Shaker Thumbs is your opportunity to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to a product or service you have used and that you'd recommend to other Shakers or warn them away from.
These sort of dishwashing liquid dispensing brushes have been around for some time, but I never had one before. I finally picked up this one, which was right in the mid-range price-wise (it's $9), and I love it so much!
One of the things that I really like about it is how easily detachable and reattachable the brush-head is. The whole thing comes apart very easily, for thorough cleaning, and then reassembles very easily, too.
It seems like such a small thing, but I've had other cleaning implements that themselves weren't super easy to keep very clean, and that annoys me to no end.
I've been using it daily for several months now, and it's holding up extremely well. No leakage of the dish soap, and the bristles are still in fine form. All of the pieces are just as easy to take apart and put back together as when first purchased. Yay!
Anyway! Give us your thumbs-up or thumbs-down in comments!
[Just to be abundantly clear, I am not affiliated in any way with Oxo, nor am I receiving any form of payment for recommending them. It's just a thing I've personally found super useful and am happy to recommend.]
The Trump administration has released its preliminary 2018 budget proposal, and it is devastating. It proposes widespread cuts to a number of agencies, which would profoundly impact the services provided by the federal government.
Before we get into the details, a few points of clarity.
1. Although it stands to have a similar effect, the budget proposal is entirely separate from the recent executive order on the "reorganization" of the executive branch. That is a different strategy altogether to obliterate the federal government.
2. The proposal covers only discretionary spending. Mandatory spending is set and determined by laws using different metrics, e.g. the size of the eligible population for any benefits provided by those departments, so that would not be affected by this budget. Discretionary spending is determined by Congressional budget resolutions, so, essentially, this is a request to Congress on what the president would like Congress to do.
3. Every year, the president sends a budget proposal to Congress. Rarely does that budget proposal get rubberstamped. Congress takes the proposal under advisement, to varying degrees, but generally makes changes. So this is not a final budget. It gives a good picture into the president's priorities, however.
4. How much Congress respects/enacts the president's budget proposal depends a whole lot on whether the same party holds both the executive and legislative branches. The Republican Congressional majority ignored President Obama's budget proposals and did whatever they wanted. We're about to find out how much that same Republican majority wants to give a Republican president what he wants.
So, to the details. Kim Soffen and Denise Lu at the Washington Post have a terrific rundown of what Trump is proposing. Following are a few highlowlights.
First: The budget proposes elimination of funding altogether for 19 agencies:
African Development Foundation
Appalachian Regional Commission
Chemical Safety Board
Corporation for National and Community Service
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Delta Regional Authority
Denali Commission
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Inter-American Foundation
U.S. Trade and Development Agency
Legal Services Corporation
National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
Northern Border Regional Commission
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
U.S. Institute of Peace
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Every single one of those agencies serves an important purpose, but it is particularly notable that Trump is proposing to eliminate wholesale the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which, as Soffen and Lu note, "supports public television and radio, including PBS and NPR."
Also note the recommended eradication of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which was "created by Congress in 1984 as an independent, nonpartisan national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, practical and essential for U.S. and global security." That is especially rich, given that these massive cuts have been proposed, again per Soffen and Lu, to pay for, among other things, "an increase in defense spending [and] a down payment on the border wall."
So to make the world's most powerful military even more powerful, Trump is proposing to eliminate the Institute of Peace—and has also proposed a 29 percent reduction in the State Department budget, significantly reducing diplomatic services, thus creating a higher probability of war.
The massive proposed cut to the State Department isn't even the highest proposed cut. That dubious honor goes to the Environmental Protection Agency, to which Trump has suggested a 31 percent reduction in their budget, which would: Eliminate more than 50 programs and 3,200 jobs, discontinue funding for international climate change programs, and cuts funding for the Superfund cleanup program and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance, among other things.
Additional proposed cuts: Agriculture Department (21 percent), Labor Department (21 percent), Department of Health and Human Services (18 percent), Commerce Department (16 percent), Education Department (14 percent), Department of Housing and Urban Development (13 percent), Transportation Department (13 percent), Interior Department (12 percent), Energy Department (6 percent), Small Business Administration (5 percent), Treasury Department (4 percent), Justice Department (4 percent), NASA (1 percent).
There are three departments whose budgets get proposed increases: Defense Department (9 percent), Department of Homeland Security (7 percent), Department of Veterans Affairs (6 percent).
