We Resist: Day 523

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Tuesday, June 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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Earlier today by me: Trump Doesn't "Want Judges" and Another Note About Civility and Two Terrible SCOTUS Rulings and F#@k Civility.

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

[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse. Covers entire section.]

James LaPorta and Spencer Ackerman at the Daily Beast: Detention Camps on Military Bases 'Smacks of Totalitarianism,' Troops Say.
Active-duty and retired U.S. military officers and enlisted personnel are expressing a sense of moral emergency over the Defense Department setting up detention camps for undocumented immigrants on military bases.

"It smacks of totalitarianism," said Steve Kleinman, a retired Air Force colonel and military intelligence officer. Raf Noboa, an Iraq War veteran and former Army sergeant, said he was astounded by the "enormous moral offense" the camps represent and which the military will be ordered to support.

"America's military once liberated people from concentration camps," Noboa told The Daily Beast. "It beggars the mind and our morality that it might be used to secure them."

..."The Department of Defense is participating in a scheme that appropriates the concept of military honor to perpetrate a human rights abuse. DOD's specific task might not be illegal, at least not unambiguously illegal. But DOD would be participating in hostage taking," [Paul Yingling, retired Army colonel and Iraq War veteran] said. At the Pentagon, Yingling added, senior officials "have to decide, right now, if they're going to participate in a clearly unethical and possibly illegal hostage scheme."
Melanie Schmitz at ThinkProgress: Leaked Audio Reveals Detention Center Staff Threatening Immigrant Kids over Speaking to the Media. "The audio and companion video, captured by a former employee at the facility and sent to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, is the first footage not vetted or released by the federal government and comes as thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border wait to hear what will happen to them next. ...The staffer appears to be threatening the children against speaking out, warning them that doing so could imperil their immigration case, forcing them to remain in detention for a long time, or suggesting that it could get them deported quickly."


Tina Vasquez at Rewire.News: The U.S. Has a Long History of Helping to 'Disappear' Central Americans. "Because of civil war and gang violence in the region, both of which are partly fueled by U.S. foreign policy, generations of Central Americans have been disappeared, presumably murdered in their countries of origin. Those who migrate to escape this violence are only met with more and sometimes never heard from again. A Border Patrol policy dating back to the 1990s purposely pushes migrants further into more dangerous, isolated areas of the desert, and has killed and disappeared countless people. Now, the Trump administration is specifically targeting Central American migrants by removing protections for children; ending the ability to claim asylum due to domestic and gang violence; and using its zero-tolerance policy to deport asylum seekers possibly to their deaths and disappear children into the immigration system."

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[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Chris Strohm and Shannon Pettypiece at Bloomberg: Mueller Poised to Zero in on Trump-Russia Collusion Allegations. "Special Counsel Robert Mueller is preparing to accelerate his probe into possible collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russians who sought to interfere in the 2016 election, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators have an eye toward producing conclusions — and possible indictments — related to collusion by fall, said the person, who asked not to be identified. He'll be able to turn his full attention to the issue as he resolves other questions, including deciding soon whether to find that Trump sought to obstruct justice. Mueller's office declined to comment on his plans." *drums fingers*

Meanwhile...


My gut reaction to that video is that it helps Trump to have Emin muddying the waters with what will surely be dismissed as a false narrative of what happened created by "some dipshit who wants to make himself look more important than he actually is," as people who don't know or understand his role in the campaign will regard almost certainly regard him.

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Sarah Ferris at Politico: U.S. Cruises Toward Record-Breaking Debt on Trump's Watch. "The nation's fiscal outlook looks ever bleaker, thanks in part to deficit spending during [Donald] Trump's first term, Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeeper projected Tuesday. Within 16 years, the federal deficit is expected to be the largest in history, outpacing even the fiscal shortfalls that followed World War II, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates."


[CN: Christian Supremacy] Sarah Posner at the Nation: South Carolina Sought an Exemption to Allow a Foster-Care Agency to Discriminate Against Non-Christians. "South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, a long-standing ally of [Donald] Trump, has personally intervened with the Department of Health and Human Services to secure a religious exemption from federal nondiscrimination laws for a Christian foster-care-placement agency in his state. Without the exemption, the placement agency, Miracle Hill Ministries, of Greenville, is at risk of losing its license because it refuses to place foster children with non-Christian families. Like other such agencies that participate in state foster-care programs that receive federal funds, Miracle Hill would normally be barred from discriminating on the basis of religion."

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[CN: Sexual assault. Covers entire section.]


Staff at CBS News: Experts Say U.S. Among 10 Most Dangerous Nations for Women. "The United States has been ranked for the first time among the ten nations deemed to be the most dangerous for women by experts in the field. A survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation of about 550 experts in women's issues around the globe labelled the U.S. the 10th most dangerous nation in terms of the risk of sexual violence, harassment and being coerced into sex."

I don't believe there's an entirely accurate way to rank this sort of thing, especially around issues of sexual violence which relies so heavily on reporting in a context with strong disincentives against reporting and strong stigma about public disclosure, but, with that caveat, this is quite a list: 1. India 2. Afghanistan 3. Syria 4. Somalia 5. Saudi Arabia 6. Pakistan 7. Democratic Republic of Congo 8. Yemen 9. Nigeria 10. United States.

And finally, your regular reminder that Terry Crews is a national treasure.


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