night, U.S. Reps. Price and Butterfield announced that USCIS had denied Samuel Oliver-Bruno's appeal for deferred action and that ICE "intends to immediately move forward with [his] deportation to Mexico." The representatives have called on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to reverse Oliver-Bruno's order of removal.

Rage seethe boil.

* * *

[CN: Wildfire; gender essentialism] Andy Towle at Towleroad: New Video of Border Patrol Agent's 'Gender Reveal' Party Explosion That Caused 47,000 Acre Wildfire. "New video has emerged of an explosion that was part of a border patrol agent's 'gender reveal' party which sparked a 47,000 acre wildfire and cost $8 million to put out. Border Patrol Agent Dennis Dickey ignited the explosion to reveal the gender of his wife's baby and was fined $220,000. ...'The wildfire began when Dickey shot a target that contained Tannerite, an explosive substance designed to detonate when shot by a high-velocity firearm, U.S. Forest Service Special Agent Brent Robinson wrote in an affidavit filed Sept. 20 in U.S. District Court. The explosion was caught on film by a witness. Tannerite is a legal compound that has been linked to wildfires in several other Western states.'" JFC.

[CN: Homophobia] Zack Ford at ThinkProgress: Supreme Court Poised to Drastically Reverse LGBTQ Equality. "There are now six different cases implicating LGBTQ rights sitting before the Supreme Court. While the conservative-majority Court has not yet agreed to hear any of them, a circuit split between two of the cases and the fact that [Donald] Trump's transgender military ban is at the heart of another strongly suggest at least one of them will advance to oral arguments. The cases span a variety of different issues, including employment, education, military service, and public discrimination. At the heart at most of them is a question about whether discrimination against LGBTQ people counts as discrimination on the basis of 'sex.' If the Court rules against queer people in just one of them, it could set a precedent that hinders LGBTQ equality across all of the different issues."

“Thomas Farr's record of hostility and disregard for fundamental civil rights disqualifies him... North Carolina's Eastern District...should be represented by a Bench that represents its diversity, not one that actively works to disenfranchise them." https://t.co/bR9ogQAGbE

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 27, 2018

And finally, in good news... Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: The New House Will Have an Unprecedented Number of Members Who Support Repealing Hyde.

By ThinkProgress' count, at least 183 House members support repealing the Hyde Amendment, a legislative provision that prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from covering abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment. Hyde is not permanent law but written and passed through congressional appropriations bills annually. Reproductive rights and justice advocates are cautiously optimistic 2019 is finally the year Congress doesn't attach the coverage restriction or other similar riders to an appropriation bill. The number of members backing repeal so far is a feat of its own.

Lawmakers will also have the opportunity to formally put an end to Hyde. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) told ThinkProgress she will re-introduce the EACH Woman Act for the second time next year; the legislation ensures that anyone who gets health care through the federal government will have coverage for abortion services and that legislators cannot interfere with what private insurance covers.

YES!

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

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The Trump Economy Is Garbage for Working People

If Donald Trump had ever really cared about "Making America Great Again" for working people, boy, would he be embarrassed right now with headlines like this!

David J. Lynch and Taylor Telford at the Washington Post: GM Layoffs and Plant Shutdowns Suggest U.S. Economy May Be Starting to Slow — and Dent Trump's Claim of an Industrial Renaissance.

But, of course, Trump never gave two shits about working people, still doesn't, and never will.

His only use for working people is seat-fillers at his Make America Clap for Me Again rallies — and if his team replaced actual humans with scarecrows in MAGA hats stuffed with speakers that delivered applause and "Lock her up!" chants in the right places, he wouldn't even notice.

If his wretched failures even manage to penetrate the protective bubble built out of sycophancy and Fox News chyrons in which he resides, he'll surely rail on Twitter about how it's somehow the Democrats' fault.

Which, you know, it isn't. The line from Trump's own policies to this garbage economy for working people is clear. Just ask farmers.

The number of farms filing for bankruptcy is increasing across the Upper Midwest, following low prices for corn, soybeans, milk, and beef, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

The analysis found that 84 farms filed for bankruptcy in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana in the 12 months that ended in June. That's more than double the number over the same period in 2013 and 2014.

