We Resist: Day 132

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 in the news today:

Earlier today by me: Donald Trump Is the Final Boss of Toxic Masculinity.

[Content Note: White supremacist violence; video may autoplay at link] Tom Porter at Newsweek: California Man Arrested for Hate Crime After Machete Attack.

The victim [who is a Black man] told officers that a man [who is white] had been yelling racial slurs at people in the parking lot of the complex before going inside the building and returning armed with a machete. He allegedly struck the victim on the shoulder with the blade several times while shouting racial slurs, causing serious injuries, Police Sergeant Travis Lenz said.

Police have identified the alleged attacker as Anthony Robert Hammond, 34. He is being held in Lake County Jail on $1 million bail on felony charges including battery with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, and hate crime.

...After a standoff lasting several hours, police persuaded Hammond to leave the apartment and placed him under arrest. ...On the way to the police station, Hammond allegedly threatened to kill the transporting officer and his family on his release from jail.

The incident comes amid a spike in hate crimes in the U.S., with passions inflamed during the 2016 presidential fueling a 20 percent in offenses last year, according to a leading researcher.

On Friday, two men were killed on a commuter train in Oregon. A man subsequently identified as white nationalist Jeremy Christian allegedly stabbed them when they attempted to defend a woman he was subjecting to Islamophobic abuse.

And the week before that, Richard Collins III was fatally stabbed by a white supremacist at the University of Maryland.

I will say again: Donald Trump did not invent white supremacy, but he sure as fuck is doing everything he can to empower it. And that has consequences.

Also: All of these white supremacist murderers/attackers have been taken into custody alive, this latest asshole even despite evading and threatening officers. Noted.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting they should have been harmed by police. I'm arguing that Black people suspected of far lesser crimes should not end up dead.

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Three really terrific long reads:

[Content Note: Discussion of structural racism; white supremacist violence] Reni Eddo-Lodge at the Guardian: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. "We tell ourselves that good people can't be racist. We seem to think that true racism only exists in the hearts of evil people. We tell ourselves that racism is about moral values, when instead it is about the survival strategy of systemic power. When a large proportion of the population votes for politicians and political efforts that explicitly use racism as a campaigning tool, we tell ourselves that such huge sections of the electorate simply cannot be racist, as that would render them heartless monsters. But this isn't about good and bad people. The covert nature of structural racism is difficult to hold to account. It slips out of your hands."

Rebecca Gordon at Moyers & Company: Trump Is Throwing Reality Down the Memory Hole. "The Trump administration seems intent on tossing recent history down the memory hole. Admittedly, Americans have never been known for their strong grasp of facts about their past. Still, as we struggle to keep up with the constantly shifting explanations and pronouncements of the new administration, it becomes ever harder to remember the events of yesterday, let alone last week or last month. ...If the age of Trump doesn't end relatively soon, the daily effort to sort out what happened from what didn't may eventually become too much for many of us. Memory fatigue may set in, and the whole project of keeping the past in focus shelved."

Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump. "The child who became the most powerful man in the world, or at least occupied the real estate occupied by a series of those men, had run a family business and then starred in an unreality show based on the fiction that he was a stately emperor of enterprise, rather than a buffoon barging along anyhow, and each was a hall of mirrors made to flatter his sense of self, the self that was his one edifice he kept raising higher and higher and never abandoned."

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In other news...

BREAKING: President Trump has been urging world leaders to call him on his cellphone, raising security and secrecy concerns.

— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) May 31, 2017

NEW: House Intel Cmte wants to hear from former Trump campaign senior adviser Boris Epshteyn in relation to Russia probe, CBS News learns

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 30, 2017

Tierney Sneed at TPM: Draft Trump Rule Shows Broad Opt-Out to Obamacare Birth Control Mandate. "The draft rule, dated May 23 and posted by Vox on Wednesday morning, would allow any employer—from small mom-and-pop shops to publicly-traded corporations—to opt out of the mandate on religious or moral grounds. It would also let insurers refrain from covering contraceptives for religious or moral reasons. The draft rule would allow individuals with religious or moral objections to refrain from participating in plans covering contraceptives."

