We Resist: Day 868

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: Malice Is His Agenda. Compassion Is Mine. and Today Is the 75th Anniversary of D-Day and Primarily Speaking and Pelosi Still Won't Budge on Impeachment.

Let's start with some GOOD news today...

Tierney Sneed at TPM: North Carolina Republicans Fail to Overturn Governor's Veto of Anti-Abortion Bill. "North Carolina's legislature upheld Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto of an anti-abortion bill Wednesday afternoon. Only this year — after the 2018 midterms — did Democrats have enough seats in the legislature to end the GOP's supermajority in the statehouse, which had previously given Republicans the votes to override Cooper's vetoes."

The Republicans will keep fighting, especially their fight to keep gerrymandering the state so that Democrats can't even get a majority in the legislature anymore, but this is very good news for the moment. Yay!

And the battle continues nationally...

Dr. Leana Wen at Rewire.News: A State of Emergency in Missouri and Across the Country. "We are in a state of emergency for reproductive health in America, and it requires a true emergency response. Over the past few months, we've seen just how vulnerable access to safe, legal abortion is across the country. Anti-abortion politicians in states across the country have enacted extreme, dangerous, and unconstitutional abortion bans that will endanger lives. ...As an emergency physician, I don't use the words 'emergency' lightly. But I know one when I see it, and there is no denying that the United States is facing a state of emergency that must be addressed." This is a public health crisis.

Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress: Trump's Decision to End Federal Fetal Tissue Research Is Dangerous. "The Trump administration on Wednesday announced that it would end fetal tissue research by federal scientists, despite strong evidence of the benefits of using fetal tissue to research treatments and diseases that affect millions of people, including HIV, human development disorders, and various cancers. Ironically, the administration positioned the move as a way to protect the 'dignity of human life.'"

All of Mike Pence's wildest dreams are coming true.

Because Trump is letting him drive domestic policy. https://t.co/4WGqDEtsXn

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 5, 2019

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Mark Hosenball at Reuters: Still No Briefing for Senate Intel Panel on Mueller Report. "The only committee of the U.S. Congress running a genuinely bipartisan probe of Russian meddling in U.S. politics has still had no word from the Trump administration on briefing the panel about the Mueller report's counterintelligence findings, congressional sources said on Wednesday. ...Since the mid-April release of the redacted report, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been stonewalled in much the same way the administration has refused to cooperate with other committees, two congressional sources said."

[CN: Nativism] Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS News: Military to Spend a Month Painting Border Barriers to "Improve Aesthetic Appearance". "In its notification to Congress, DHS said [assigning members of the military to spend a month painting a mile-long stretch of barriers to improve their 'aesthetic appearance'] in Tucson, Arizona had allowed Border Patrol to combat the 'camouflaging tactics of illegal border crossers' who sought to evade detection. The agency said migrants also appeared to have 'greater difficulty' scaling painted bollards along the border. On Twitter, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-highest Democrat in the Senate, denounced the task as a 'disgraceful misuse' of taxpayer money. 'Our military has more important work to do than making Trump's wall beautiful,' he added."

[CN: Nativism; white supremacy; trans hatred; death]

NEW: Johana Medina died five days ago. Nearly all of the reporting about her death has included a dehumanizing statement from ICE, one published uncritically by journalists, even though it included a literal Nazi talking point. These details matter. https://t.co/pDYRqYXlxO

— Tina Vasquez (@TheTinaVasquez) June 6, 2019

Barbie Latza Nadeau at the Daily Beast: No Disciplinary Action for Top Military Brass Involved in Botched Niger Mission. "Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan said Thursday that he agreed with an independent investigation that cleared top military brass in a 2017 special-forces mission in Niger that left four U.S. soldiers dead. The Wall Street Journal reports Shanahan said none of the officers in charge of the mission that led to a deadly ambush of Green Berets by militants should be disciplined. The Pentagon inquiry recommended administrative discipline for 'mistakes and oversights' by nine of those involved in the fatal mission, but stopped short of further action that might have included dismissals from service."

My condolences once more to Myeshia Johnson.

I can't believe that was less than two years ago. It feels like sixteen eternities.

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Melanie Schmitz at ThinkProgress: Trump Says He'll Decide New China Tariffs Following G20, Amid Trade Battle with Republicans. "Donald Trump said Thursday that he would decide whether to impose a new round of tariffs on $325 billion worth of Chinese goods following the G20 summit in Osaka at the end of June. Trump's comments came during a joint appearance with French President Emmanuel Macron, not long after the U.S. president announced he might ratchet up his trade war with China to 'at least $300 billion' on Chinese goods."

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Alexander Nazaryan at Yahoo News: Trump Admits His Cabinet Had 'Some Clinkers'.

Raised on Norman Vincent Peale's "power positive thinking" quasi-philosophy, the president was attempting to convince both of us that his people really were the best people, even as evidence to the contrary presented itself daily in the form of damning news reports, mystifying congressional testimony, and ethics reports that read like treatments for Mafia movies.

"There are those that say we have one of the finest Cabinets," Trump claimed. That is not a commonly held view. In fact, it is difficult to think of anyone even halfway credible — Republican or Democrat — who has said anything approaching that.

...Trump did allow that there had been "some clinkers," by which he presumably meant people like EPA administrator Pruitt and HHS head Price, both of whom left the administration in disgrace, as did several other of their colleagues.

"But that's okay," he said of hiring men and women who turned out to be less than they seemed and less than he'd hoped. "Who doesn't?" True enough. But there's a difference between a clinker and a charlatan, a man who is no good at his job and a man who sets out to do that job poorly.

And there is a difference between someone who falls out of the president's favor because of incompetency and someone who falls out of the president's favor because of insufficient fealty.

Joshua Partlow, David A. Fahrenthold, and Taylor Luck at the Washington Post: A Wealthy Iraqi Sheikh Who Urges a Hardline U.S. Approach to Iran Spent 26 Nights at Trump's D.C. Hotel. "In July, a wealthy Iraqi sheikh named Nahro al-Kasnazan wrote letters to national security adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging them to forge closer ties with those seeking to overthrow the government of Iran. Kasnazan wrote of his desire 'to achieve our mutual interest to weaken the Iranian Mullahs regime and end its hegemony.' Four months later, he checked into the Trump International Hotel in Washington and spent 26 nights in a suite on the eighth floor — a visit estimated to have cost tens of thousands of dollars."

And finally, in possibly but probably still unlikely good news... Elizabeth Lopatto at the Verge: Bowing to Pressure, YouTube Will Reconsider Its Harassment Policies. "YouTube will reconsider its harassment policies and may update them, the company said in a new blog post. The statement was apparently prompted by public pressure on the company after a conflict between two YouTubers: Carlos Maza, who hosts for Vox, and Stephen Crowder, a conservative media personality. In response to backlash, YouTube has convened a blue-ribbon commission and appears to be hoping everyone will stop screaming." Lolsob.

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