It may seem like there were an awful lot of cuts necessary for a 9 percent increase in the Defense Department budget, but that's because the Defense Department already has an outsized budget to begin with.
In 2016, the EPA, for example, had a $8.14 billion budget. The Defense Department, in contrast, had a $580.3 billion budget, more than 71 times the budget of the EPA. So it takes a whole lot of big cuts to smaller department to give Defense a 9 percent boost.
Anyway. These are the basic outlines. And we have a pretty good idea of where Trump's priorities are (not that we didn't know already). Now we wait to see how much the Republican Congressional caucus agrees.
I don't have high hopes for significant reluctance to impose this atrocity.
Late yesterday, hours before Donald Trump's revised Muslim ban was due to take effect, U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson, a federal judge in Hawaii, ordered a nationwide freeze on the ban. Watson's stunning 43-page opinion [pdf] made absolutely clear that this was no "travel ban," and that Trump's own words, and those of members of his administration and surrogates, had made clear this was a Muslim ban—which thus renders it flatly unconstitutional.
Wrote Watson: "[A] reasonable, objective observer—enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance—would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion."
And then (emphases mine):
It is undisputed that the Executive Order does not facially discriminate for or against any particular religion, or for or against religion versus non-religion. There is no express reference, for instance, to any religion nor does the Executive Order—unlike its predecessor—contain any term or phrase that can be reasonably characterized as having a religious origin or connotation.
Indeed, the Government defends the Executive Order principally because of its religiously neutral text—"[i]t applies to six countries that Congress and the prior Administration determined posed special risks of terrorism. [The Executive Order] applies to all individuals in those countries, regardless of their religion." Gov't. Mem. in Opp'n 40. The Government does not stop there. By its reading, the Executive Order could not have been religiously motivated because "the six countries represent only a small fraction of the world's 50 Muslim-majority nations, and are home to less than 9% of the global Muslim population ... [T]he suspension covers every national of those countries, including millions of non-Muslim individuals[.]" Gov't. Mem. in Opp'n 42.
The illogic of the Government's contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.
[...]
Equally flawed is the notion that the Executive Order cannot be found to have targeted Islam because it applies to all individuals in the six referenced countries. It is undisputed, using the primary source upon which the Government itself relies, that these six countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations that range from 90.7% to 99.8%. It would therefore be no paradigmatic leap to conclude that targeting these countries likewise targets Islam. Certainly, it would be inappropriate to conclude, as the Government does, that it does not.
Basically: Liar, liar, pants on fire. You're bigots and can't pretend otherwise.
At a rally in Nashville last night, Trump tantrumed mightily about the judge's decision.
President Trump vows that he'll fight a Hawaii judge who blocked his latest travel ban - saying he will take it to the Supreme Court pic.twitter.com/by3N86M37g
A judge has just blocked our Executive Order on travel and refugees coming into our country from certain countries. [edit] The order he blocked was a watered-down version of the first order that was also blocked by another judge, and should have never been blocked to start with. [edit] This is the opinion of many: An unprecedented judicial overreach! [edit] We're gonna fight this terrible ruling. We're gonna take our case as far as it needs to go, including all the way up to the Supreme Court!
He also speculated for the angry crowd that the ruling was "done by a judge for political reasons," and bellowed: "Let me tell you something: I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way. The danger is clear, the law is clear, the need for my executive order is clear."
Reverting to the even more extreme version of the ban will not solve the problem. Which is that this ban cannot pass constitutional muster.
As if to underline the point, a second federal judge in Maryland, Judge Theodore D. Chuang, ruled overnight on a separate suit, issuing "a separate order forbidding the core provision of the travel ban from going into effect."
Chuang echoed that conclusion hours later, ruling in a case brought by nonprofit groups that work with refugees and immigrants, that the likely purpose of the executive order was "the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban" that Mr. Trump pledged to enact as a presidential candidate.
Check and balance, mate.
This is good news, for now. Unfortunately, I suspect this is far from over. The fight will continue, because Trump isn't going to give up this indecency anytime soon.
I have no idea whether Beck's shiny new contrition is legitimate or whether it's just contrived self-reinvention to try to sell a new brand. And I don't care. He can go tell people to be nicer to each other all day long if that's how he wants to spend his time, but he can keep his goddamned hugs to himself.
I found this passage interesting, for the unintentional insight it provides into how Beck's Redemption Tour works.
Another new friend is the liberal TBS comedy show host Samantha Bee, whose program, "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee," he went on in December.
