We Resist: Day 300

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, November 15, 2017
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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: Lock Her Up for WHAT, Though?

[Content Note: Mass shooting.]


Already, yesterday's mass shooting in Rancho Tehama, California, has almost completely fallen out of the news. The fact that Donald Trump tweeted (then deleted) a message to the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas, the site of last week's mass shooting, is getting more attention than the shooting itself.


Five people, including the shooter, were killed and at least 10 were injured. And it's just another day in America where nothing will ever change, because no amount of grief or outrage will motivate Republicans to do anything that will risk that sweet NRA money.

Relatedly: Lois Beckett at the Guardian: The Gun Numbers: Just 3% of American Adults Own a Collective 133 Million Firearms.
American civilians own at least 265 million firearms, which gives Americans the highest rate of per capita firearm ownership in the world, with about one gun for every American.

...But surveys show that gun ownership in America is actually highly concentrated. Only 22% to 31% of Americans adults say they personally own a gun.

Rates of personal and household gun ownership appear to have declined over the past decades — roughly two-thirds of Americans today say they live in a gun-free household. By contrast, in the late 1970s, the majority of Americans said they lived in a household with guns.

Most of America's gun owners have relatively modest collections, with the majority of gun owners having an average of just three guns, and nearly half owning just one or two, according to a 2015 survey by Harvard and Northeastern researchers, which gave the most in-depth estimate of Americans' current patterns of gun ownerships.

But America's gun super-owners, have amassed huge collections. Just 3% of American adults own a collective 133m firearms — half of America's total gun stock. These owners have collections that range from eight to 140 guns, the 2015 study found. Their average collection: 17 guns each.
And there are an estimated 7.7 million super-owners in the country, who are disproportionately white men. Just a bunch of white men with massive personal arsenals. Swell.

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AP/PBS: RNC Cuts Fundraising Ties to Roy Moore. "The Republican National Committee has severed its fundraising ties to Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. A Federal Election Commission filing late Tuesday shows that the national party is no longer part of the effort to raise money for Moore, the embattled GOP nominee facing allegations of molesting two teenagers when he was in his 30s." Too late, RNC. Too late.

David Smith at the Guardian: Roy Moore Complains He Is Being 'Harassed' by Media. "Addressing the faithful at a Baptist church revival in south-west Alabama, Moore insisted that the claims are a calculated effort to derail his political career. 'Why do you think they're giving me this trouble?' he demanded. 'Why do you think I'm being harassed in the media and people pushing forth allegations in the last 28 days of this election?'" Roy Moore is a rapist who complains about being "harassed." JFC this fucking guy.


I mean, the entire Republican Party is a bunch of absurd hypocrites on the subject of sexual assault as long as Trump is in office. It would be nice if the political press would point out that indisputable fact in every article on the topic.

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[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Sahil Kapur at Bloomberg: Senate Republicans Toss Potential Obamacare Bomb into Tax Bill. "Senate Republicans have tossed a potential bomb in the middle of their tax overhaul bill. The plan released Tuesday night mixes two red-hot debates by adding a repeal of the Obamacare law's individual mandate to their tax legislation. While the move will help them meet their fiscal target, it complicates the vote calculations in both chambers and hands Democrats a bumper sticker-ready issue they can use to charge up their base. The revised proposal 'will effectively repeal Obamacare's individual mandate tax so that we can provide even more tax relief to low- and middle-income families,' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday."

Also so they can more quickly destroy Obamacare, because the entire thing collapses without the individual mandate.


Tory Newmyer at the Washington Post: Senate GOP Is Gambling Bigly by Rolling Back Individual Mandate in Tax Package. "Senate GOP tax writers incorporated the high-stakes maneuver into the latest version of their plan, released late Tuesday night. They applied the new revenue to making permanent the deeply-slashed 20 percent corporate rate at the heart of the tax plan; doubling the child tax credit to $2,000; and expanding access to a deduction for pass-through businesses. But the updated bill sunsets individual rate cuts at the end of 2025 to help the package comply with strict budget rules — a move that Democrats seized on to blast the GOP for prioritizing corporate interests over working people." Correctly seized on and accurately characterized, I might add.


