The reason Donald Trump is losing his shit on Twitter and trying to create a distraction by casually announcing his choice for Attorney General is, of course, because today Special Counsel Bob Mueller is scheduled to issue his sentencing memos on Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.
Though the memos will surely be heavily redacted, as was the Michael Flynn sentencing memo earlier this week, they'll yield some additional info about Mueller's investigation and how close it's getting, or not getting, to Trump.
I don't know exactly when the memos will be disclosed today, and they may not be disclosed at the same time, but here's a thread for discussion as and when we get our eyes on them.
Mueller's Sentencing Memos on Manafort and Cohen Scheduled to Be Issued Today
Trump Says He Intends to Nominate Bill Barr as AG
On Tuesday, I noted that Trump still hadn't nominated anyone to fill the Attorney General vacancy left by Jeff Sessions nearly a month ago.
Today, Donald Trump told White House pool reporters that he intends to nominate Bill Barr, who previously served as Attorney General during the George H.W. Bush administration.
If you want to know what qualities Barr has that make him appealing to Trump, look no further than this report by Ryan J. Reilly at the Huffington Post: Barr, who was a Trump supporter during the 2016 election, "has previously supported Trump's call to investigate his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and questioned the need for Robert Mueller's special counsel probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election."
Barr also "wrote a piece for The Washington Post days before the election saying that then-FBI Director James Comey did the right thing by disclosing that the bureau had essentially reopened the Clinton investigation. Months later, after Trump fired Comey, Barr wrote that Comey had 'sandbagged' the Justice Department and usurped its authority by making the initial announcement about the Clinton probe in the summer of 2016."
He seems great. (He does not seem great.)
The truth is, because Trump is a president who is a goddamned crook with zero respect for the rule of law and a willingness to abuse his power to obstruct justice and avoid accountability, anyone who is willing to work in the capacity of Attorney General for him is axiomatically unfit to be the nation's attorney general.
That's quite a conundrum. But here we are.
Trump Goes on Another Twitter Rampage About Mueller
For the most part, as you've probably noticed, I tend to ignore Donald Trump's near-daily morning tweetshitz. Occasionally, however, and more frequently in recent weeks, his early AM tweeting hovers on the precipice of outright criminal, and that's when I feel it's worth some attention.
This morning, Trump went on yet another rambling rampage about Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation, and it was a real doozy. The series of tweets reads (bizarre punctuation, random capitalizations, and misspellings original):
Robert Mueller and Leakin' Lyin' James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn't the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of "legal" at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt...This latest despicable disgorgement doesn't quite rise to the level of criminal obstruction, but it's nonetheless the President of the United States leveraging (abusing) the immense power of his office to publicly try to discredit an investigation into his alleged collusion with a foreign adversary to steal an election.
....Will Robert Mueller's big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman's horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people's lives, took down great companies, only to be........
.....overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton....
....Foundation be listed at the top of the Report? Will the scathing document written about Lyin' James Comey, by the man in charge of the case, Rod Rosenstein (who also signed the FISA Warrant), be a big part of the Report? Isn't Rod therefore totally conflicted? Will all of....
...the lying and leaking by the people doing the Report, & also Bruce Ohr (and his lovely wife Molly), Comey, Brennan, Clapper, & all of the many fired people of the FBI, be listed in the Report? Will the corruption within the DNC & Clinton Campaign be exposed?..And so much more!
In other dirtbag presidency news, it was reported last night that former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whom Trump pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire one day before McCabe was set to retire anyway to rob him of his pension, had launched an obstruction of justice investigation into Trump's firing of his predecessor, James Comey.
So Trump apparently circumvented that obstruction investigation by replicating precisely the same behavior that had warranted it in the first place.
Further, there is a report this morning that Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly is imminently on his way out the door. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports: "John Kelly is expected to resign soon, I'm told. Trump and Kelly are essentially at a stalemate in their relationship and it's no longer seen as tenable by either party. They have stopped speaking in recent days, I'm told. Of course, it's all ultimately up to Trump."
