We Resist: Day 641

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 Regime May Legislatively Obliterate the Definition of "Transgender" and Trump Wants to Militarize the Border; He's Telling Lies to Justify It and Discussion Thread: Non-Appropriative Halloween Costumes.

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

Caleb Ecarma at Mediaite: Carl Bernstein: Trump Is Preparing to Declare Midterms 'Illegitimate' If Democrats Win. "Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein told CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday that he has sources with knowledge of the administration who told him over the weekend that [Donald] Trump may call the midterms 'illegitimate' if Democrats squeeze out a win. 'I talked to people in touch with the White House on Friday who believe that, if the congressional midterms are very close and the Democrats were to win by five or seven seats, that Trump is already talking about how to throw legal challenges into the courts, sow confusion, declare a victory actually, and say that the election's been illegitimate — that is really under discussion in the White House,' Bernstein said on CNN yesterday, where he is a political analyst."

And, in the meantime, Republicans continue to try to cheat their way to victory, e.g. Jessica M. Goldstein at ThinkProgress: 10,000 Missouri Voters Received Republican Mailers with False Voting Information. "Some 10,000 voters in Missouri received mailers with incorrect information about the dates for their absentee ballots were due. The source? The Missouri Republican Party. Ray Bozarth, the party's executive director, admitted that his party was responsible for the misleading information but insisted the incorrect date was caused not by malice or an effort at voter suppression. It was, he said, simply 'the result of a miscommunication between the party and its vendor, which he declined to name,' as the Kansas City Star reported." Sounds legit.

They sure can't win on the merits of their policies or the integrity and skills of their candidates. AP/Guardian: Florida: Republican Governor Candidate Flounders over Trump as Role Model. "Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis was asked on Sunday night if he thought Donald Trump, who endorsed him, was a good role model for children. DeSantis, who recorded a now famous campaign ad in which he taught his children the president's slogans and policies, responded by saying he thought Trump did the right thing by moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem." Woof.

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[Content Note: Nativism; child abuse] Miriam Jordan, Caitlin Dickerson, and Michael D. Shear at the New York Times: Trump's Plans to Deter Migrants Could Mean New 'Voluntary' Family Separations.

Facing a surge in migrant families entering the United States and with the midterm elections two weeks away, the Trump administration is weighing an array of new policies that it hopes will deter Central Americans from journeying north.

...The architects of the family separation approach have been hard at work on alternatives, according to people briefed on the group's efforts. Their goal is to announce a plan before the November elections that can withstand the legal challenges that crippled the administration's previous attempts.

The group's charge from the White House is simple and explicit: Replace what the administration describes as "catch and release," the practice of releasing immigrants from detention while they wait for court hearings.

The most talked-about alternative would be a variation of the family separation policy. Parents would be forced to choose between voluntarily relinquishing their children to foster care or remaining imprisoned together as a family. The latter option would require parents to waive their child's right to be released from detention within 20 days.

The goal of this option, known as "binary choice," would be to "maximize deterrence and consequences for families," according to a person familiar with the agenda for one of the officials' meetings.

This is exactly what I predicted would happen when Trump signed his executive order on immigration — that the public outrage about family separations would be exploited and misappropriated by the Trump Regime in defense of family internment. Fucking hell.

GOP: “Let’s steal more children from parents.”

Pundits on Sunday shows: “Why are liberals so nasty?”

— Marc Love 🏳️‍🌈 (@marcslove) October 21, 2018

[CN: Nativism] Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Trump Immigration Policy Breaks up a Military Family, Yet Again. "Furman, a former Canadian army captain, served in Afghanistan alongside American troops, and says he even achieved 'top-level security clearance,' according to the Guardian. The 47-year-old's work included stints alongside the CIA and the DEA. For good measure, his wife, Cynthia Furman, even worked as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. But as the Globe and Mail detailed last week, none of that mattered to the current administration, or to those working at Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE). ICE held the former artillery captain for months, due to a decades-old marijuana conviction — a conviction that had already been pardoned by the Canadian government."

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[CN: Abduction, violence, and death. Covers entire section.]

Martin Chulov at the Guardian: Jamal Khashoggi: Murder in the Consulate. "In the extraordinary 19 days since his disappearance and death, the fate of the 59-year old columnist and critic has steadily been pieced together. What happened inside the consulate walls has been traced to the doors of the Saudi royal court, sparked revulsion around the world, exposed the kingdom like no other event since the twin terror attacks of 9/11, and seen Washington and Riyadh shamelessly concoct a cover-up to protect their mutual interests and attempt to shield the powerful heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Salman."