Tucker Higgins at CNBC: CEOs Raise Doubts About Gary Cohn's Top Argument for Cutting the Corporate Tax Rate Right in Front of Him. "A meeting of CEOs might seem to be a friendly gathering place for [Donald] Trump's chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, former president of Goldman Sachs. But at a gathering of chief executives hosted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, business leaders called into question one of Cohn's top arguments for slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent. When one of the Journal's editors asked the crowd if they planned to up their capital expenditure if the GOP's tax plan went through, only a smattering raised their hands. 'Why aren't the other hands up?' Cohn asked." Because trickle-down economics is trash.

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[CN: Islamophobia; homophobia] Normally, People choosing its annual "Sexiest Man Alive" wouldn't be of much interest to me, and it certainly wouldn't warrant a place in the We Resist thread, but, this year, they chose Blake Shelton, and uh.


(While I know that it may be tempting to respond to this item by commenting that Blake Shelton doesn't deserve it because "he isn't even that sexy" or whatever, that is not the point and please don't do that. Thanks.)

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[CN: Nativism] Esther Yu Hsi Lee at ThinkProgress: Immigration Arrests at New York Courthouses up 900 Percent, Advocates Say. "The number of immigrants arrested or detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency at courthouses in New York has gone up 900 percent in 2017... About 20 percent of individuals detained by ICE did not have prior criminal convictions; 16 percent were there for desk appearance tickets or offenses that didn't warrant an arrest. Some of the immigrants were arrested in family court and even at the Queens Human Trafficking Court. 'The exponential increase in ICE courthouse arrests reflects a dangerous new era in enforcement and immigrant rights violations,' Immigrant Defense Project attorney Lee Wang told the publication. 'Immigrants seeking justice in the criminal, family and civil courts should not have to fear for their freedom when doing so.'" Unconscionable.

[CN: Nativism] Tina Vasquez at Rewire: Trump Administration Orders Large-Scale Immigration Raids — for DUIs.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out a large-scale enforcement operation last week targeting undocumented immigrants charged with driving under the influence (DUI), signaling to advocates that while publicly claiming to remove "violent criminals" from local communities, the Trump administration is targeting those with low-level offenses.

Since November 4, ICE has apprehended 25 undocumented immigrants in Long Island, New York, as part of the immigration enforcement sting "Operation Secure Streets." Twenty-four were targeted because of a DUI-related conviction, according to ICE. "This operation targeted those who were convicted of driving under the influence, some with children in the car, solidifying ICE's commitment to remove public safety threats from our communities," said Thomas R. Decker, an ICE field office director.

Michael Admirand, senior legal counsel at Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project, told Rewire that prior to the Trump administration, he had not heard of ICE operations targeting immigrants with DUIs. Perhaps more alarming, Admirand said, is the rhetoric administration officials use to justify large-scale raids.

"What is becoming clear is that targeting people for DUI is a theme for [the Trump administration]," Admirand said. "In September, during the nationwide raids that detained almost 500 people, the Trump administration said they were targeting violent criminals, like MS-13 gang members. By far, the most prominent conviction among those detained was DUI. There is a striking disconnect between the rhetoric the administration uses to justify these raids and the reality of who is actually being targeted."
They're counting on people agreeing that DUIs are a serious enough offense to warrant our inattention. Listen, I hate people driving while intoxicated. I loathe it. And I absolutely do not support this administration targeting undocumented immigrants for committing this crime. Deportation is displacement. That is not the community standard for driving while intoxicated anyplace in the United States.


⬆️ We are going to have to resist mightily whoever Trump installs in his place.

[CN: Transphobia] Katelyn Burns at Rewire: Despite Electoral Gains, Transgender Community Faces Barriers to Political Involvement. "While it's critically important that the trans community remains politically active in electoral campaigns, canvassing and phone-banking can present particular challenges to trans volunteers. 'A pretty common thing that trans people will say [is], 'I don't want to go to door-to-door' or 'I don’t even want to do phones. Can I do data entry or something that isn't public facing?'' [Jay Wu, communications manager for the National Center for Transgender Equality] said... Eve Freeman, a trans woman from Northern Virginia who chose not to get directly involved in Roem's campaign, says that her deep voice was part of the reason for her decision. ...Freeman's concerns are painfully common for many trans people and will remain barriers until society grows more comfortable with the idea that trans people are just average, everyday citizens like anyone else. Campaigns should be actively looking for ways to make their operations more trans-friendly, including finding roles for trans people who don't want to face the public."

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