Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label terrorism. Show all posts

We Resist: Day 869

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, June 07, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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 Administration to Open Mass Detention Facility for Migrant Children in Texas and Primarily Speaking.

Let's start with a whole bunch of GOOD resistance news today!

Auditi Guha at Rewire.News: There's a New Standard for Paid Family Leave Policy in the United States. "Starting in July 2021, workers in Connecticut can get up to 12 weeks off to care for themselves, their family, or a loved one. ...It has the most generous wage-replacement policy and would cover 95 percent of low-wage workers' pay, up to $900 a week for up to 12 weeks, and includes a broad definition of a loved one covered under the policy, including siblings, grandparents, or anyone 'equivalent of a family member,' even if the person is not of blood relation. This is a boon for single parents and LGBTQ people, who often have non-traditional support networks, advocates say." Yay!

Jessica Glenza at the Guardian: Why the Guardian Is Changing the Language It Uses to Describe Abortion Bans. "The Guardian will no longer use the term 'heartbeat bill' in reference to the restrictive abortion bans that are moving through state legislatures in the U.S. ...'We want to avoid medically inaccurate, misleading language when covering women's reproductive rights,' the Guardian's U.S. editor-in-chief, John Mulholland, said. 'These are arbitrary bans that don't reflect fetal development — and the language around them is often motivated by politics, not science.' The Guardian style guide already encourages editors to use 'anti-abortion' over 'pro-life' for clarity, and 'pro-choice' over 'pro-abortion.'" Terrific!

Kate Riga at TPM: Nadler Pushes Impeachment to Centralize Investigations into Trump. "Nadler crafted his pitch around two central points. One, that impeachment proceedings would centralize the investigations into [Donald] Trump and his administration currently sprawled across multiple committees, keeping it all contained within Judiciary. Second, Nadler argued that, procedurally, it's easy to get information and ask questions during impeachment proceedings than in regular House committee sessions." Excellent arguments. Keep pushing, Jerry!

And that's not all he's up to:


[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Ryan J. Reilly at the Huffington Post: House Democrats to Make It Easier to Find Trump Aides in Contempt, Bring Them to Court. "House Democrats are set to vote next week on a resolution that would make it easier for the House of Representatives to drag members of the Trump administration to court ― and to find them in contempt ― for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. The resolution will also declare Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt of Congress, and authorize the civil enforcement of subpoenas in federal court. The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the resolution on Monday evening, and the full House could take it up on Tuesday."

Erin Banco and Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: House Dems Preparing Investigation of Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine Shenanigans. "Top congressional Democrats are actively discussing opening a probe into Rudy Giuliani for his overseas political and consulting work, including a recent attempt to uncover dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a source with direct knowledge tells The Daily Beast. The contours of a potential probe are still under consideration. But it would likely look at whether Giuliani's relationships with foreign politicos interfered or intersected with American foreign-policy efforts." (Spoiler Alert: They did!)

We all know that the Trump Regime is going to continue ignoring Democrats' authority, but I am nonetheless very glad that the Democrats continue to try to hold them accountable.

* * *

And now onto the not-good news...

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Lee Moran at the Huffington Post: Donald Trump Uses D-Day Ceremony Interview to Rant About Nancy Pelosi. "With the graves of U.S. troops who sacrificed their lives in World War II behind him, [Donald] Trump gave an interview to Fox News and tore into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 'I think she's a disgrace,' Trump told Laura Ingraham in a sit-down pre-recorded at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. 'I actually don't think she's a talented person. I've tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done,' Trump added. 'She's incapable of doing deals; she's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.'" Fucking hell.

On Twitter, someone suggested that those troops died in part so that Trump would have the freedom to say even horrible things near their graves, but, as I noted in reply: Trump is not a private citizen. As president, he is both the head of government and the head of state. The rules and norms about what he can/should say are very different, and free speech laws do not apply.


Diana Ohlbaum and Rachel Stohl at Just Security: An 'Emergency' Arms Deal: Will Congress Acquiesce in Another Blow to Its Authority? "What exactly has changed to warrant an emergency declaration for additional arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE? It is not as if the Trump administration has been unable to make arms deals with the Middle East up until now. Since taking office, the Trump administration has approved more than $20 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and approximately $5 billion worth of sales to the UAE."


Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Two Cases Show the Astounding Breadth of the Supreme Court's War on Democracy. "These two cases, Kisor v. Wilkie and Gundy v. United States, are early stages of a much broader effort to transfer power from the executive branch — whose leader is elected, at least most of the time — to a judiciary that is unaccountable to voters and that is now controlled by the Republican Party. It is unclear whether the Supreme Court's right flank has the votes it needs to prevail in both cases, but both are bellwethers for an agenda that could leave the next Democratic president powerless to govern."

[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent; sexual assault; covers next two paragraphs] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Missouri Forcing Women to Have Pelvic Exams 72 Hours Before Abortions, Says Doctor. "Missouri state officials are forcing physicians to perform pelvic exams on women ahead of abortions, according to a doctor who works at the last abortion clinic left in the state. David Eisenberg told the Los Angeles Times that, since the state's governor signed a law banning abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, he's been forced to carry out the exams. ...'What I realized was I effectively have become an instrument of state abuse of power,' said Eisenberg. 'As a licensed physician, I am compelled by the state of Missouri to put my fingers in a woman's vagina when it's not medically necessary.'"

As I have noted previously, regarding state laws mandating medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound probes, the state is victimizing abortion providers by coercing them into being their tools of sexual violence, and I am glad that Dr. Eisenberg is stating this plainly and also profoundly upset that he is being put in that position, along with abortion providers all over the country obliged to perform similarly invasive procedures with no purpose but to deter women from seeking abortions.

[CN: Queer hatred; white supremacy] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: The Organizers Behind Boston's Straight Pride Parade Should Concern You. "The three men organizing the parade, planned for August 31 [in Boston], are John Hugo, Mark Sahady, and Chris Bartley, who is called the 'gay ambassador' on the event website. Sahady has ties to groups like the Proud Boys, the New Hampshire American Guard, and the Massachusetts Patriot Front. Hugo unsuccessfully ran for the Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District in 2018 with support and endorsement from Resist Marxism, a group that is considered to be 'alt-lite' and holds anti-Semitic, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ views."

[CN: Terrorism]


Jeff Cox at CNBC: Jobs Creation Slows Dramatically with Payrolls Up Just 75,000 in May, Much Worse Than Expected. "Job creation decelerated strongly in May, with nonfarm payrolls up by just 75,000 even as the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low, the Labor Department reported Friday. The decline was the second in four months that payrolls increased by less than 100,000 as the labor market continues to show signs of weakening. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 180,000. In addition to the weak total for May, the previous two months' reports saw substantial downward revisions. March's count fell from 189,000 to 153,000 and the April total was taken down to 224,000 from 263,000, for a total reduction of 75,000 jobs."

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

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We Resist: Day 855

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, May 24, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Stop Telling People to Move and Start Supporting Them Where They Live and Trump Empowers Barr to Declassify Intelligence as He Audits Russia Probe and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: War on agency; anti-choicery. Covers whole section.]