"My audience would like to stab you relentlessly in the eye," Beck told Bee.
"My audience wants to kill me for normalizing a lunatic like yourself," Bee replied.
Then they fed each other cake.
So, Beck's audience would like to stab Bee, and Bee's audience wants to kill her. What a cool point of agreement: Both audiences agree that Bee should come to harm for their meeting of the minds.
Glenn Beck, the man who spent years doing untold damage with his vile bigotry and outright lies, just gets to eat cake.
24: The percentage of respondents in a new PPP poll who support the GOP healthcare plan. Which, not coincidentally, is approximately the same percentage of people who will support Republicans no matter what fetid pile of slop they propose on any issue.
PPP's newest national poll finds that there is very little support for the American Health Care Act. Only 24% of voters support it, to 49% who are opposed. Even among Republican voters only 37% are in favor of the proposal to 22% who are against it, and 41% who aren't sure one way or another. Democrats (15/71) and independents (22/49) are more unified in their opposition to the bill than Republicans are in favor of it.
The Affordable Care Act continues to post some of the best numbers it's ever seen, with 47% of voters in favor of it to 39% who are opposed. When voters are asked whether they'd have rather have the Affordable Care Act or the American Health Care Act in place, the Affordable Care Act wins by 20 points at 49/29. Just 32% of voters think the best path forward with the Affordable Care Act is to repeal it and start over, while 63% think it would be better to keep what works in it and fix what doesn't.
The same poll also found: "Overall Trump has a 43% approval rating, with 50% of voters disapproving of him." He must be tired of all this winning. No wonder he has to convalesce at Mar-a-Lago every weekend.
Iain and I usually go to bed at the same time every night. I don't mean at the same o'clock; that would be far too disciplined for two people who turn into vampires given three consecutive days off. What I mean is that, whenever one of us finally decides it's time to crash into bed, the other typically follows.
Neither of us feels obliged to do so. It is a habit into which we've fallen because lying in bed at night, in the dark, talking about some article one of us read, or posing absurd hypotheticals to each other until we are laughing too hard to fall asleep, or predicting who Mourinho will start at the weekend, is one of our favorite parts of the day.
There's something magical about those nighttime conversations. Even though we could talk about any of the things we talk about at night during another part of the day—and do—the intimacy of our bed, our faces close on our pillows, makes me feel like we are the only people in the world in those moments.
One night recently, after I'd introduced a particularly nerdy (even by my standards) conversation about Wolverine, which we'd thoroughly mined, I said to Iain, "Do you ever wonder what it might be like to be married to someone with normal bedtime talk? More 'how was your day' and less 'regenerative properties of Wolverine'?" He laughed. He didn't wonder that. He was just glad we'd found each other.
So was I.
Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the day we met online, stumbling across one another in a long-defunct web community, because an Oscar Wilde quote on his profile piqued my interest enough to send him a five-word private message.
It was a chance meeting, with unlikely odds of becoming anything, given that we lived 4,000 miles apart at the time. But each of us had, immediately and urgently, a powerful if unaccountable sense of whatever it is that makes us delighted conspirators ensconced in the grown-up fort of our fluffy comforter every night.
We made sense to each other. And we helped one another make sense of ourselves.
I relocated temporarily to Scotland, and then Iain moved permanently to the United States, so we could start to build a life together. We lived in Illinois, with a friend, for a while, and then we moved to Indiana, eventually buying a home in which we stayed for 11 years.
At the end of 2015, as some of you know, Iain was transferred for work to Pennsylvania, and so we left the state which had long been our home, to embark on a new adventure. A cross-country move is an incredible upheaval, no less with five furry beasties in tow. But we have found a new home that we love, in a new place we continue to explore together.
Over sixteen years, we have lived in two countries, on two continents, and in three different states. The landscape has changed, our circumstances have changed, and we have changed as individuals. What has not changed is our desire to be together. To be in this, all of it, together.
When we were in the early throes of figuring out how to make this thing work, people would often ask me where we were going to live. Scotland? The U.S.? Somewhere else altogether? I would answer, with the confidence of someone filled with the abundant possibility of new love, that it didn't matter, because my home would be wherever Iain was.
That was, depending on your perspective, a romantic or foolish thing to say then. (It was probably a little of both.) Now, sixteen years later, it is just the truth.
