We Resist: Day 788

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: Christchurch Shooting: Thread for Discussion and Primarily Speaking and 7 U.S. Military Members Found to Belong to White Supremacist Group Identity Evropa.

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

[Content Note: Gun violence; death] Jon Henley at the Guardian: Utrecht Tram Shooting: Three Dead as Police Hunt Gunman. "Armed police were searching multiple buildings in the Dutch city of Utrecht on Monday after a possible terrorist shooting on a tram left at least three people dead and nine injured, some seriously. ...The mayor of Utrecht, Jan van Zanen, said in a video statement [that] police 'are not ruling out — in fact, we are assuming' a terrorist motive. He said authorities were searching for 'definitely one' suspect, who had been identified, but that there may be more, and asked all residents to stay at home for the time being to facilitate the work of the police." Fucking hell.

[CN: Violent rhetoric] David Leonhardt at the New York Times: It Isn't Complicated: Trump Encourages Violence.

The president of the United States suggested last week that his political supporters might resort to violence if they didn't get their way.

The statement didn't even get that much attention. I'm guessing you heard a lot more about the college-admissions scandal than about the president's threat of extralegal violence.

..."You know, the left plays a tougher game. It's very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don't play it tougher. O.K.? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

This wasn't the first time Trump had mused about violence, of course. He has talked about "Second Amendment people" preventing the appointment of liberal judges. He's encouraged police officers to bang suspects' heads against car roofs. He has suggested his supporters "knock the hell" out of hecklers. At a rally shortly before 2018 Election Day, he went on a similar riff about Bikers for Trump and the military.

...It isn't very complicated: The man with the world's largest bully pulpit keeps encouraging violence and white nationalism. Lo and behold, white-nationalist violence is on the rise. You have to work pretty hard to persuade yourself that's just a big coincidence.

Yes, of course Donald Trump encourages violence. Here I am last July, writing about Trump and his ongoing campaign of stochastic terrorism—that is, dehumanizing his "enemies" and then waiting for his most radical/unstable supporters to take violent action. https://t.co/cKpYxHYJOP

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) March 18, 2019

Stephen Collinson at CNN: Trump Finds Plenty to Be Outraged About — Aside from New Zealand. "Donald Trump spent the weekend venting venom at a bewildering list of targets — even as much of the rest of the world was still trying to come to terms with a true outrage: the carnage wrought against Muslims in New Zealand. In a stunning display of personal grievances aired on Twitter, Trump demanded the return of a supportive Fox News host who was missing from her usual spot on Saturday after verbally attacking an American Muslim lawmaker. He escalated his beyond-the-grave feud with late Sen. John McCain. He complained at being lampooned by NBC's Saturday Night Live. Trump also fulminated against the Russia investigation, 'Radical Left Democrats,' and took shots at an Ohio union boss before demanding a now-closed GM plant in Ohio be reopened or sold. ...[T]his weekend's tirade came across as even more jarring given his tepid tone on Friday when he said that he didn't think white supremacy was a growing global problem after the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50."

Ed Pilkington at the Guardian: Trump Administration Ignoring Human Rights Monitors, ACLU Tells UN. "The Trump administration is coming under fire for its refusal to engage with international human rights monitors over potential violations inside the U.S., from police brutality and executions to the abuse of migrant children at the border. Protests have poured in from organisations objecting to the government's virtual boycott of established systems designed to protect human rights, after the U.S. withdrew from the United Nations human rights council last year. Washington is accused of rebuffing official complaints from monitors, undermining human rights bodies, and threatening officials with prosecution should they set foot on U.S. soil."

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Robert Faturechi and Justin Elliott at ProPublica: Federal Authorities Raided Trump Fundraiser's Office in Money Laundering Probe. "Federal authorities raided the office of Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy last summer, seeking records related to his dealings with foreign officials and Trump administration associates, according to a sealed search warrant obtained by ProPublica. ...Broidy served as a major Trump campaign fundraiser and was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until he resigned in April 2018, when it was revealed he had agreed to secretly pay off a former Playboy model in exchange for her silence about their affair. The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering, and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Susan Page and Deborah Barfield Berry at USA Today: Half of Americans Say Trump Is Victim of a 'Witch hunt' as Trust in Mueller Erodes. "Amid signs that special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference may be near its conclusion, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds that trust in Mueller has eroded and half of Americans now agree with [Donald] Trump's contention that he has been the victim of a 'witch hunt.' Support for the House of Representatives to seriously consider impeaching the president has dropped since last October by 10 percentage points, to 28 percent." Goddammit.

And of course Trump used the same bully pulpit he used to unleash this propaganda in the first place to respond to the news that his campaign of bullshit was working:

Wow! A Suffolk/USA Today Poll, just out, states, “50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Mueller’s investigation is a Witch Hunt.” @MSNBC Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2019

We are so doomed.

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[CN: Flooding; displacement] AP Staff at TPM: Hundreds of Missouri Homes Flood as River Breeches Levees. "Hundreds of homes have flooded in northwest Missouri after the Missouri River overtopped and breached several levees following heavy rain and snowmelt upstream, local officials said Monday. Many homes in the mostly rural area were inundated with 6 to 7 feet (1.8 to 2.1 meters) of water, Holt County Emergency Management Director Tom Bullock said. ...Residents in parts of southwest Iowa were forced from their homes Sunday because of the flooded river, which has also displaced hundreds of people in Nebraska after a massive late-winter storm hit the Midwest last week."

[CN: War on agency] Rachel Wells at Rewire.News: Tennessee City Officials Are Using Zoning Rules to Erode Access to Abortion. "The day after carafem, a provider of reproductive health-care services, opened in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, a city council meeting was called. The lone council agenda item: a zoning amendment restricting surgical abortions to industrial areas. The new carafem clinic, located in a commercial area, would be affected. The amendment passed unanimously. The hastily scheduled meeting lasted a grand total of four minutes. ...'Writing zoning laws to deny access to essential health care is unfair and mean-spirited,' said Ashley Coffield, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi. 'I'm not aware of any other community in Tennessee that has used this approach to hurt a qualified medical provider that is just trying to help women get the care they need.'"

[CN: Homophobia] Trudy Ring at the Advocate: Trump Budget Would Harm the Neediest LGBTQ Americans. "Donald Trump's proposed 2020 budget, unveiled this week, includes cuts that would greatly hurt LGBTQ Americans and people with HIV, according to activists and political observers. Cuts to housing programs, for instance, would have an ill effect on LGBTQ people, who rely on federal assistance for housing more so than the general public... Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as food stamps, would likewise disproportionately affect LGBTQ people. ...Trump further seeks to cut Medicaid, Medicare, and spending for HIV and AIDS services. ...'LGBTQ Americans were right to be skeptical about [Donald] Trump's pledge to end HIV and AIDS and [the] budget revealed the truth: This administration is not serious about this fight,' said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO at GLAAD, in a press release."

[CN: Class warfare; lack of healthcare access] Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Americans Are Dying Because They Can't Afford Their Insulin; That's Now a 2020 Campaign Issue. "Once a month, Sarah Stark makes the trip to her local pharmacy to pick up the insulin she needs to keep her diabetes in check. She has health insurance through her job and uses a $100 manufacturer's coupon to help defray the cost. Even so, she ends up paying a whopping $728.40. ...More than 30 million people in the United States have diabetes and as of last year, an estimated 7.4 million people like Stark used insulin daily, according to the American Diabetes Association."

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