Ariana Eunjung Cha and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux at the Washington Post: American Civil Liberties Union Sues Alabama over Near-Total Abortion Ban.
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday filed suit on behalf of abortion clinics against the state of Alabama to block the most restrictive abortion law in the nation.

The near-total ban, signed by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on May 15, would criminalize abortion in almost all circumstances — including cases of rape and incest — and punish doctors with up to 99 years in prison. Without any challenges, the law was set to go into effect in as soon as six months.

The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, sets off a chain of events that both sides say is likely to lead to a years-long court battle. State lawmakers have said they passed the law specifically to bring the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, which they see as having the most antiabortion bench in decades. The bill was designed to challenge the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by arguing that a fetus is a person and is therefore due full rights.

In the filing, Yashica Robinson, a doctor at the Alabama Women's Center — one of four abortion providers in the state — argues that the law "directly conflicts with Roe and more than four decades of Supreme Court precedent affirming its central holding."

Such a ban would inflict immediate and irreparable harm on patients "by violating their constitutional rights, threatening their health and well-being, and forcing them to continue their pregnancies to term against their will," Robinson argued.

The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Planned Parenthood Southeast, Reproductive Health Services, and West Alabama Women's Center on behalf of themselves, their patients, and physicians.
Scott Horsley at NPR: Abortion Limits Carry Economic Cost for Women. "Thousands of women who've had abortions have taken to social media to share their experience. Many argue they would have been worse off economically, had they been forced to deliver a baby. 'I didn't know what I would do with a baby,' said Jeanne Myers, who was unmarried and unemployed when she got pregnant 36 years ago. ...Myers is among the thousands of women who've been sharing their stories under the hashtag YouKnowMe in recent days, in an effort to reduce the stigma surrounding abortion and preserve the right for other women. They cite a wide variety of reasons for getting an abortion but a common theme is the economic hardship that having a baby would have posed for both mother and child."

As I noted (again) on Wednesday, a 2005 Guttmacher study [pdf] of women who had abortions found that 73% of women cited "I can't afford a baby now" as the reason for terminating their pregnancy. Republicans' class warfare increases the need for abortion. They know that. They don't care. Remember that when you see them preening about their moral virtue while trying to relegate women's autonomy to the dustbin of history.

Jason Linkins at ThinkProgress: Florida Lawmaker Says God Told Him to Introduce an Abortion Ban Like Alabama's. Oh for fuck's sake.

* * *

[CN: Disablism] John Wagner at the Washington Post: Trump Shares Heavily Edited Video That Highlights Verbal Stumbles by Pelosi and Questions Her Mental Acuity. "Trump shared a video on Twitter Thursday night that spliced together several verbal stumbles of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at a news conference earlier in the day, further escalating a spat in which both have questioned the other's mental fitness. ...Trump's tweet came late in a day in which he had already called Pelosi 'crazy Nancy' at a news conference and proclaimed 'she's lost it' after Pelosi had told reporters that Trump's family and White House aides 'should stage an intervention for the good of the country.'" Trump is a master of projection, as always.

Quint Forgey at Politico: Giuliani Appears to Defend Sharing a Doctored Pelosi Video. "Rudy Giuliani on Friday appeared to defend his sharing of a doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slurring her words, tweeting that the California Democrat should take back an insult she hurled at [Donald] Trump the day before. 'Nancy Pelosi wants an apology for a caricature exaggerating her already halting speech pattern,' Giuliani, Trump's personal attorney, wrote online. 'First she should withdraw her charge which hurts our entire nation when she says the President needs an 'intervention.' People who live in a glass house shouldn't throw stones.'"

Look at the press doing the most to make it seem like Pelosi and Trump are two sides of the same coin. Escalating a spat. An insult she hurls. "Both sides!" Goddammit.

Jim Waterson at the Guardian: Facebook Refuses to Delete Fake Pelosi Video Spread by Trump Supporters. "Facebook says it will continue to host a video of Nancy Pelosi that has been edited to give the impression that the Democratic House Speaker is drunk or unwell, in the latest incident highlighting its struggle to deal with disinformation." That's the politest way of putting "its continued determination to profit mightily from destroying democracy."

Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein at the Daily Beast: Trump Devotes Press Conference to Instructing Aides to Explain That He's Definitely Not Mad.
Accused of having a temper tantrum at the White House the day before, [Donald] Trump did what anyone trying to prove their serenity would do: He put together a press conference during which he asked five aides to attest to his calmness.

On Thursday afternoon, Trump hosted a group of American farmers at the White House to tout his administration's $16 billion aid plan for farmers afflicted by his ongoing trade war. But after singing their praises and promising relief to come, he quickly turned to the matter most clearly on his mind — reports that he'd lost his cool at a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi the day before.

"Because I know they will always say that [I was angry]... I was so calm... I walked into the Cabinet Room, you had the group, Cryin' Chuck, Crazy Nancy... She's lost it," the president insisted on Thursday. For good measure, he later reiterated that he was an "extremely stable genius."

Over the course of several minutes, the president asked White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, top economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and two top communications hands — Mercedes Schlapp and Hogan Gidley — to relay to the gathered press that he was the picture of tranquility when he met Democratic congressional leaders day before.

"Very calm — I've seen both and this was definitely not angry or ranting [during Wednesday's meeting]," Sanders said, right after Trump summoned her before the cameras. "Very calm, and straightforward, and clear that we have to actually get to work and do good things for the American people."
Well I'm sold! Case closed, Your Honor!

* * *


Susannah George and Lolita Baldor at the AP: Trump Says U.S. to Send 1,500 More Troops to Middle East. "The U.S. will bolster its military presence in the Middle East with an additional 1,500 troops, [Donald] Trump said Friday amid heightened tensions with Iran. Trump said the troops would have a 'mostly protective' role. He spoke to reporters on the White House lawn as he headed out on a trip to Japan. The administration had notified Congress earlier in the day about the troop plans. The forces would number 'roughly' 1,500 and would deploy in the coming weeks, 'with their primary responsibilities and activities being defensive in nature,' according to a copy of the notification obtained by The Associated Press."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Edward Wong, Catie Edmondson, and Eric Schmitt at the New York Times: Trump Officials Prepare to Bypass Congress to Sell Weapons to Gulf Nations. "The Trump administration is preparing to circumvent Congress to allow the export to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of billions of dollars of munitions that are now on hold, according to current and former American officials and legislators familiar with the plan. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and some political appointees in the State Department are pushing for the administration to invoke an emergency provision that would allow President Trump to prevent Congress from halting the sales, worth about $7 billion. ...[The transactions would] further inflame tensions between the United States and Iran."

* * *

[CN: Domestic terrorism; white supremacy; guns. Covers entire section.]

