We Resist: Day 491

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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Earlier today by me: WE MUST RESIST: Undocumented Immigrants Are the Canaries in Trump's Despotic Coal Mine and If Kirstjen Nielsen Is on Her Way out at DHS, Let Us Fervently Hope Rudy Giuliani Is Not on His Way In.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Courtney Kube, Hallie Jackson, Carol E. Lee, Kristen Welker, and Peter Alexander at NBC News: Trump Wanted to Cancel North Korea Summit Before Kim Jong Un Could. "The decision occurred so abruptly that the administration was unable to give congressional leaders and key allies advance notice and the letter went out while more than two dozen foreign journalists, including several U.S. citizens, were inside North Korea where they had gone to witness a promised dismantling of a nuclear test site. ...One person familiar with the summit preparations said it was Bolton who drove the decision to cancel and that he had convinced Trump to make the move. Trump then relayed his decision to Pompeo, who felt blindsided, according to multiple officials. A driving factor for the president was the belief that Kim was heading toward a similar conclusion." What a shitshow.

Tierney Sneed at TPM: Senate Dem Accuses Don Jr. of False Testimony on Foreign Contacts in 2016. "A Senate Judiciary Democrat is alleging that Donald Trump Jr. gave false testimony in a September 2017 interview with the committee, in which the President's son denied that foreign governments or foreign nationals sought to assist [Donald] Trump's 2016 campaign. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), in a Thursday letter to Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), pointed to a recent report that Trump Jr. met at Trump Tower in August 2016 with an Israeli social media specialist and an emissary for princes in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Israeli, Joel Zamel, touted his firm's ability to manipulate social media to boost Trump's campaign, while the emissary, George Nader, told Trump Jr. that the princes he represented would also like to help his father's election." Whooooops!

Guardian Sport: 'Patriotism and Nationalism Are Different': NFL Players React to New Anthem Policy. "'I just think that when you love something you care about it you want to work to get it right. I love my children. When they do wrong things, I'm going to let them know they're doing wrong things. I'm not just going to sweep it under the rug because I love them,' [Demario Davis, linebacker for the New Orleans Saints] said. 'I think that's the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Nationalism is loving your country just to love it, you know, even when it's right or wrong, you're going to take the side of your country. Patriotism is loving it enough to sacrifice for it, but also to call it [out] when it's wrong. The people who are speaking up for the people who are hurting have a deep love and devotion for our country. That's kind of gotten misconstrued at times. But it's important for people to understand that.'" YES.

[Content Note: Nativism] Molly Hennessy-Fiske at the LA Times: Border Patrol Union Calls Trump's National Guard Deployment 'Colossal Waste'. "A month after [Donald] Trump called for sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, the head of the national Border Patrol union called the deployment 'a colossal waste of resources.' ...The criticism is a dramatic departure for the group, which endorsed Trump's candidacy for president and has praised his border security efforts... The borderwide National Guard deployment is expected to cost the federal government $220 million to $252 million through the end of the year, according to Christopher Sherwood, a Department of Defense spokesman. That includes $204 million to $221 million in pay and support costs for 3,143 troops and $16 million to $31 million for 12,000 flying hours by 26 UH-72 Lakota helicopters, Sherwood said. ...While troops were 'not used for law enforcement,' they have logged 2,000 hours of helicopter surveillance 'for detection.'" Oh.

NB: Grandiose shows of militarism are a feature of many authoritarian regimes. And, historically, they have frequently been precursor to violent militarism waged against the population who became inured to their presence via seemingly "pointless" posturing.

[CN: White supremacy; violence; police harassment] Sam Levin at the Guardian: Stabbed at a Neo-Nazi Rally, Called a Criminal: How Police Targeted a Black Activist.

Cedric O'Bannon tried to ignore the sharp pain in his side and continue filming. The independent journalist, who was documenting a white supremacist rally in Sacramento, said he wanted to capture the neo-Nazi violence against counter-protesters with his GoPro camera.

But the pain soon became overwhelming. He lifted up his blood-soaked shirt and realized that one of the men carrying a pole with a blade on the end of it had stabbed him in the stomach, puncturing him nearly two inches deep. He limped his way to an ambulance.

But the police did not treat O'Bannon like a victim. Records obtained by the Guardian reveal that officers instead monitored his Facebook page and sought to bring six charges against him, including conspiracy, rioting, assault, and unlawful assembly. His presence at the protest — along with his use of the black power fist and "social media posts expressing his ideals" — were proof that he had violated the rights of neo-Nazis at the 26 June 2016 protests, police wrote in a report.

None of the white supremacists have been charged for stabbing O’Bannon.

Rage seethe boil.

[CN: Environmental disaster] Natasha Geiling at ThinkProgress: Runaway Barges Full of Coal Spill into Pennsylvania River. "More than a dozen barges carrying coal down a river in western Pennsylvania broke loose Thursday, with two of those barges sinking and spilling coal into the Monongahela river. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality says that the spilled coal won't present a risk to water downstream from the spill. But coal does contain toxic elements like arsenic, as well as heavy metals like lead and mercury. The spill occurred roughly 5 and a half miles from a drinking water intake owned by Pennsylvania American Water. ...As of 2014, 12 percent of all coal shipped in the United States was transported by river barge." Damn.

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[CN: Sexual violence; assault; harassment. Covers entire section.]

Read @lindaholmes' great piece on the Arrested Development interview, and consider as you read it how firmly the gender lines were drawn here, and know that a man who *only* harms women is damn well a sexual harasser, no matter the form that harm takes. https://t.co/eGBSDlMRFK

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 24, 2018

Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast: Terrence Howard Is Accused of Violent Abuse. When Is His Time Up? "If we've learned anything from #MeToo, #MuteRKelly, and the cinnamon roll recipe Mario Batali attached to the end of his sexual misconduct apology letter, it's that men who have done (allegedly) horrible things continue to expect, and to get, unlimited second chances. Apathy is an age-old illness when it comes to these sorts of crimes, especially when the perpetrators are famous, handsome, well-liked, or really good at making pasta. The fact that even #MeToo-era men outed for bad behavior are creeping back into Hollywood's good graces bodes well, I guess, for the abusers grandfathered into collective amnesia — men like Terrence Howard, who was landing jobs in spite of his personal history back when Harvey Weinstein was still an open secret."

Speaking of Harvey Weinstein... Amanda Holpuch and Jamiles Lartey at the Guardian: Harvey Weinstein Appears in Court Charged with Rape and Other Sexual Offences. "The disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged with rape, a criminal sex act, sex abuse, and sexual misconduct for alleged incidents involving two separate women, after he earlier surrendered to authorities in New York. During a brief court appearance on Friday, Weinstein remained quiet as his lawyers agreed he would post $1m (£750,000) bail and wear an electronic monitoring device. He also surrendered his passport, and agreed not travel beyond New York and Connecticut. A prosecutor told the judge that the investigation was ongoing, and that authorities have encouraged other survivors to come forward."

I take up space in solidarity with Weinstein's many victims, and I desperately hope that the women whose victimization by Weinstein yielded these charges eventually get something that resembles justice, even a little.

And on that note:

"It was a shocking moment; it was a beautiful moment," she said of hearing the jury's decision to award her $1 billion in damages in a lawsuit against the security company that hired her rapist. "It showed human kindness in its purest form." 😭❤️ https://t.co/TQcNzkWxRf

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 25, 2018

Blub.

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