We Resist: Day 403

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, February 26, 2018
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 (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) 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: Three Headlines and What If the Only Crack Through Which Nikolas Cruz Fell Was Legal Gun Access?

In case you missed it over the weekend, Rep. Adam Schiff's memo was published [pdf], and, even with some redactions, it makes pretty clear what manifest bullshit the Nunes memo was. Crucially, it says that that the FBI had reasons independent of the Steele dossier, to suspect Carter Page of "knowingly" assisting Russian intelligence officials, and further that the FBI provided the FISA court with information that corroborated the dossier's assertions.

So, the whole conservative narrative about Hillary Clinton and/or Democrats paying for the dossier, and the FBI subsequently using it exclusively as justification to spy on Page, was of course total crap. (Which didn't stop Trump from lying about it.) Also:


Welp. No wonder Republicans didn't want it released. Maude bless Rep. Schiff. And keep him safe.

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Some good news and bad news at SCOTUS today. First, the good news...

Angela Helm at the Root: U.S. Supreme Court Rules Dreamers Are Safe…for Now. "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to immediately review lower court decisions that keep the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program from going kaput, in what has to be a huge relief to DACA recipients and yet another blow to the Trump administration. ...The Supreme Court rarely takes up a case that has not been ruled on by the lower courts, and the Washington Post reports that in the past, the court has only done so when the cases were of 'grave national importance,' such as the controversy over President Richard Nixon's White House tapes or the Iranian hostage crisis. In what may have been a rash and ultimately fatal move, the Trump administration asked that the court bypass the lower courts to hear the case because it 'raised such important legal questions about presidential authority.'" Oops.

Unfortunately, we know that the Trump administration is not going to let this go. So it's a reprieve for the moment, but the Republicans aren't about to back down from their war on immigrants anytime soon. We must remain vigilant.

And now the bad news...

Sam Baker at Axios: Public-Sector Unions Prepare to Be Kneecapped at the Supreme Court. "The Supreme Court is very likely on the verge of dealing a devastating blow to public-sector unions — one of the last remaining strongholds of organized labor, and a critical part of the Democratic Party's base. The court will hear oral arguments today in a challenge to the fees public-sector unions collect from non-members. But the writing is already on the wall here. It would take a huge surprise for unions to get a reprieve."


Yeah. The fate of labor unions are in the hands of an illegitimate justice who doesn't value workers lives, nominated by an illegitimate president who paid a $1.375 million settlement after hiring undocumented laborers and paying them as little as $4 an hour.

The labor demonstrations outside the Supreme Court building today are, however, deeply moving — and if you have time to take a look on Twitter, I highly recommend it.

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Hey, you know how earlier today I wrote a whole thing about how there are laws against just disappearing people into psychiatric institutions or jails? Yeah, well... Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: Trump: 'We're Going to Have to Start Talking About Mental Institutions'.
During a lengthy speech Monday about possible policy changes in the wake of the latest deadly school shooting, [Donald] Trump suggested placing people who show signs of violent behavior into mental institutions.

"You know, in the old days we had mental institutions. We had a lot of them. And you could nab somebody like this," Trump said at a meeting with governors. "But you used to be able to bring them into a mental institution and hopefully he gets help or whatever. But he's off the streets. You can't arrest him, I guess, because he hasn't done anything, but you know he's like a boiler ready to explode, right?"

Trump did not explicitly call for the government to fund mental institutions for those who appear poised to commit mass atrocities, but he suggested that lawmakers begin discussing mental institutions.

"We're going to have to start talking about mental institutions, because a lot of folks in this room closed their mental institutions also. So we have no halfway. We have nothing between a prison and leaving him at his house, which we can't do anymore. So I think you folks have to start thinking about that," he told governors.
JESUS FUCKING JONES.

Meanwhile...


Josh Rogin at the Washington Post: An Attack on North Korea Would Be Massive — and Massively Stupid.
In response to worries that it is planning a "bloody nose" strike on North Korea, the Trump administration has been offering an odd reassurance. Any attack on the regime of Kim Jong Un would not be limited, officials and surrogates are saying, but enormous and overwhelming. That, of course, is not reassuring at all: A massive attack on North Korea would be massively stupid.

The White House calls reports that [Donald] Trump is considering a small-scale North Korea military option exaggerated. The administration understands that there is no guarantee Kim won't respond with his full military might — a nightmare scenario. But embedded in every denial is a consistent pledge that Trump will not accept North Korea achieving the capability to strike the United States with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental missile — a clear red line.

That means the military option Trump is actually considering foremost is one that would be huge, complex, and devastating.
Just consider for a moment the juxtaposition of these two preceding items. One: Trump is completely delusional about his own heroism and also what constitutes sensible responses to violent threats. Two: Trump continually provokes North Korea and clearly doesn't understand the consequences.

He really is going to kill us all. If he doesn't, it will be a fucking miracle.

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Oh. That's not worrying at all. (That is very worrying.)


So everything else is looking fine, too. (OMFG.)

Alice Ollstein at TPM: White House Attacks the Court System (Again) After Ruling Upholding DACA. Of course it did.

Shane Savitsky at Axios: GOP Committee Heads Don't Want to Investigate Trump's Finances. Of course they don't.

Catherine Lucey at the AP: Ivanka Trump Believes Father's Denials of Sexual Misconduct. Of course she does.

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And finally...


Man, it's going to be a long couple of years.

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