Evan Perez at CNN: FBI Has Seen Significant Rise in White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism in Recent Months. "[According to a senior FBI counterterrorism official, the] domestic terror cases generally include suspects involved in violence related to anti-government views, racial or religious bias, environmental extremism, and abortion-related views. The FBI wouldn't provide specific numbers to quantify the increase of in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases. ...Overall, the FBI has about 5,000 terrorism-related investigations open, including 850 related to domestic terrorism, according to the official."

Huh. I wonder if that "significant" uptick has anything to do with the President of the United States waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism?

Probably just a coincidence. I'm sure their bootstraps made them do it.

In totally unrelated news (cough)...

Staff at Channel 3000: GOP Lawmaker Displays Gun in Front of Democrat's Aide. "A Republican lawmaker allegedly displayed his holstered gun in a Democratic legislator's state Capitol office earlier this year. Democratic Rep. Sheila Stubbs' aide, Savion Castro, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Republican Rep. Shae Sortwell came into Stubbs' Capitol office in late February or early March to talk about legislation to help barbers get licensed. Castrol says that Sortwell remarked that he thought Stubbs' sign banning guns in her office was silly and pulled back his coat to reveal his gun."

Matt Shuham at TPM: GOP Rep. Paul Gosar 'Likes' Post by YouTuber Who's Defended White Nationalism. "Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), a conservative congressman and [Donald] Trump loyalist known for playing up conspiracy theories, 'liked' a tweet on Twitter Thursday by a YouTube philosopher who has defended white nationalism. The tweet from Stefan Molyneux claimed that the broad category of 'White Christians' was 'the first group in the history of the world to figure out that slavery was immoral' and lamented that the group is now blamed for slavery."

What a terrific organization full of great people the Republican Party is.

(That was sarcasm, in case it wasn't obvious.)

* * *

[CN: Transphobia] Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: Trump Admin Plans to Weaken Protections for Transgender People in Health Care. "The Department of Health and Human Services said Friday that it plans to redefine the terms of an Obama-era policy that kept health-care providers from discriminating against transgender patients. HHS Director of the Office for Civil Rights Roger Severino said the agency is rewriting an Affordable Care Act regulation that prohibited health-care discrimination based on sex — in order to keep HHS regulations 'more consistent' with other federal departments. ...The National Center for Transgender Equality has said it will fight the proposed regulation. 'It's about the right of every American to be treated with dignity when they walk into an emergency room, meet a new doctor, or find the right insurance plan,' a spokeswoman said."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle...


* * *

And finally... Heather Stewart at the Guardian: Theresa May Announces She Will Resign on 7 June.
Theresa May has bowed to intense pressure from her own party and named 7 June as the day she will step aside as Conservative leader, drawing her turbulent three-year premiership to a close.

Speaking in Downing Street, May said it had been "the honour of my life" to serve as Britain's second female prime minister. Her voice breaking, she said she would leave "with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love."

The prime minister listed a series of what she said were her government's achievements, including tackling the deficit, reducing unemployment, and boosting funding for mental health.

But she admitted: "It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit."
Bye.

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

Open Wide...
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World News: Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Burkina Faso, and a Russia-North Korea Summit

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, April 22, 2019
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[Content Note: Terrorism; death; injury.]

There are a number of major international news items today to which I wanted to direct your attention. The four stories here are obviously not the only significant news from around the world, but these are particularly on my radar today; please feel welcome, as always, to share additional items in comments.

1. There was a major terrorist attack in Sri Lanka yesterday, with a series of explosions at churches and hotels, leaving at least 290 people dead and 500 injured. At the Guardian, Haroon Siddique has an excellent summary of what we know so far:

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but Sri Lanka's defence minister, Ruwan Wijewardene, said the culprits had been identified and were religious extremists. He said suicide bombers were responsible for the majority of the morning's bombings and that the wave of attacks was the work of a single group.

The prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said security services had been "aware of information" of a possible attack up to 10 days ago. "We must also look into why adequate precautions were not taken," he told reporters on Sunday.

Twenty-four people have been reported to have been arrested so far.
I am just so sad and so angry. My condolences those who lost loved ones in the attack. My sympathy to those who were injured. There just aren't adequate words to convey the depth of my grief and rage and compassion and all the other emotions that swirl together after a thing like this happens.

There are a number of fundraisers which are being promoted on social media to raise money for survivors of the blasts and/or victims' families. I have not been able to verify the legitimacy of any of them, and I urge you to be patient if you are considering making a donation to a fundraising campaign. It usually takes a couple of days to establish which are the most reliable campaigns.

2. Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy has won the presidency in Ukraine's election, the BBC reports: "Zelenskiy has scored a landslide victory in the country's presidential election. With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelenskiy had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%. ...Mr Zelenskiy, a political novice, is best known for starring in a satirical television series Servant of the People, in which his character accidentally becomes Ukrainian president."

There are, of course, grave concerns that Zelenskiy will not be able to effectively stand up to Russian aggression, which is a continuing and urgent crisis.

Just this past January, the Secretary of Russia's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, threatened that Ukraine may split apart and lose its statehood, blaming the Ukrainian government in Kiev for that, despite the fact that Russia has put Ukraine under sustained military, technological, infrastructural, and informational attack for years now.

Vladimir Putin will almost certainly try to exploit Zelenskiy's inexperience to further undermine Ukraine, as swiftly and devastatingly as possible. I hope that Zelenskiy is up to the task, and fear that he isn't.

3. Speaking of Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has announced that Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un are scheduled to meet by the end of this month: "Last week the Kremlin said that Kim Jong Un would travel to Russia this month, announcing the first Russia-North Korea summit since Kim came to power in 2011."

4. Eastern Burkina Faso has fallen to militants, reports Ruth Maclean at the Guardian: "Relative to its Sahelian neighbours, Burkina Faso was until recently considered one of west Africa's more peaceful and moderate countries. But over the past two years the authorities have lost control of large regions to a spreading insurgency. Conflict has escalated dramatically, researchers say. Over the past five months, the civilian death toll has risen by 7,000% compared with the same period last year."

What's happening in Burkina Faso is largely because of corrupt government: "The armed groups are painted as 'terrorists,' and it is true they are backed by extremist groups. But in the east, where conflict is rising fastest, the groups are made up of ordinary Burkinabés taking up arms against a 'predatory' government seen as taking land and mineral wealth while offering nothing in return."

It's emblematic of the sort of unrest — whether expressed at the ballot box or the end of a gun — we're seeing around the world right now, in response to unfettered government avarice and the exploitation of average people. The rejection of oppressive corruption simmers everywhere.

Open Wide...
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We Resist: Day 818

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, April 17, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Trump Tells Supporters: "This Is Your Country, Not Theirs" and Barr Rules Asylum-Seekers Can Be Held Indefinitely and Primarily Speaking.

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

[Content Note: Arson; white supremacy] Last Thursday, I noted that an arrest had been made in the arson attacks on three historically Black baptist churches in one Louisiana parish. Since then: "A fundraiser started by the Seventh District Baptist Association set a target of $1.8 million to be raised and split evenly to the three churches. As of Wednesday morning, $1,030,647 had been donated by over 18,000 people." The total as of this writing is now at $1.27M, and, if you can and would like to donate, you can do so at GoFundMe.

