We Resist: Day 837

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 Friday and earlier today by me: The Collusion Is Still Right out in the Open and The Trump Regime Wants a War with Iran and Primarily Speaking.

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

Nancy Pelosi's “coldblooded” plan for defeating President Trump, who she worries would challenge a slim Democratic victory in 2020, focuses on moderate voters and avoiding a protracted impeachment bid https://t.co/0ZdhgAc80Z

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) May 6, 2019

DISAGREE.

At this point, you can safely assume that I strongly disagree with any approach that is not impeachment. And, yes, I am aware that there are political risks to that strategy, and, yes, I am aware that impeachment hearings would not result in Donald Trump's removal from office, so long as the Republican majority in the Senate refuses to do the goddamn job they were elected to do as defined by the Constitution.

I am not persuaded to demur from advocating doing the right thing by these arguments. It is ethical and necessary to hold impeachment hearings for Donald Trump and Bill Barr. That's all that matter to me at this point.

Speaking of Barr... House Judiciary Dems at Medium: Wednesday: House Judiciary to Markup Contempt Report for AG Barr.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee noticed a markup of a contempt report for Attorney General William Barr's failure to comply with a duly issued subpoena to provide Congress with the full, unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report along with underlying evidence. The contempt markup is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 at 10 a.m.

..."The Attorney General's failure to comply with our subpoena, after extensive accommodation efforts, leaves us no choice but to initiate contempt proceedings in order to enforce the subpoena and access the full, unredacted report. If the Department presents us with a good faith offer for access to the full report and the underlying evidence, I reserve the right to postpone these proceedings," [wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler in a statement].

Don't make any deals. Set the deadline. If the Department of Justice fails to deliver exactly what's been demanded by that date, hold Barr in contempt. And then move forward with impeachment hearings. DO YOUR JOBS.

Meanwhile... Trump is losing his shit on Twitter at the news that Special Counsel Bob Mueller made preliminary, tentative plans to appear before a House Committee:

....to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

"Bob Mueller should not testify." This president and his Attorney General are publicly obstructing justice. That is why we need impeachment hearings. Does the rule of law matter in this country or doesn't it?!

And of course Trump didn't stop there.

Isaac Stanley-Becker at the Washington Post: Claiming Two Years of His Presidency Were 'Stolen,' Trump Suggests He's Owed Overtime. Not overtime pay, mind you. More time in office.

[Trump] retweeted a proposal offered by Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, that he be granted another two years in office as recompense for time lost to the Russia investigation. Half of his first term, Trump wrote in a Twitter dispatch of his own, had been "stolen."

[Falwell tweeted:] "After the best week ever for @realDonaldTrump — no obstruction, no collusion, NYT admits @BarackObama did spy on his campaign, & the economy is soaring. I now support reparations — Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup."

Everything about this is disgusting, from making a mockery of the idea of slave reparations to asserting that Trump should grab two more years as president regardless of the will of the voters.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Erica Orden at CNN: Former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen Reports to Prison for Three-Year Term. "[Cohen] reported Monday to a federal prison in Otisville, New York, where he will begin serving a three-year sentence. 'I hope that when I rejoin my family and friends that the country will be in a place without xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country,' Cohen told a throng of reporters gathered outside his apartment in Manhattan on Monday morning, before ducking into a black Escalade SUV. 'There still remains much to be told,' he added. 'And I look forward to the day that I can share the truth.'"

If Cohen actually gave two shits about "xenophobia, injustice, and lies at the helm of our country," he would tell the truth now.

Saleha Mohsin at Politico: Mnuchin Juggles Day Job Alongside Shielding Trump's Tax Returns. "On Monday, Mnuchin is expected to hold off on House Democrats' request to release Trump's returns. It's the first time a Treasury chief has had to juggle concerns about releasing a president's personal information with other parts of the job: overseeing the $16 trillion Treasuries market, maintaining economic pressure on global threats, such as North Korea, and leading economic diplomacy with international counterparts. Monday's response will be Mnuchin's third attempt to stave off House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal's request for six years of Trump's personal returns, as well as those of the Trump Organization."

This entire fucking administration. Goddammit.

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[CN: Anti-choice terrorism] Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: Arson Attempt, Trespassing, and Harassment: The Consequences of Extreme Anti-Abortion Rhetoric.

No one has ever tried to burn Whole Woman's Health of McAllen down until now, notably during a time when Republican lawmakers have repeatedly accused people who have abortions and their doctors of infanticide, and [Donald] Trump has used his bully pulpit to elevate this lie.

While the president has never explicitly asked his supporters to incite violence, he has graphically accused providers who perform abortion later in pregnancy of murder.

During his 2019 State of the Union address, which had 46.8 million viewers, Trump lied and said a New York law codifying Roe v. Wade would "allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth." Last weekend at a rally, Trump lied again, saying providers and patients weigh whether or not to "execute the baby" after birth.

"This kind of language is an invitation to that radical fringe," said [Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health]. "It pitches women as murderers and providers as murderers and so, I mean, I would think that all of us are against murder, right? And so it's like this call to action," she added.

This is stochastic terrorism.

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Brad Plumer at the New York Times: Humans Are Speeding Extinction and Altering the Natural World at an 'Unprecedented' Pace.

In most major land habitats, from the savannas of Africa to the rain forests of South America, the average abundance of native plant and animal life has fallen by 20 percent or more, mainly over the past century.

With the human population passing 7 billion, activities like farming, logging, poaching, fishing, and mining are altering the natural world at a rate "unprecedented in human history."

At the same time, a new threat has emerged: Global warming has become a major driver of wildlife decline, the assessment found, by shifting or shrinking the local climates that many mammals, birds, insects, fish, and plants evolved to survive in.

As a result, biodiversity loss is projected to accelerate through 2050, particularly in the tropics, unless countries drastically step up their conservation efforts.

This is terrifying. Especially because the likelihood of enough major countries "stepping up their conservation efforts" to make a meaningful difference in short order is vanishingly small.

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[CN: War; death] Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Israeli Strikes in Gaza Kill 25, Including Pregnant Women and Children, Before Ceasefire.

Attacks by Israel in the Gaza Strip killed at least 25 people, including children and two pregnant women, over the weekend, ahead of a tentative ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas and the Islamic Jihad on Monday morning.

...The fighting — the worst of its kind between Israel and Gaza since 2014 — appears to have begun on Friday, when two Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers during weekly protests along the Israel-Gaza fence, the Palestinian health ministry said. During those same protests, a Gaza sniper injured two Israeli soldiers. Israel retaliated by killing two Palestinians, identified as Hamas militants. Beginning on Saturday, militants in Gaza launched rockets into Israel, killing four Israelis over the course of the weekend.

According to news reports, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad fired more than 200 rockets toward southern Israel. In return, the Israeli military said it struck 350 militant targets and has denied accounts of the death of a pregnant woman and her infant niece, blaming the killings on attacks by Hamas.

Awful.

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