Which makes me even more certain that yesterday's item about Trump's doubts about Mike Pence was placed by Kelly. Looks like he lost that mighty power struggle, as I assumed he would.
He got in Pence's way. And in Trump's way. I don't know which one was ultimately more perilous for him.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker bellist: "What musical instruments are in your house and do they get played?"
We have a piano, and I hadn't played it in long while, but I just sat down and played a little bit recently. I was pleased to discover it was still pretty much in tune.
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 been steadily reading anything for awhile, because I've just lacked the focus for anything longer than the pieces I share in the links threads, but I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading!
What are you reading now?
Matt Damon, What Happened to You?
[Content Note: Privilege.]
Matt Damon has spent the past few years fading from a problematic fave to a problem.
His latest fuckery is waxing impressed about how John Krasinski overcame the "unfair burden" of having starred for many years on a hit TV show. Yes, really.
"Playing a character on a TV show for so long, John had this unfair burden he had to smash through, and that's been done now, clearly."
That is a real quote from a real article in the world.
Goddddddddddd I'm so glad I never had the unfair burden of being a straight white thin cis man who had to make millions of dollars toiling away at one of my first jobs in my chosen occupation! CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE???
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!
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I don't have any new recipes to share, so I'll just share a tweet I posted earlier this week with a photo of the incredible cookies that Iain baked. Oh my word are they delicious!
Since today is #NationalCookieDay, here's a picture of some brilliant chocolate chip walnut cookies my husband made from scratch the other day. He is a new baker, and a very, very good one! pic.twitter.com/11YiAJqJCd
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 4, 2018
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 686
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: Hannah Gadsby Is Very Smart and Very Good at Her Job and Democrats to Propose Gun Control Measures and Trump's Ego Makes Him So Daft About Pence.
Here are some more things in the news today...
Since Russia invaded Crimea they have quietly been turning it into a military base. Russian troops have doubled, alarming increase in military equipment, and deployment of nuclear capable carriers. The latest was a deployment of S400 missiles to Crimea. https://t.co/JdNgxjgek2
— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) December 6, 2018
Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Jon Swaine at the Guardian: Trump Aide's Appearances on RT Channel Are Focus for Russia Inquiry. "Robert Mueller is allegedly examining a Trump campaign adviser's appearances on the Kremlin-controlled broadcaster RT, offering new hints about the investigation into possible collusion between Moscow and Donald Trump's associates. Mueller's investigators have asked Ted Malloch, the London-based American academic who is also close to Nigel Farage, about his frequent appearances on RT, which U.S. intelligence authorities have called Russia's principal propaganda arm."
Elaina Plott at the Atlantic: The White House Has No Plan for Confronting the Mueller Report. "According to a half-dozen current and former White House officials, the administration has no plans in place for responding to the special counsel's findings — save for expecting a Twitter spree. The one thing they do know, Rudy Giuliani told me, is that they're going to fight. If Robert Mueller's team tries to subpoena the president, 'we're ready to resist that,' Trump's attorney said. Giuliani said it's been difficult in the past few months to even consider drafting response plans, or devote time to the 'counter-report' he claimed they were working on this summer as he and Trump confronted Mueller's written questions about the 2016 campaign. 'Answering those questions was a nightmare,' he told me. 'It took him about three weeks to do what would normally take two days.'" There is so much there to unpack. Woo.
Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: Senate Intelligence Committee Grilled Steve Bannon About Cambridge Analytica. "The sources said [Senate Intelligence Committee] investigators asked [Steve Bannon] about Cambridge Analytica, the controversial and now defunct data firm he co-founded. ...The company's former chief, Alexander Nix, once offered to help WikiLeaks distribute emails stolen from Hillary Clinton, as The Daily Beast first reported. Julian Assange confirmed the overture and said he turned it down. Later, a Channel 4 News hidden-camera sting captured Nix admitting his firm used prostitutes and blackmail to try to damage its clients' political opponents. Bannon had close connections to the firm. His former patron, heiress Rebekah Mercer, was on its board and also helped fund Breitbart."