[CN: Terrorism] In another follow-up: U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Hasson, a white nationalist with a massive stockpile of weapons and ammunition who was arrested in February after planning a large-scale terrorist attack targeting Democratic politicians and journalists, will not face terrorism charges, according to his attorney: "Hasson, 49, has remained in custody since his Feb. 15 arrest and subsequent indictment in Maryland on firearms and drug charges. Hasson's attorney, Liz Oyer, wrote in a court filing Monday that prosecutors recently disclosed that they don't expect to seek any additional charges."

Essentially, she's arguing he should be released since prosecutors have supposedly told her no more charges will be filed against him, and there are no terrorism charges filed at the moment, which gives them no reason to hold him indefinitely.

Just as a reminder, at the time of his arrest, prosecutors said: "The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country."

* * *

Felicia Sonmez, Josh Dawsey, and Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post: Trump Vetoes Resolution to End U.S. Participation in Yemen's Civil War. "[Donald] Trump on Tuesday vetoed a resolution that would have ended U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. ...The veto means the United States will continue its involvement in Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign against Yemen's Houthi rebels, waged in the name of holding back Iran's expansion in the region. But the Saudi-led effort, which has targeted civilian facilities and prevented aid shipments from getting to Yemenis, has been faulted by human rights organizations for exacerbating what the United Nations has deemed the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe."

Trump's refusal to sign the resolution is a great shame on our nation, and his veto will almost certainly not be overridden, because the Republican Party is itself a great shame on our nation.

Speaking of which...


See also:


The next time you hear someone say that there's no difference between the two parties, remember that the GOP is engaging in domestic election meddling in order to cheat their way into power, while this is what Democrats do: "Governor Laura Kelly has signed a new bill she says makes voting more convenient in Kansas. 'Over the past decade, we have seen countless efforts aimed at making voting more difficult in this state,' Governor Kelly said in a press release. 'I hope this will be the first of many laws that help ensure that every voice is heard in our democratic process and that every vote is counted.'" Right on.

Jeffrey A. Engel at the Washington Post: Impeachment Should Be a No-Brainer, No Matter What the Mueller Report Says. "The Constitution's authors wouldn't have needed any summary of the special counsel's report to know it was time to impeach the president. Neither would they have waited to see whether its full text provided evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The group that created our nation's founding document would already have judged Donald Trump unfit for office — and removed him — because he's repeatedly shown a dearth of the quality they considered paramount in a president: a willingness to put national interest above his own." Correct.


Luke Harding at the Guardian: Deutsche Bank Faces Action over $20bn Russian Money-Laundering Scheme. "Germany's troubled Deutsche Bank faces fines, legal action and the possible prosecution of 'senior management' because of its role in a $20bn Russian money-laundering scheme, a confidential internal report seen by the Guardian says. ...Deutsche Bank was embroiled in a vast money-laundering operation, dubbed the Global Laundromat. Russian criminals with links to the Kremlin, the old KGB, and its main successor, the FSB, used the scheme between 2010 and 2014 to move money into the western financial system. The cash involved could total $80bn, detectives believe."

Felicia Sonmez at the Washington Post: Mitch McConnell Reelection Launch Video Touts Praise from Trump, Blocking of Merrick Garland. "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday kicked off his 2020 reelection bid with a video highlighting his successful effort to block President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland — a move that helped reshape the court and over which Democrats are still fuming. The video also includes footage of [Donald] Trump hailing McConnell as a 'rock-ribbed Kentucky leader' and 'one of the most powerful men in the world.' ...McConnell, 77, is running for a seventh term." God I loathe him.

Saleha Mohsin and Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg: Mnuchin Plans to Hire Fox's Monica Crowley as Spokeswoman, Sources Say. "Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin plans to hire Fox News commentator Monica Crowley as his top spokeswoman, according to people familiar with the matter, as he seeks to tout the GOP's tax cuts and navigate Democrats' demands for the president's tax returns." Yeah, that sounds about right. In case you'd forgotten: "Trump planned to appoint Crowley to a position at the National Security Council in his White House, but she withdrew from consideration in January 2017 after CNN reported that she had plagiarized portions of her 2012 book and Politico reported that she had plagiarized portions of her 2000 Ph.D. thesis."

This entire fucking administration. Goddammit.

* * *

Yessenia Funes at Earther: There's Microplastic Blowing in the Wind, Study Suggests. "Some peaks throughout the Pyrénées Mountains of France stand more than 10,000 feet tall. Across the mountains' ridges and valleys, adventurous visitors may spot a brown bear or a yellow lily, one of the wildflowers of the Pyrénées. But this mountain range is home to something else too, something not always visible to the human eye. And that's plastic. A study out Monday in Nature Geoscience found that wind can take tiny plastic particles known as microplastics for a ride, dumping them on unsuspecting mountaintops far from human settlements — like the Pyrénées. It's one of the first studies to show how these particles move long distances through the air in what is likely to be a growing area of research."

Andy Greenberg at Wired: Cyberspies Hijacked the Internet Domains of Entire Countries. "The discovery of a new, sophisticated team of hackers spying on dozens of government targets is never good news. But one team of cyberspies has pulled off that scale of espionage with a rare and troubling trick, exploiting a weak link in the internet's cybersecurity that experts have warned about for years: DNS hijacking, a technique that meddles with the fundamental address book of the internet. Researchers at Cisco's Talos security division on Wednesday revealed that a hacker group it's calling Sea Turtle carried out a broad campaign of espionage via DNS hijacking, hitting 40 different organizations. In the process, they went so far as to compromise multiple country-code top-level domains — the suffixes like .co.uk, or .ru, that end a foreign web address — putting all the traffic of every domain in multiple countries at risk."

Staff at Feminist Newswire: New Research Finds Women Make Nuclear War Less Eminent. "New research, including research by the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy, suggests that women are a vital part of preventing nuclear conflict, as well as resolving potential nuclear weapon issues. Including women in non-proliferation talks increases the diversity of ideas as well as leads to more positive outcomes. The Royal Society found that in simulated scenarios men are more likely to display 'overconfidence' that leads to attacks. Involvement of women in these scenarios was found to result in de-escalation of the given conflicts." Yeah, I'm still not over Hillary Clinton not being president, and here's another good reason why.

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

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DHS Intelligence and Analysis Unit Focusing on Domestic Terror Has Been Disbanded

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, April 02, 2019
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[Content Note: Terrorism; rightwing extremism; white supremacy.]

This is very bad: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has disbanded an Intelligence and Analysis unit whose members had focused on domestic terrorism, including white supremacist violence.

Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast reports:

Numerous current and former DHS officials say they find the development concerning, as the threat of homegrown terrorism — including white supremacist terrorism — is growing.

In the wake of this move, officials said the number of analytic reports produced by DHS about domestic terrorism, including the threat from white supremacists, has dropped significantly. People in and close to the department said this has generated significant concern at headquarters.

"It's especially problematic given the growth in right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism we are seeing in the U.S. and abroad," one former intelligence official told The Daily Beast.

