We Resist: Day 517

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Wednesday, June 20, 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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Earlier today by me: Migrant Infants and Children Being Held in "Tender Age" Prisons, with Plans for Internment Camps and Remembered: Trump's Disturbing Aggression Toward a Baby and I Am Still Grieving the Presidency We Don't Have.

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

Donald Trump says he will sign an executive order soon to enable migrant families to stay together. Aside from the fact that Trump is trying to make himself the hero of an atrocity he created, there are some serious concerns about what this executive order will actually do.


As Eastsidekate noted on Twitter, which I'm sharing with her permission:


Further, despite the fact that there is no law currently forcing the Trump administration to separate children from their parents at the border, Trump and his surrogates are insistently claiming otherwise. Which means he views himself as empowered to rule as a despot.


There's nothing fucking good about this. Goddammit.


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[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse; sexual assault] Aura Bogado, Patrick Michels, Vanessa Swales, and Edgar Walters at Reveal News: Migrant Children Sent to Shelters with Histories of Abuse Allegations.
Allegations included staff members' failure to seek medical attention for children. One had a burn, another a broken wrist, a third a sexually transmitted disease. In another shelter, staff gave a child medicine to which she was allergic, despite a warning on her medical bracelet. Inspectors also cited homes for "inappropriate contact" between children and staff, including a case in which a staff member gave children a pornographic magazine.

In October, an employee appeared drunk when he showed up to work at a facility operated by Southwest Key Programs in San Benito, Texas. A drug test later found he was over the legal alcohol limit to drive. That was among more 246 violations state inspectors found at Southwest Key's facilities.

Last year, a youth care worker at a Florida shelter for migrant children was sentenced to 10 years in prison after she admitted to trading sexually explicit photos and text messages with minors at the shelter. That facility later closed but recently reopened under a more than $30 million contract to house 1,000 children.

In New York, a Guatemalan boy was sexually assaulted by an older boy at a shelter in 2013, according to a doctor's report, and was treated at a hospital. After he was reunited with his mother, she received a hospital bill but, she later said, was told only that there had been "an incident with a boy."

At a facility in Maine run by a behavioral and mental health nonprofit, a social worker remained on the job for months after state regulators received a complaint in 2016 accusing him of having sex with an adult client.

In those cases and dozens of others reviewed by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and The Texas Tribune, federal officials continued sending children who crossed the border to the shelters after the incidents came to light. Since 2014, 13 organizations that faced serious allegations or citations shared the $1.5 billion total — nearly half of what the federal government spent to house immigrant children in that time.
Further Reading [with the same content notes]:

Brianna Sacks at BuzzFeed: This Doctor Treated Kids Separated from Their Parents and What She Saw Is Heart-Wrenching.

Matt Smith and Aura Bogado at Reveal: Immigrant Children Forcibly Injected with Drugs, Lawsuit Claims.

Human Rights Watch: Code Red: The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention.

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[CN: Nativism; disablism]


There are countless enablers of this grotesquery. There are also, of course, people who are resisting in notable ways.

Meagan Flynn at the Washington Post: Kirstjen Nielsen Heckled by Protesters at Mexican Restaurant; Other Diners Applauded Them. "Protesters entered a Mexican restaurant in D.C. on Tuesday evening to heckle Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. She appeared to sit quietly with her head down for more than 10 minutes listening to the protesters chanting 'Shame!' and 'End family separation!' Protesters, roughly 10 to 15 of them, entered MXDC Cocina Mexicana about 8 p.m. while Nielsen finished her meal with one other person. ...The secretary did not look up and did not appear to acknowledge the protesters as they began their chants of shame. At one point, she made a phone call."


The Trump administration has found something so gross even American corporations feel squeamish about profiting from it.

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Clearly, I've been consumed by migrant abuse news almost the entire day, but here are a couple of other things I've read:

[CN: War on agency] Rachel Cohen at Rewire.News: Arkansas' Medication Abortion Ban Was Hit with a Temporary Restraining Order; Here's What's Next. "A federal judge on Monday granted a brief reprieve from an Arkansas law that dramatically restricts abortion access in the state by effectively banning medication abortion. The first-of-its-kind statute would limit abortion access at all but one Arkansas health center. The law had been in effect since May 29, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined Planned Parenthood's request to hear the case. The plaintiffs filed for emergency relief following the high court's dismissal, and U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker agreed to grant them a two-week restraining order, which will expire at 5 p.m. on July 2. But the battle to stop the law is far from over."

[CN: Class warfare] Sam Levin at the Guardian: 'Facebook Is Taking Everything': Rising Rents Drive out Silicon Valley Families. "Sandra Zamora is part of a group of Menlo Park tenants in four buildings facing massive rent increases from a new landlord, who is pricing out longtime residents while advertising the buildings' proximity to Facebook's campus. Zamora is holding out as long as she can. But she knows she will soon have to leave her home of 11 years, and she doesn't know where she will go. 'Facebook is taking everything we have … and giving us what? Nothing. Just pain in our lives,' said the preschool teacher and restaurant worker, seated inside her dimly lit apartment, a mile from the company's headquarters. 'Facebook is just ruining the community.'"

Marcy Gordon at AP/TPM: Wilbur Ross Shorted Stock in Russian Government-Tied Shipping Company. "Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made a trade betting that the stock in a shipping company with Russian-government ties would fall, a transaction coming just days after he learned of a possible negative news story about his investment in the company. ...Ross rebuffed any suggestions that he shorted the Navigator stock based on confidential information to make a profit. He said the transaction was part of his effort to divest from Navigator and that he did not stand to gain if the stock fell, or lose if it rose, at the time." Sure.

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