"Current price levels and the trajectory of the current trends suggest that this trend has not yet seen a peak," said Ron Wirtz, an analyst at the Minneapolis Fed.

The increase in Chapter 12 filings reflect low prices for corn, soybeans, milk, and beef, The Star Tribune reported. The situation has gotten worse for farmers since June because of the retaliatory tariffs that have closed the Chinese market for soybeans and held back exports of milk and beef.

The AP helpfully keeps Donald Trump's name out of their story altogether, because why blame the president for something that is entirely his fault? Cough.

But we all know where lies the responsibility for this "restored greatness" that's costing working people their livelihoods.

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All They Did Was Look Across the Border

[Content Note: Nativism; gas attack.]

The mother pictured in the iconic photo pulling her young twin daughters away from billowing tear gas at the southern border spoke to BuzzFeed's Adolfo Flores about the terrifying moment. Maria Meza, 39, of Honduras told Flores "she was standing by the border fence with her five children when Border Patrol agents fired at least three tear gas canisters at them."

"I felt sad; I was scared. I wanted to cry. That's when I grabbed my daughters and ran," Meza told BuzzFeed News. "I thought my kids were going to die with me because of the gas we inhaled."

The photo, taken by Kim Kyung-Hoon of Reuters, shows the single mother running from the gas in the Tijuana River bed, clutching her twin daughters' arms.

The image was used across the world to illustrate the chaotic scene at the US–Mexico border when what had been a peaceful march turned to chaos in minutes.

...Customs and Border Protection, the agency responsible for border law enforcement, said it fired tear gas and pepper balls at the crowd after some people tried to cross into the U.S. through an opening and threw objects at border agents, including rocks.

Meza said she didn't try to cross and was only looking across the border with other members of the caravan when the tear gas was launched.

All they were doing was standing there, looking across the border into a country they hoped would provide them refuge from violence and hunger. And instead, Meza and her five children got gassed.

She told Flores, "I hope God will help me enter [the U.S.] with these kids because we're suffering. I'm a single mother who wants to provide for my children."

It's staggering to think how many people like Maria Meza and her children we could have aided with the $200 million Donald Trump will spend by the end of the year deploying the military to keep them out.

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Manafort Deal Collapses. Or So It Seems.

In September, Special Counsel Bob Mueller struck a plea deal with Paul Manafort which stipulated that Manafort would agree to cooperate with the investigation in exchange for the federal government dropping the remaining charges against him.

Now, in news that should surprise no one, least of all Mueller, Manafort has failed to cooperate, instead repeatedly lying to investigators.

Spencer S. Hsu, Rachel Weiner, and Devlin Barrett at the Washington Post report:

Prosecutors with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said Monday that Paul Manafort breached his plea agreement, accusing [Donald] Trump's former campaign chairman of lying repeatedly to them in their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Manafort denied doing so intentionally, but both sides agreed in a court filing that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District should set sentencing immediately.

The apparent collapse of Manafort's cooperation agreement is the latest stunning turnaround in his case, exposing the longtime Republican consultant to at least a decade behind bars after he pleaded guilty in September to charges of cheating the Internal Revenue Service, violating foreign-lobbying laws and attempting to obstruct justice.

Unless, of course, he's pardoned. And, as I wrote back in September when this curious deal was struck: "Maybe it isn't the current president who has promised Manafort a pardon. Maybe it's the man who believes he is the future president — the current vice-president who was hand-picked by Paul Manafort."

And if indeed Manafort is conspiring with Pence, who I still believe is working either directly with Mueller or indirectly to facilitate his investigation, then it's possible that Manafort and Mueller are staging an elaborate ruse in order to entrap Trump, right at the moment he is supposed to be submitting his responses to questions from Mueller.

Although that might sound like a conspiracy theory, it's actually just the description of a fairly common investigative technique. It just sounds wild because we're talking about the President of the United States.

And, like lots of other criminals, Manafort's primary loyalty is always to himself. So anything is possible.

Especially the scenario in which he does whatever it takes to save his own ass.

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Open Thread

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

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Question of the Day

What is your tiniest superpower?