The group in question was a branch of analysts in DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A). They focused on the threat from homegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorists. The analysts there shared information with state and local law enforcement to help them protect their communities from these threats.

Then the Trump administration's new I&A chief, David Glawe, began reorganizing the office, which is the DHS component that has a place in the Intelligence Community. Over the course of the reorganization, the branch of I&A focused on domestic terrorism got eighty-sixed and its analysts were reassigned to new positions. The change happened last year, and has not been previously reported.

"We've noticed I&A has significantly reduced their production on homegrown violent extremism and domestic terrorism while those remain among the most serious terrorism threats to the homeland," said one DHS official.
Woodruff also quotes local law enforcement who say that the information they used to receive from the unit has now dried up.

Presumably, this unit also tracked anti-choice violence, which is one of the longest running domestic terrorist campaigns in the country.

So now we're just flying blind(er) on rightwing extremist violence, including and especially anti-choice and white supremacist terrorism.

That, of course, is not an accident. That is a design. Because malice is the agenda.

One assumes Donald Trump and his deplorable henchmen won't be mad if their decision to allow domestic terrorism to flourish in the darkness of inattention also results in dramatic acts of public violence that justify the expansion of authoritarian policy, under the auspices of security and "protecting" us.

If they were actually interested in protecting us, they wouldn't have disbanded a unit charged with doing precisely that.

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Suspected Arson Attack at California Mosque

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, March 25, 2019
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[Content Note: Islamophobia; terrorism; arson.]

The Dar-ul-Arqam mosque in Escondido was attacked by an unknown arsonist who "left behind graffiti referencing the deadly New Zealand terrorist attacks."

No arrests have yet been made, and authorities "have launched investigations into suspected arson and a hate crime."

Yusef Miller, a member of the Muslim community in Escondido, said: "We're not surprised by this incident... But, we're very on edge right now." Police revealed the suspect left a message in graffiti in the mosque's parking lot that referenced the New Zealand shooting, but didn't say exactly what it said. Seven people were inside the mosque at the time of the fire and were able to put it out with a fire extinguisher before firefighters arrived. "We're going to stay vigilant. We're not going to close down this mosque yet. People are still going to come pray," said Miller.
Just awful. I'm so glad no one was hurt.

And I'm so scared that things are going to get much worse.

That Donald Trump responded to what he claims is an "exoneration" by Special Counsel Bob Mueller by doubling down on his campaign of stochastic terrorism, braying in an email to supporters that "Democrats and the Fake News Media have proven that there is no line they won't cross, so we need to fight back BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER BEFORE," is absolutely chilling. When he loses, he lashes out. When he wins, he lashes out. Any excuse to lash out, and to urge his cultists to "fight back."

I take up space in solidarity with everyone who is the target of Donald Trump's ire.

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Today in Anti-Choice Terrorism

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, March 04, 2019
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[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]

Anti-choice terrorism is one of the most common forms of terrorism in the United States, and it's also one of the least discussed. The political press renders it almost entirely invisible. Yet another attack on a clinic should be front page news and an urgent subject of discussion on cable news, but, yet again, it isn't.

Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast reports:

A Missouri man was charged Monday in federal court after surveillance video allegedly showed him setting fire to a Planned Parenthood Clinic last month in Columbia.

Wesley Kaster, 42, was arrested Saturday on arson charges, according to a statement from the Department of Justice.

Kaster is accused of placing a "seemingly heavy" bucket inside the building and then throwing a "Molotov cocktail-type device" in the early morning hours of Feb. 10, 2019. Kaster was recorded leaving the area and returning around 4 a.m., and minutes later, the footage showed smoke billowing from the broken glass door of the building.

The fire was completely extinguished by a sprinkler system before officials from the Columbia Fire Department arrived, but authorities noted that a glass wall had been shattered and that "an accelerant fueled the fire that was set inside," according to the criminal complaint. Investigators recovered two five-gallon buckets of gasoline near the remains of a Molotov cocktail.
It's very fortunate that no one was harmed.

The same weekend that Kaster was arrested, Donald Trump and Mike Pence appeared at CPAC, where Trump was repeatedly declared the "most pro-life president in American history" and Pence smeared Democrats as supporters of "infanticide."

This, too, is a result of the Trump Regime's campaign of stochastic terrorism. Calling abortionists "baby killers" and "murderers" over and over and over has demonstrably caused people to take up arms against them. The Trump Regime didn't start the violent anti-choice campaign of terror, but they are promoting and empowering it every chance they get.

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We Resist: Day 764

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, February 22, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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: Get Your $h!t Together, Republicans and House Democrats Introduce Resolution to Block Trump's National Emergency Declaration and Trump Regime to Start Prohibiting Work Permits for Immigrant Spouses. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation.

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

[Content Note: Terrorism; video may autoplay at second link] Donald Trump continues to maintain radio silence on Christopher Paul Hasson, the conservative white military man accused of planning a massive act of terrorism against the president's "enemies," despite the fact that Hasson made his first appearance in court today. Ali Rogin and James Levinson at ABC News report:
A man allegedly caught researching acts of domestic terrorism and amassing more than a dozen firearms will spend at least two weeks in federal custody, a Maryland federal judge decided today.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, was arrested on charges of firearm and drug possession, but Judge Charles Day said that Hasson's internet search history, as well as previous letters and emails he had allegedly written, were enough to warrant him a danger to the community.

Speaking on behalf of the prosecution, Jennifer Sykes said that the gun and drug possession charges were "just the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the extent of Hasson's alleged crimes, indicating that they may attempt to charge him as a domestic terrorist allegedly planning to launch a major attack.

According to court documents filed Tuesday, Hasson was described as someone who had "espoused extremist views for years." In a draft email from June 2017 he allegedly wrote, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth. I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed/ Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something."

...The defendant also allegedly compiled a list of prominent Democratic lawmakers as well as journalists from CNN and MSNBC. Names on that list include presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and CNN's Van Jones.
As I noted yesterday, this didn't happen in a vacuum. Donald Trump has been waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, rhetorically putting targets on the backs of his "enemies" and hoping that shamelessly violent wrecks among his cultists will do the rest.

And he is hardly alone in this endeavor. Just in the last day:

Staff at Media Matters: Frequent Fox News Guest Tells Laura Ingraham "We Are in a Civil War"; Suggests Everyone Buy Guns to Prepare for "Total War". "We are in a civil war in this country. There's two standards of justice — one for Democrats one for Republicans. The press is all Democrat, all liberal, all progressive, all left — they hate Republicans; they hate Trump. So the suggestion that there's ever going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future in this country is over. It's not going to be. It's going to be total war. And as I say to my friends, I do two things: I vote and I buy guns."

Also on Fox News:


Conservatives, led by Trump, are amping up the violent and eliminationist rhetoric. And they are keeping silent on the men who take their words seriously enough to act on them. They're playing with fire, and they know it. Indeed, that is the entire point.