"Trump has 'forced members of the Senate to clarify that many of us continue to believe that we are a country that is safe and secure and prosperous when we put our values first and our interests second, not the other way around,' said Sen. Chris Coons. https://t.co/q0uBuX54me
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 6, 2018
Philip Bump at the Washington Post: The Man at the Center of Fraud Probe in North Carolina May Have Been Doing This for Eight Years.
Bladen County was the only county in the 9th District in which Republican candidate Mark Harris won a majority of mailed-in absentee votes last month. As was the case with Pope's race in 2010, Harris's support in mailed-in absentee votes was more than 20 percentage points higher than his performance in the rest of the district. It was in the primary, too, when Harris earned a stunning 98 percent of the mailed-in absentee votes in Bladen.That voter fraud that Republicans have been looking for all these years? Oh it's right in their party. Quelle surprise.
In each election, Harris's campaign was working with a consulting firm called Red Dome Group, which hired [Leslie McCrae Dowless] for an absentee-ballot outreach program. Dowless's effort, as The Washington Post has reported, included hiring people out of an office in Bladen County to encourage voters to request absentee ballots and then allegedly collecting those ballots from voters. Dowless staffers appear to have frequently signed as witnesses to the voters' vote choices and then submitted the ballots to the state.
According to campaign finance records and data from the Federal Election Commission and the state of North Carolina, Dowless has worked on at least five campaigns since 2010 in which his candidates earned much more of the vote in Bladen County than the candidates earned elsewhere. In three races, the candidate earned less support in Bladen than outside the county.
Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: All the Ways Republicans Are Working to Undermine Voters, from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania to Utah. "Republicans across the country are undermining voters, with lame duck legislatures aiming to strip power from incoming Democratic governors, threatening not to seat a state senator-elect in Pennsylvania, and refusing to implement a ballot initiative in Utah. ...A little further east, in Pennsylvania, state Sen.-elect Lindsey Williams (D) was required to provide copies of her driver's licenses, employment history, tax information, and home purchase or rental agreements, among any other documents she thinks are relevant, as Republicans claim she's lying about meeting residency requirements. Williams was given just one week, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently reported, to produce the paperwork, and Republicans are threatening not to seat her, despite the fact that she repeatedly has said that she has lived in the state for at least four years, a requirement for state senators outlined in the state constitution. Just weeks before the election, Republicans unsuccessfully tried to get her removed from the ballot."
Matt Shuham at TPM: Baldwin: Wisconsin GOP Legislators Are 'Disrespecting the Voters' with Power Grab. "Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) on Thursday excoriated Republican state lawmakers in Wisconsin for their last-minute power grab after a Democrat was elected governor. 'I do believe that the legislature is overreaching and really just disrespecting the voters of my state,' the senator said. She added later, referring to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who is retiring from that chamber soon: 'I hope that Speaker Ryan is still as invested as he ever was in the success of Wisconsin, so I think he absolutely should speak up about this.'" Oh, I'm pretty sure that Paul Ryan is exactly as invested as he ever was in the success of Wisconsin, lolsob.
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[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse] Colleen Long at the AP: 81 Migrant Children Separated from Families Since June. "The Trump administration separated 81 migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border since the June executive order that stopped the general practice amid a crackdown on illegal crossings, according to data provided by the government to The Associated Press. Despite the order and a federal judge's later ruling, immigration officials are allowed to separate a child from a parent in certain cases — serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child, or medical concerns. ...The government decides whether a child fits into the areas of concern, worrying advocates of the families and immigrant rights groups that are afraid parents are being falsely labeled as criminals."
[Related Reading: "Wilder, I wish you well."]