Neither of us is easy. We each have our own set of quirks, idiosyncrasies, and flaws—possibly (almost assuredly) more than the average person. We are each fiercely independent, but also fiercely loyal. We both like lots of time on our own, and lots of attention in other moments. We like weird stuff, not always the same weird stuff. We both have a keen desire to do kind things for each other, and we both have a frustrating reluctance to accept kind things being done for us.
And yet.
The home we have built, wherever it is in time and space, is a place where we can each feel safe, be known, and make sense of ourselves.
There are nights, when I am lying in bed beside him, after we have finished our nighttime talk and we are both falling asleep in the quiet, that I think about sending that message—and I think about what if I hadn't.
It's a thought that fills me with something like panic. It was such a small thing, such a particular moment, so random a decision that set my life on this trajectory.
The anxiety that washes over me is so profound, as though there's a chance that somehow it could all be undone. If I hadn't sent that message which started this journey home…
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures 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.
* * *
Here are some things I've read today:
In a We Resist thread last month, I shared a piece by Russ Choma and Andy Kroll at Mother Jones about a real estate deal between Donald Trump and "a Chinese-American business executive who runs a company that touts its ability to exploit connections with powerful people to broker business deals in China." Now they are back with a follow-up: Businesswoman Who Bought Trump Penthouse Is Connected to Chinese Intelligence Front Group. "Further investigation by Mother Jones has unearthed a new element to the story: [Angela Chen, who also goes by the names Xiao Yan Chen and Chen Yu] has ties to important members of the Chinese ruling elite and to an organization considered a front group for Chinese military intelligence. ...Chen runs a business consulting firm, Global Alliance Associates, which specializes in linking US businesses seeking deals in China with the country's top power brokers. ...But Chen has another job: She chairs the US arm of a nonprofit called the China Arts Foundation, which was founded in 2006 and has links with Chinese elites and the country's military intelligence service."
In possibly related news... Charles V. Bagli and Michael Forsythe at the New York Times: Kushners, Trump In-Laws, Weigh $400 Million Deal With Chinese Firm. "A New York real estate company owned by the family of [Mr.] Trump's son-in-law has been negotiating to sell a $400 million stake in its Fifth Avenue flagship skyscraper to a Chinese insurance company with ties to leading families of the Communist Party. The Chinese company, Anbang Insurance Group, would pay to get a high-profile piece of Manhattan real estate and would commit to spending billions more to completely transform the 60-year-old tower into a chic condominium and retail citadel. If signed, the potential agreement would create a financial marriage of two politically powerful families in the world's two biggest economies, but it would also present the possibility of glaring conflicts of interest. The Kushner family, owners of the tower, would reap a financial windfall courtesy of a Chinese company, even as Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump as well as his son-in-law, helps oversee American foreign policy."
Meanwhile... Mike Allen at Axios: Trump to host Xi at Mar-a-Lago. "Trump plans to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at the gold-plated Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next month for a lowering-the-temperature summit with vast economic and security implications... For a White House that views China as threat #1, Trump's willingness to meet with Xi—and give him the Mar-a-Lago treatment, no less—will be seen as a reassuring sign by establishment powers in the U.S. and around the world."
Also... David Brunnstrom and Yeganeh Torbati for Reuters: Tillerson to Press China on North Korea in Tough First Asia Trip. "U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson faces a tough first trip to Asia this week when the former oil executive will seek to reassure nervous allies facing North Korea's growing nuclear and missile threat and press China to do more on perhaps the most serious security challenge confronting Donald Trump. ...But the chances of Tillerson persuading China to do more to curb North Korea's weapons programs while in Beijing appear scant, given China's anger at the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Korea last week, and Trump's repeated threats to impose punitive tariffs on Beijing to correct a large trade imbalance."
The above series of stories is a perfect example of why resisting Trump necessitates multitasking. No one who argues that we must keep focused on Russia connections is wrong. They are right! But we must simultaneously focus on Trump's relationships with China, which, thus far, have gotten far less scrutiny.
After all, he talked about China a lot during the campaign. Ahem.
[Video Description: Supercut of Trump saying "China" about a zillion times during the campaign.]
* * *
The juxtaposition of the following two articles is very interesting.
Sharon LaFraniere, Nicholas Confessore, and Jesse Drucker at the New York Times: Prerequisite for Key White House Posts: Loyalty, Not Experience. "Every president sweeps into office with a coterie of friends and hangers-on who sometimes have minimal experience in the arcana of the federal government. But few have arrived with a contingent more colorful and controversial than that of Mr. Trump, whose White House is peppered with assistants and advisers whose principal qualification is their long friendship with Mr. Trump and his family. ...The influence of longtime Trump friends and associates—some of them with vague portfolios—comes as a leadership void has been created by the Trump administration's slow pace in filling top jobs in many agencies. It has also added to the confusion of a West Wing already legendary for its power struggles, while bewildering Washington policy hands."
