We Resist: Day 659

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, November 09, 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: The Thousand Oaks Shooting: Updates and Bernie Sanders, What Are You Even Doing This Time? And ICYMI late yesterday: Mueller's Investigation Is in Big Trouble, Folks.

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

In good news:


[Content Note: Nativism] And in very fucking bad news:


In sum: Trump has issued a proclamation that basically says he can deny refugees asylum as long as he demonizes them as a threat to national security. This is so fucking bad.

Meanwhile, if any reporters try to question him on this nativist nightmare:


We are so fucked.

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Katie Benner at the New York Times: Sessions, in Last-Minute Act, Sharply Limits Use of Consent Decrees to Curb Police Abuses. "Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has drastically limited the ability of federal law enforcement officials to use court-enforced agreements to overhaul local police departments accused of abuses and civil rights violations, the Justice Department announced on Thursday. In a major last-minute act, Mr. Sessions signed a memorandum on Wednesday before [Donald] Trump fired him sharply curtailing the use of so-called consent decrees, court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governments that create a road map of changes for law enforcement and other institutions. The move means that the decrees, used aggressively by Obama-era Justice Department officials to fight police abuses, will be more difficult to enact." A racist asshole to the last!

Kate Riga at TPM: The Endangered Zinke Is Casting About for a Life Raft, Maybe at Fox News. "Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has his irons in the fire, casting about for potential employment opportunities as it becomes increasingly likely that he'll fall under [Donald] Trump's post-midterm axe. According to a Thursday Politico report, Zinke has inquired into positions at Fox News, boards of directors at energy companies, and private equity firms. Zinke's spokesperson derided the rumors as 'laughably false' and belonging on the satirical website 'The Onion.' A Fox News spokesperson denied the reports." And they're always honest, so.

Ed Mazza at the Huffington Post: Lindsey Graham Awkwardly Tries to Walk Back Vow to Unleash 'Holy Hell' on Trump. "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is attempting to explain his reversal on a 2017 threat that there would be 'holy hell to pay' if [Donald] Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Although Sessions got the boot this week, Graham vowed instead to work with Trump 'to find a confirmable, worthy successor.' When confronted with his previous comments on Thursday, Graham chuckled. 'When was that? What year?' he asked." What a fucking shitwheel he is.

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In continuing election news...

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Staff at CBS News with the AP: Democrat Kyrsten Sinema Pulls Ahead in Razor-Close Arizona Senate Race. "Democrat Kyrsten Sinema pulled ahead of Republican Martha McSally on Thursday in the Arizona Senate race by a margin of 2,000 votes. This marked the first time that Sinema has pulled ahead of McSally in the days since the election. An additional 120,000 outstanding ballots were made available from Maricopa County Thursday. The county encompasses Phoenix and some of the state's liberal enclaves. There are an 345,000 ballots that needed to be counted per a knowledgeable source with the Arizona Secretary of State's office."

Will Sommer at the Daily Beast: Republicans Freak Out as New Ballots Threaten Florida Senate Win. "As the Republican margin in Florida's U.S. Senate race narrowed and the contest headed toward a manual recount...Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is clinging to a roughly 34,000-vote lead over Sen. Bill Nelson (D), held a press conference at the Florida governor's mansion in which he called on law enforcement to launch an investigation and announced that he and the National Republican Senate Committee were bringing a lawsuit against officials in Broward County, where many votes are still being counted. In other words, the state governor used his state-funded official residence to launch legal action against his own state's election officials about an election he was a candidate in."


Rage. Seethe. Boil.

Tom Dart at the Guardian: Black Girl Magic: 19 Black Women Ran for Judge in Texas County — and All 19 Won. "While Beto O'Rourke's bid to oust Ted Cruz for a U.S. Senate seat may have stolen midterms headlines this week, another 'Texas miracle' was under way in Harris county, where 19 African American women ran for judge — and all won. They campaigned together under the slogan 'Black Girl Magic' with the support of the Harris county Democratic party, and united for a pre-election photograph inside a courtroom. Their victories marked an unprecedented level of success for black female judicial candidates in the county, which includes Houston." YES!

Jason Burke and Abdalle Ahmed Mumin at the Guardian: 'She's Made Us Proud': Ilhan Omar's Journey from Somali Refugee to U.S. Congresswoman. "In 1995, Omar arrived in the U.S. as a refugee, settling first in Arlington, Virginia, before moving to Minneapolis in 1997. She won a seat in the state's legislature in 2016, becoming the first Somali-American lawmaker in the country. She had previously worked as a community organiser, a policy wonk for city leaders in Minneapolis, and as a leader in her local chapter of the African-American civil rights group NAACP. 'I saw her on the television last night when her election victory was projected. Well done I can say. She tried her best. Thank God she has won now,' said [Fadumo Kuusow, who still lives in a refugee settlements near the remote Kenyan town of Dadaab, where Omar was once her neighbor]."

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[CN: Wildfires.] Kyla Mandel at ThinkProgress: Adding to Historic Wildfire Season, California Suffers Three Rapid Growing, Late-Season Fires.
The rapidly-spreading Camp Fire erupted Thursday and overnight effectively devastated the entire town of Paradise, home to 27,000 people northeast of San Francisco. First reported at 6:30 in the morning, by noon the fire was spreading an astonishing 80 acres per minute. As of Friday morning it had burned 20,000 acres.

"Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," the AP reported CALFIRE Captain Scott McLean saying. "The wind that was predicted came and just wiped it out."

...At the same time as the Camp Fire, some 75,000 homes were also evacuated due to the Woolsey Fire just north of Los Angeles. Spreading across 8,000 acres, the evacuations have been described as "unprecedented for the area," LA Bureau chief Jon Passantino tweeted.

At the same time, it took just 12 minutes for the Hill Fire — burning just 9 miles away from the Woolsey Fire — to jump Highway 101, consuming 10,000 acres.

The full extent of the damage is still being assessed and as of Friday morning the fires were "zero percent contained." The three fires, all fueled by intense seasonal winds, add to an already unprecedented fire season this year.

This summer saw 16 different fires in California alone.
My god. The threat is still nowhere near over. And this is going to be our new normal, because of climate change that our president and his party refuse to even acknowledge is real.

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