We Resist: Day 46

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

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Here are some things I've read today:

[Content Note: Islamophobia; nativism; white supremacy] Donald Trump signed another Executive Order today, which is a minimally revised do-over of the previous Muslim ban. The full text of the new EO is here. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson gave a statement on this mess, fallaciously arguing that it was a necessary measure to keep the country safe.

Sec. of State Rex Tillerson: With new immigration order "Pres. Trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe." pic.twitter.com/2yUZOKZzxR

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 6, 2017

The Executive Order, signed by the president earlier today, Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, is a vital measure for strengthening our national security. It is the president's solemn duty to protect the American people, and, with this order, President Trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe.

No, he isn't. Because this order will not protect us and will only make us less safe. Further, it is aggressively indecent.

But none of this is about decency or safety. It is about white supremacy. To that end, Paul Blumenthal and JM Rieger have a must-read piece at the Huffington Post: "This Stunningly Racist French Novel Is How Steve Bannon Explains the World." Read that, and then understand the Muslim ban in that context.

[CN: Racist violence] In regrettably related news: "NRI businessman Harnish Patel from Vadodara shot dead in South Carolina."

Barely two weeks after an Indian engineer became victim of hate crime in Kansas in the US, another NRI businessman of Gujarati origin has been shot dead in Lancaster in South Carolina. Harnish Patel, who ran Speedee Mart in Lancaster had closed his shop on Thursday, and was close to his house when an unidentified assailant opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. Harnish, 43, who originally hails from Avakhal village in Sinor taluka of Vadodara district had been living in the US with his family for over 14 years.

...According to reports, officials of Lancaster police say that they are yet to ascertain a motive behind Harnish's killing, which appears to be 'racially motivated'.

My condolences to his family, friends, and community. Patel's murder, like Srinivas Kuchibhotla's, did not happen in a vacuum.

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[CN: Video may autoplay at link] J.J. Gallagher at ABC News: US Condemns 'Unacceptable' North Korea Missile Launches. "The South Korean military confirmed four missiles were detected to have flown more than 600 miles and landed in waters within 200 nautical miles of the coast of Japan, an area Japan's government claims as its exclusive economic zone. It was not immediately clear what type of missiles were launched, the South Korean Ministry of Defense announced at a press briefing on Monday. The launches are seen as a reaction by North Korea to joint U.S.-South Korea military drills that kicked off on Friday."

[CN: Sexual harassment/abuse] Thomas Gibbons-Neff at the Washington Post: 'I'm Never Reenlisting': Marine Corps Rocked by Nude-Photo Scandal. "The Marine Corps is looking into allegations that an unknown number of potential Marines, as well as current and former service members, shared naked and compromising photos of their colleagues on social media, Marine officials said Sunday. ...The War Horse's report focuses on one Facebook group with more than 30,000 members called Marines United. In January, a link to a shared hard drive containing photos of numerous female Marines in various states of undress was posted to the group, according to the War Horse's report. The hard drive contained images, as well as the names and units of the women pictured. Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments." And the current commander-in-chief of the US military is himself a serial sexual abuser. Which is one of many reasons why his history of abusive misogyny should have disqualified him from the presidency.

Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, and Ashley Parker at the Washington Post: Inside Trump's Fury: The President Rages at Leaks, Setbacks, and Accusations. "At the center of the turmoil is an impatient president increasingly frustrated by his administration's inability to erase the impression that his campaign was engaged with Russia, to stem leaks about both national security matters and internal discord, and to implement any signature achievements. This account of the administration's tumultuous recent days is based on interviews with 17 top White House officials, members of Congress and friends of the president, many of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly." This is the portrait of an abusive and brittle man, who has never had to deal with meaningful criticism or accountability, because he has surrounded himself with sycophants his entire life.

This is a real tweet from a sitting Republican Congressman:

Calling for a "purge" of "leftists." That is literally what authoritarian regimes do.

[CN: Misogyny] Meanwhile, his Republican colleague North Dakota Rep. Kevin Cramer has doubled down on his ridicule of female Democrats who wore white to Trump's address to Congress, to honor women's suffrage. He said "there is a disease associated with the notion that a bunch of women would wear bad-looking white pantsuits in solidarity with Hillary Clinton to celebrate her loss," and accused them of making "vulgar" hand gestures at Trump while he was speaking and of "hissing" at him. Holy shit.

Tania Kohut at Global News: US Funding for Great Lakes Cleanup Could Be Slashed by 97%, Leaked Document Shows. "The budget measures would cut funding for algae bloom reduction and other water pollution problems in the lakes, The Oregonian reports. 'The scale at which these cuts are being discussed would be devastating,' Jordan Lubetkin, spokesperson for the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition told the Detroit Free Press. ...The Great Lakes contain roughly 20 per cent of the Earth's fresh surface water. The lakes provide drinking water for 10 million Canadians, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada. 'The Great Lakes are a vast shared resource containing a significant portion of the world's fresh water,' the agency notes."

NRDC: The Real Lowdown: The Trump and Congressional Republican Assault on Our Environment, Vol. 3. "Nearly halfway through his first 100 days, President Donald Trump is on track to set a record for putting Americans' health and our environment at risk. In recent days, we've seen Trump issue an order to keep streams and rivers flowing with toxic chemicals, add a trio of polluters' allies to his cabinet, hint of eviscerating the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and telegraph he'll soon start to try to unravel our country's best chance to curb dangerous climate change: the popular Clean Power Plan."

[CN: Trans hatred] Adam Liptak at the New York Times: Supreme Court Won't Hear Major Case on Transgender Rights. "The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not hear a major case on transgender rights after all, acting after the Trump administration changed the federal government's position on whether public schools had to allow transgender youths to use bathrooms that matched their gender identities. In a one-sentence order, the Supreme Court vacated an appeal's court decision in favor of a transgender boy, Gavin Grimm, and sent the case back for further consideration in light of the new guidance from the Trump administration."

[CN: Racism] Esme Cribb at TPM: People Walk out as Alabama Official Pushes Voter ID at Selma Anniversary Service. "The service at Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Alabama was held to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the 'Bloody Sunday' march that erupted in police violence on Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, according to a video posted to Rev. William Barber's Facebook page. Barber, who is president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and church-goers walked out after [Alabama's Secretary of State John Merrill] spoke in support of Alabama's voter ID law, according to the video's caption. 'We can't be polite about this. We can't be casual or cavalier,' Barber told a reporter."

[CN: War on agency] Teddy Wilson at Rewire: Texas Could Join States Allowing Doctors to Lie to Pregnant People. "Texas lawmakers have advanced a bill that would allow doctors to lie to pregnant patients by withholding information about fetal abnormalities. ...Margaret Johnson, a member of the Texas League of Women Voters, told the committee that the bill would create an 'unreasonable restriction on the constitutional right' of a pregnant person to make an informed decision about a pregnancy, reported the San Antonio Current. 'SB 25 is a not-so-subtle way to give medical personnel the opportunity to impose religious beliefs on women,' Johnson said."

Rebecca Shapiro at the Huffington Post: Arkansas Lawmaker Introduces Bill Banning Howard Zinn Books. "Republican state Rep. Kim Hendren brought forth HB1834, a one-page bill that would halt the use of any book or other material authored by Zinn between the years of 1959 and 2010 in public schools and open-enrollment public charter schools. With these parameters, Zinn's bestselling 1980 book, 'A People's History of the United States,' would be banned. The collection is a groundbreaking and controversial work that analyzed American history from the perspective of the poor and marginalized, or as Zinn put it, 'the people who have been overlooked in the traditional history books.'"

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