We Resist: Day 691

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: Help Wanted: Vile Person to Facilitate Agenda of Malice and "It's about undermining key pillars of democracy and the rule of law."

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

TIME’s 2018 Person of the Year is… “The Guardians and the War on Truth.” pic.twitter.com/fyMlpUQ5Ph

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) December 11, 2018

There are many journalists who are doing crucial resistance work (even those whose work is not explicitly positioned as part of the resistance), and I support them mightily.

* * *

44 Former U.S. Senators at the Washington Post: We Are Former Senators; the Senate Has Long Stood in Defense of Democracy — and Must Again. "We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld. ...At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time. Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings, or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest."

Okay. Sounds good! But what does that mean? What constitutes being "steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy"? And why is this letter coming now and not in, say, October of 2016?

I'll also note that, despite the fact that this letter from 44 former U.S. Senators is being lauded as bipartisan, the actual composition of its signers is: 32 Democrats, 10 Republicans, and 2 Independents.

Which, I've got to be honest, sounds a lot more to me like a handful of opportunistic Republicans piggybacked onto a bunch of principled Democrats in order to try to distance themselves from Trump. Because I see 10 names of Republicans who happily participated in the conservative movement in ways that made Trump inevitable.

* * *

[Content Note: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Mariam Khan at ABC News: Trump Says Military Will Build Border Wall If Pelosi, Schumer Don't Agree to Pay for It.

Trump drew some rhetorical lines in the sand in early morning tweets Tuesday — repeating a series of questionable claims.

He again pushed to make good on his campaign promise to build what he's now calling a "Great Wall." He continued to attack Democrats for wanting "open borders," despite Democrats agreeing to spend billions of dollars for border security to repair or replace existing fencing — but not for Trump's proposed wall.

He claimed that "large new sections" of his wall had been built although that is not the case, and he touted success in barring the "large Caravans" of Central American migrants seeking refugee that Trump used to gin up fears about illegal immigration leading up to the 2018 midterm elections.

In another tweet, he claimed that if Democrats don't agree to funding, the military will build the wall. "If the Democrats do not give us the votes to secure our Country, the Military will build the remaining sections of the Wall. They know how important it is!" Trump tweeted.

Fucking hell. Trump then met with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, where he behaved like an absolute shitwheel, as usual, in front of the press, despite Pelosi's requests to meet privately.

I have never seen anything like this in my life. pic.twitter.com/uy7EiGDOsK

— Matt Rogers 🦅 (@Politidope) December 11, 2018

[Video Description: Trump screams about shutting down the government while Chuck Schumer smiles and nods in the way that you humor someone who has totally lost the plot, simultaneously communicating to everyone else that it's obviously impossible to have a serious conversation with the screaming dipshit.]

Trump is almost impossible to manage in those situations (which is precisely why he orchestrates them that way), but, in my estimation, Pelosi and Schumer handled themselves well given circumstances that favor Trump's cacophonous unprofessionalism.

Right on, @NancyPelosi. https://t.co/7qQwtS9eiY

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

Trump asks Schumer if he wants to say something, and Schumer essentially says, "Yeah, you're a fucking liar." LOLOLOLOLOL. https://t.co/v8zL2ViImb

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

I asked Leader Pelosi and Sen Schumer just now at WH whether they were able to have the “evidence based” conversation that Pelosi repeatedly said she wanted to have with Trump. Both gave me stern looks and Pelosi said, “That’s another subject.” I’ll take that as a no from both.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 11, 2018

* * *

[CN: War; death; injury; trauma; starvation; self-harm] Marwan Al-Sabri, Ali Al-Makhaathi, and Hadil Al-Senwi at the Guardian: Yemenis Are Left So Poor They Kill Themselves Before the Hunger Does. "More than 10,000 people in Yemen have been killed and 3 million forced to flee their homes as a result of almost four years of fighting. An estimated 22 million people are now in need of aid and up to 13 million face starvation. As talks to end the conflict continue in Sweden, three Yemeni aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council talk of the physical and emotional destruction the fighting has brought to their country. ...'War brings out the worst in a society. People are subjected to extortion, threats, and detention at checkpoints. The violence has destroyed our social fabric and created smaller conflicts. It has eroded us materially and morally; we have lost the right to live safely and with dignity.'"

When I saw @olgaNYC1211 tweeting about this earlier, the (not ha-ha) funny thing is that I had just been thinking about Pence's fascination with Venezuela and how that might play out if he becomes president. https://t.co/ahvQ6eKTFT

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 10, 2018

[CN: White supremacy; misogyny; anti-choice terrorism; fascism] Elizabeth King and Erin Corbett at Rewire.News: Fascists Find Fertile Recruitment Ground in Anti-Choice Movement. "Attacks on reproductive rights are nothing new, but fascist groups' infiltration of anti-choice groups and recruiting around anti-choice organizing in their genocidal agenda is an escalation. Leaked conversations between white supremacist groups using the Discord messaging site show users discussing recruiting members based on their opposition to abortion rights. ...Under the Trump administration, a surge in white nationalist organizing and policies has meant an uptick in threats against abortion providers and clinics, creating an even more unsafe environment for patients as Republican lawmakers further erode their rights. Threats of violence against abortion clinics have nearly doubled since 2017, and trespassing incidents have more than tripled, according to data compiled by the National Abortion Federation."

[CN: Sexual violence; abuse by clergy]

[TW] Sex abuse by clergy isn't only a problem in the Catholic Church. It's endemic, and systematically covered up, in evangelical communities, too. https://t.co/ex0a55mWBy

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 11, 2018

Gary Fineout at the AP: Thousands of Mailed Ballots in Florida Were Not Counted. "Florida officials say thousands of mailed ballots were not counted because they were delivered too late to state election offices. The Department of State late last week informed a federal judge that 6,670 ballots were mailed ahead of the Nov. 6 election but were not counted because they were not received by Election Day. The tally prepared by state officials includes totals from 65 of Florida's 67 counties. The two counties yet to report their totals are Palm Beach, a Democratic stronghold in south Florida, and Polk in central Florida. Three statewide Florida races, including the contest for governor, went to state-mandated recounts because the margins were so close."