* * *

Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: 'Even Nixon Wasn't Like Him': Trump's Bid to Upend Russia Inquiry Unprecedented, Experts Say. "From high-level firings to public misstatements, Trump's repeated steps to undermine the investigations that have clouded his two years in office paint a picture of a president who is his own worst enemy, legal experts say. 'It is quite clear from all the evidence that the president has had the intent to obstruct this investigation,' said Andy Wright, a former associate counsel to Barack Obama and the founding editor of the legal blog Just Security. 'It's been in plain sight. ...It's a fundamental abuse of power for the president to be trying to shut down an investigation in which he has a personal stake — both as a potential target himself and his political allies and family members,' he added."


[CN: Threats] Joshua Eaton at ThinkProgress: Judge Lights into Roger Stone over Threatening Instagram Post, Issues New Gag Order. "The federal judge overseeing former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone's criminal trial barred him on Thursday from speaking publicly about the case or anyone involved with it, just days after he posted a photo on Instagram that appeared to show her next to rifle crosshairs. His previous gag order only prevented him from speaking to press in or around the courthouse, but didn't prevent him from making media appearances." JFC.

William K. Rashbaum at the New York Times: New York Prosecutors Expected to Charge Manafort, Guarding Against Trump Pardon. "The Manhattan district attorney's office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul J. Manafort, [Donald] Trump's former campaign chairman, in an effort to ensure he will still face prison time even if the president pardons him for his federal crimes, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. ...The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but no such authority in state cases."

* * *

[CN: Sex crimes; possible sex abuse] Staff at the Daily Beast: New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Charged in Prostitution Sting. "Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, has been charged in a human trafficking and prostitution investigation. ...He is a close friend of [Donald] Trump, and frequent visitor to Trump's Florida estate Mar a Lago." Which is just down the road from the place where Kraft was allegedly videotaped "in a sex act at one of the spas." News is still breaking in this story, and it's not entirely clear as of this writing whether the sex workers were all trafficked young women, but there is a possibility they were, which would make this story far worse than a straightforward consensual sex act with a professional sex worker.

[CN: Sexual assault; rape culture]


* * *

Eliana Johnson at Politico: Trump Aides Worry He'll Get Outfoxed in North Korea Talks. "Donald Trump is eagerly anticipating his second summit with Kim Jong Un, touting his 'really meaningful' relationship with the North Korean strongman and insisting he's ready to give up his nuclear arsenal. In Washington, he's pretty much the only one who feels that way. Many, including several of the president's top advisers, are less excited. Some have expressed trepidation not only that the summit, scheduled to take place next week in Hanoi, may not yield big results. They worry, too, that Trump, eager to declare victory on the world stage, could make big concessions in exchange for empty promises of denuclearization." That's exactly what's going to happen, because that's the entire directive for the puppet whose master wants to destabilize the region.


Relatedly:


Come on, Biden.

And finally... To be honest, I don't entirely understand this story (and the State Department is working very hard to ensure that none of us do), but it seems very troubling to me. Jacqueline Charles, David Ovalle, and Jay Weaver at the Miami Herald: Americans Arrested in Haiti with Arsenal of Guns Won't Face U.S. Charges.
The five heavily armed Americans arrested in Haiti earlier this week are back on their home soil and won't be facing any criminal charges in the United States — a decision already causing outrage among some Haitian leaders.

Federal sources told the Miami Herald that the men will not be charged criminally, but are being debriefed. They told U.S. authorities they were on the island providing private security for a "businessman" doing work with the Haitian government.

The five American citizens, who returned on a commercial flight to Miami on Wednesday night and were met by U.S. law enforcement, did not have any scheduled appearances in Miami federal court.

The U.S. Attorney's Office referred calls to the State Department, which said only: "The return of the individuals to the U.S. was coordinated with the Haitian authorities."

What promises the U.S. government made to secure the release of the men remain murky.
Oh.

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

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U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Arrested After Planning Mass Violence

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, February 21, 2019
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[Content Note: Threats of mass violence; white supremacy; misogyny; stochastic terrorism.]

In yet another chilling reminder that the most urgent terrorist threat in this country is conservative white men with seething resentments and personal arsenals, U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Christopher Paul Hasson, a 49-year-old self-proclaimed white nationalist with a massive stockpile of weapons and ammunition, was arrested by federal investigators after planning a large-scale terrorist attack targeting Democratic politicians and journalists.

Lynh Bui at the Washington Post reports:

Christopher Paul Hasson called for "focused violence" to "establish a white homeland" and said, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth," according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since at least 2017, developed a spreadsheet of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and searched the Internet using phrases such as "best place in dc to see congress people" and "are supreme court justices protected."

"The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country," the government said in court documents filed this week, arguing that Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.

...Hasson was arrested Friday on ­charges of illegally possessing weapons and drugs, but the government said those charges are the "proverbial tip of the iceberg." Officials with the U.S. attorney's office in Maryland outlined Hasson's alleged plans to spark chaos and destruction, describing in court documents a man obsessed with neo-fascist and neo-Nazi views.

"Please send me your violence that I may unleash it onto their heads," Hasson wrote in a letter that prosecutors said was found in his email drafts. "Guide my hate to make a lasting impression on this world."
Naturally, because white supremacy and toxic masculinity go together like rancid chocolate and poisoned peanut butter, Hasson was also a fan of violent misogynist Anders Behring Breivik: "Hasson had been studying the 1,500-page manifesto of right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who unleashed two attacks in 2011 that killed 77 people in Norway, and echoed Breivik's attack preparations."

Hasson is responsible for his own vile views and his violent urges to act on them.

But this didn't happen in a vacuum.

Since the day he announced his candidacy for president, Donald Trump has been waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, rhetorically putting targets on the backs of his "enemies" and hoping that shamelessly violent wrecks among his cultists will do the rest.

And here is a man who decided to go on a mass killing spree, aimed at some of Trump's most frequently-invoked targets: Marginalized people, Democrats, and members of the press.

As I have said many, many, many times before: Trump did not invent white supremacy, but he sure as fuck is doing everything he can to empower it. And that has consequences.

No one knows that more keenly than Trump.

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We Resist: Day 739

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, January 28, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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 Is Right Out in the Open and Dear Howard Schultz: NO. Sincerely, All of Us. and Polar Vortex Hits with a Vengeance.

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

Ylan Mui at CNBC: The Government Shutdown Cost the Economy $11 Billion, Including a Permanent $3 Billion Loss, Congressional Budget Office Says.
The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, reflecting lost output from federal workers, delayed government spending and reduced demand.

The report, which was released Monday, estimated a hit of $3 billion, or 0.1 percent, to economic activity during the fourth quarter of 2018. The impact was projected to be greater during the first quarter of 2019: $8 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP.

Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as federal workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost after a quarter of the government was closed for nearly 35 days.

