We Resist: Day 838

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: The U.S. Is Taking Migrant Children into Custody and Neglecting Them and Trump Would Have Been Charged If He Weren't President, Say Hundreds of Federal Prosecutors and Primarily Speaking and Police Had — and Concealed — Cell Phone Video Shot by Sandra Bland.

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

Manu Raju, Jeremy Herb, and Jeremy Diamond at CNN: White House Instructs McGahn Not to Comply with Democrats' Subpoena. "The White House has instructed former White House Counsel Don McGahn not to comply with a subpoena for documents from House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, in the latest oversight showdown between the White House and congressional Democrats. ...McGahn's decision not to comply with the subpoena could push Nadler to hold McGahn in contempt of Congress, just as he's moving to do with Attorney General William Barr after the Justice Department defied a subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence."

Tom McCarthy at the Guardian: Trump Tax Returns: Democrats to Fight for Release After Mnuchin Refusal. "House Democrats are expected to file a lawsuit or a subpoena with the federal tax authorities for Donald Trump's returns now that the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has refused to hand them over — in the latest twist of an escalating war between Congress and the executive branch of the U.S. government. The Treasury department on Monday afternoon denied a request by Congress for copies of Trump's tax returns, saying that Congress had overstepped its bounds in requesting them."

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: The Nightmare Scenario for Democrats on Trump's Corruption.

The administration's categorical refusal to release [Donald] Trump's tax returns heightens the difficult question Democrats face, and raises the prospect of a nightmare scenario — both in political and substantive terms.

Democrats must now choose between continuing to pursue the returns through conventional channels, which carries some risk of failure, and getting serious about impeachment hearings, which would likely minimize that risk to the greatest extent possible.

If Democrats go with the first, it raises at least the possibility that they could squander months in court, only to fail to secure Trump's returns at the end — at which point they'd decide it's too late to pursue impeachment, because 2020 would be looming.

...Not getting Trump's returns would allow him to get away with one of his most blatant acts of contempt for transparency, for the separation of powers and for the notion that basic accountability should apply to him at all.

...Democrats (and other impeachment skeptics) need to more forthrightly engage with the argument that the failure to do this could end up with Democratic oversight mostly being neutered, with no remaining options.

Yes, Democrats could then beat Trump in 2020. But what if they don't, after having seen their oversight efforts largely blocked, and having failed to exercise all the powers they have at their disposal?

IMPEACH. HIM. NOW.

Meanwhile...

Mitch McConnell says no more investigations of Trump's campaign: "Case closed." Which, to be clear, is the Senate Majority Leader announcing his intention to keep protecting the president in contravention of his Constitutional obligations to We the People. https://t.co/bYX3Lnw5jX

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 7, 2019

We are just in so much trouble. Goddammit.

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[Content Note: Threats of violence] Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins at the Guardian: CIA Warns Arab Activist of Potential Threat from Saudi Arabia.

The CIA has warned Norway that a prominent Arab activist who is living in the country under asylum protection is facing a potential threat from Saudi Arabia, the Guardian has learned.

The pro-democracy activist, İyad el-Baghdadi, is a vocal critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

El-Baghdadi was alerted to the threat on 25 April, when Norwegian authorities arrived at his doorstep, took him to a secure location, and warned him he was in possible danger from an unspecified threat emanating from the kingdom.

The activist was told the threat had been passed on to Norwegian authorities by a foreign intelligence agency, which the Guardian has confirmed was the CIA.

"The way I understood it was, the Saudis have a crosshairs on me, but there is no idea of what they are going to do," El-Baghdadi said in a phone interview with the Guardian.

"They assured me that they are taking it very seriously. They came prepared," he said, noting that authorities had arrived with two squads: one to whisk him away, and another to ensure they were not being followed.

...Last year, after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist and U.S. resident working for the Washington Post who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, El-Baghdadi warned on Twitter that Prince Mohammed would become more dangerous if he was not held to account by western allies. "If they get away with kidnapping the next step will be assassinations in your capitals, and I'm not joking even a little bit," he tweeted.

[CN: Violence; death] Kevin Freking for the AP at ABC News: Trump Pardons Former U.S. Soldier Who Killed Iraqi Prisoner. "Donald Trump has pardoned a former U.S. soldier convicted in 2009 of killing an Iraqi prisoner, the White House announced Monday. Trump signed an executive grant of clemency, a full pardon, for former Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna, of Oklahoma, press secretary Sarah Sanders said. Behenna was convicted of unpremeditated murder in a combat zone after killing a suspected al-Qaida terrorist in Iraq."

Kate Riga at TPM: Inauguration Contractor and Ex-Aide to First Lady Says She Was 'Thrown Under the Bus'. "Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a contractor for [Donald] Trump's inauguration and former aide to first lady Melania Trump, says she was not dismissed from her role but 'thrown under the bus' last year. She disputed to the New York Times that she had been forced out over excessive profits from her role in the inauguration and said she is working with federal prosecutors who are investigating the spending and fundraising of the inaugural committee."

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[CN: War on agency; misogyny] As a perfect, terrible example of how the Republican Party continues to impose its agenda of malice in state governance across the country, too...

Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Ariana Eunjung Cha at the Washington Post: Georgia Governor Signs 'Heartbeat Bill,' Giving the State One of the Most Restrictive Abortion Laws in the Nation.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed a controversial "heartbeat" bill into law on Tuesday, outlawing most abortions once a doctor detects what some call "a fetal heartbeat in the womb," usually about six weeks into a pregnancy.

His signature could launch a court battle that supporters hope will challenge abortion rights all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill was signed at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the governor's ceremonial office at the state Capitol.

Kemp said he is upholding his promise to enact the "toughest abortion bill in the country."

"Georgia is a state that values life," Kemp said before putting his signature to the Life Act.

Except, of course, that Republicans in George do not actually value life at all, at least not the lives of women. (And others who can become pregnant.)

Lauren Padgett at 11Alive: Georgia One of the Worst States for Working Moms, Study Finds. "Georgia came in seventh-worst among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for working moms. WalletHub compared the states across three key dimensions: Child care, professional opportunities, and work-life balance."

All of which are significant factors for pregnant people with an unplanned pregnancy. Republicans know this; they don't care.

Malice is the agenda.

And, by way of reminder, this wouldn't have been possible if Brian Kemp hadn't leveraged his position to steal the election for himself and deny the governorship to Stacey Abrams. Republicans will kill democracy in order to gain control over marginalized people's bodies and lives. Again and again and again.

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