We Resist: Day 764

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, February 22, 2019
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: Get Your $h!t Together, Republicans and House Democrats Introduce Resolution to Block Trump's National Emergency Declaration and Trump Regime to Start Prohibiting Work Permits for Immigrant Spouses. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation.

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

[Content Note: Terrorism; video may autoplay at second link] Donald Trump continues to maintain radio silence on Christopher Paul Hasson, the conservative white military man accused of planning a massive act of terrorism against the president's "enemies," despite the fact that Hasson made his first appearance in court today. Ali Rogin and James Levinson at ABC News report:
A man allegedly caught researching acts of domestic terrorism and amassing more than a dozen firearms will spend at least two weeks in federal custody, a Maryland federal judge decided today.

U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, was arrested on charges of firearm and drug possession, but Judge Charles Day said that Hasson's internet search history, as well as previous letters and emails he had allegedly written, were enough to warrant him a danger to the community.

Speaking on behalf of the prosecution, Jennifer Sykes said that the gun and drug possession charges were "just the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the extent of Hasson's alleged crimes, indicating that they may attempt to charge him as a domestic terrorist allegedly planning to launch a major attack.

According to court documents filed Tuesday, Hasson was described as someone who had "espoused extremist views for years." In a draft email from June 2017 he allegedly wrote, "I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth. I think a plague would be most successful but how do I acquire the needed/ Spanish flu, botulism, anthrax not sure yet but will find something."

...The defendant also allegedly compiled a list of prominent Democratic lawmakers as well as journalists from CNN and MSNBC. Names on that list include presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and CNN's Van Jones.
As I noted yesterday, this didn't happen in a vacuum. Donald Trump has been waging a campaign of stochastic terrorism, rhetorically putting targets on the backs of his "enemies" and hoping that shamelessly violent wrecks among his cultists will do the rest.

And he is hardly alone in this endeavor. Just in the last day:

Staff at Media Matters: Frequent Fox News Guest Tells Laura Ingraham "We Are in a Civil War"; Suggests Everyone Buy Guns to Prepare for "Total War". "We are in a civil war in this country. There's two standards of justice — one for Democrats one for Republicans. The press is all Democrat, all liberal, all progressive, all left — they hate Republicans; they hate Trump. So the suggestion that there's ever going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future in this country is over. It's not going to be. It's going to be total war. And as I say to my friends, I do two things: I vote and I buy guns."

Also on Fox News:


Conservatives, led by Trump, are amping up the violent and eliminationist rhetoric. And they are keeping silent on the men who take their words seriously enough to act on them. They're playing with fire, and they know it. Indeed, that is the entire point.

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Sabrina Siddiqui at the Guardian: 'Even Nixon Wasn't Like Him': Trump's Bid to Upend Russia Inquiry Unprecedented, Experts Say. "From high-level firings to public misstatements, Trump's repeated steps to undermine the investigations that have clouded his two years in office paint a picture of a president who is his own worst enemy, legal experts say. 'It is quite clear from all the evidence that the president has had the intent to obstruct this investigation,' said Andy Wright, a former associate counsel to Barack Obama and the founding editor of the legal blog Just Security. 'It's been in plain sight. ...It's a fundamental abuse of power for the president to be trying to shut down an investigation in which he has a personal stake — both as a potential target himself and his political allies and family members,' he added."


[CN: Threats] Joshua Eaton at ThinkProgress: Judge Lights into Roger Stone over Threatening Instagram Post, Issues New Gag Order. "The federal judge overseeing former Trump campaign aide Roger Stone's criminal trial barred him on Thursday from speaking publicly about the case or anyone involved with it, just days after he posted a photo on Instagram that appeared to show her next to rifle crosshairs. His previous gag order only prevented him from speaking to press in or around the courthouse, but didn't prevent him from making media appearances." JFC.

William K. Rashbaum at the New York Times: New York Prosecutors Expected to Charge Manafort, Guarding Against Trump Pardon. "The Manhattan district attorney's office is preparing state criminal charges against Paul J. Manafort, [Donald] Trump's former campaign chairman, in an effort to ensure he will still face prison time even if the president pardons him for his federal crimes, according to several people with knowledge of the matter. ...The president has broad power to issue pardons for federal crimes, but no such authority in state cases."

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[CN: Sex crimes; possible sex abuse] Staff at the Daily Beast: New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Charged in Prostitution Sting. "Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, has been charged in a human trafficking and prostitution investigation. ...He is a close friend of [Donald] Trump, and frequent visitor to Trump's Florida estate Mar a Lago." Which is just down the road from the place where Kraft was allegedly videotaped "in a sex act at one of the spas." News is still breaking in this story, and it's not entirely clear as of this writing whether the sex workers were all trafficked young women, but there is a possibility they were, which would make this story far worse than a straightforward consensual sex act with a professional sex worker.

[CN: Sexual assault; rape culture]


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Eliana Johnson at Politico: Trump Aides Worry He'll Get Outfoxed in North Korea Talks. "Donald Trump is eagerly anticipating his second summit with Kim Jong Un, touting his 'really meaningful' relationship with the North Korean strongman and insisting he's ready to give up his nuclear arsenal. In Washington, he's pretty much the only one who feels that way. Many, including several of the president's top advisers, are less excited. Some have expressed trepidation not only that the summit, scheduled to take place next week in Hanoi, may not yield big results. They worry, too, that Trump, eager to declare victory on the world stage, could make big concessions in exchange for empty promises of denuclearization." That's exactly what's going to happen, because that's the entire directive for the puppet whose master wants to destabilize the region.


Relatedly:


Come on, Biden.

And finally... To be honest, I don't entirely understand this story (and the State Department is working very hard to ensure that none of us do), but it seems very troubling to me. Jacqueline Charles, David Ovalle, and Jay Weaver at the Miami Herald: Americans Arrested in Haiti with Arsenal of Guns Won't Face U.S. Charges.
The five heavily armed Americans arrested in Haiti earlier this week are back on their home soil and won't be facing any criminal charges in the United States — a decision already causing outrage among some Haitian leaders.

Federal sources told the Miami Herald that the men will not be charged criminally, but are being debriefed. They told U.S. authorities they were on the island providing private security for a "businessman" doing work with the Haitian government.

The five American citizens, who returned on a commercial flight to Miami on Wednesday night and were met by U.S. law enforcement, did not have any scheduled appearances in Miami federal court.

The U.S. Attorney's Office referred calls to the State Department, which said only: "The return of the individuals to the U.S. was coordinated with the Haitian authorities."

What promises the U.S. government made to secure the release of the men remain murky.
Oh.

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