"Among those who experienced the largest and most direct negative effects are federal workers who faced delayed compensation and private-sector entities that lost business," the report said. "Some of those private-sector entities will never recoup that lost income."
Devan Cole and Kevin Bohn at CNN: State of the Union Will Not Take Place Tuesday, Pelosi Aide Says. "Donald Trump's second State of the Union address will not take place on Tuesday, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN. The aide confirmed that the address, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, will not happen — answering a key question about the address's fate in the wake of the reopening of the federal government. ...Trump's director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp said Monday that the White House has been in discussions with Pelosi's office about rescheduling the address and that 'we should have a response soon.'"

Good for Pelosi for not just letting everything "go back to normal" and proceed as planned. Trump shouldn't get what he wants when he's still threatening to hold the country hostage again. The SOTU continues to be a point of leverage in Pelosi's pocket, and she knows it.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: GOP Moves to Block Anyone from Running a 2020 Primary Challenge Against Trump. "Amidst collapsing poll numbers and an unmitigated defeat in his standoff with House Democrats, one contingent still has [Donald] Trump's back: the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is planning to stonewall any efforts from potential GOP challengers for the 2020 nomination. As ABC reported, the RNC passed a resolution on Friday that threw their 'undivided support' behind the president as he gears up for the 2020 race — a resolution that effectively undercut any other Republicans thinking of running."


Democracy killers. The entire Republican Party isn't even pretending they aren't authoritarians anymore.

[Content Note: Child abuse] Irwin Redlener at the Daily Beast: The Trump Administration Is the Worst for Children in the Country's History. "It was already clear that Donald Trump's policies, actions, and words have put millions of children at risk. But although the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end, this nearly 40 day financial crisis added a whole new dimension to the challenges facing children living in poor, working poor, and even many middle-class families. It has become undeniable that after only two years, the Trump administration is already showing itself to be the most anti-child of any presidency in memory."

We could have had a president who had dedicated her life to improving the lives of children. Instead, we are stuck with this piece of shit.

[CN: Nativism; violent misogyny] Katie Mettler at the Washington Post: Trump Again Mentioned Taped-Up Women at the Border; Experts Don't Know What He Is Talking About. "Trump has a new favorite anecdote, one that fixates on tape. Specifically, in public remarks at the White House, at the border and at farming conventions, the president has been talking about tape on the mouths of migrant women. On at least eight occasions over a period of 12 days this month, the president has argued publicly for his proposed wall on the southern border by claiming without evidence that traffickers tie up and silence women with tape before illegally driving them through the desert from Mexico to the United States in the backs of cars and windowless vans."

And at TPM, Kate Riga notes: "Soon after the Washington Post questioned where he got that information, acting Border Patrol Assistant Chief Armando Sianez asked agents if they had any evidence to backup Trump's claims." Gross.

Justin Wise at the Hill: Graham Says Trump Floated Using Military Force in Venezuela. "Trump reportedly broached the idea of using military force in Venezuela in a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this month. Graham recounted the exchange to Axios, telling the news outlet that Trump asked him what he thought about using military force in a nation where the U.S. is pushing for regime change. ...Graham added that Trump is 'really hawkish' when it comes to Venezuela."

Meanwhile...


[CN: Homophobia] Speaking of Russia being terrible... Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: Protestors Wrap Russian Embassy with the Rainbow Flag to Protest the Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya. "About a hundred people protested the Russian Embassy in London 'to raise awareness of and call for an end to the persecution of the LGBTQ community in the Chechen Republic' according to Gay Times. The protest was intended to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The protest had four demands according to Gay Times: 'For Theresa May to publicly condemn Chechnya's atrocities; for governments to shelter refugees from Chechnya; for a United Nations investigation on Russia; and for Russian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.'"

[CN: Right-wing terrorism; Islamophobia]


[CN: Gun violence; misogynist violence; death; toxic masculinity] Madeline Holcombe and Kelly McCleary at CNN: Suspect in Five Louisiana Shooting Deaths Captured in Virginia.
[Dakota Theriot, 21, is] accused of killing his parents, his girlfriend, and her father and brother in two separate shootings Saturday in Louisiana.

Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50, were at their home near Baton Rouge when the suspect killed them, Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

When authorities arrived at the scene, Keith Theriot was still alive and told them his son shot them, authorities said.

Dakota Theriot's girlfriend, Summer Ernest, and her relatives were found dead in a home 30 miles away. The other victims included her father, Billy Ernest, 43, and her brother Tanner Ernest, 17, according to authorities.

Theriot was dating Summer and had lived with the Ernests for several weeks, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said. He was recently asked to leave the residence and not return, according to authorities.

...Authorities believe the shootings stemmed from a "boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute," CNN affiliate WAFB reported.

"This is probably one of the worst domestic violence incidents I've seen in quite a while," Webre said. "For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with."

There were no red flags ahead of the two shootings Saturday morning and other than a simple possession of drug paraphernalia charge, Theriot had no other run-ins with the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, Ard said.
My condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims.

A couple of points:

1. I am enraged that Summer Ernest is being identified as her murderer's "girlfriend" here, despite the fact that she and/or her parents kicked him out of their residence recently, and it is very likely that her decision to not be his girlfriend anymore is why he murdered her.

2. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that police would suggest there were "no red flags" ahead of the shootings, given that the "dispute" between Ernest and Theriot was enough that he was asked to GTFO. Just because police don't know what precipitated that incident doesn't mean that there were no red flags.

3. Again, this is another mass shooting by a young white man who is somehow taken into custody alive, while young Black men and women are killed by police during altercations following suspected crimes like selling loose cigarettes or breaking traffic laws.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

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

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We Resist: Day 735

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Thursday, January 24, 2019
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a black bar with the word RESIST in white text

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.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Pelosi Reiterates: No SOTU While Government Is Closed and Trump Backs Down; Won't Give SOTU and Shutdown Is Making Air Travel Increasingly Unsafe and Reps. Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff to Investigate Deutsche Bank and I Am Here for It!

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


Niels Lesniewski at Roll Call: Wilbur Ross Doesn't Understand Why Furloughed Federal Workers Need Food Banks.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Several credit unions serving workers at federal departments and agencies have been offering stopgap loans, as they have during previous shutdowns. But it’s not clear how those loans would even be sufficient as the shutdown enters its second month.

"I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why," Ross said Thursday when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. "Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed."

But in addition to the federal employees who are set to miss another paycheck at the end of this week, there are many federal contractors who have no expectation of ever getting the missed payments back.
Which means they might be unable to pay the loans back. But anyway, Ross doesn't think it's that big a deal. He also said (for real, which I feel obliged to make clear, because this sounds like I'm making it up): "Put it in perspective: You're talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers if they never got their pay, which is not the case they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you're talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So, it's not like it's a gigantic number overall." This fucking guy.

I just keep thinking about the survey from three years ago which found that "56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined" and "nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name." We are a nation of people most of whom can't come up with $1,000 in case of emergency and our Commerce Secretary doesn't understand how furloughed workers can't just make it without getting paid indefinitely.