[CN: Sexual assault and harassment] Azeen Ghorayshi at BuzzFeed: Nobody Believed Neil deGrasse Tyson's First Accuser; Now There Are Three More. "With three women now making allegations on the record, the Patheos article spread far and wide, prompting Fox Broadcasting Company, which produces [Cosmos], and National Geographic, which airs it, to announce an official investigation. ...Now a fourth woman has told BuzzFeed News her experience of sexual harassment from Tyson. In January 2010, she recalled, she joined her then-boyfriend at a holiday party for employees of the American Museum of Natural History. Tyson, its most famous employee, drunkenly approached her, she said, making sexual jokes and propositioning her to join him alone in his office. ...Over the course of nearly three years, BuzzFeed News has spoken with more than 30 people for this story, including the alleged victims and their families, Cosmos crew members, and graduate students and professors who were at UT Austin 30 years ago."
[CN: Anti-choicery]
Silk’s bill could result in murder charges for Oklahoma patients, doctors, and nurses. It has no exceptions for rape, incest, or life endangerment of the pregnant person. https://t.co/v6Uk6yQPMv
— NARAL (@NARAL) December 6, 2018
[CN: LGBTQ hatred] Staff at Towleroad: The Justice Dept's New Spokesperson Came Directly from a Leading Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group. "Kerri Kupec, new top spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, came directly from anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom. Kupec was just hired as director of the DOJ's Office of Public Affairs. At ADF, she was responsible for East Coast and Supreme Court media operations. According to the Daily Beast, 'she also spent time at the White House helping with Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court.'" JFC.
[CN: Carcerality] Myaisha Hayes at Colorlines: #NoMoreShackles: Why Electronic Monitoring Devices Are Another Form of Prison. "At this time, there are 5 million people under some version of correctional control — usually within the form of probation or parole. This expansion of parole in particular is ushering in a new wave of technological incarceration with a heavy reliance on electronic monitors. Electronic monitors are hardly a new invention and have been in use for at least the past 30 years. However, their usage has increased by 140 percent in the last decade. Our research shows that four large private corporations control a majority of the contracts for electronic monitoring for people on parole across the country. They make at least $200 million a year just from these contracts, and the market continues to grow."
[CN: Climate change] Staff at Yale Environment 360: Greenland Ice Sheet Melting at Fastest Rate in 350 Years. "The Greenland ice sheet is melting faster today than at any point in the last 350 years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. The research is the first continuous, multi-century analysis of melting and runoff on the ice sheet, one of the largest drivers of sea level rise globally. ...'From a historical perspective, today's melt rates are off the charts,' Sarah Das, a glaciologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and co-author of the new study, said in a statement. 'We found a 50 percent increase in total ice sheet meltwater runoff versus the start of the industrial era, and a 30 percent increase since the 20th century alone.'"
[CN: Animal harm]
U.S. proposes looser protections for a bird, to boost drilling, mining https://t.co/hSZOsdu9QD
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 6, 2018
Joseph Morton at the Omaha World-Herald: Trade Conflicts Have Cost Nebraska Economy More Than $1 Billion, Farm Bureau Says.
Nebraska farmers have lost upward of a billion dollars in revenue from ongoing trade conflicts, according to a new report issued Monday by the Nebraska Farm Bureau.Goddamn.
The hit to agriculture from the ongoing tariff wars has been clear for some time, but the new report uses some eye-popping numbers to illustrate the pain.
"Retaliatory tariffs make our U.S. products more expensive for international customers, meaning they buy less or buy from someplace else," Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson said in a press release. "This report provides a clear picture of how much we've lost due to those tariffs and the need to improve our trade relations."
[Donald] Trump continues to tout the tariffs imposed, saying, in particular, that they have benefited American steel interests and rejecting the suggestion that they have contributed to problems for U.S. automakers.
..."To put a $1.2 billion loss into perspective, every person in the state of Nebraska would need to contribute $632 to cover that volume of lost dollars. That's a significant hit to our state's economy," [Jay Rempe, Nebraska Farm Bureau senior economist] said.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Trump's Ego Makes Him So Daft About Pence
Donald Trump's colossal ego makes him incredibly susceptible to flattery, and Mike Pence is basically Andy Bernard to Trump's Michael Scott, even literally using personality mirroring to ingratiate himself to the president, whose job Pence wants so badly he will do anything to get it.
