We Resist: Day 869

Posted by Melissa McEwan at Friday, June 07, 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: Trump Administration to Open Mass Detention Facility for Migrant Children in Texas and Primarily Speaking.

Let's start with a whole bunch of GOOD resistance news today!

Auditi Guha at Rewire.News: There's a New Standard for Paid Family Leave Policy in the United States. "Starting in July 2021, workers in Connecticut can get up to 12 weeks off to care for themselves, their family, or a loved one. ...It has the most generous wage-replacement policy and would cover 95 percent of low-wage workers' pay, up to $900 a week for up to 12 weeks, and includes a broad definition of a loved one covered under the policy, including siblings, grandparents, or anyone 'equivalent of a family member,' even if the person is not of blood relation. This is a boon for single parents and LGBTQ people, who often have non-traditional support networks, advocates say." Yay!

Jessica Glenza at the Guardian: Why the Guardian Is Changing the Language It Uses to Describe Abortion Bans. "The Guardian will no longer use the term 'heartbeat bill' in reference to the restrictive abortion bans that are moving through state legislatures in the U.S. ...'We want to avoid medically inaccurate, misleading language when covering women's reproductive rights,' the Guardian's U.S. editor-in-chief, John Mulholland, said. 'These are arbitrary bans that don't reflect fetal development — and the language around them is often motivated by politics, not science.' The Guardian style guide already encourages editors to use 'anti-abortion' over 'pro-life' for clarity, and 'pro-choice' over 'pro-abortion.'" Terrific!

Kate Riga at TPM: Nadler Pushes Impeachment to Centralize Investigations into Trump. "Nadler crafted his pitch around two central points. One, that impeachment proceedings would centralize the investigations into [Donald] Trump and his administration currently sprawled across multiple committees, keeping it all contained within Judiciary. Second, Nadler argued that, procedurally, it's easy to get information and ask questions during impeachment proceedings than in regular House committee sessions." Excellent arguments. Keep pushing, Jerry!

And that's not all he's up to:


[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Ryan J. Reilly at the Huffington Post: House Democrats to Make It Easier to Find Trump Aides in Contempt, Bring Them to Court. "House Democrats are set to vote next week on a resolution that would make it easier for the House of Representatives to drag members of the Trump administration to court ― and to find them in contempt ― for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas. The resolution will also declare Attorney General William Barr and former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt of Congress, and authorize the civil enforcement of subpoenas in federal court. The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the resolution on Monday evening, and the full House could take it up on Tuesday."

Erin Banco and Asawin Suebsaeng at the Daily Beast: House Dems Preparing Investigation of Rudy Giuliani for Ukraine Shenanigans. "Top congressional Democrats are actively discussing opening a probe into Rudy Giuliani for his overseas political and consulting work, including a recent attempt to uncover dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, a source with direct knowledge tells The Daily Beast. The contours of a potential probe are still under consideration. But it would likely look at whether Giuliani's relationships with foreign politicos interfered or intersected with American foreign-policy efforts." (Spoiler Alert: They did!)

We all know that the Trump Regime is going to continue ignoring Democrats' authority, but I am nonetheless very glad that the Democrats continue to try to hold them accountable.

* * *

And now onto the not-good news...

[CN: Video may autoplay at link] Lee Moran at the Huffington Post: Donald Trump Uses D-Day Ceremony Interview to Rant About Nancy Pelosi. "With the graves of U.S. troops who sacrificed their lives in World War II behind him, [Donald] Trump gave an interview to Fox News and tore into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 'I think she's a disgrace,' Trump told Laura Ingraham in a sit-down pre-recorded at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. 'I actually don't think she's a talented person. I've tried to be nice to her because I would have liked to have gotten some deals done,' Trump added. 'She's incapable of doing deals; she's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.'" Fucking hell.

On Twitter, someone suggested that those troops died in part so that Trump would have the freedom to say even horrible things near their graves, but, as I noted in reply: Trump is not a private citizen. As president, he is both the head of government and the head of state. The rules and norms about what he can/should say are very different, and free speech laws do not apply.


Diana Ohlbaum and Rachel Stohl at Just Security: An 'Emergency' Arms Deal: Will Congress Acquiesce in Another Blow to Its Authority? "What exactly has changed to warrant an emergency declaration for additional arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE? It is not as if the Trump administration has been unable to make arms deals with the Middle East up until now. Since taking office, the Trump administration has approved more than $20 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and approximately $5 billion worth of sales to the UAE."


Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress: Two Cases Show the Astounding Breadth of the Supreme Court's War on Democracy. "These two cases, Kisor v. Wilkie and Gundy v. United States, are early stages of a much broader effort to transfer power from the executive branch — whose leader is elected, at least most of the time — to a judiciary that is unaccountable to voters and that is now controlled by the Republican Party. It is unclear whether the Supreme Court's right flank has the votes it needs to prevail in both cases, but both are bellwethers for an agenda that could leave the next Democratic president powerless to govern."

[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent; sexual assault; covers next two paragraphs] Jamie Ross at the Daily Beast: Missouri Forcing Women to Have Pelvic Exams 72 Hours Before Abortions, Says Doctor. "Missouri state officials are forcing physicians to perform pelvic exams on women ahead of abortions, according to a doctor who works at the last abortion clinic left in the state. David Eisenberg told the Los Angeles Times that, since the state's governor signed a law banning abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy, he's been forced to carry out the exams. ...'What I realized was I effectively have become an instrument of state abuse of power,' said Eisenberg. 'As a licensed physician, I am compelled by the state of Missouri to put my fingers in a woman's vagina when it's not medically necessary.'"

As I have noted previously, regarding state laws mandating medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasound probes, the state is victimizing abortion providers by coercing them into being their tools of sexual violence, and I am glad that Dr. Eisenberg is stating this plainly and also profoundly upset that he is being put in that position, along with abortion providers all over the country obliged to perform similarly invasive procedures with no purpose but to deter women from seeking abortions.

[CN: Queer hatred; white supremacy] Casey Quinlan at ThinkProgress: The Organizers Behind Boston's Straight Pride Parade Should Concern You. "The three men organizing the parade, planned for August 31 [in Boston], are John Hugo, Mark Sahady, and Chris Bartley, who is called the 'gay ambassador' on the event website. Sahady has ties to groups like the Proud Boys, the New Hampshire American Guard, and the Massachusetts Patriot Front. Hugo unsuccessfully ran for the Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District in 2018 with support and endorsement from Resist Marxism, a group that is considered to be 'alt-lite' and holds anti-Semitic, misogynist, and anti-LGBTQ views."

[CN: Terrorism]


Jeff Cox at CNBC: Jobs Creation Slows Dramatically with Payrolls Up Just 75,000 in May, Much Worse Than Expected. "Job creation decelerated strongly in May, with nonfarm payrolls up by just 75,000 even as the unemployment rate remained at a 50-year low, the Labor Department reported Friday. The decline was the second in four months that payrolls increased by less than 100,000 as the labor market continues to show signs of weakening. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a gain of 180,000. In addition to the weak total for May, the previous two months' reports saw substantial downward revisions. March's count fell from 189,000 to 153,000 and the April total was taken down to 224,000 from 263,000, for a total reduction of 75,000 jobs."

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