We Resist: Day 571

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, August 13, 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.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Counterprotesters Win the Day at White Supremacist Demonstration and F#@k Stephen Miller and I Am Very Worried About the Midterms.

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

The big news this morning is that the FBI has fired Peter Strzok, in what is clearly retaliation for his anti-Trump texts during the election and his willingness to testify about Trump's corruption.


This is very bad, and I couldn't put it any more succinctly than Chris Sampson did:


Yes. That sums it up. Sob.

* * *

In other top news today, there is lots of discussion of Omarosa's secret recordings of Donald Trump and John Kelly, and how Trump claimed he had no idea that Kelly had fired her.

The common takeaway is that Trump has no idea what's happening in his own administration, but, in my estimation, that's just more of the same familiar miscalculation about how savvy (and controlling) Trump actually is (and has repeatedly shown himself to be).


Meanwhile, Trump certainly knew what he was doing here, too...

[Content Note: Misogyny; racism] Anne Gearan at the Washington Post: Trump Poses with Supporter with Sexist Patch at Motorcyclist Event. "'I (heart) Guns & Titties,' reads one patch on the unidentified man's vest. The patch features a drawing of a woman's naked torso and breasts and a pair of handguns atop her nipples. Other patches visible in blown-up versions of images from the rain-drenched event include one that reads 'This is America. We eat meat, we drink beer, and we speak [expletive] English.' Another says, 'Terrorist Hunting Permit.'"

And Trump knows damn well what he's doing here, as well...

[CN: Violence] Julian Borger at the Guardian: UN Human Rights Chief: Trump's Attacks on Press 'Close to Incitement of Violence'.
[Outgoing UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein] said the Trump administration's lack of concern about human rights marked a distinct break with previous administrations, and that Trump's own rhetoric aimed at minorities and at the press was redolent of two of the worst eras of the 20th century, the run-up to the two world wars.

In an interview with the Guardian, he singled out the US president's repeated designation of the press as "the enemy of the people."

"We began to see a campaign against the media … that could have potentially, and still can, set in motion a chain of events which could quite easily lead to harm being inflicted on journalists just going about their work and potentially some self-censorship," Zeid said. "And in that context, it's getting very close to incitement to violence."
Chilling.

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[CN: Displacement; racism; death. Covers following two tweets.]


[CN: Nativism] Ben Leonard at NBC News: Under Trump, Arrests of Undocumented Immigrants with No Criminal Record Have Tripled. "Federal arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record have more than tripled under [Donald] Trump and may still be accelerating, according to an NBC News analysis of Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from his first 14 months in office. The surge has been caused by a new ICE tactic of arresting — without warrants — people who are driving or walking down the street and using large-scale 'sweeps' of likely immigrants, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in June by immigration rights advocates in Chicago. ICE 'administrative' arrests of immigrants without criminal convictions have spiked 203 percent in the first full 14 months of his presidency compared to the final 14 months of the Obama administration, growing from 19,128 to 58,010, according to NBC's review of ICE figures."

[CN: Nativism; abuse of immigrant children] Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Couple's 4-Year-Old Adopted Daughter Facing Deportation Amid U.S. Immigration Crackdown. "Amy and Marco Becerra, who are U.S. citizens, were living in Peru when they decided to adopt their daughter Angela in 2014. A Peruvian court finalized the adoption in 2017, according to a local Fox affiliate. Angela's biological mother, who had developmental disabilities and had been a victim of sex trafficking, had asked the Becerras to care for the girl, Amy Becerra told the news outlet. Because Angela's adoption was a domestic Peruvian one, and not international, the Becerra's had to remain in Peru for more than a year after the adoption was finalized before the United States granted Angela a temporary tourist visa, which expires at the end of the month. With weeks to go before the visa expiration, their daughter's pending immigration application was denied without explanation, meaning Angela would be undocumented come September 1."

[CN: Carcerality; exploitation; wildfires] catherine lizette gonzalez at Colorlines: California Uses Prison Labor to Battle Dangerous Wildfires. "Deadly wildfires have been blazing through California for nearly a month. Spanning more than 600,000 acres, the fire is the largest in the state's history. Among the thousands of firefighters battling to contain the flames, there are more than 2,000 incarcerated people, including 58 youth, from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) risking their lives. They are earning just $2 a day."

Relatedly, police have arrested a man suspected of starting what's being called the Holy Fire, and, surprise, he's an anti-government conspiracy theorist. Amelia McDonell-Parry at Rolling Stone: Man Accused of Setting California Fire Is Reportedly Avid Conspiracy Theorist. "JJ MacNab, a writer who focuses on anti-government extremism, gave Clark's eight years of social media history a thorough review and discovered that he'd been active in the 'sovereign citizen' movement since at least 2010, and was a member of an alternative-government group called the Republic of the united States of America (RuSA), which believes that the country has been under the control of an imposter government since 1871. Clark's Facebook activity, she says, suggests he 'believes in just about every kooky conspiracy out there, including QAnon, Pizzagate, Jade Helm 15, flat earth theories, NESARA, Jesuit conservancies, shape-shifting lizard overlords.'"

[CN: Human rights abuses]


[CN: Class warfare] Chris McGreal at the Guardian: Where Even Walmart Won't Go: How Dollar General Took Over Rural America.
"We lasted three years and three days after Dollar General opened," [Doug Nech, owner of Haven's only grocery store, the Foodliner] said. "Sales dropped and just kept dropping. We averaged 225 customers a day before and immediately dropped to about 175. A year ago we were down to 125 a day. Basically we lost 35 to 40% of our sales. I lost a thousand dollars a day in sales in three years."

...Nech calls Dollar General "a cancer" but reserves his anger for Haven's council for subsidising a hugely profitable corporation to compete against him. He asked the council to cut his shop's utility bill to $100 a month until the Foodliner received a matching benefit. It refused, saying that Dollar General had taken advantage of a programme to bring in new business while Nech's was long established.

"It's the principle that they gave them money to come to town."

...In Haven, the former mayor Mike Alfers conceded that the promised financial advantage of Dollar General has largely been lost with the closure of the Foodliner. It is now a fitness centre, with the old grocery store sign still hanging outside. Sales tax revenue for the town rose by more than $60,000 between the years before and after the Dollar General opened. But the Foodliner alone was collecting around $75,000 a year in sales tax which is now gone.

On top of that, Nech paid an annual electricity bill of $37,000, which the city made money on, plus there was the break the council gave Dollar General on its utility bills. It remains to be seen how much business will transfer from the defunct grocery store to the Dollar General but the end result is the Haven's main street is finding it even more of a struggle to survive with the diminished flow of people to pick up groceries.
An important read, to understand a huge part of the American economy and why people are struggling to thrive, or even survive.

And finally, a couple of thoughts spawned by the recent celebratory embrace of Trump-opposing conservatives like Rick Wilson, who paved the way for Trump and now lament that we've arrived here:


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