This is Pence's strategy of subconscious ingratiation caught in a single, perfect moment. It's creepy, yes, but more than that, it's diabolical. https://t.co/XQmV0BvNvY
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 7, 2018
Because Pence is such a sophisticated manipulator, the mercurial Trump remained solid on Pence far longer than the average dirtbag in his fetid administration, despite the fact that Pence is resolutely disloyal. But, as Team Pence increasingly makes its moves, Trump's trust in Pence has wavered. Especially because the people for whom Pence is coming are buzzing in Trump's ear that Pence won't help him get reelected — an oblique argument that avoids the outright accusation that Pence is a snake that "allows" Trump to come to that conclusion all the same, as if it's his own idea.
I always take Gabriel Sherman's palace intrigue pieces for Vanity Fair with a grain of salt, but, irrespective of this item's veracity, the fact that someone at the White House wants this stuff public is telling, especially given what I've been noting about Pence's subtle but observable maneuvering:
On Monday, Trump hosted a 2020 strategy meeting with a group of advisers. Among the topics discussed was whether Mike Pence should remain on the ticket, given the hurricane-force political headwinds Trump will face, as demonstrated by the midterms, a source briefed on the session told me. "They're beginning to think about whether Mike Pence should be running again," the source said, adding that the advisers presented Trump with new polling that shows Pence doesn't expand Trump's coalition. "He doesn't detract from it, but he doesn't add anything either," the source said.If I had to guess, Kelly or one of his allies was the source for this item. It's a public shot over the bow at Pence, warning that if he keeps coming for Kelly's job, Kelly will keep coming for his.
Last month, The New York Times reported that Trump had been privately asking advisers if Pence could be trusted, and that outside advisers have been pushing Nikki Haley to replace Pence. One veteran of Trump's 2016 campaign who's still advising Trump told me the president hasn't been focused enough on 2020. "What he needs to do is consider his team for 2020 and make sure it's in place," the adviser said. "He has to have people on his team that are loyal to his agenda."
Trump's doubts about Pence are surprising given Pence's frequent public encomiums and professions of loyalty. "Trump waxes and wanes on everyone," a prominent Republican close to the White House explained. Part of what's driving the debate over Pence's political value is Trump's stalled search for a chief of staff to replace John Kelly. According to a source, Kelly has recently been telling Trump that Pence doesn't help him politically.
The theory is that Kelly is unhappy that Pence's 36-year-old chief of staff, Nick Ayers, has been openly campaigning for Kelly's job. "Kelly has started to get more political and he's whispering to Trump that Trump needs a running mate who can help him more politically," the source said.
These sorts of internecine politics are not something that Trump is capable of managing. So it will just keep getting more toxic, until Trump impetuously picks a side, for reasons that are significantly less than well considered.
And, at that moment, whomever he chooses — John Kelly or Mike Pence — is going to get a lot more powerful. Dangerously so.
Which is not to say that both of them aren't dangerous already. They are.
As always, I will end with the same advice I have been urgently broadcasting for years: Keep your eyes on Pence.
Democrats to Propose Gun Control Measures
Millions of people across the United States want Congress to do something about gun violence — and the Democrats have heard our pleas. They will take up gun control as one of their first priorities when the new Congress convenes.
Joanna Walters at the Guardian reports:
Prominent Democrats plan on Thursday to begin ramping up calls for stronger gun control at the start of a new push to use their strengthened voice in Washington to make progress on an issue that bitterly divides America.Good. I'm sure the Republican Party will do everything in the NRA's power to stop them, and I'm sure that Donald Trump will resist signing anything into law, and I still want the Democrats to try mightily. Even the conversation would be a start. And an incredibly necessary one.
U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, who represent Connecticut, where 20 children and six school staff were gunned down at Sandy Hook elementary school in December 2012, will lead demands for fresh action.
And the newly empowered Democratic majority in the House of Representatives is expected to introduce sweeping legislation to impose background checks on all gun sales as one of the first priorities in the incoming Congress of 2019.