Zoe Tillman at BuzzFeed: A Former Trump Campaign Staffer Was Ordered to Pay $25,000 for Violating Her Nondisclosure Agreement. "Jessica Denson, a former staffer for [Donald] Trump's campaign, is fighting an order to pay nearly $25,000 for violating a nondisclosure agreement, according to court papers. The award to the Trump campaign came out of arbitration — nonpublic proceedings the campaign pursued against Denson after she filed two lawsuits against it. ...Denson sued the campaign in New York County Supreme Court in November 2017, claiming that officials discriminated against her, cyberbullied her, and were otherwise hostile toward her... But the Trump campaign claimed Denson's lawsuit violated the terms of her nondisclosure agreement, which prohibited her from disclosing confidential information, disparaging the campaign, competing with the campaign, or violating its intellectual property." Chilling.

Richard Partington at the Guardian: IMF Warns Storm Clouds Are Gathering for Next Financial Crisis. "The storm clouds of the next global financial crisis are gathering despite the world financial system being unprepared for the next downturn, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund has warned. David Lipton, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, said that 'crisis prevention is incomplete' more than a decade on from the last meltdown in the global banking system. 'As we have put it, 'fix the roof while the sun shines.' But like many of you, I see storm clouds building, and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete.'" Swell.

Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger at ProPublica: How the IRS Was Gutted. "Had the billions in budget reductions occurred all at once, with tens of thousands of auditors, collectors, and customer service representatives streaming out of government buildings in a single day, the collapse of the IRS might have gotten more attention. But there have been no mass layoffs or dramatic announcements. Instead, it's taken eight years to bring the agency that funds the government this low. Over time, the IRS has slowly transformed, one employee departure at a time. The result is a bureaucracy on life support and tens of billions in lost government revenue. ProPublica estimates a toll of at least $18 billion every year, but the true cost could easily run tens of billions of dollars higher. ...The last time the IRS had fewer than 10,000 revenue agents was 1953, when the economy was a seventh of its current size. And the IRS is still shrinking. Almost a third of its remaining employees will be eligible to retire in the next year, and with morale plummeting, many of them will."

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[CN: Environmental neglect and climate change. Covers entire section.]

Coral Davenport at the New York Times: Trump Prepares to Unveil a Vast Reworking of Clean Water Protections. "The Trump administration is expected on Tuesday to unveil a plan that would weaken federal clean water rules designed to protect millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams nationwide from pesticide runoff and other pollutants. Environmentalists say the proposal represents a historic assault on wetlands regulation at a moment when Mr. Trump has repeatedly voiced a commitment to 'crystal-clean water.' The proposed new rule would chip away at safeguards put in place a quarter century ago... The clean water rollback is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration to weaken or undo major environmental rules, including proposals to weaken regulations on planet-warming emissions from cars, power plants, and oil and gas drilling rigs; a series of moves designed to speed new drilling in the vast Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and efforts to weaken protections under the Endangered Species Act."

Yessenia Funes at Earther: The Trump Administration Is Spinning Its Latest Pro-Coal Policy as Good for People of Color.

The Environmental Protection Agency is using energy affordability among low-income communities and people of color as an argument to bring back coal. Yes, the same coal responsible for an estimated 3,000 American deaths a year.

Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced a new proposal Thursday that would repeal Obama-era regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.

...What's perhaps most misleading about Thursday's announcement, however, is the EPA's framing around how deregulating coal plants will somehow make energy more affordable and, in doing so, help disadvantaged communities. The administration loves to tout fossil fuels as a pathway to freedom and prosperity, and today's announcement was no different.

"Affordable energy benefits low and middle-income Americans the most, particularly disadvantaged and underserved communities," Wheeler said, during the announcement.

...Energy poverty is a very real thing, especially in low-income, black, and Latinx communities. Families that make $25,000 a year will spend more than 7 percent of their annual earnings on electricity bills, according to a 2016 report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A household earning $90,000 a year, on the other hand, will spend just 2 percent on energy. Latinx and black homes especially feel this burden, per the report.

However, more coal won't fix this, especially in a world of cheap natural gas. If the U.S. government really wanted to save people money, it would develop policies that offer bill assistance and encourage retrofitting housing stock to make buildings more energy efficient. Old, dilapidated apartment units with poor insulation are the problem, per that report. So are inefficient household appliances, like fridges and dishwashers. People who rent don't always decide what fridge comes with their apartment.

Investing in renewable energy can also help give low-income communities a boost, said Mustafa Ali, former EPA environmental justice chair, to Earther. Solar and wind don't add to health costs or the detriment of our planet. Instead, they create new jobs.

"By moving in a different direction and a direction focused on renewable energy, we can actually help our most vulnerable communities move to a thriving position," Ali told Earther.

Wheeler's proposal, meanwhile, could cause the air quality in and around many of impoverished communities to take a hit.

Chris Mooney at the Washington Post: The Arctic Is in Even Worse Shape Than You Realize. "Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's annual Arctic Report Card. The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself." Goddamn.

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

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Discussion Thread: Good Things

One of the ways we resist the demoralization and despair in which exploiters of fear like Trump thrive is to keep talking about the good things in our lives.

Because, even though it feels very much (and rightly so) like we are losing so many things we value, there are still daily moments of joy or achievement or love or empowering ferocity or other kinds of fulfillment.

Maybe you've experienced something big worth celebrating; maybe you've just had a precious moment of contentment; maybe getting out of bed this morning was a success worthy of mention.

News items worth celebrating are also welcome.

So, whatever you have to share that's good, here's a place to do it.

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In the comments of last Thursday's Question of the Day thread, Shaker bellist, who suggested the question, which was about musical instruments, mentioned having been given an ocarina.

I had no idea what an ocarina was, so, as is my habit when I encounter something new, I excitedly began researching it — and, within a short space of time, I was falling madly in love with György Ligeti's Violin Concerto, which features the ocarina. I'd never heard that piece before, and it's so mysterious and so beautiful!

