We Resist: Day 606

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, September 17, 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: Brett Kavanaugh, Consent, and Listening to Survivors and Hurricane Florence, Part 5.

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

[Content Note: Sexual assault. Covers entire section.]

John Wagner and Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Kavanaugh Accuser Willing to Testify, Her Attorney Says; Judge Offers Fresh Denial. "An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh assaulted her when the two were in high school, said Monday that Ford is willing to testify about the allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'She is. She's willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth,' lawyer Debra Katz said on NBC's Today show when asked whether her client would speak publicly about [Donald] Trump's Supreme Court nominee."

Asawin Suebsaeng, Gideon Resnick, and Sam Stein at the Daily Beast: Trump Believes There Is a 'Conspiracy' to Torpedo the Kavanaugh Nomination.
In the hours after a 51-year-old California professor came forward to publicly allege that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were in high school, the White House signaled no interest in slowing Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

Instead, the president's team and his allies on and off the Hill began to mount a vigorous defense against the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, questioning why she had identified herself only now, and framing Kavanaugh's alleged behavior as almost commonplace in nature.

A senior White House official told The Daily Beast that, as of Sunday evening, things are still "full steam ahead" for Kavanaugh. On Friday afternoon, a different White House official confirmed that [Donald] Trump had been made aware of the earlier reports involving the Kavanaugh sexual-misconduct allegation — reports that did not name the accuser.

The president has told those close to him in recent days that he believes there is a "conspiracy" or organized effort by Democrats to smear Kavanaugh and try to derail the nomination of a "good man." One Trump confidant said Sunday that they "can't imagine that" Ford coming forward will change the president's position, and that it will far more likely cause Trump to dig in and attack those going after Kavanaugh.
*crawls into giant cannon; fires self directly into the sun*

The rotten crabapple, of course, does not fall far from the fetid tree:


In other horrible rape culture news, Charlie Rose is the latest serial sex abuser who's getting the rehabilitation treatment, and now he's getting an assist from his good pal Michael Bloomberg, who has publicly questioned the veracity of the accusations against him.


In fine (cough) company:


And just as a reminder that misogyny is everywhere in politics, on both sides of the aisle, much to our collective chagrin:


*jumps into fully one million Christmas trees*

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Dennis Romero at NBC News: FEMA to Test 'Presidential Alert' System Next Week. "Next Thursday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will do its first test of a system that allows the president to send a message to most U.S. cellphones. More than 100 mobile carriers, including all the major wireless firms, are participating in the roll out, FEMA stated in a message on its website posted Thursday. 'The EAS [Emergency Alert System] is a national public warning system that provides the President with the communications capability to address the nation during a national emergency,' FEMA said." Fuck no. FUCK NO.

Danielle McLean at ThinkProgress: Trump Administration Planning Further Trade War Escalations with China. "The Trump administration is planning to escalate the U.S. trade war with China by targeting around $200 billion in Chinese goods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move is expected to draw a reciprocal response from China, which will likely impose new retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exporters, especially farmers, the newspaper reported. ...The move is intended to give the U.S. leverage in planned high-level discussions with Beijing over its practice of demanding American companies turn over technology to do business in China. However, the new tariffs are expected ahead of the midterm elections and the holiday shopping season and will likely result in the increased costs on thousands of products for American consumers."

Raphael Satter at the AP: Leaked Docs Show Assange Bid for Russian Visa. "[In 2010, Assange] wrote to the Russian Consulate in London. 'I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to my friend, Israel Shamir, to both drop off and collect my passport, in order to get a visa,' said the letter, which was obtained exclusively by The Associated Press. The Nov. 30, 2010, missive is part of a much larger trove of WikiLeaks emails, chat logs, financial records, secretly recorded footage, and other documents leaked to the AP. The files provide both an intimate look at the radical transparency organization and an early hint of Assange's budding relationship with Moscow. The ex-hacker's links to the Kremlin would become increasingly salient before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when the FBI says Russia's military intelligence agency directly supplied WikiLeaks with stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman and other Democratic figures." Yeah, that sounds about right.

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[CN: Nativism. Covers entire section.]

Andrew Sheeler at the Sacramento Bee: Study Finds Undocumented Immigrants Have Less Reported Chronic Disease Than Documented Americans. "A new study challenges the political notion that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the U.S. health care system — in fact, they're much less likely to seek medical care at all, the study found. The four-year study, from Drexel University in Philadelphia and published in the journal Medical Care, relies on a California health survey and finds undocumented immigrants are using health care services at a lower rate than they did 15 years ago. 'There are significant disparities in access to and utilization of health care by legal authorizations status,' Alex Ortega, of Drexel's Dornsife School of Public Health, said in a statement. 'And given the current political climate that is very hostile to immigration — especially from Latin America — we can only expect the disparities to get worse.'"

