We Resist: Day 524

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: Election Thread and Another Terrible SCOTUS Ruling and Wednesday Reading on Trump's Nativist Abuses.

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

Anton Troianovski at the Washington Post: White House, Kremlin Agree on Time and Place for Trump-Putin Summit. "The White House and the Kremlin have agreed on a time and place for a summit meeting between President Trump and Vladi­mir Putin, a Russian official said Wednesday after talks here between the Russian president and national security adviser John Bolton. ...Earlier Wednesday, Putin warmly greeted Bolton in a grand oval meeting hall at the Kremlin, flanked by statues of Russian czars set before lime-painted walls. ...'Your visit here to Moscow inspires hope that we will be able to take first steps to restore full-fledged relations between Russia and the United States,' Putin said."

Terrific. And here's just some supercool video of U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton and U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman getting their pictures taken by a million photographers while they shake hands with Vladimir Putin and sit down at a table to chat with him at the Kremlin, with big grins on their faces.


Neat. In other splendid (cough) foreign policy news...

"North Korea has continued to upgrade its only known nuclear reactor used to fuel its weapons program, satellite imagery has shown, despite ongoing negotiations with the U.S. and a pledge to denuclearise." Shocking. 😐 https://t.co/jGpEEo5nom

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 27, 2018

Everything is going great. (Everything is not going great.)

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Derek Kravitz, Alex Mierjeski, and Gabriel Sandoval at ProPublica: We've Found $16.1 Million in Political and Taxpayer Spending at Trump Properties.

Since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in late 2015, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses, and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations, and government agencies. Because Trump's business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals, and meals.

...The vast majority of the money — at least $13.5 million, or more than 84 percent of what we tracked — was spent by Trump's presidential campaign (including on Tag Air, the entity that operates Trump's personal airplane). Republican Senate and House political committees and campaigns have shelled out at least another $2.1 million at Trump properties. At least $400,000 has been spent by federal, state, and local agencies. (For example, the Florida Police Chiefs Association held its summer conference last year at the Trump National Doral Miami.) The state and local tally appears to be a gross undercount because of the agencies' spotty disclosures and reporting.

...When asked about cheaper nearby hotels and the parking costs, [Matthew Snyder, who works for the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado and traveled to D.C. for 11 days last year for managerial training] wrote in an email: "I could offer clarity, but I choose not to." In the end, Snyder charged about $2,740 to a government charge card at the Trump International over five days, including room service and valet parking.

Fucking grifters.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: The FEC Complaints About the NRA's Russia Ties Keep Piling Up. "A new complaint filed [by the American Democracy Legal Fund (ADLF)] with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) urges the commission to investigate a string of revelations regarding the National Rifle Association's (NRA) ties to sanctioned Russian officials, as well as the gun lobby's shifting answers about just how much money it received from Russian nationals. ...The new filing details reports about previously undisclosed trips and meetings — including sit-downs between NRA officials and those connected directly to the Kremlin — and raises fresh questions about how the NRA managed to donate over $30 million to the Trump campaign without disclosing its donors."

[CN: Nativism; disablist language] Kate Riga at TPM: Sessions Turns Family Separations into Well-Received Punchline at GOP Event. "During a speech to a conservative criminal justice organization in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called critics of the Trump administration's family separations 'the lunatic fringe' and joked about the policy to laughter and applause... 'And what is perhaps more galling is the hypocrisy,' he continued. 'These same people live in gated communities, many of them, and are featured at events where you have to have an ID to even come in and hear them speak. They like a little security around themselves. And if you try to scale the fence, believe me, they'd be even too happy to have you arrested and separated from your children,' he said. The room erupted into laughter and cheers."

Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Plan to Mine Near Popular Minnesota Wilderness Area Sparks Multiple Lawsuits. "Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in an effort to stop plans to allow mining near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. The lawsuit was filed in a federal district court on June 25 in Washington, D.C. by The Wilderness Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Izaak Walton League of America, and represented by Earthjustice. Together, the organizations join nine local Minnesota businesses that filed a similar, separate lawsuit last week. The legal challenges come after [Donald] Trump announced during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota last week that he wanted to keep large portions of land within the state's Superior National Forest — where the Boundary Waters recreation area is located — open to mining."

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[CN: Police brutality; racism; death] I've previously noted that police with records of abuse often get moved from department to department like priests with records of abuse. The officer who killed Antwon Rose has moved around a whole lot already in his short career.

Rosfeld "had previously worked in Harmarville and Oakmont. He also worked for the University of Pittsburgh PD and was reportedly dismissed for cause... He was formally sworn in [in East Pittsburgh] about 90 minutes before the fatal shooting." https://t.co/Q5nhvAT9Pu

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 27, 2018

[CN: Racism; harassment; threats] Breanna Edwards at the Root: Former Firefighter Arrested for Hanging Doll with Noose Outside His Black Neighbor's Apartment. "When 28-year-old Dante Petty moved to Grapevine, Tx., with his young daughter in June 2017, he says they immediately began to have issues with his white neighbor who lived in the apartment beneath him. Back in January, Petty made a Facebook post describing the torment he has been put through, the acts of aggression that started with the neighbor throwing eggs and dog feces on his car. He filed a police report, according to the post, but officers told him there was nothing he could do as there was no proof. Petty then decided to install a camera outside of his apartment that captured the neighbor, 64-year-old Glenn Halfin, tying a rope around the neck of a doll and hanging it from a railing." Fucking hell.

[CN: Misogyny] You know how women have been told over and over that we need to be better advocates for ourselves in the workplace if we want equality? Welp.

“The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results...we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful. “ https://t.co/QarD2CFWUR

— Andrea Matwyshyn (@amatwyshyn) June 25, 2018

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