We Resist: Day 110

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, May 09, 2017
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 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.

* * *

Here are some things in the news today:

Peter Elkind at ProPublica: Comey's Testimony on Huma Abedin Forwarding Emails Was Inaccurate. "FBI director James Comey generated national headlines last week with his dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, explaining his 'incredibly painful' decision to go public about the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner's laptop. Perhaps Comey's most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin—Weiner's wife and a top Clinton deputy—had made 'a regular practice' of forwarding 'hundreds and thousands' of Clinton messages to her husband, 'some of which contain classified information.' ...The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it. FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do."

At TPM, Josh Marshall observes: "I'm willing to believe that Comey—with a mix of defensiveness and perhaps animus—got carried away rather than being willfully deceiving. But whether or not to correct the record should not be a hard call." Precisely so.


It's curious indeed that Comey's "mistakes" consistently work to Hillary Clinton's disfavor. And it's very troubling that the FBI is taking so long to "correct the record."

As always, the Washington Post's Paul Waldman is a must-read: James Comey Is Desperate to Keep His Image Intact.
What's come through in extensive reporting on this subject is that his decision [to speak about the investigation 11 days before the election] was probably motivated by a very particular fear: that Republicans would criticize him. In other words, it was not malice but cowardice that led him to do what he did.

...Comey's implication that there's something unusual about "concealing" their investigation is absurd. The FBI always "conceals" their investigations until they're completed (and often even then). It's not like you can go to fbi.gov and read all the evidence they have in every pending case. So what did Comey mean when he said it would be "catastrophic" to not immediately tell the world that it was looking at some of Hillary Clinton's emails?

What he meant is obvious: If he followed FBI policy, once they learned about it Republicans would accuse him of covering for Clinton. If she became president (which at the time everyone assumed would happen), they'd attack him in the media, they'd haul him before Congress, they'd curse his name. That's the catastrophe he apparently feared.

And in his desperation to justify a decision he made out of cowardice, Comey now hypes what the FBI supposedly found in Huma Abedin's emails, when what they actually found was basically nothing.
Definitely read the whole thing.

* * *

[Content Note: Bigotry] Emma Green at the Atlantic: It Was Cultural Anxiety That Drove White, Working-Class Voters to Trump. "Cultural anxiety" sure is a cool euphemism for rank bigotry.


Thank goodness there is now SCIENCE to prove what marginalized people have been saying all along, based on our lived experiences, which are definitely never considered valid evidence of what is actually happening to marginalized people in the world.

* * *

[CN: Misogyny] Sarah Kendzior at Marie Claire: The Healthcare Bill Exposes Trump's Chilling Authoritarian Agenda. "Since taking office, Trump has displayed the signature traits of an aspiring autocrat: disregard for the constitution, the installation of unqualified family members in high-level positions, the abuse of executive power to enhance personal wealth, the scapegoating of ethnic minorities, and ongoing threats to free speech, free media, and public protest. His rule has been a continual test of checks and balances, and his biggest check, arguably, has been women. The healthcare law is not only a sadistic assault on the sick and vulnerable, but a gendered attack meant to render his most forceful opponents, American women, helpless. Autocracy and patriarchy often go hand in hand."

Courtney Kube at NBC News: Officials: Trump Approves Plan to Arm Syrian Kurds. "Two U.S. defense officials tell NBC News that [Donald] Trump has approved a plan to arm the Syrian Kurdish militia—an important U.S. ally in Syria in the fight against ISIS. ...The Turks will be notified about the decision soon and the officials expect a strong reaction from them. In March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who sees the YPG as terrorists." (Emphasis mine.)

Travis Gettys at Raw Story: How Could Pence Lead the Transition and Not Know Flynn Was Compromised? Maddow Reacts to Yates Testimony. "[Maddow said:] 'NBC News reports that the Trump transition had direct knowledge of Mike Flynn's payments from foreign sources, but nevertheless, Vice President Mike Pence, head of the transition, he proclaims he was perfectly ignorant of that fact until weeks after Mike Flynn was fired.' According to the Trump administration, Flynn was forced to resign because he had misled Pence and other White House officials about his contacts with the Russian ambassador—but Maddow said that stretched credibility. 'Whether or not you care about what the vice president knew about Mike Flynn, whether you care about that subject itself or not, the bigger question is why are they telling this lie about it?' Maddow said. 'Why are they lying about this stuff? They are telling stories about Mike Flynn that make no sense given we now know about the facts.'"

[CN: Racism; Islamophobia] Nick Baumann and Julia Craven at the Huffington Post: Trump Administration Cites Segregation-Era Ruling to Defend Its Travel Ban. "In a brief defending its ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, [Donald[ Trump's Justice Department approvingly cited a segregation-era Supreme Court decision that allowed Jackson, Mississippi, to close public pools rather than integrate them. ...Palmer is one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever handed down in regards to race, said Michele Goodwin, the chancellor's professor of law at the University of California, Irvine. ...She added that a case like Palmer also doesn't hold up over time. ...'To cite a case that, in and of itself, coheres ideas about inequality and explicit racism in spaces where racism could mean the end of someone's life, then one would really have to question why a president would cite such a case—given how much it's been refuted."

[CN: Class warfare] Catherine Rampell at the Washington Post: Trump Is Waging a War on Millennials. "[T]he Trump agenda could be broadly characterized as full-on generational warfare against the young. If enacted, it will rob millennials and subsequent generations of earnings, benefits, consumer protections, and even—if you look far enough into the future—a habitable place to live."


START CALLING YOUR SENATORS NOW.

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski at Bloomberg: The Kushner Project Touted in China Is in Trouble at Home. "When Jared Kushner's sister took the stage in two Chinese ballrooms over the weekend to urge investors to fund a New Jersey development through a controversial visa program, she mentioned her brother's role in the White House and displayed a photo of [Donald] Trump. It was a not-so-subtle signal that hers is a family company with connections. ...In an email, the company said of Meyer's pitch, 'Kushner Companies apologizes if that mention of her brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors. That was not Ms. Meyer's intention.' Of the photograph of the president, Kushner Cos. said, 'The image was part of a presentation by the event's organizers. Kushner Companies had nothing to do with it.'"

Today in What the Everloving Fuck is the New York Times Even Doing:


And, as if that weren't enough:


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

Shakesville is run as a safe space. First-time commenters: Please read Shakesville's Commenting Policy and Feminism 101 Section before commenting. We also do lots of in-thread moderation, so we ask that everyone read the entirety of any thread before commenting, to ensure compliance with any in-thread moderation. Thank you.

blog comments powered by Disqus