Kenrya Rankin at Colorlines: These Three Federal Civil Rights Offices Are in Trouble. "'They can call it a course correction, but there's little question that it's a rollback of civil rights across the board,' Vanita Gupta, who ran the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division under former president Barack Obama, told The Washington Post. When asked for comment, White House spokesperson Kelly Love told The Washington Post that, 'the Trump Administration has an unwavering commitment to the civil rights of all Americans.'"

[CN: Discussion of authoritarian violence] Brian Klaas at USA Today: Donald Trump's Business Ties Explain a Lot of His Dictator Worship. "Trump makes more money when he embraces regimes that violate human rights. From the Philippines to China and Turkey to Saudi Arabia, the president's adoration for authoritarian abusers is bad for those being oppressed but good for his wallet. Staggering conflicts of interest that directly link Trump's bank account to despots around the world are already transforming U.S. foreign policy. Trump is selling America's moral authority to make more money by slapping TRUMP on shimmering new buildings."

Benjamin Haas at the Guardian: Activists Investigating Ivanka Trump's China Shoe Factory Detained or Missing. "A labour activist working undercover investigating abuses at a Chinese factory that makes Ivanka Trump shoes has been detained by police and two others are missing, raising concerns the company's ties to the US president's family may have led to harsher treatment. Hua Haifeng was being held by police on suspicion of illegal surveillance, his wife Deng Guilian said. Hua had worked for labour rights organisations for more than a decade and was investigating a factory in southern Guangdong province for New York-based rights group China Labor Watch."

Andy Towle at Towleroad: Trump Tweet Hitches Himself to Carter Page, Pits Page's Credibility Against That of Comey, Brennan. "Tweeted Trump: 'So now it is reported that the Democrats, who have excoriated Carter Page about Russia, don't want him to testify. He blows away their……case against him & now wants to clear his name by showing 'the false or misleading testimony by James Comey, John Brennan…' Witch Hunt!'"

[CN: Nativism; death; video may autoplay at link] WCCO News: Sheriff: Woman from Ghana Died Likely Trying to Reach Canada. "Officials in extreme northwestern Minnesota say a woman from Ghana died last week while likely trying to walk across the border into Canada. The Kittson County Sheriff's Office says the body of 57-year-old Mavis Otuteye was found Friday near Noyes. Otuteye was reported missing in the area earlier last week. The sheriff's office says Otuteye likely died of hypothermia. Temperatures in the area Friday dipped down into the low 40s. ...Officials say they believe Otuteye was trying to cross the border to Canada at the time of her death. ...Earlier this year, Canadian officials reported a sharp increase in border crossings in Emerson following the announcement of [Donald] Trump's plans to limit immigration and set up deportations."

[CN: Nativism] Esther Yu Hsi Lee at ThinkProgress: Immigrant Grandmother Becomes First in North Carolina to Take Sanctuary. "For the past six years, Juana Ortega has had to check in with ICE and each time received a stay of removal, or a temporary postponement that delays her deportation. But when Ortega went to check in with ICE in April, she was given a final deportation order and told that she would be deported at the end of May. Instead of getting on a plane to Guatemala, Ortega formally took shelter at the St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Greensboro, North Carolina on Wednesday."

Michael Calderone at the Huffington Post: The New York Times Is Eliminating the Public Editor Role. "The New York Times is eliminating the position of public editor, an accountability role the paper created in 2003 in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal, according to sources familiar with the decision. Elizabeth Spayd, a former Washington Post managing editor who was named the paper's sixth public editor last year, was expected to remain in the position until summer 2018. Spayd did not respond to requests for comment. A Times spokesperson declined to comment."

READERS: New York Times should publicly account for its 2016 coverage.

NYT: Instead, we’ll eliminate the public editor, because fuck you.

— Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser) May 31, 2017

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