We Resist: Day 222

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: Mueller Scrutinizes Trump's Role in Cover-Up; GOP Rep Floats Plan to Defund Probe and Republicans Think People Aren't Entitled to Food.

For a third time, Trump is using Hurricane Harvey as product placement for a hat he sells for $40 pic.twitter.com/8Js7DEnbAs

— Gabriel Snyder (@gabrielsnyder) August 29, 2017

Always a grifter. Always.

[Content Note: Nativism.]

With attention rightly focused on Houston, Trump admin could end DACA as soon as tonight. Moral and economic catastrophe.

— David Plouffe (@davidplouffe) August 29, 2017

Horrendous. And if he does, he will no doubt brag about how he did it because attention was focused on Houston — as he did regarding his pardoning of Joe Arpaio, as Brandon Carter [CN: Video may autoplay at link] reports at the Hill:

Trump on Monday said he announced his pardon of former Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas because he "assumed the ratings would be far higher."

"In the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they would be normally," Trump said during a press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö. "You know, the hurricane was just starting."

There aren't words to sufficiently convey the depth of my loathing for this man.

Meanwhile... Margaret Newkirk at Bloomberg: Trump's Immigration Crackdown Is Making New Homes More Expensive.

A high-end home builder who supported [Donald] Trump last year, Brown said the president's immigration policies have dried up the already stretched supply of Hispanic-dominated framing labor. That has driven up home prices by slowing the supply of new houses as well as raising the cost of building them. A 3,000-square-foot house that cost $9,750 to frame even late last year now costs $18,000, he said, while last year's six-month supply of homes in the construction pipeline is down by half. And that's even before Trump pursues promised trade rule changes that could drive up other home building costs.

...The dearth of framers is part of a national shortage of construction workers that dates back to the recession. It's gotten worse under Trump, because framing has one of the highest concentrations of immigrant Hispanics in the industry, said Mark Boud, a California-based chief economist for Metrostudy, which provides intelligence to the U.S. real estate industry.

There is much more at the link. The gist is this: Trump's immigration and trade policies are significantly driving up the cost of housing.

And right at a time when countless people in Texas are going to need to rebuild their homes.

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Justin McCurry at the Guardian: Trump and Abe Vow to Increase Pressure after North Korea Fires Missile over Japan. "Donald Trump and Shinzo Abe have vowed to increase pressure on North Korea after the regime launched a missile over Japan on Tuesday morning. The Japanese prime minister denounced the launch as an 'unprecedented and grave threat' to the country's security. In a 40-minute phone call with the US president they agreed to call for an emergency meeting of the UN security council to discuss the situation. Officials in South Korea said the missile may have flown further than any other tested by North Korea. The test, one of the most provocative ever from the reclusive state, sent a clear message to Washington just weeks after Kim Jong-un threatened to target the US Pacific territory of Guam with similar intermediate-range missiles. It also demonstrated the regime's willingness to raise the diplomatic stakes by sending a missile directly over Japanese territory." Not good. Not good at all.

Louis Nelson at Politico: Trump on North Korea's Missile Launch: 'All Options Are on the Table'. "North Korea's most recent ballistic missile test 'has signaled its contempt' for its neighbors and the international community, [Donald] Trump said in a statement released Tuesday morning, reiterating his threat that 'all options are on the table.' 'The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear: This regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,' Trump's statement said. 'Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.'" Also not good.

That Trump can accuse Kim Jong Un of signaling "its content for its neighbors...and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior" and note that "threatening and destabilizing actions only increase [a country's] isolation" without a trace of fucking irony really tells you everything you need to know about this guy's catastrophic inability to self-reflect.

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[CN: Nativism; carcerality; abuse; death; sexual violence.] Victoria Lopez at the ACLU: ICE Plans to Start Destroying Records of Immigrant Abuse, Including Sexual Assault and Deaths in Custody.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently asked the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA), which instructs federal agencies on how to maintain records, to approve its timetable for retaining or destroying records related to its detention operations. This may seem like a run-of-the-mill government request for record-keeping efficiency. It isn't. An entire paper trail for a system rife with human rights and constitutional abuses is at stake.

ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement, and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs, regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities, and communications from the public reporting detention abuses. ICE proposed various timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from 20 years for sexual assault and death records to three years for reports about solitary confinement.

For years, advocates and communities across the country have denounced human rights abuses in the detention system. Many of the records that ICE proposes for destruction offer proof of the mistreatment endured by people in detention. Given the Trump administration's plans to increase the size and scope of the system substantially, it is all the more disturbing that the agency wants to reduce transparency and accountability.

There is no reason to request this change except to reduce transparency and accountability, in order to increase abuses against detainees.

It is extraordinarily bad, especially in combination with pardoning Joe Arpaio, removing the roadblocks to police militarization, and possible ended DACA, all within days. Following his threats to unleash martial law in Chicago, his encouragement of police brutality, and his ceaseless support of white Christian supremacy.

Trump is building a police state, right out in the open. Brazenly and quickly and relentlessly. So comprehensively that I don't even know how to begin to resist it in a meaningful way.

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David Smith at the Guardian: Republican Trump Ally Reportedly Says: 'He's an Asshole, But He's Our Asshole'. "'He's just like he is on TV,' [Rep. Duncan Hunter] reportedly told colleagues on Friday. 'He's an asshole, but he's our asshole.' ...'The crowd ate up Hunter's assessment,' said Whitney Walsh, who also was there. 'Very much. They were fine with that answer,' she said." Of course they were.

Speaking of Trump being an asshole... Margaret Hartmann at NY Mag: Trump Fires Longtime Event Organizer over Sparse Crowd at Phoenix Rally. "If you watched the TV broadcast of [Donald] Trump's rally in Phoenix, Arizona, it might have looked like the event went exactly as planned. ...As soon as Trump took the stage he marveled, 'What a crowd,' and claimed (falsely) that there weren't many protesters outside. 'A lot of people in here, a lot of people pouring right now,' Trump said. 'They can get them in. Whatever you can do, fire marshals, we'll appreciate it.' A short time after the event, Trump noted the crowd size again, tweeting: 'Thank you Arizona. Beautiful turnout of 15,000 in Phoenix tonight!' But according to Bloomberg, Trump was actually very upset by the 'beautiful turnout' — so much so that he's fired George Gigicos. Or rather, he had top security aide Keith Schiller tell Gigicos that he'll never manage a Trump rally again, because Trump doesn't actually like to fire people."

[CN: White supremacy; misogyny; violence] Sharona Coutts at Rewire: How Hate Goes 'Mainstream': Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys. "Gavin McInnes, the 47-year-old co-founder of VICE Magazine, announced last week that he will be going 'mainstream.' ...Last year, McInnes founded the Proud Boys, a growing movement aligned with [Donald] Trump, for men who identify with a nebulous philosophy called 'Western chauvinism,' and are willing to literally fight for their beliefs at rallies, political events, and even in everyday life. Through their posts, their official magazine, and their online presence, the Proud Boys have broadcast their commitment to this creed. ...Oren Segal, who leads the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)'s Center on Extremism, told Rewire that McInnes' combination of social media talent, with his embrace of physical violence, make him stand out as especially dangerous, even among the ideologues of the far right."

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