We Resist: Day 750

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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Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Trump's Judiciary Will Haunt Us for Decades and The Bezos Story Is Profoundly Troubling and RIP John Dingell.

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

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker is testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today, and it's going about exactly as well as you'd expect:

Thread. And, as always, you should definitely be following @atrupar! https://t.co/uTSVicOkPe

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 8, 2019

[Content Note: Anti-choicery] Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: Supreme Court on 5-to-4 Vote Blocks Restrictive Louisiana Abortion Law. "Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined with the Supreme Court's liberals Thursday night to block a Louisiana law that opponents say would close most of the state's abortion clinics and leave it with only one doctor eligible to perform the procedure. The justices may yet consider whether the 2014 law — requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals — unduly burdens women's access to abortion. ...The majority, as is custom, did not give a reason for granting the stay. But it seems likely the full court will now grant the case a full briefing and review, and perhaps reexamine its earlier decision, which was made by a very different Supreme Court."

It's definitely curious that Roberts sided with the liberals here, to give abortion access a much-needed reprieve. I don't think it's because he has a newfound respect for reproductive justice. It may be because he's starting to get itchy about the legacy of the Roberts Supreme Court, which, care of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, is shaping up to be far more radical and right-wing than Roberts himself has been.

Or it could simply be what ThinkProgress' Ian Millhiser suggests here: "The best lesson to take from the high court's order in June Medical Services v. Gee is not that the Roberts Court will preserve the right to choose. Rather, the best lesson is that the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court, and even some of its Republican members care more about preserving its own position in the judicial hierarchy than they do about gutting Roe v. Wade."

[CN: Islamophobia; Christian Supremacy] In other SCOTUS news, care of Millhiser: The Supreme Court Just Handed Down a Truly Shocking Attack on Muslims. "The Supreme Court just handed down a brief order holding that a man named Domineque Ray must die without his spiritual adviser being made available to give him comfort. The decision was 5-4 along party lines. The case is Dunn v. Ray. Ray is a death row inmate, and there is no doubt that the state of Alabama may execute him. The only issue in this case was whether Ray, who is Muslim, may be killed with his imam at his side. Moreover, as Justice Elena Kagan notes in a dissenting opinion, 'a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites' under the prison's policy. So if Ray were a Christian, he would have his spiritual adviser present."

Another dire warning that the rest of the judiciary is moving right and getting radical:

"They want to see Roe v. Wade overturned or narrowed into oblivion, LGBT people permanently consigned to the margins of American life, and constitutional and civil rights encroached," said Sen. Mazie Hirono. https://t.co/5aT4zWKxw5 via @HuffPostPol

— Nadine van der Velde (@nadinevdVelde) February 8, 2019

[CN: Misogyny; anti-choicery; Christian Supremacy] IWHC Staff at the International Women's Health Coalition: Global HER Act, Scheming at the UN, and Religious Refusals. "In another failed attempt to export its anti-choice ideology at the United Nations, the Trump administration tried to block Michelle Bachelet's appointment to UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. Not surprisingly, Bachelet's vocal support for abortion rights was among the United States' chief concerns. ...The Trump administration is [also] finalizing a new policy that would expand protection to people who deny health care services based on their personal beliefs. The draft rule would allow health care providers — ranging from receptionists to doctors — to refuse to provide care if it violated their religious or moral opinions."

“Accidentally.” https://t.co/8YpqU3Bkct

— stacia l. brown (@slb79) February 7, 2019

Joshua Partlow, Nick Miroff, and David A. Fahrenthold at the Washington Post: 'My Whole Town Practically Lived There': From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a Pipeline of Illegal Workers for Trump Goes Back Years. "At his home on the misty slope of Costa Rica's tallest mountain, Dario Angulo keeps a set of photographs from the years he tended the rolling fairways and clipped greens of a faraway American golf resort. Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. ...Now the 34-year-old lives with his wife and daughters in a sturdy house built by 'Trump money,' as he put it, with a porch to watch the sun go down. ...'Many of us helped him get what he has today,' Angulo said. 'This golf course was built by illegals.'"