I hope, in addition to proposals for universal background checks, the Democrats will also propose limits on gun ownership for people who have committed domestic violence. Gun control for domestic abusers is an urgent necessity.
Hello! This Is a Reminder That Hannah Gadsby Is Very Smart and Very Good at Her Job!
[Content Note: Toxic masculinity.]
Given the opportunity to speak at The Hollywood Reporter's 2018 Women in Entertainment gala, comedian Hannah Gadsby talked about "the good men," and not in the way that women usually feel obliged to talk about "good men" on such a platform.
You can watch or read a transcript of the entire thing (which also calls in people of other privileges) at Vulture, but here is an excerpt made of ferocity and fire:
My issue is that when good men talk about bad men, they always ignore the line in the sand — the line in the sand that is inevitably drawn whenever a good man talks about bad men: "I am a good man. Here is the line. There are all the bad men." The Jimmys and the good men won't talk about this line, but we really need to talk about this line. Let's call it Kevin. And let's never call it that again.That.
We need to talk about how men will draw a different line for every different occasion. They have a line for the locker room; a line for when their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters are watching; another line for when they're drunk and fratting; another line for nondisclosure; a line for friends; and a line for foes. You know why we need to talk about this line between good men and bad men? Because it's only good men who get to draw that line. And guess what? All men believe they are good.
We need to talk about this because guess what happens when only good men get to draw that line? This world — a world full of good men who do very bad things and still believe in their heart of hearts that they are good men because they have not crossed the line, because they move the line for their own good. Women should be in control of that line, no question.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Diverkat: "Is there something that always makes you smile or laugh, no matter what? Can be anything — a memory, a pet's antics, a tumblr post — whatever!"
This.
Wednesday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by sherbet.
Recommended Reading:
David Mack at BuzzFeed: [Content Note: Sexual assault; fraud; rape culture] She Thought She Was in Bed with Her Boyfriend, Until She Saw His Face
Scott C. Jones at the Globe and Mail: [CN: Descriptions of sexual assault; secondary trauma] Video Games Saved My Life
Maya Lorey and Shena Cavallo at Akimbo: [CN: Misogyny; disablism] Affirming Disability Rights in Sexual and Reproductive Health Care
Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: [CN: Climate change; nativism] Many in Migrant Caravan May Be Climate Refugees
Paul Blest at Splinter: [CN: Appropriation; animal harm] PETA Needs to Log the Fuck Off
Kayleigh Donaldson at Pajiba: [CN: Rape apologia] Lena Dunham Makes Apologizing to a Survivor She Gaslighted All About Herself, Of Course
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Discussion Thread: Self-Care
What are you doing to do to take care of yourself today, or in the near future, as soon as you can?
If you are someone who has a hard time engaging in self-care, or figuring out easy, fast, and/or inexpensive ways to treat yourself, and you would like to solicit suggestions, please feel welcome. And, as always, no one should offer advice unless it is solicited.
* * *
I made a weekend brunch reservation for Iain and me, and it's not even a particularly special place to us, but both of us keep mentioning how much we're looking forward to it, which is an indication of how much we need to do something nice for ourselves. I can't wait to put on some nicer than required clothes, just because, and go have a nice meal that I didn't cook with my favorite person.
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.
* * *
My new favorite t-shirt, featuring a classic cinematic kiss: Watts and Keith in Some Kind of Wonderful.
I got it at TeePublic, where it's currently on sale for $14! And I love that the art captures the moment just before the kiss, which is perfect. I can hear the soundtrack in my head every time I look at it. GLASS CRASHING. DRUMS. CYMBAL.
The first kiss lasts forever / She loves me... Swoon.
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!]
Daily Dose of Cute
There are a lot of great things about sharing a space with a greyhound, but one of the best is watching them gallop toward you at forty miles an hour then stop on a dime at your feet with a big goofy grin on their face. It never, ever, gets old.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 685
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: Mueller Recommends No Jail Time for Michael Flynn and LOL Bernie and Putin Threatens New Arms Race. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation.