Anyway. I've been wanting to pick up a new musical instrument for a long while, but the financial threshold to entry for so many instruments is far too high, when I'm not sure I'll have the time and energy to commit fully to learning, no matter how much I want and intend to learn.

However, I found a basic plastic alto-C ocarina, recommended by an instructor on some introductory video lessons I watched, for $40. It just arrived last night, and I'm super excited about it. I'd already practiced the mouthing technique, so I can create a nice sound, even though I don't know the fingering yet.

It's nice to be embarking on a new adventure, which is a good thing. Thank you, bellist, for the question and your answer, which set me on this journey!

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"It's about undermining key pillars of democracy and the rule of law."

There are two articles in the news today about Russian disinformation and propaganda strategies that are must-reads:

1. Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski at the Washington Post: Agents of Doubt: How a Powerful Russian Propaganda Machine Chips Away at Western Notions of Truth.

The brazenness of the attempt to kill a Russian defector turned British citizen at his home in southwest England outraged Western governments and led to the expulsion of some 150 Russian diplomats by more than two dozen countries, including the United States. Yet, more than eight months later, analysts see a potential for greater harm in the kind of heavily coordinated propaganda barrage Russia launched after the assassination attempt failed.

Intelligence agencies have tracked at least a half-dozen such distortion campaigns since 2014, each aimed, officials say, at undermining Western and international investigative bodies and making it harder for ordinary citizens to separate fact from falsehood. They say such disinformation operations are now an integral part of Russia's arsenal — both foreign policy tool and asymmetrical weapon, one that Western institutions and technology companies are struggling to counter.

"Dismissing it as fake news misses the point," said a Western security official who requested anonymity in discussing ongoing investigations into the Russian campaign. "It's about undermining key pillars of democracy and the rule of law."

...And apart from these concerted campaigns, there is a daily churn of false or distorted reports that seem designed to exploit the divisions in Western society and politics, especially on issues such as race, violence, and sexual rights, and that are pushed by droves of operatives posing as ordinary citizens on social media accounts.

2. Anna Nemtsova at the Daily Beast: Russia's Disinformation Chief Takes Fresh Aim at America.

FAN's agenda is to wage information war against Putin's and Prigozhin's critics in Russia, Ukraine, Syria, the United States, and Africa. The number of battlefields just keeps growing.

More than 12 million people read FAN's news on riafan.ru. Meanwhile, the government of Ukraine in Kiev accuses the agency of "information terrorism." This year, Facebook shut down the agency's accounts, which infuriated FAN's managers and inspired them to take the conflict to the enemy, as it were. The Russian information soldiers physically moved to Washington.

On Friday, The Daily Beast spoke with FAN's general director, Yevgeny Zubarev, about that strategy.

"When Facebook banned us in April," he said, "we declared that we would respond by establishing a group in America; we called it USA Really." Then he added defiantly, "Whoever wants us to surrender should not count on it. We are not going to be quiet."

This is what's happening while Donald Trump screams about American news outlets being "fake news." And that is not a coincidence. That is more collusion happening right out in the open. The objective is to create such informational chaos that people don't know what to believe or who to trust, and Trump's "fake news" narrative pointedly serves that objective.

I don't really have anything else to say that I haven't already said countless times over the past couple of years — I just highly recommend reading both of the above-linked pieces in their entirety, to get a solid grasp on the nature and scope of what we're facing.

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Help Wanted: Vile Person to Facilitate Agenda of Malice

Donald Trump is still in search of a new chief of staff to replace John Kelly, who will be running from the White House screaming at the end of this year.

There aren't any competent, qualified, decent people volunteering for the gig, which means the pool from which Trump has to select the new highest-ranking non-elected employee of the White House whom he will definitely ignore and have embarrassing public fallings-out with is very shallow.

And the chief of staff position has the same problem as that which I noted regarding the Attorney General vacancy: Anyone who is willing to work in the capacity of Donald Trump's chief of staff is axiomatically unfit to serve the nation with decency.

All of which is preamble to this: I don't really give a fuck who Trump chooses. I'm going to regard them, whoever they are, with undiluted contempt just for accepting the job.

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Open Thread

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

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Question of the Day

Suggested by Shaker RachelB: "What is a thing you like about yourself?"

My sense of humor.

I mean.

Bad habits. https://t.co/Vv54EF3uAJ

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 9, 2018

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Monday Links!

This list o' links brought to you by a case of the Mondays.

Recommended Reading:

Teo Armus at the Texas Tribune: [Content Note: Nativism; abuse] A Court Ruling May Allow Migrant Families to Be Held Indefinitely; These Families Know What That Could Be Like

Isaac Saul at A Plus: [CN: Sexual violence; rape culture] Amanda Nguyen Changed Sexual Assault Laws in America; Now She's Going Global

Alex McElroy at Tin House: [CN: Disordered eating; descriptions of bingeing; fat hatred; toxic masculinity] Hazardous Cravings

catherine lizette gonzalez at Colorlines: [CN: Carcerality; racism] Nearly Half of All U.S. Adults Have a Family Member Who Has Been Incarcerated

Kate Bernot at the Takeout: Philadelphia Passes Law Ensuring Predictable Schedules for Fast-Food and Hospitality Workers

Monica Roberts at TransGriot: Raquel Willis Becomes Executive Editor at OUT Magazine

Aparna Nancherla at InStyle: [CN: Anxiety; malice] How to Deal with the Panic and Horror That Is Being a Human Right Now

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

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2020

The other day, Iain asked me who I liked most of the Democrats reportedly running for president in 2020, and I didn't have an answer ready, which is frankly unheard of at this point ahead of a presidential election cycle.

All I can say is that I can't even fathom having to cover a presidential race between Donald Trump and another shouty old megalomaniacal white dude.

If Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden gets Democratic nomination, I'm pretty sure having to cover that mess will reduce me to a pile of ash.

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What I'm Listening To

A thread for sharing what we're currently listening to: Music, podcasts, audiobooks, whatever.

I've been on a Family Wainwright kick all weekend — specifically siblings Rufus and Martha. So, below, my favorite track from each of them.

