We Resist: Day 263

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: From Puerto Rico: "WE NEED WATER!" and Trump Will Only Agree to Protect Some Kids If He's Allowed to Harm Others.

Martin Pengelly and Ben Jacobs at the Guardian: Bob Corker: White House Is 'Adult Day Care Center' and Trump May Start WWIII. "Donald Trump's fractious relationship with the Republican establishment reached a bizarre new level on Sunday when Senator Bob Corker described the White House as an 'adult day care center' and warned that the president risked setting the US 'on the path to World War III.' An extraordinary exchange between Trump and the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee began when Trump accused Corker, who is retiring, of 'not having the guts' to run for re-election. In response, Corker tweeted: 'It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.'"

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Paola Chavez and Rick Klein at ABC News: What's Dangerously Serious About Trump's Feud with Corker. "Sen. Bob Corker's public feud with [Donald] Trump is no mere war of words, even in the Trumpian insult era. Corker is blowing the lid off of months of private frustrations and worries, harbored by erstwhile allies of the president, that the commander-in-chief is reckless, dishonest, and could put the nation 'on the path to World War III,' as Corker told The New York Times' Jonathan Martin. 'He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation,' Corker said. Combine that with the tensions between Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly, and this has far bigger consequences than your typical Twitter feud. Just words? Perhaps. But they are words that are spurring confrontation with a nuclear-armed North Korea, and more words will come this week that could lead Iran to restart its own nuclear program."

James Hohmann at the Washington Post: Bob Corker Tirade Encapsulates Five Reasons Why Trump Has Failed at Governing. "Corker said that his concerns about Trump's ability to govern are shared by nearly every Republican in the Senate. 'Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we're dealing with here,' he told the Times. 'Of course they understand the volatility that we're dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.'"

Which actually just underscores what craven, opportunistic, disloyal scoundrels the Republican Senate caucus is! They understand what a dangerous dirtbag Trump is, but they're still carrying water for him.

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[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Lesley Stahl at CBS News: Facebook "Embeds," Russia, and the Trump Campaign's Secret Weapon.

[Brad Parscale] was hired to run the [Trump campaign's] digital team, but over time came to oversee advertising, data collection, and much of the fund-raising. As digital director, he's being drawn into the investigation of whether the campaign colluded with the Russians in the election.

...In the beginning of the campaign he worked alone at home in San Antonio, but by the end he had 100 people reporting to him. One of his main jobs was to send out carefully-tailored, low-cost digitals ads to millions of people.

...Lesley Stahl: One of the best things Facebook did for you, I heard, was penetrate the rural vote. Is that correct?

Brad Parscale: Yeah. So Facebook now lets you get to places and places possibly that you would never go with TV ads. Now, I can find, you know, 15 people in the Florida Panhandle that I would never buy a TV commercial for. And, we took opportunities that I think the other side didn't.

Lesley Stahl: Like what?

Brad Parscale: Well, we had our— their staff embedded inside our offices.

Lesley Stahl: What?

Brad Parscale: Yeah, Facebook employees would show up for work every day in our offices.

Lesley Stahl: Whoa, wait a minute. Facebook employees showed up at the Trump headquarters—

Brad Parscale: Google employees, and Twitter employees.

Lesley Stahl: They were embedded in your campaign?

Brad Parscale: I mean, like, they were there multiple days a week, three, four days a week, two days week, five days a week—

Lesley Stahl: What were they doing inside? I mean—

Brad Parscale: Helping teach us how to use their platform. I wanna get—

Lesley Stahl: Helping him get elected?

Brad Parscale: I asked each one of them by email, I wanna know every, single secret button, click, technology you have. "I wanna know everything you would tell Hillary's campaign plus some. And I want your people here to teach me how to use it."

Lesley Stahl: Inside?

Brad Parscale: Yeah, I want 'em sittin' right next to us—

Lesley Stahl: How do you know they weren't Trojan Horses?

Brad Parscale: 'Cause I'd ask 'em to be Republicans, and I'd— we'd talk to 'em.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, you only wanted Republicans?

Brad Parscale: I wanted people who support Donald Trump from their companies.

Lesley Stahl: And that's what you got?

Brad Parscale: Yeah.

Elizabeth Dwoskin and Adam Entous at the Washington Post: Google Uncovers Russian-Bought Ads on YouTube, Gmail, and Other Platforms. "The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google's many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company's DoubleClick ad network... The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Facebook — a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far."

[CN: Misogyny; Islamophobia] Ben Collins, Gideon Resnick, and Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: Russia Recruited YouTubers to Bash 'Racist B*tch' Hillary Clinton over Rap Beats. "According to the YouTube page for 'Williams and Kalvin,' the Clintons are 'serial killers who are going to rape the whole nation.' Donald Trump can't be racist because he's a 'businessman.' Hillary Clinton's campaign was 'fund[ed] by the Muslim.' These are a sample of the videos put together by two Black video bloggers calling themselves Williams and Kalvin Johnson, whose social media pages investigators say are part of the broad Russian campaign to influence American politics. Across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, they purported to offer 'a word of truth' to African-American audiences. ...Williams and Kalvin's content was pulled from Facebook in August after it was identified as a Russian government-backed propaganda account."

Craig Timberg at the Washington Post: Russian Operatives Used Twitter and Facebook to Target Veterans and Military Personnel, Study Says. "Russian trolls and others aligned with the Kremlin are injecting disinformation into streams of online content flowing to American military personnel and veterans on Twitter and Facebook, according to an Oxford University study released Monday. The researchers found fake or slanted news from Russian-controlled accounts are mixing with a wide range of legitimate content consumed by veterans and active-duty personnel in their Facebook and Twitter news feeds. ...In some cases, the disinformation reached the friends and families of military personnel and veterans as well, the researchers said."

The Kremlin warns it may restrict U.S. media in Russia. https://t.co/xCsRyKgjBq

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 9, 2017

Oh.

Rosalind S. Helderman at the Washington Post: Newly Disclosed Email Sheds Light on Trump Jr. Meeting with Russian Lawyer. "A newly disclosed email sent on the morning of a Trump Tower meeting held during last year's presidential campaign between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer raises new questions about how the key session came together. The note was written by the Russian lawyer and sent to a music promoter who had helped arrange the session." In sum, the "newly discovered" email appears to show the meeting being set up only to discuss the Magnitsky Act, not to share information about Hillary Clinton, as Don Jr's published emails show. So, not so much "shedding light" on the meeting as much as suggesting that people on one side of this meeting were maybe more sophisticated than the others, ahem, if no more ethical.

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[CN: Torture]

I get angry when criticism of Trump turns into nostalgia for George W. Bush. Here's a perfect, terrible example why. https://t.co/CZK6MyEYii

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 9, 2017

[CN: War on agency]

Two incredibly important words left out of this editorial: Mike Pence. https://t.co/KZSsP3ilSM

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) October 7, 2017

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Daniel Dale at the Toronto Star: Trump Defends Tossing Paper Towels to Puerto Rico Hurricane Victims. This entire article is very much worth your time to read in its entirety, but this bit is truly something:

Trump, as he so often does, called the media "fake." And then he, it seemed, took credit for coining the word "fake."

"I think one of the greatest of all terms I've come up with is 'fake.' I guess other people have used it, perhaps, over the years, but I've never noticed it," he said.

Trump would not have even been correct if he meant to refer specifically to the phrase "fake news."

I mean.

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