Dianne Solis at the Dallas News: ICE Is Ordering Immigrants to Appear in Court, But the Judges Aren't Expecting Them. "The orders to appear are not fake, but ICE apparently never coordinated or cleared the dates with the immigration courts. It's a phenomenon that appears to be popping up around the nation, with reports of 'fake dates' or 'dummy dates' in Dallas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami. Some immigrants have even been given documents ordering them to be in court at midnight, on weekends, and on a date that doesn't exist: Sept. 31. The result, immigrant advocates say, is more 'chaos' in the heavily backlogged immigration court system. ...Neither ICE nor the court agency offered an explanation for the confusion."

[CN: Misogynist violence] Adolfo Flores and Grace Wyler at BuzzFeed: A Border Patrol Agent Has Been Arrested for Killing Four Women. "A US Border Patrol agent suspected of killing four women was arrested Saturday after a fifth woman escaped and notified law enforcement, who referred to the agent as a 'serial killer.' Juan David Ortiz, a supervisor for the Border Patrol, was arrested by the Texas Rangers early Saturday morning in relation to multiple homicides in and around Laredo, Texas. Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar confirmed in a statement that the 35-year-old had murdered the four victims within the past two weeks. Ortiz, a Navy veteran, had been with the US Customs and Border Protection agency for 10 years. ...Ortiz is the second Border Patrol agent from the Laredo sector accused of multiple murders this year. Ronald Burgos-Aviles, a 28-year-old Border Patrol agent, was arrested in April on two counts of capital murder, after reporting that he found the bodies of his girlfriend, 27-year-old Grizelda Hernandez, and her 1-year-old son Dominick Hernandez near a park in South Texas."

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[CN: Environmental toxins] Michael Biesecker at NBC4 Washington: Toxic Waste Sites in Florence's Path Under Close Watch. "Heavy rains from Tropical Storm Florence have caused a slope to collapse at a coal ash landfill at a closed power station outside Wilmington, North Carolina, Duke Energy officials confirmed. Duke spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said Saturday evening that about 2,000 cubic yards (1,530 cubic meters) of ash, enough to fill roughly 180 dump trucks, have been displaced at the Sutton Plant and that contaminated storm water likely flowed into Sutton Lake, the plant's cooling pond. The company hasn't yet determined if the weir that drains the cooling pond was open or whether any contamination may have flowed into the swollen Cape Fear River."

[CN: Wildfires] Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Wildfires in Utah Rage On, Displacing More Than 6,000 People. "As of Saturday afternoon, the two fires had grown to cover a combined 86,107 acres, wreaking havoc on air quality around the state. The two fires — at Pole Creek and Bald Mountain in Utah and Juab counties, respectively — could be the most destructive in an already dangerous fire season, according to Gov. Gary Herbert (R). Among Herbert's concerns were the multitude of homes directly in the paths of the wildfires. As of Saturday evening, the fires were reportedly within half a mile of residences."

[CN: Death; displacement] Yessenia Funes at Earther: The Strongest Storm of the Year Shook Southeast Asia This Weekend.
Tropical Storm Mangkhut was on the move Monday as it made its way through Southeast Asia. The former Super Typhoon, which at its peak became the strongest storm to form on Earth this year so far, has been pummeling Hong Kong, Macau, and the Philippines all weekend.

Heavy rainfall from has triggered landslides throughout northern regions of the Philippines where Mangkhut struck on Saturday, and the government is blaming the mining industry — namely, small-scale mines that operate illegally. At least 34 miners who sought refuge in a bunker were discovered dead; another 30 are still missing, reports the Guardian. Now, President Rodrigo Duterte is calling for the halt of all mining activities, per Reuters.

In total, at least 64 people are dead in the Philippines, but Hurricane Maria in the U.S. taught us that death tolls can increase dramatically weeks or even months after a storm passes through.

Mangkhut's trail of destruction didn’t stop in the Philippines, however. The storm continued its way north, going on to strike Hong Kong and Macau on Sunday with 100 mph gusts.

...For the rest of the week, the China Meteorological Administration is forecasting heavy rains along the storm's projected path inland from the southeastern coast. Anywhere between four to six inches are expected to pour onto southern Chinese regions as the storm deteriorates.
As a reminder, I include extreme weather news in the We Resist thread, because all of these events are exacerbated by climate change, which is a human-made disaster that we must continue to fervently resist.

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