Rufus Wainwright: "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk"


[Lyrics here.]
Martha Wainwright: "Bloody Motherfucking Asshole"


[Lyrics here.]
What are you listening to these days?

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Daily Dose of Cute

Some weekend cuteness at Shakes Manor...

Sophie

Zelda

Dudley
Omigosh, looking at that photo of Dudz makes me realize how white his little old man face has gotten!

Then and now.

♥ ♥ ♥
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 690

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: The Collusion Has Always Been Right out in the Open and John Kelly and Nick Ayers Leaving by End of Year and Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina Requests Change of Plea Hearing.

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

Reports that 4 Russian Air Forces Il-76MDs from Taganrog have transported Russian airborne troops from Anapa into Dzhankoi in Crimea. This combined w all the other military movements, Russian media propaganda of an imminent attack by Ukraine, and social media op is a big red flag https://t.co/yjFdazVpkV

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) December 10, 2018

Relatedly, I linked to this piece earlier, but I'll drop it here, too, with more detail. Daniel Boffey at the Guardian: Russia 'Paved Way for Ukraine Ship Seizures with Fake News Drive'.

The Kremlin launched a year-long disinformation campaign to soften up public opinion before its recent seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crews in the Sea of Azov, the EU's security commissioner has alleged.

Julian King said Russia had paved the way for its decision to fire on and board two artillery ships and a tug boat through the dissemination of fake news.

...King said the European commission's East StratCom unit, responsible for highlighting disinformation, had discovered a complicated web of untruths emanating from Russian sources.

"If you thought that incident came out of nowhere, you would be wrong," King told an audience in Brussels. "The disinformation campaign began much earlier, more than a year ago, when Russian media started pushing claims that the authorities in Kiev were dredging the seabed in the Sea of Azov in preparation for a Nato fleet to take up residence."

"Then in the summer there were claims that Ukraine had infected the sea with cholera," King added. "This was followed up in September with dark mutterings in the Russia media forecasting 'west-inspired provocations' on the Azov Sea shore, and reporting that the U.S. has been 'planning for clashes between Ukrainian and Russian naval forces in the Black Sea since the 1990s.'"

...King said none of the claims spread ahead of the seizure were true. The allegations over the U.S. plan to spark clashes was "based on a video game a former Russian soldier claims to have seen 15 years ago," he said.

The commissioner, who was previously the British ambassador to France, went on: "But then the conspiracy theories were ratcheted up a notch — Russian media reported that British and Ukrainian secret services had been trying to transport a nuclear bomb to the newly built bridge to occupied Crimea in order to blow it up, but had been bravely prevented from doing so by special forces sent by Moscow. More bang for your fake news buck, I suppose."

Shiver. Everything is decidedly not fine.

Kevin Poulsen at the Daily Beast: Cambridge Analytica's Real Role in Trump's Dark Facebook Campaign. "Public statements and insider accounts have painted a muddled and contradictory picture on the key question of whether Trump's Facebook campaign targeted voters using Cambridge's vast store of dubiously acquired data, once described by the company as containing 4,000 data points on some 230 million Americans. Now a New York digital-marketing consultant has unearthed a trove of digital artifacts from Trump's social-media campaign that provides the first hard evidence that Team Trump made continuous use of audience lists created by Cambridge Analytica to target a portion of its 'dark ads' on Facebook."

Josh Gerstein at Politico: Manafort Gets Wednesday Court Date to Discuss Lying Allegations. "A federal judge in Washington has set a hearing for Wednesday on prosecutors' request to have former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort declared in breach of his plea agreement for repeatedly lying to special counsel Robert Mueller's office and the FBI. In an order Monday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked both sides in the case to appear before her for a scheduling conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Jackson also lifted a Wednesday deadline that Manafort's attorneys faced to rebut a submission from Mueller's team last week detailing a variety of incidences prosecutors contend Manafort lied in the wake of his September agreement to plead guilty to charges of unregistered foreign lobbying and money laundering."

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Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: Supreme Court Declines to Review Rulings That Blocked Efforts to End Planned Parenthood Funding. "The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review lower court decisions that blocked efforts in two states to cut off public funding for Planned Parenthood, refusing for now to get involved in state battles over abortion rights. ...The issue has to do with whether individual Medicaid recipients who receive services from providers such as Planned Parenthood have a right to challenge a state's decision to cut off funding to the providers. Five regional courts of appeal have said they do, while one has said they do not. That is the kind of split that normally prompts the Supreme Court to act."

It's good news for now, but it probably doesn't signal anything about the Court's position in the long-term. In fact, I agree with Ian Millhiser's analysis at ThinkProgress: "It's common for the Court to shy away from politically fraught cases while its membership is in flux, but its membership has been settled since early October. Nevertheless, the Court, in this instance, has shied away from cases involving Planned Parenthood. It's very doubtful that this equilibrium will last — Kavanaugh's been very clear that he intends to kill Roe v. Wade. But the Court's decision to not hear Andersen and Gee gives credence to the theory that Roberts and Kavanaugh want to give the nation some time to forget about how Kavanaugh got his current job before they declare outright war on reproductive choice."

And, in the meantime, the routine battles on agency and science continue apace. Amy Goldstein and Lenny Bernstein at the Washington Post: Trump Administration Halts Study That Would Use Fetal Tissue 'to Discover a Cure for HIV'. "The Trump administration has shut down at least one government-run study that uses fetal tissue implanted into mice even before federal health officials reach a decision on whether to continue such research, which is opposed by anti-abortion groups. A senior scientist at a National Institutes of Health laboratory in Montana told colleagues that the Health and Human Services Department 'has directed me to discontinue procuring fetal tissue' from a firm that is the only available source, according to an email he sent to a collaborator in late September. 'This effectively stops all of our research to discover a cure for HIV,' the researcher wrote."

Fucking hell.

* * *

This fucking guy. https://t.co/Nl7F8Ssop4

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 10, 2018

Griffin Connolly at Roll Call: Rep. Mark Meadows on Trump's Short List for Chief of Staff. "Donald Trump and his top advisers are considering whether to make Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, his next chief of staff. ...White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have been rumored as candidates for the job, other news outlets have reported." Gross.