[CN: Shooting; death] Staff at CBS News: Customs Officer Shoots, Kills Driver at Port of Entry on U.S.-Mexico Border. "The mayor of Nogales, Arizona, said a major port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border was temporarily closed to traffic heading into Mexico after a customs officer shot and killed a southbound driver who refused to stop. Mayor Arturo Garino said he was told by city officials that the shooting took place after the truck apparently tried to run over the officer Thursday night at the DeConcini Port of Entry." Huh. Right after residents of Nogales complained about razor wire being added to the border fence there.

I'm guessing that the customs officer will face no penalty for this fatal shooting. Meanwhile... [CN: Nativism] Staff at Feminist Newswire: Four Humanitarian Aids Convicted for Leaving Water for Migrants. "U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernardo Velasco convicted four women of violating federal law for leaving water jugs and canned food in the Cabeza Prieta desert during the summer of 2017, when temperatures reached triple digits. The four women were charged with misdemeanor crimes that included entering a protected refuge without a permit, leaving personal property, and driving in a restricted area. Catherine Gaffney, a volunteer for No More Deaths, responded to the verdict by asking, 'If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?'"

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Jon Swaine at the Guardian: Rosenstein Did Not Want to Write Memo Justifying Comey Firing, According to a New Book. "The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, privately complained that he was ordered by [Donald] Trump to write the notorious memo justifying the firing of the FBI director James Comey, according to Comey's former deputy. Andrew McCabe writes in a new book that Rosenstein, who has publicly defended the memo, lamented that the president had directed him to rationalise Comey's dismissal, which is now the subject of inquiries into whether Trump obstructed justice." I literally couldn't care less about what Rosenstein said privately, and I'm sick of these abettors trying to rehabilitate themselves and each other by sharing what they supposedly said privately when, publicly, they were facilitating the fall of our democratic institutions.

Staff at the Daily Beast: Ivanka Trump: I Have 'Zero Concern' the Mueller Investigation Will Implicate Anyone I Love. "Ivanka Trump insists she has 'zero concern' that anyone close to her will be implicated when Robert Mueller draws his investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election to a close. Speaking to ABC News' Abby Huntsman, the president's daughter was asked, with the Mueller investigation coming to an end: 'Are you concerned about anyone in your life that you love being involved?' She responded: 'I'm not. I'm really not.'" Well, that's probably the first time Ivanka Trump and I have ever agreed on anything.

If you think Hillary lost because of Hillary take a look at the sudden implosion of democracy in western Europe: hacked campaigns, leaked documents, Steve Bannon, and data analytics. This formula (plus God knows what else) is swiftly installing pro-Putin fascists everywhere. https://t.co/m08UUZgrMJ

— Jennifer Cohn (@jennycohn1) February 8, 2019

[CN: Nuclear warfare] Rachel Becker at the Verge: Nuclear Winter Is Still a Hot Topic as a New Arms Race Heats Up. "Within the past week, the U.S. and Russia pulled out of a critical arms control agreement. The U.S. is ramping up production of a new mini-nuke that could change the landscape of nuclear conflict, according to Defense News. And North Korea doesn't appear willing to get rid of its nuclear weapons any time soon. As nuclear tensions start rising again, the threat of a nuclear winter is coming back into the frame. It's a subject worth talking about says Richard Turco, a professor emeritus at UCLA and one of the authors of the 1983 scientific paper that first proposed the idea. 'Although there is a relatively low probability of nuclear winter happening, the potential consequences would be catastrophic — namely the destruction of human civilization,' Turco says."

[CN: Climate change] Maddie Stone at Earther: Melting Ice Sheets Could Throw Earth's Climate into Disarray, Alarming Models Predict. "It's no secret that Earth's ice sheets are shrinking as temperatures rise. But this planetary meltdown isn't just a problem for coastal residents dealing with rising sea levels. New research suggests it could be a problem for all of us as the effects of ice loss ripple through the oceans and atmosphere. Models published Wednesday in Nature explore how all the water pouring off the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could impact ocean currents, and how that, in turn, could affect the global climate."

Seems like the people with the power to reverse climate change and prevent nuclear warfare and address other mass calamities should be doing something about that. Unless not stopping those things is actually the objective, of course.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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