Gul Tuysuz, Salma Abdelaziz, Ghazi Balkiz, Ingrid Formanek, and Clarissa Ward at CNN: Surveillance Footage Shows Saudi 'Body Double' in Khashoggi's Clothes After He Was Killed, Turkish Source Says.

A member of the 15-man team suspected in the death of Jamal Khashoggi dressed up in his clothes and was captured on surveillance cameras around Istanbul on the day the journalist was killed, a senior Turkish official has told CNN.

CNN has obtained exclusive law enforcement surveillance footage, part of the Turkish government's investigation, that appears to show the man leaving the consulate by the back door, wearing Khashoggi's clothes, a fake beard, and glasses.

The same man was seen in Khashoggi's clothing, according to the Turkish case, at the city's world-famous Blue Mosque just hours after the journalist was last seen alive entering the consulate on October 2.

The man in the video, identified by the official as Mustafa al-Madani, was allegedly part of what investigators have said was a hit squad, sent to kill the journalist at the Saudi consulate during a scheduled appointment to get papers for his upcoming wedding.

Tamer El-Ghobashy, Kareem Fahim, and Carol Morello at the Washington Post: Saudi Attempts to Distance Crown Prince from Khashoggi Killing Haven't Quieted Uproar. "Saudi Arabia's foreign minister denied on Sunday that the nation's powerful young crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi's killing, but the attempt to distance Mohammed bin Salman from the journalist's demise did little to blunt an international uproar that could test Saudi Arabia's status as a regional ­power. At the same time, Saudi officials have failed to answer questions about where Khashoggi's remains are and have offered inconsistent narratives for how he was killed, undermining the government's assertion that Khashoggi died after a fistfight broke out when he was confronted by agents seeking to bring him back to Riyadh while he was visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2."

Kate Riga at TPM: Diplomats Disgusted with Pompeo's, Trump's Acceptance of Saudi Excuses. "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman last week, replete with broad grins and obsequiously grateful press releases, struck a discordant note with many in the light of the meeting's purpose: to suss out the details of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder. ...'Pompeo did not handle this well,' a former State Department official told Vanity Fair. 'I don't think it would have been difficult to be more somber in meetings and more nuanced in comments afterward.' 'Certainly from where I sit, it is discouraging to see the administration seemingly subordinate our values to other interests in such an egregious case,' a current State Department official added."

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Andrew Osborn and Tom Balmforth at Reuters: Kremlin: We'll Respond in Kind If U.S. Develops Intermediate Missiles. "The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia would be forced to respond in kind if the United States began developing new missiles after quitting a landmark Cold War-era treaty. [Donald] Trump said on Saturday that Washington would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty because Russia was violating the pact, triggering a warning of retaliatory measures from Moscow. ...'This is a question of strategic security. Such measures can make the world more dangerous,' [Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov] said of the planned U.S. withdrawal."

[CN: Enslavement; exploitation] Betsy Woodruff at the Daily Beast: American Defense Contractor Accused of Enslaving U.S. Citizen Linguists. "A major American defense contractor held its translators in a tent city under slave-like conditions, breaking U.S. anti-slavery laws, according to allegations in a 2016 federal lawsuit that was recently unsealed. Under threat of arrest in Kuwait, the translators were held in tents where the temperature regularly topped 100 degrees. Company representatives seized their passports and indicated they would go to prison if they tried to escape. ...'These U.S.-citizen linguists are heroes — they go into combat unarmed to help minimize the chaos of the battlefield and gather intelligence,' said Joseph Hennessey, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in both lawsuits. 'To have been treated so horrifically is unfathomable.'"

[CN: Class warfare] Olivia Paschal at the Atlantic: The Problem with Pence's New Talking Point. "At a rally last week in Wichita, Kansas, as Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a swing of campaign appearances across the Midwest, he unveiled a new GOP talking point. 'We're gonna stand firm and get a farm bill that includes work requirements for people, able-bodied Americans, on food stamps, so we get people back into the workforce and back enjoying the dignity of work,' Pence told the crowd, gathered at an old hangar near McConnell Air Force Base. 'We're going to do it.' He's probably wrong. The evidence that the new work requirements will hurt more than they help is mounting. ...Pence's support for 'dignity in work' belies the reality of the work requirements: According to a new study from the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project, most SNAP recipients are either already working or physically can't."

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