Philip Bump at the Washington Post: The Evidence Undermining Trump's Attempt to Defend the Stormy Daniels Payment. "For these payments to have violated campaign finance laws, they needed to have been related to the campaign. If they were, that they were made using non-regulated money (meaning money that wasn't donated to the campaign) and that they weren't reported by the campaign as expenditures are violations of federal law. Trump's argument, in short, is that these payments weren't related to the campaign. Instead, they were 'a simple private transaction.' When we first spoke with former FEC general counsel Lawrence Noble about the legal implications of the Daniels payment in February, he pointed out that, if Trump regularly had Cohen pay women to keep their silence, it would bolster (but not disprove) the argument that this payment wasn't related to Trump's candidacy. Since then, though, we've learned a lot of information that makes the possibility that the payments had nothing to do with the campaign seem highly unlikely."

Also we have brains and understand the basics of how politics works in the United States, so.

* * *

[Content Note: Child abuse; police brutality] Ellie Hall at BuzzFeed: NYPD Officers Are Shown Ripping a Child from His Mother's Arms at a Food Stamp Center in an "Appalling" Video. "A video posted to Facebook on Friday shows New York Police Department officers attempting to rip a child from his mother's arms at a Brooklyn social services office, prompting calls for an investigation. ...It is unclear what happened before the video starts. The woman who uploaded the footage — which has been viewed more than 200,000 times as of Monday morning — wrote that the young mother was waiting to be seen at the Fort Greene Food Stamp Center on Friday and seated herself and her child on the floor because there were no available chairs. She alleged that a security guard told the mother to move and called the police when she refused, citing the lack of chairs."

[CN: Homophobia; violence] Staff at Towleroad: Homophobic NYC Subway Attack Leaves Woman with Fractured Spine. "A homophobic attack on a Manhattan-bound E subway train has left a 20-year-old woman with a fractured spine, according to the New York Police Department. ABC7 reports: 'Police say a man got into an argument with a 20-year-old woman. During the argument, police say the man used a homophobic slur. As the woman walked away, the man approached from behind, punched her in the back of the head, and shoved her to the ground, causing her to strike her head. The attacker ran off.'" According to a report in the New York Daily News, the argument began because "the man became incensed after he saw another woman peck the victim on the cheek."

[CN: Nativism; video may autoplay at link] Cristina Lopez G. at the Huffington Post: Fox News Talked More About Migrant 'Invasion' Just Before Election Than in Past 3 Years Total. "Ahead of his party's shellacking in the 2018 midterm elections, [Donald] Trump spent weeks warning his supporters that a caravan of Central American migrants headed for the U.S border constituted an 'invasion.' Trump's favorite television channel was his most important ally in that effort. Prime-time Fox News programs used the words 'invasion' or 'invaders' to describe migrants and asylum-seekers more times in the 30 days leading up to the Nov. 6 election than they did during all of 2015, 2016, and 2017 combined."

[CN: Class warfare] Venessa Wong at BuzzFeed: People Are Living with an Incredible Amount of Debt from Student Loans and Credit Cards. "This year, as health care costs shot up, the housing affordability crisis worsened, and a million other garbage things happened, Americans' personal finances have also suffered. A new report from the personal finance website NerdWallet shows that many U.S. households have sunk deeper into debt in 2018 because rising basic costs have led them to accrue more credit card debt and to delay payments on their already massive student loans. ...The researchers estimated that among households that have any kind of debt, they on average owed $135,768. The average mortgage holder owed $184,417 for their home; households with student debt on average owed $47,671; and the average household with an auto loan owed $28,033 for their car. We owe a lot of money."

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

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Accused Russian Spy Maria Butina Requests Change of Plea Hearing

Russian operative Maria Butina, who was arrested in July after allegedly working on behalf of the Kremlin to manipulate U.S. conservatives and had close ties to the NRA, has requested a change of plea hearing, which suggests that "she's reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors."

Butina, a former American University student, has reportedly been in talks to strike a plea deal with investigators. She has been in jail since her initial arrest. As ABC News previously reported, Butina allegedly touted her access to "high-ranking Kremlin officials" including President Vladimir Putin, and worked to set up a meeting between top-level NRA members and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. She also allegedly infiltrated a Washington, D.C., think tank, and formed close relationships with a series of high-level American conservatives.

If you're not familiar with Butina, this is a good read from Denise Clifton and Mark Follman at Mother Jones: The Very Strange Case of Two Russian Gun Lovers, the NRA, and Donald Trump. And this is also good, from Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier at BuzzFeed: Here Is the Money Trail from the Russian Agent and Her Republican Partner.

So, what does this mean? Well, I'm not certain. But I will note that, given the proclivities of Putin's traitors to get themselves dead, Butina would be taking a huge risk if she were cutting a deal with U.S. prosecutors without his consent. She's also the best positioned at the moment to bring down Jr., so there is certainly reason to consider that Putin could be orchestrating this. Her request to change her plea and make a deal is, at minimum, a public threat to Trump's son.

And it could be far more significant. It could mean that Putin is done with Trump. That may sound impossible, but there's also this: The fact that the NRA's donations have plummeted suggests that Russia is discarding Trump. And the fact that donations to white conservative evangelical orgs were up in the 2018 cycle could mean they're moving on to Pence.

(Related Reading: How Much of the NRA's Money Funding Republicans Came from Russia? NB: "If Russian moneymen are laundering money through white conservative evangelical Christian groups in the U.S., just as they're seemingly laundering money through the NRA, no one was better positioned to officiate that hideous marriage than Pence.")

I realize that speculation may seem far-reaching, but it's important to understand how dedicated the Kremlin is to playing the long game. Also in the news today, for example: "The Kremlin launched a year-long disinformation campaign to soften up public opinion before its recent seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crews in the Sea of Azov, the EU's security commissioner has alleged." This is sophisticated, long-term gamespersonship.