Lisa Rein and Eric Yoder at the Washington Post: Federal Workers Affected by Partial Shutdown to Be Billed for Dental, Vision Coverage. "The 800,000 federal employees furloughed by the partial government shutdown and working without pay were warned Wednesday that they must pay their dental and vision premiums beginning this week or they could lose their coverage. The workers are not at risk of losing their health insurance benefits, which will stay in effect through the duration of the shutdown — and for as long as a year — even if they are not receiving a paycheck, with their accumulated premiums deducted from their pay once their agency reopens. However, that protection does not extend to vision and dental insurance, and starting with their second missed paycheck at the end of this week, employees will be billed directly for premiums for dental and vision coverage."

Katelyn Marmon at ThinkProgress: The Shutdown Exposes Just How Vulnerable Federal Workers Are. "As the shutdown enters its second month without much progress toward reopening the government, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are bracing to miss their second paycheck in a row. ...For federal employees who are unable to do their jobs, being caught in the crossfire of a political debate is not what they signed up for when they decided to become a public servant. And when they're unable to do their work, everyone suffers. 'It's sad that we're actually being held hostage,' said [Ed Hill, a 22-year employee of the Census Bureau who is currently furloughed]. 'We serve the American public. So not only are we being held hostage — people that we serve, the American public, is being held hostage.'"

Brian Faler at Politico: 'Extraordinarily Angry and Very Upset Taxpayers': IRS Faces Chaotic Tax Season Amid Shutdown.
The IRS is facing tax season amid the shutdown with new rules that could complicate filing for millions of Americans — and a potential shortage of workers to handle the returns — raising the possibility of refund delays and angry taxpayers.

...The public, meanwhile, will be filing for the first time under Republicans' sweeping tax overhaul, H.R. 1, and many will surely be confused by changes made as part of the biggest tax code rewrite in a generation. At the same time, even experts are unsure whether workers have had the correct amount of taxes withheld from their paychecks, which could mean that many people accustomed to receiving refunds may instead owe the IRS.

...It is shaping up to be a big test of the Trump administration and is an increasingly important pressure point in the fight over the ongoing partial government shutdown.

"Everybody is concerned," said John Koskinen, who stepped down in 2017 as IRS commissioner. "There would have been uncertainty and challenges even without the shutdown — the shutdown is just exacerbating all of that."
Meanwhile, over at the Department of Homeland Security...


Tanya Snyder at Politico: 'We're Done': Shutdown Strikes Small, Midsize, and Rural Transit. "The government shutdown is pushing some of the nation's small, midsize, and rural transit systems to an existential crisis, prompting bus agencies to scale back service, prepare for furloughs, or even contemplate closing their doors entirely. ...The trauma for crucial transportation lifelines in rural or small-town America, including in states [Donald] Trump won in 2016, underscores the damage the 34-day shutdown is inflicting hundreds or thousands of miles from Washington, D.C. While the loss of federal dollars is hitting transit systems large and small, including those inside the Beltway, the most vulnerable agencies are those that don't get significant state support. And their riders are primarily low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans."

I guess if you don't need to eat, you don't need to be able to get to the grocery store — or your job or your doctor or anywhere else, either.

Fucking hell.

* * *

Staff at the Daily Beast: Russia Tells Trump: Leave Venezuela Alone. "Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow has thrown its support behind Maduro and directly warned the U.S. against military intervention. 'We consider that would be a catastrophic scenario that would shake the foundations of the development model which we see in Latin America,' said Ryabkov. He went on: 'Venezuela is friendly to us and is our strategic partner... We have supported them and will support them.' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that outside interference in the country was 'unacceptable' and that the prospect of military intervention from the U.S. was very dangerous." Oh.


That's the guy for whom Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort and Bernie Sanders' chief strategist Ted Devine used to work. Yup.

* * *

Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis at the Washington Post: Civil Penalties for Polluters Dropped Dramatically in Trump's First Two Years, Analysis Shows. "Civil penalties for polluters under the Trump administration plummeted during the past fiscal year to the lowest average level since 1994, according to a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data. In the two decades before [Donald] Trump took office, EPA civil fines averaged more than $500 million a year, when adjusted for inflation. Last year's $72 million in fines was 85 percent below that amount, according to the agency's Enforcement and Compliance History Online database." Good grief.

[Content Note: Rightwing terrorism] Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: Experts Warn of Far-Right Threat as Police Foil Two Separate Violent Plots in One Week. "The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual report on extremism within the United States this week, revealing that individuals linked to or affiliated with the far-right were responsible for every extremist-related murder committed in the United States in 2018. The report notes far-right extremists were responsible for 50 murders in the 2018, making it the fourth deadliest year on record for domestic extremism in the United States. What's perhaps more alarming is that those murders only represent the tip of the iceberg. Just this week, authorities uncovered two separate violent plots in New York and Utah, both of which were planned out by suspects with far-right leanings, but thankfully not carried out."

[CN: Gun violence] Pilar Melendez at the Daily Beast: Gunman Accused of Killing 5 Women in Florida Bank Shooting 'Wanted Everybody to Die': Ex-Girlfriend. "There were plenty of warning signs. Zephen Xaver — the 21-year-old former prison guard trainee accused of killing five women while holding them hostage inside a bank in Sebring, Florida — had an obsession with guns and death, his ex-girlfriend told The Daily Beast. ...'His fascination with death got worse when we broke up,' she said. ...The 20-year-old said she tried to 'warn people' about Xaver's 'potentially fatal interests'... 'Listen, he was pretty open about the fact that he wanted everybody to die. All he talked about was killing people,' she said. 'He was one of those people that was too into mass shootings you know? He even got kicked out of school for having a dream that he killed everyone in his class.'"

[CN: Erosion of abortion access] Soumya Karlamangla at the LA Times: 60 Hours, 50 Abortions: A California Doctor's Monthly Commute to a Texas Clinic. "She comes here once a month, part of an unofficial network of physicians who travel across state lines to perform abortions in places where few doctors are willing. It's not yet 9 a.m., and the clinic's waiting rooms are filled, navigating them a game of human Tetris. Women with their husbands. Women pushing strollers. Women alone. The young doctor will spend 60 hours in Dallas this trip and perform 50 abortions. She will have to run in the hallways to keep up with her packed schedule."

[CN: Anti-choicery] Josephine Yurcaba at Rewire.News: Valerie Huber's New Role at HHS Could Bring Abstinence-Only Agenda to Global Policy. "Abstinence-only proponent Valerie Huber will move to a new position in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, worrying reproductive health advocates and experts who believe she could push her agenda into the global arena. ...She previously served as senior policy advisor for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. An unnamed department official told Politico that Huber is 'expected to strip references to sexual and reproductive health as well as sex education from the agency's global health documents,' and advocates say that move would have widespread repercussions."

[CN: Misogynoir; birtherism] Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: #MAGA Troll Jacob Wohl, Who Previously Attacked Mueller, Is Trying to Smear Kamala Harris with Birther Rumors. "Jacob Wohl the troll who attempted to smear Robert Mueller by paying women to make false sexual harassment complaints against him is now targeting 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. In a tweet on Tuesday, Wohl said that Harris should be disqualified from the presidential race because her parents were not born in the U.S." But she was, which is all that matters.

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

Open Wide...
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