Here are some more things in the news today...
This isn't really a resistance item, except insomuch as it's another example of how truly undeserving every goddamned Republican is of being part of government or even a media commentator on politics:
This is one of those rare occasions to think *inside* the box. https://t.co/bAXFLY5kT1
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2018
[Tweet authored by Ari Fleischer: "Every VP since 1977 is at President Bush's funeral, except one. Mondale, Quayle, Gore, Cheney, Biden, and Pence are there. The only one missing is President Reagan's VP, George HW Bush." My response: "This is one of those rare occasions to think *inside* the box."]
In case you've forgotten, or never new, Fleischer was the White House Press Secretary for former president George W. Bush.
* * *
Asawin Suebsaeng and Lachlan Markay at the Daily Beast: Trump on Coming Debt Crisis: 'I Won't Be Here' When It Blows Up.
Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump's aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt.That sounds about right.
Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn't have to worry about the money owed to America's creditors — currently about $21 trillion — because he won't be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a "hockey stick" spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future. In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office.
"Yeah, but I won't be here," the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room when Trump made this comment during discussions on the debt.
Josh Israel at ThinkProgress: These Companies Claimed the GOP Tax Bill Would 'Boost Jobs'; Now They're Laying Off Employees. "In the lead-up to the enactment of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, Donald Trump's massive tax cut that mostly benefited rich people and big corporations, a coalition of powerful business interests formed with one major priority in mind: slashing the corporate tax rate. The Reforming America's Taxes Equitably (RATE) Coalition comprised dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs. A ThinkProgress review found that about half of RATE Coalition's members have made layoffs since the law's enactment. In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs; it couldn't even forestall significant job losses." As predicted.
Speaking of Republicans being fucking terrible...
David Eggert at the AP/Washington Post: Michigan Legislature Okays Gutting Wage and Paid Sick Time Laws. "The Republican-led Michigan Legislature on Tuesday passed bills that would delay a minimum wage hike and scale back paid sick leave requirements, an unprecedented lame-duck strategy that was endorsed legally by the state's conservative attorney general despite criticism that it is unconstitutional. ...To prevent minimum wage and paid sick time ballot initiatives from going to the electorate last month, after which they would have been much harder to change if voters had passed them, GOP legislators — at the behest of business groups — preemptively approved them in September so that they could alter them after the election with simple majority votes in each chamber."
Scott Bauer and Todd Richmond at the AP: Wisconsin Republicans Weaken Incoming Dem Governor and Attorney General. "Wisconsin Republicans passed sweeping legislation Wednesday that shifts power to the Republican-controlled Legislature and weakens the Democrat replacing Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Republicans pushed on through protests, internal disagreement, and Democratic opposition in a lame-duck legislative session to reduce the powers of Gov.-elect Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General-elect Josh Kaul. ...Republicans were battered in the midterm election — losing all statewide races amid strong Democratic turnout — but they retained legislative majorities thanks to what Democrats say are gerrymandered districts that tilt the map against them."
Brianna Sacks and Otillia Steadman at BuzzFeed: Inside the North Carolina Republican Vote Machine: Cash, Pills, and Ballots. "The allegations that Republicans tampered with absentee ballots in a close North Carolina election represent the most serious federal election tampering case in years, one that allegedly stole votes from elderly black voters in the state's rural south. Now two women intimately involved with McCrae Dowless's absentee ballot machine have revealed to BuzzFeed News its grim and chaotic workings, in which Dowless tracked votes on yellow paper and paid his workers, including family members, from stacks of cash, which some used to keep themselves high on opioids while they worked."
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[Content Note: Privacy violations] Adam Satariano at the New York Times: Facebook Gave Some Companies Special Access to Users' Data, Documents Show. "Emails and other internal Facebook documents released by a British parliamentary committee on Wednesday show how the social media giant gave favored companies like Airbnb, Lyft, and Netflix special access to users' data. ...The committee said the documents show Facebook entering into agreements with select companies to allow them access to data after the company made policy changes that restricted access for others."