I don't know exactly at what I'm looking yet, but I do know that it's highly unlikely to be as simple as it seems.

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John Kelly and Nick Ayers Leaving by End of Year

On Saturday, Donald Trump shouted at reporters that Chief of Staff John Kelly would be leaving by the end of the year. The announcement follows months of reports that Trump and Kelly were at odds over a number of issues.

It has long been expected that Mike Pence's longtime aide Nick Ayers would take over in Kelly's position, but, yesterday, Ayers announced on Twitter that he would be leaving the White House by the end of the year, too: "Thank you @realDonaldTrump, @VP, and my great colleagues for the honor to serve our Nation at The White House. I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause."

I noted on Twitter: "Just a reminder that Ayers was a strategist for Pence's re-election campaign for governor of Indiana and the national chair of his veep campaign in 2016. If Pence has reason to believe he'll be running in 2020, Ayers is more useful out in the field quietly laying that groundwork than as Trump's chief of staff."

A number of people responded by positing that Ayers was hightailing it out of the White House because Bob Mueller's investigation is getting close to him, but a couple of things about that theory:

1. Leaving his current job won't protect him from the law. (And he knows that.) Frankly, I think the fact that Ayers is flying the coop now is an indication that he believes none of this stuff will touch him. Leaving the White House won't protect him from legal trouble, but staying and maintaining proximity to that power (and a president willing to abuse it) might/would protect him. He obviously feels he isn't risking anything by leaving.

2. We've heard nothing about the Special Counsel's investigation getting anywhere close to Pence, despite the fact that Pence led the presidential transition, during which much of the collusion being scrutinized took place. (Which is one of the reasons I suspect Pence has been cooperating.) Given that, I've no reason to believe it's gotten close to Ayers, either.

* * *

It could also, of course, merely be a case of the ambitious Ayers jumping off a sinking ship. That possibility might resonate more strongly with me if it seemed like Pence was sinking with that ship. But, much to my everlasting chagrin, it doesn't. At least not at this moment.

When Pence raised eyebrows by launching his own political action committee one day after the appointment of a special counsel, marking the first time a sitting veep has ever done so, it was Nick Ayers, along with Pence's other chief political operative, Marty Obst, who was shopping meets with the veep to raise cash for the PAC.

My read on this is that Ayers, whose background is in campaigning, will position himself to, as his tweet suggests, "work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause" — but he'll really be working for whoever is running for reelection in 2020, with the expectation it won't be Donald Trump.

* * *

One outlying possibility: Ayers got shoved out after Pence's maneuvering became obvious to Trump.

(Or to Ivanka and Jared. Who then convinced Trump of Pence's disloyalty.)

In which case, despite Trump's having been backed into publicly asking him to be his running mate again, Pence might be next out the door.

Because if there's one thing we all know about Donald Trump, it's that his word is garbage.

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The Collusion Has Always Been Right out in the Open

As I have said countless times: The collusion between Donald Trump's campaign (and, later, administration) and Russia has always been right out in the open — from his campaign forcing the Republican Party to change its plank on Ukraine, to Trump standing at a podium along the campaign trail publicly inviting Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails, to Trump's meetings with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office where he was photographed as he spilled intelligence secrets, to Trump publicly saying he would not meet with Vladimir Putin at the G20 only to meet with him privately anyway.

The incidents of collusion between Russia and Trump, his family, and/or his staff are many. And a huge number of them have never been concealed. They have been visible live, or known and quickly reported to the public.

And yet, many of us who have been hammering away for years at the fact that the then-Republican candidate and now president is colluding with a foreign adversary have been widely dismissed as kooks and conspiracy theorists for nearly the entire time — despite the fact that much of the information in Special Counsel Bob Mueller's filings has long been known.

It's merely confirming what those of us paying attention have seen with our own eyes.

This is something I have noted previously, and it's something that Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign manager, notes in an important op-ed for the Washington Post today: The Sad Truth About Russian Election Interference.

The entire thing is worth your time to read in its entirety, but here is the upshot:

Obviously, much more evidence about Russia's interference has come out since 2016. But I'm not sure we've learned the bigger lesson: Why did it take two years and dozens of indictments for so many to believe that Russia was not only behind the DNC hack but may also have been in cahoots with the Trump campaign, when there was so much evidence at the time?

It's as if something needs to be secret or hidden to truly matter. If it's sealed in a courtroom, it must be a bombshell, but if it's out in the open, it's just not as serious.

Over and over, people have argued with me that what I was saying about collusion couldn't possibly be true, because no one would be so stupid as to be that brazen.

But the brazenness wasn't stupidity. It was calculated. Trump and his co-conspirators knew damn well that there would be people lining up to argue that what they were seeing with their own eyes couldn't actually be what they were seeing with their own eyes, because no one would be stupid enough to be that brazen.

And here we are.

Mook isn't sure we've learned the bigger lesson. And I'm not either.

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Open Thread

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

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The Virtual Pub Is Open

[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]

Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.

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Friday Links!

This list o' links brought to you by Friday night.

Recommended Reading:

Miriam Jordan at the New York Times: [Content Note: Nativism; violence] Making the President's Bed: A Housekeeper Without Papers

Quyen Dinh at Reappropriate: [CN: Nativism; class warfare] All Immigrants Deserve to Not Just Arrive, but Also to Thrive

Max Bearak at the Washington Post: [CN: War; disease; violence; death] 'Like a Horror Film': The Efforts to Contain Ebola in a War Zone

Hizbullah Khan at Media Diversified: [CN: War; death; misogyny] Three Times a Widow in Afghanistan

Yessenia Funes at Earther: [CN: Racism] The Dakota Access Pipeline Project Lost Billions by Failing to Consult with Local Tribes

Liane Kupferberg Carter at the Cut: 23andMe Informed Me My Husband and I Are Related

CB at Celebitchy: Weird Al Turned Down a $5 Million Beer Endorsement Deal for Ethical Reasons

George Dvorsky at Gizmodo: New Images from Mars Show NASA's InSight Landed on an Absolutely Glorious Spot

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

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The Makeup Thread

Here is your semi-regular makeup thread, to discuss all things makeup and makeup adjacent.