Alex Isenstadt and Kenneth P. Vogel at Politico: 'People Are Scared': Paranoia Seizes Trump's White House. "In interviews, nearly a dozen White House aides and federal agency staffers described a litany of suspicions: that rival factions in the administration are trying to embarrass them, that civil servants opposed to Donald Trump are trying to undermine him, and even that a 'deep state' of career military and intelligence officials is out to destroy them. ...It's an environment of fear that has hamstrung the routine functioning of the executive branch. Senior advisers are spending much of their time trying to protect turf [and] key positions have remained vacant due to a reluctance to hire people deemed insufficiently loyal... One senior administration aide, who like most others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the degree of suspicion had created a toxicity that is unsustainable."
* * *
[Content Note: Nativism] James Queally at the L.A. Times: ICE Agents Make Arrests at Courthouses, Sparking Backlash from Prosecutors and Attorneys. "[Octavio Chaidez], who has worked as a defense attorney in Los Angeles County for nearly 15 years, said he had never seen federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents make an arrest inside the confines of a courthouse. But in the past few weeks, attorneys and prosecutors in California, Arizona, Texas, and Colorado have all reported teams of ICE agents—some in uniform, some not—sweeping into courtrooms or lurking outside court complexes, waiting to arrest immigrants who are in the country illegally." Rage. Seethe. Boil.
Charlie Savage and Julie Turkewitz at the New York Times: Neil Gorsuch Has Web of Ties to Secretive Billionaire. "As a lawyer at a Washington law firm in the early 2000s, Judge Gorsuch represented Mr. Anschutz, his companies and lower-ranking business executives as an outside counsel. In 2006, Mr. Anschutz successfully lobbied Colorado's lone Republican senator and the Bush administration to nominate Judge Gorsuch to the federal appeals court. And since joining the court, Judge Gorsuch has been a semiregular speaker at the mogul's annual dove-hunting retreats for the wealthy and politically prominent at his 60-square-mile Eagles Nest Ranch." Of course.
Allegra Kirkland at TPM: Monica Crowley Files to Lobby on Behalf of Ukrainian Oligarch. "After turning down a top national security communications role at the White House amid plagiarism allegations, former Fox News analyst Monica Crowley has taken up a new pursuit: lobbying on behalf of a Ukrainian oligarch who's advocated for better relations with Russia." Sounds about right.
[CN: Worker endangerment] Ken Ward, Jr. at the Charleston Gazette: WV Senate Bill Eliminates Mine Safety Enforcement. "State safety inspectors wouldn't inspect West Virginia's coal mines anymore. They would conduct 'compliance visits and education.' Violations of health and safety standards wouldn't produce state citations and fines, either. Mine operators would receive 'compliance assistance visit notices.' And West Virginia regulators wouldn't have authority to write safety and health regulations. Instead, they could only 'adopt policies...[for] improving compliance assistance' in the state's mines. Those and other significant changes in a new industry-backed bill would produce a wholesale elimination of most enforcement of longstanding laws and rules put in place over many years—as a result of hundreds of deaths—to protect the health and safety of West Virginia's coal miners." OMG.
[CN: War on agency] Christine Grimaldi at Rewire: CBO Report Confirms GOP's Budgetary Plan to Attack Planned Parenthood. "Contrary to recent claims from GOP lawmakers and staff, Planned Parenthood is the only health-care provider to face 'defunding' under Republicans' Obamacare repeal, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The independent arm of the U.S. Congress all but confirmed the partisan vendetta against Planned Parenthood... The provision doesn't address Planned Parenthood by name. But Planned Parenthood is the only organization that meets the specific criteria Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote into their plan to impose a one-year moratorium on Medicaid reimbursements to 'prohibited entities'—effectively preventing people with low incomes from accessing quality, affordable health care."
[CN: Trans hatred] Andrea Zelinski at the Houston Chronicle: Texas Senate Approves 'Bathroom Bill'. "The Texas Senate gave preliminary approval Tuesday to ban transgender people from using the bathrooms that best correlate with their gender... The Republican-dominated Senate pushed the bill through almost completely on party lines after senators debated the issue for more than four hours on the Senate floor. ...'This is the best privacy bill in the United States,' said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston." Fuck. You.