"Another former senior employee noted a growing sense of paranoia among current employees. 'Now, people now have burner phones to talk shit about the company — not even to reporters, just to other employees.'" https://t.co/VaTg9Zh8TQ
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2018
[CN: Violence] Ryan Broderick at BuzzFeed: Here's How Facebook's Local News Algorithm Change Led to the Worst Riots Paris Has Seen in 50 Years.
This week, protesters scaled the Arc de Triomphe, burned cars, and clashed with police in the third consecutive weekend of riots in France. More than 300 people were arrested in Paris last weekend alone, and 37,000 law enforcement officers have been deployed around the country to restore order.Looking good, Facebook. J/k looking the woooooorst, as usual. Relatedly:
The "Gilets Jaunes" or "Yellow Jackets" protests have only gotten more violent since they began last month. Three people have died, hundreds more have been injured. To hear the protesters tell it, they're marching through the streets to fight back against rising fuel prices and the high cost of living in the country. Beyond that, though, it's an ideological free-for-all. Fights have also been witnessed among demonstrators, and some have sent death threats to other protesters.
But what's happening right now in France isn't happening in a vacuum. The Yellow Jackets movement — named for the protesters' brightly colored safety vests — is a beast born almost entirely from Facebook. And it's only getting more popular. Recent polls indicate the majority of France now supports the protesters. The Yellow Jackets communicate almost entirely on small, decentralized Facebook pages. They coordinate via memes and viral videos. Whatever gets shared the most becomes part of their platform.
Due to the way algorithm changes made earlier this year interacted with the fierce devotion in France to local and regional identity, the country is now facing some of the worst riots in many years — and in Paris, the worst in half a century.
This isn't the first time real-life violence has followed a viral Facebook storm and it certainly won't be the last. Much has already been written about the anti-Muslim Facebook riots in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and the WhatsApp lynchings in Brazil and India. Well, the same process is happening in Europe now, on a massive scale.
WARNING: The French Yellow Vest #GiletsJaunes antitax protests are heartfelt but with darker forces at the edges trying to turn it into a Russia backed Tea Party ... like Steve Bannon’s Dark Lord Alexandre Dugin. Read the antiDemocracy & antiSemite code words. #DefendDemocracy pic.twitter.com/j7FqqDxHcf
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) December 4, 2018
And they're using social media to do it, of course.
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[CN: Climate change] Nicole Gaouette at CNN: Trump EPA to Strike Blow Against Climate Rules, Reports Say. "The Trump administration is set to roll back Obama-era rules on climate change regulation that will make it easier to build new coal plants... Environmental Protection Agency acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal industry lobbyist, is expected to make the announcement Thursday. The move is another indication of the Trump administration's determination to buck both global consensus about the need to act on climate change and market trends, as the President courts what he calls the 'beautiful, clean coal' industry."
[CN: Sexual assault and harassment]
"The inspector general’s office found the official’s actions were illegal and also violated federal regulations and Justice Department policy. But prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against the official, the report said." https://t.co/nEehJXSkEo
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 5, 2018
[CN: Sexual assault and harassment] Dominic Rushe at the Guardian: Les Moonves Destroyed Evidence in Sexual Misconduct Investigation. "The longtime CBS chief Les Moonves allegedly destroyed evidence and misled investigators as he attempted to protect his reputation and a $120m severance payment, according to a report by CBS lawyers. The draft report into allegations of sexual misconduct, seen by the New York Times, cites 'multiple reports' about a network employee who was 'on call' to perform oral sex on Moonves. 'A number of employees were aware of this and believed that the woman was protected from discipline or termination as a result of it,' it cited the report as saying. 'Moonves admitted to receiving oral sex from the woman, his subordinate, in his office, but described it as consensual.'" Sure.
And finally, in good news:
Thank you, Michael Avenatti's family. https://t.co/GTdRZrx9Xv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 4, 2018
Please give Joe Biden's family some encouragement. Thanks.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