Mine is always knowing exactly what size food storage container I'm going to need to pack up leftovers. I never get it wrong!

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Monday Links!

This list o' links brought to you by leftovers.

Recommended Reading:

Marilynn Marchione at the AP: Chinese Researcher Claims First Gene-Edited Babies

Monica Roberts at TransGriot: [Content Note: Anti-queer vandalism] Houston's Pride Portraits 'Be Visible' Wall Vandalized

Fannie Wolfe at Fannie's Room: The Emailz, Lock Her Up, Etc.

Soraya Roberts at Longreads: [CN: Queerphobia; heterocentrism; ciscentrism] The Queer Generation Gap

Zach Vasquez at the Guardian: The Truth About Killer Robots: The Year's Most Terrifying Documentary

Mike Mariani at GQ: [CN: Terrorism; disablism; entrapment] The Would-Be Terrorist vs. the FBI

Richard Beard at LitHub: [CN: Description of drowning] It's Taken 40 Years for Me to Write About the Day My Brother Died

Hillary Dixler Canavan at Eater: [CN: Appropriation] Why Does Andrew Zimmern Get to Create the Next P.F. Chang's?

Emily Alford at Jezebel: [CN: Disordered eating; fat hatred] Jameela Jamil Hopes Celebrities Shit Their Pants in Public

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

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GM Announces Massive Layoffs, Production Reduction

Taylor Telford at the Washington Post: GM to Lay Off 15 Percent of Salaried Workers, Halt Production at Five Plants in U.S. and Canada.

Amid global restructuring, General Motors announced Monday it would reduce its North American production and salaried and executive workforce.

The Detroit-based automaker said it would not be allocating any production to Oshawa Assembly in Ontario, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly in Michigan after December 2019. It will also stop allocating production at propulsion plants in White Marsh, Md., and Warren, Mich., after December 2019. The company will also be discontinuing production of low-selling models made at those plants throughout 2019, including the Chevrolet Impala, Cruze, and Volt, the Cadillac CT6, and the Buick LaCrosse.

These changes are part of GM's efforts to focus its resources on self-driving and electric vehicles, as well as more efficient trucks, crossovers, and SUVs, the company said in a statement.

The company also said it will cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce, laying off 25 percent of its executives to "streamline decision-making." GM also said it will close two plants outside North America by the end of 2019, but those locations have yet to be announced.

"The actions we are taking today continue our transformation to be highly agile, resilient, and profitable, while giving us the flexibility to invest in the future," chief executive Mary Barra said in a statement. "We recognize the need to stay in front of changing market conditions and customer preferences to position our company for long-term success."

Wall Street applauded the news, with GM's stock climbing more than 7 percent following the announcement.

All of that is a load of bullshit which means: We're getting rid of working people, because working people cost money, and the investment class wants to make money at any cost, so fuck you.

I'm reading a lot of snark about Donald Trump making America great again etc., and that is all true, but there's enough of that already, so let me just offer my sympathies to anyone who is employed by GM, or whose household income is partially or wholly reliant on a GM job.

While acknowledging that there are people nearing retirement who will welcome a payout, that won't be true for most of the people losing their jobs. I'm sorry to everyone who is even stressed about the possibility of job loss. And I'm sorry that coverage of these massive layoffs talks about numbers instead of the human beings behind those numbers. I see you.

[Related Reading from May 2017: Ford Reportedly to Reduce Workforce by 10 Percent.]

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What I'm Watching

This is a thread to share all the good things you're watching at the moment, or have recently watched. Serialized shows on broadcast or streaming; films; digital shorts; stand-up; documentaries; performances — whatever! Tell us what you're watching and enjoying these days.

I finally got to see Crazy Rich Asians this past weekend, which I wanted to see in the theater but never quite made it, and I enjoyed it a lot!

It's not a perfect film, of course, but it was funny and sweet, and I found it quite romantic. (It's surprising how many rom-coms aren't actually romantic at all.)

And now I'm ready for a whole film about Astrid, please and thank you!

Anyway! What are you watching these days?

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Daily Dose of Cute

Olivia and Sophie

Dudley and Zelda
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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