Listening to the Republicans try to sell their Trumpcare Trash plan is genuinely painful. Not only because of their intractable indifference to people's lives, but because nothing they say is true.
I am at the end of my rope with the myriad shameless lies they are using to promote this heap of garbage, from lies about Obamacare, to lies about how insurance works, to lies about what being poor and in need of healthcare access actually looks like.
In addition to the lie about "choosing one's own doctor," above, the other one that's doing me in right now is this "patient-centered healthcare" rubbish. "Patient-centered healthcare" means nothing. Especially to people with transgressive bodies who struggle to find healthcare providers who truly see us. Which is to say nothing of the fact there can be no such thing as "patient-centered healthcare" as long as healthcare is run through for-profit insurance companies.
Anyway. Which healthcare lies are driving you to distraction as you listen to this swill?
Donald Trump has already selected four Goldman Sachs executives to serve in his administration: Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Director of the White House National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives Dina Powell.
And now he will nominate a fifth: "Trump on Tuesday said he planned to nominate Goldman Sachs managing director James Donovan to serve as deputy treasury secretary, selecting his fifth Goldman veteran to take a senior role in his administration."
By way of reminder, this is an explicit bait-and-switch. As Eric Levitz observed at NY Mag in November: "In Donald Trump's final campaign ad, the GOP standard-bearer informed America that 'those who control the levers of power in Washington' do not 'have your good in mind,' as a sign reading Wall St. flickered across the screen. Moments later, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs appeared, serving as an embodiment of the global elite that has 'robbed our working class.'"
Relatedly, Trump's morning tweetshitz included this doozy:
CEO's most optimistic since 2009. It will only get better as we continue to slash unnecessary regulations and when we begin our big tax cut!
Ah, yes. The widely-recognized perfect policy to address the economic anxiety of working class rust belters—deregulation and tax cuts for CEOs!
It's a good thing we didn't elect that establishment monster Hillary Clinton who gave paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, amirite? Phew! That was a close one.
Last night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow pitched an exclusive get of Donald Trump's taxes. It turned out to be only two pages of a single tax return from 2005, showing that Trump made about $150 million in income and paid about $36.5 million in federal taxes. (If you see the number $38 million, that's erroneously including $1.5 million he paid in employment taxes.)
David Cay Johnston, the reporter under whose door the tax pages were slipped, noted that it was possible Trump leaked the documents himself.
Which, frankly, seems pretty likely.
I noticed (as did many others) during the broadcast that the tax pages bore a stamp reading "Client Copy." Further to that, I assumed Trump sent the pages when the schedules and attachments detailing income sources were absent, which is the information that actually matters in terms of establishing any improprieties, e.g.
In 2005, Trump made a licensing deal for a hotel in Moscow. Felix Sater was in charge of that project. cc @joshtpmhttps://t.co/YZgjtWlPKC
Without that supporting documentation, these two pages are of little direct value to anyone but Trump, as they disprove the accusation that he doesn't pay taxes. (They only disprove it for a single year, but that's enough for his supporters.)
At the Washington Post, Derek Hawkins additionally notes: "Some even thought MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's apparent scoop on Trump's leaked 2005 tax return made him look good. After all, the New York Times had once suggested that he had avoided taxes, and others that he was faking the extent of his wealth."
The most important item to come from the docs, which unfortunately will probably get very little attention, is how his taxes were impacted by the alternative minimum tax. At the Guardian, Sabrina Siddiqui, Jon Swaine, and Julia Carrie Wong explain:
[T]he documents also showed that about 82% of the total paid to the Internal Revenue Service that year by Trump and his wife, Melania, was incurred due to a tax that Trump has said should be abolished.
The "alternative minimum tax" (AMT), which was introduced to ensure the mega wealthy pay a fairer share of tax, comprised $31m of Trump's tax bill compared with $5.3m in regular federal income tax. In the run-up to November's election, Trump pledged to eliminate the AMT altogether, meaning the president campaigned for a change in the tax law that would have benefited him.
That Trump is a greedy and unethical opportunist with conflicts of interest who is using the presidency to enrich himself isn't, however, breaking news. This is another data point in an established narrative.
That doesn't make it unimportant, but it wasn't exactly a blockbuster, either. And I'm frankly not remotely certain that it was important enough to dedicate a (very overhyped) segment to detached tax pages that ultimately serve to help Trump.