Do you have a makeup product you'd recommend? Are you looking for the perfect foundation which has remained frustratingly elusive? Need or want to offer makeup tips? Searching for hypoallergenic products? Want to grouse about how you hate makeup? Want to gush about how you love it?

Whatever you like — have at it!

* * *

Today, I want to recommend a product that I have loved for many years now: Ardell's Clear Brow Sculpting Gel.

Photobomb by Sophie.
I've mentioned this product many times previously in the makeup thread, as I've been using it for as long as I can remember. Recently, when I ran out, I tried a clear brow sculpting gel from another company (whose name I won't mention because it wasn't bad; it just wasn't as good), and I immediately went back to Ardell.

It's my favorite by a long shot, for many reasons, not least of which is that the quality of the product lasts as long as it takes me to get through a tube, which is a long time. The last tube I threw out had a cap that had broken from so much use and the text was nearly rubbed clean off the sides.

And, at less than $7, my money buys me a lot of satisfaction! Thanks, Ardell!

Anyway! What's up with you?

(As always, I'm not affiliated in any way with any of the companies whose products I mention, nor am I getting anything in exchange for my recommendations. I just like the products!)

* * *

Please note, as always, that advice should be not be offered to an individual person unless they solicit it. Further: This thread is open to everyone — women, men, genderqueer folks. People who are makeup experts, and people who are makeup newbies. Also, because there is a lot of racist language used in discussions of makeup, and in makeup names, please be aware to avoid turns of phrase that are alienating to women of color, like "nude" or "flesh tone" when referring to a peachy or beige color. I realize some recommended products may have names that use these words, so please be considerate about content noting for white supremacist (and/or Orientalist) product naming.

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Daily Dose of Cute

Wink!
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 687

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: Trump Goes on Another Twitter Rampage About Mueller and Trump Says He Intends to Nominate Bill Barr as AG and Mueller's Sentencing Memos on Manafort and Cohen Scheduled to Be Issued Today.

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

Let's start with some good resistance news! Molly Hensley-Clancy at BuzzFeed: Democrats Have Officially Gained 40 Seats in the House of Representatives. "Democrats have now won a California House race that was called, erroneously, for the Republican incumbent on election night, giving the party a net gain of 40 seats in the House of Representatives. The delayed victory in California's 21st District is likely the final win for Democrats in the November midterms. It ties up a string of wins that has transformed what looked like a modest House victory on election night — some called it a 'blue trickle,' rather than the predicted 'blue wave' — into a Democratic rout, the party's strongest performance in a midterm in decades." Woot!

Speaking of a strong Democratic performance in the midterms... Alex Roarty at McClatchy: This Is the All-Female Number-Crunching Team That Delivered the House to Dems.

At every step of the 2018 election, House Democrats at the DCCC relied heavily on a data and analytics team that guided the committee through two years of tumultuous politics and an ever-fluctuating path back to the majority.

The results speak for themselves: Democrats gained 40 House seats, a gargantuan total for a party once hoping to simply eke out 23 seats necessary for a majority. They were the party's largest House gains in a single campaign since 1974.

DCCC officials were also delighted that, in an election where the party earned overwhelming support for women and benefited from a surge of female candidates, the team analyzing the numbers behind-the-scenes was also led by three women: Rosa Mendoza, who ran the analytics team at the group's independent expenditure operation; Amber Carrier, the group's director of polling and modeling; and Claire Low, the DCCC's targeting and analytics director.

Fuck yeah!

And, for a final trifecta of good Democratic news... Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the Washington Post: No Deal on Infrastructure Without Addressing Climate Change. "No doubt, a single infrastructure bill alone will not solve our climate problem. But it is an important and necessary first step to include at least some, if not many, of these ideas. Without them, Trump should not count on Democratic support in the Senate." GOOD. Now stick to it, Schumer! And don't budge an inch on infrastructure proposals that are privatization schemes, either.

* * *

Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: Trump to Name Former Fox Anchor Heather Nauert as Next United Nations Ambassador. "Donald Trump has decided to name the state department spokeswoman and former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert as the ambassador to the United Nations, a source familiar with his decision told Reuters. Trump will send a tweet on Friday morning about choosing Nauert to replace the outgoing UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, who announced her resignation in October, Fox News reported, citing multiple sources. ...Nauert, whose nomination would require Senate confirmation, is a former Fox News Channel correspondent and anchor. She does not have prior political or policy-making experience."

[Content Note: Disablist language] Aaron Blake at the Washington Post: Rex Tillerson on Trump: 'Undisciplined, Doesn't Like to Read,' and Tries to Do Illegal Things. "The fired secretary of state, who while in office reportedly called Trump a 'moron' (and declined to deny it), expounded on his thoughts on the president in a rare interview with CBS News's Bob Schieffer in Houston. ...'What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation,' Tillerson said, was 'to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, 'This is what I believe.'' ...'So often, the president would say, 'Here's what I want to do, and here's how I want to do it,' and I would have to say to him, 'Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can't do it that way. It violates the law,'' Tillerson said, according to the Houston Chronicle." And yet Tillerson didn't leave the administration until he was fired.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Deanna Hackney at CNN: George Papadopoulos Released from Prison. "Ex-Donald Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos was released from prison Friday morning after serving 12 days for lying to investigators about his contact with individuals tied to Russia during the 2016 campaign. ...As part of his sentence, Papadopoulos will now have 12 months of supervised release, must serve 200 hours of community service within about one year, and must pay a $9,500 fine." So, if you want to commit treason, just make sure you have $10,000 and 12 days to spare.

“I don't think I've ever seen a situation where illegal coordination seems more obvious," said former FEC chair Ann Ravel. "It is so blatant it doesn't even seem sloppy. Everyone involved probably just thinks there aren't going to be any consequences.” https://t.co/Cdgh9xWz0v

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 7, 2018

We know the NRA was infiltrated by the Russian government and that the FBI is investigating whether any Russian money went to the NRA. With this report, it raises the possibility that Russia funded the Trump campaign.