What household project needs to get done, but you've just been putting it off because you can't be arsed to do it? Not, like, a major repair that's been delayed for valid reasons, but something you could do and just can't find the motivation.
"The consequences are serious. When we don't talk honestly with white children about racism, they become more likely to disbelieve or discount their peers when they report experiencing racism. 'But we're all equal' becomes a rote response that actually blocks white children from recognizing or taking seriously racism when they see it or hear about it. ...White children are exposed to racism daily. If we parents don't point it out, show how it works, and teach why it is false, over time our children are more likely to accept racist messages at face value."—Jennifer Harvey, in a thoughtful piece for the New York Times, "Are We Raising Racists?"
Four years ago, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced legislation to enforce meaningful accountability for the epidemic of sexual assault in the U.S. military, by "transferring sex crimes from the watch and authority of military brass and instead funneling such cases to independent military prosecutors."
Here we are, four years later, and there is yet another major incident of widespread sexual harassment/assault against female servicemembers. As I reported last Monday, the U.S. Marine Corps is investigating after a link to a drive containing photos of female Marines "in various states of undress" was posted to a 30k+ member Facebook group. The WaPo reported: "The hard drive contained images, as well as the names and units of the women pictured. Many of the photos were accompanied by derogatory and harassing comments."
Today, Gillibrand grilled Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the latest incident, and she did not hold back, her voice rising with precisely the emotion I want my elected officials to have about this subject.
Military leadership must take responsibility for a toxic culture that fosters harassment and sexual assault. pic.twitter.com/nTPrLPwY7d
I have to say, when you say to us, "It's got to be different," that rings hollow. I don't know what you mean when you say that. Why does it have to be different—because you all of a sudden feel that it has to be different? Who has been held accountable?
I very much align myself with Senator Fischer's comments: Who has been held responsible?! Have you actually investigated and found guilty anybody?! If we can't crack Facebook, how are we supposed to be able to confront Russian aggression and cyber-hacking throughout our military?
It is a serious problem, when we have members of our military denigrating female Marines who will give their life to this country, in the way they have, with no response from leadership. I can tell you: Your answers today are unsatisfactory.
Sen. Gillibrand continued, before Gen. Neller had the opportunity to provide more unsatisfactory answers.
GILLIBRAND: I can tell you: Your answers today are unsatisfactory. They do not go far enough. And I would like to know what you intend to do to the commanders who are responsible for good order and discipline. [edit] Where's the accountability for failure?! Who is being held accountable for doing nothing since 2013?! Who? Which commander? I am very concerned that this is part of a culture that is resulting in the high levels of sexual assault.
We know from the FY14 SAPRO report that 60 percent of men and 58 percent of women who experience sexual harassment or gender discrimination in the previous year throughout all the services indicated that a supervisor or unit leader was one of the people engaged in the violations. That is a problem with our command.
So if you're dedicated to fixing the culture of the Marines, and all the services, what do you plan to do to hold commanders responsible who fail to get this done?
NELLER: [long pause] Senator, I understand and share your concern. Um. If I were aware, or any— I would expect that any commander who was aware of someone who has reported any allegation of anything, particularly something as serious as sexual assault, and the chain of command didn't do anything, that that commander would be held accountable.
[long pause] I don't have any statistics for you on that. Um. I can tell you that, of all those individuals who have come forward with allegations of sexual assault, what's happened to individuals that, um, were the charges, uh, ended up with some sort of process and ended up with an adjudication, um, but those are just numbers.
As you clearly and rightfully state, this is a problem with our culture, and... [pause] I'm still in the process— I mean, I— [gives up trying to be circumspect] I don't have a good answer for you. I'm not gonna sit here and duck around this thing. I'm not. I'm responsible. I'm the commandant. I own this. And we are gonna have to— [pause]
You know, I know you've heard it before, but we're gonna have to change how we see ourselves and how we do—how we treat each other. Um. That's a lame answer, but, ma'am, that's all I've—that's the best I can tell ya right now.
Credit to Gen. Neller for at least managing to look like he actually sort of gives a shit about this issue, which is the bare fucking minimum and yet a bar so low most of his predecessors and colleagues haven't been able to meet it.
Perhaps the most (unintentionally) wise thing that Neller said is that the military has to change how they see themselves. They also need to change how they see their critics.
One is virtually deemed traitorous at the mere suggestion that a member of the U.S. military (especially a straight white male member of the U.S. military) is anything less than a paragon of moral virtue. They are warriors, they are heroes, they are patriots, they are the good guys who take on the evil-doers.
That collective reputation is fiercely protected. But its fierce protection abets abuse.
Communities in which members are presumed to be above reproach attract abusers who cynically and deliberately exploit the reflexive presumption of moral virtue their membership affords them. Abusers count on the merest suggestion that they are anything but unassailably upstanding being mischaracterized as a hostile attack on the entire community. They count on the community closing ranks around all but the occasional bad apple they cannot justifiably defend.
The setting apart of the military as inherently honorable is antithetical to effective rape prevention. It discourages self-reflection—what need is there to examine one's own ethics if one has already been declared honorable by one's entire country?—and it attracts predators who know they can operate with immunity under the presumption of honor, and it exhorts gatekeepers to ignore evidence which subverts the idea of inherent honor. Which is why, in sexual assault cases, the chain of command routinely chooses silencing victims in defense of the narrative instead of holding their attackers accountable.
There's too much at stake for men invested in a narrative that confers upon them them an unearned reputation of honor for them to be gatekeepers in cases that are the most immediate evidence that narrative is bullshit. They have a vested interest in maintaining it, at victims' expense.
Pulling sexual assault cases out of the chain of command is an important and critical reform. But it is only a start. Truly getting to the root of the military's rape crisis will require giving up some things I'm not sure the military is willing to let go.
[Content Note: Misogyny; abuse; hostility to consent; description of sexual aggression/coercion at link.]
This piece by Nona Willis Aronowitz, "Meet the Woke Misogynist," is very good, and will probably be validating for a number of people who spend time in this community.
Now that feminism has become more fashionable, it's harder to tell who our true allies are. Self-proclaimed male feminists are everywhere, from dating apps to Silicon Valley to Hollywood. Many men now want to be equal partners and parents. They believe a woman should be president and they follow Kamala Harris on Twitter. They would never dream of saying indisputably sexist things in public. Many male feminists are genuine, even if they're not perfect. They will try and sometimes fail on their way to enlightenment. We care about the men in our lives, so we are happy to explain what they've done wrong. We will gently chide our guy friends for objectifying their female lovers or about how their favorite films don't pass the Bechdel test.
And they'll usually listen, because being a male feminist is admirable. Being a male feminist can even get you laid.
The larger point is, of course, that there are plenty of men who have realized that purporting to be feminist gets them lots of cookies and access to women, whose trust they can then exploit.
It's an old racket under a new mantle: Insinuate yourself as someone who cares, someone who is special, and use the good faith you've been afforded to make your victims doubt themselves when you inevitably abuse them, and then exploit that carefully cultivated doubt to protect yourself from accountability.
It is a timeworn pattern of predators. They have insinuated themselves under the banner of The Good Stepfather, The Caring Priest, The Cool Teacher, The Family Values Politician, and on and on. The Male Feminist is just the latest iteration.
And the problem, of course, is that there are good stepfathers and caring priests and cool teachers and family values politicians who aren't secretly having affairs. There are also male feminists who don't treat feminism as a rap for progressive pick-up artists.
Which is why it's not always evident, right away or ever until the abuse starts, that these guys are wearing a mask.
The takeaways from that are:
1. It isn't your fault if you get taken in by a predator who's wearing the mask of male feminist.
2. Trust your instincts. If you see red flags, heed them. You don't owe anyone your trust, especially if they haven't earned it. And a male feminist who doesn't feel like he has to earn your trust is sending up a big red flag. Other common red flags with predators wearing the mask of male feminist are: Using the fixed state ally model and showing a lack of deference to women's actual lived experiences, in order to position themselves as an expert on womanhood.
3. Beware the self-proclaimed male feminist who seems more inclined to say he's a feminist than show he's one. As I've said before: I don't know if any of my closest male friends, including my husband, have ever said: "I'm a feminist." If they have, it's been rare enough that I don't remember it. They don't have to say it. They show me, by making themselves trustworthy and practicing feminism, every day.
Although Dudley looooooves running in snow, he doesn't like being out in falling snow even a little bit. Look at that pathetic face!
He has a coat (and snow boots), but he doesn't want to wear them. He prefers to get covered in snow, give me a pitiable look at the back door, then wriggle around in magnificent delight while I dry him off with a towel, rubbing him down while making silly noises he finds hilarious until well past the point after which he's already dry.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
Shaker Thumbs