— Scott Stedman (@ScottMStedman) December 6, 2018

Allegra Kirkland at TPM: 'Contagion': After Midterms, GOP Steps Up National Effort to Limit Voting Rights.

In the aftermath of the elections, Republican lawmakers across the country — and they are nearly all Republican — have moved to undermine those voter-approved ballot measures, or to impose new restrictions on the franchise.

The boldest version of this has played out in Wisconsin, where the GOP-controlled legislature followed the example North Carolina set in 2016 and used the lame duck legislative session to grant themselves additional powers at the expense of the new incoming Democratic governor and pass a grab-bag of policy priorities. One is a two-week limit on early voting.

Similar machinations are underway in Michigan, where the Republican-held legislature is using the lame-duck session to fiddle with two voter-approved constitutional amendments to expand voting access and prevent partisan gerrymandering.

In Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, measures are being floated to the press, grinding their way through the legislature, or being mishandled in ways that would restrict access to the ballot or otherwise make voting more difficult.

Not coincidentally, these large, populous, varying-degrees-of-purple states will be essential in determining the outcome of the 2020 elections.

[CN: Threat of violence] Claudia Koerner at BuzzFeed: CNN's New York Office Was Forced to Evacuate After Receiving Another Bomb Threat. "CNN employees were forced to evacuate the news network's New York offices Thursday night after receiving a bomb threat. ...The building was reopened within an hour after the NYPD's strategic response group and emergency service unit deemed it safe, police said. The threat interrupted live programming, and it came one minute before [Donald] Trump tweeted about 'fake news' — an insult he often throws at CNN. 'FAKE NEWS — THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!' the president tweeted at 10:08 p.m."

[CN: Gun violence] Luke O'Neil at the Guardian: Trump's 'Fake News' Tweet Prompts Journalist's Tribute to Murdered Colleague. "Wendi Winters was 65 years old. She was a veteran editor and reporter with four children and quick with a sarcastic quip. On 28 June of this year, she was shot dead along with four others in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Maryland by a man with a grudge against the paper. Winters, who wrote a column called 'Teen of the Week,' was remembered in a moving thread on Twitter today by one of her colleagues at the paper, photojournalist Joshua McKerrow. ...McKerrow's thread has been shared over 40,000 times with messages of love and support, but one of the first replies you might see if you click on it is from an account replying simply: 'Fake news.' In that person's Twitter bio there's one word: 'MAGA!'"

McKerrow's thread, which begins here, reads in its entirety:

1. Today I did the annual story on holiday decorations at the Governor's residence. I've done it every year, for years. A very light but very fun story. Every year my reporting partner was Wendi Winters. This year, it was Selene. Wendi was murdered in June.

[Note from Liss: The above tweet quotes Trump's latest "enemy of the people" tweet, just to be clear that McKerrow was explicitly and directly responding to that.]

2. Selene did a great job, of course. And I really thought I could hold it together. I moved through the rooms with my tripod, focusing on the trees and ornaments. All I could think about was Wendi. I felt like she was with me, that she was actually present.

3. Not in a "ghost" sense, I hope she has moved on to a better world then Capital feature stories :) But she was there in my mind. I could almost hear her voice echoing through the empty rooms. "How many cookies are you making this year?", her favorite question.

4. I was ok til the very end. Interviewed the butler, like I have every year, and when we were done she took me aside and whispered, "I really miss Wendi. Next year I'm going to name a cookie for her."

5. And that was it. The tears started, and I'm standing in the Maryland Governors home weeping to myself about my dead friend. She died in The Capital newsroom on June 28th, shot by a man who wanted to kill every journalist he could.

6. We don't know what set him off yet. After years of silence. What finally pushed him far enough that he loaded his shotgun, drove the 40 minutes from Laurel, parked his car, walked through the busy lobby, barricaded our back exit, blasted the simple fragile glass door.

7. Five people died, Rebecca, Wendi, Gerald, Rob, John. I always type their names in the order I think they were killed. I think, Rebecca first, at the door. Wendi charged him. Gerald and Rob were trapped in their cubicle. John, trying to get out the blocked exit.

8. Wendi was no ones enemy.

9. Every year Wendi made us all Oreo holiday cookies. except for the one year she made us jarred pesto. The question came up yesterday in the newsroom, who is going to make the cookies this year? Selene spoke up, I will.

10. I don't have a wrap-up to this story. I cried on and off all day. I miss her very much. I'm comforted that in a way she's still with me, when I do the work that she loved to do. Journalism. Patriotic, truth telling, American. We'll keep on doing the work.

11. And if we die for it, someone else will pick up the threads, and report on the holiday decorations at the Governor's house. Its what we do.

[CN: Climate change] Mark Hand at ThinkProgress: Senate Narrowly Confirms Climate-Denying Nominee to Federal Energy Regulator. "The Senate voted Thursday, in a party-line vote, to approve [Donald] Trump's nominee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), despite video evidence that the nominee strongly favors fossil fuels over renewable energy and rejects the overwhelming scientific evidence behind human-caused climate change. The nominee, Bernard McNamee, will be replacing former Commissioner Robert Powelson, who left the agency in August to lead a water company trade group."

"'We don't know, when patients get denied a service, do most of them figure out a way to get it in some other way?' Guiahi told @Rewire_News. 'Or do most of them end up having outcomes that they were not hoping for?'" https://t.co/NR69Tp2zCb

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) December 7, 2018

[CN: Worker exploitation] Michael Sainato at the Guardian: U.S. Airport Workers Struggle to Make Ends Meet as Industry Profits Soar. "As the airlines and airport companies seek to boost profits, they have increasingly relied on low-cost air carriers and contractors that drive down wages, eliminate benefits, and infringe workers' rights, according to a recent report by Airport Workers United. The report noted airlines made $38bn in profits during 2017, a fourfold increase since 2013. Nearly half those profits are made by U.S.-based airlines. ...But those profits do not trickle down to the workers that generate them. In the United States, airports have cuts jobs and outsourced them to contractors despite increases in the number of travelers."

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

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