The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
Belly up to the bar,
and be in this space together.
A Moment of Frank Talk About the State of Our Republic
You know how I've said like a zillion times in the last year that the election wasn't the beginning of a coup but the end of one? That.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 2, 2018
I am feeling very demoralized at the moment, because everything feels so pointless. I am reading all the reactions to the release of the Nunes Memo and what it means for the country, from the hot takes to serious analysis, and thing that's quite clear is that very few people seem to understand that none of the specifics matter.
If it wasn't the Nunes Memo that Trump and the Republicans used to hasten their seizure of power, it would have been something else. And it will continue, with various indecencies and corruptions of various shapes and sizes, and the specifics won't matter, because the objective is bigger than any of the details.
Consider: If Trump had decided to not release the Nunes Memo, the objective of this entire charade — to further undermine trust in the FBI and the Justice Department, especially among his base — would have been accomplished all the same. They would howl about how Trump was pressured by those very suspect organizations and hounded into keeping "the truth" from the people.
The specifics don't matter.
Oh, you can prove with logic and reason that Trump's position on whatever is garbage? COOL. Except that doesn't matter anymore.
Oh, you can cite the precise law Trump is breaking? COOL. Except that doesn't matter anymore, either.
Oh, Jeff Sessions is doing something an Attorney General who recused himself shouldn't be doing? Congratulations for pointing that out, but IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE because who's gonna stop him?
Which, by the way, is why the Democrats should have just leaked their complementary memo, explaining why the Nunes Memo is mendacious trash, because it's useless to insist on playing by the rules when the rules also don't matter anymore, because your opponent has broken them so many times that most spectators of the game can't even remember what they are or that they ever existed.
We are in a terrible spot right now, and we cannot pretend that there is any discernible way out of it at this point. As I've also said many times before, the real time for resistance was before Election Day in November 2016.
Because now we find ourselves in a situation in which all the solutions to this apocalyptic mess depend on things that don't exist and/or aren't going to happen.
Is the political press going to suddenly become responsible?
Are the Republicans suddenly going to hold Trump accountable? Are they going to suddenly realize that they can't keep prioritizing party over country and change their ways?
Are we really going to have free and fair midterm elections, despite voter suppression, gerrymandering, dark money, and Russian meddling? Would we even have a peaceful transfer of power if Democrats won?
How can the erosion of trust in our public institutions be restored?
Are social media executives going to spontaneously start valuing democracy over profits?
How are we going to magically eradicate the misogyny that prevents far too many people from listening to and respecting women who are the most urgent heralds of the perils facing our republic; misogyny so impenetrable that people who have made careers in government and federal law enforcement and political media thought it was fine for Michael Flynn to lead "LOCK HER UP!" chants and for James Comey to insert himself into the election and and and... because they all just saw Hillary Clinton as "that bitch" instead of "our last hope for democracy against the Nazi who Russia wants in the White House"?
Is Trump's entire base going to turn off Fox News and set down their guns?
None of that is going to happen, no less all of it.
Even if there exists some contingent of Republicans in positions of power who might want to do something in defense of the republic, they're probably compromised. They may have started down this road with their power-hungry party not realizing exactly where it would lead, and now they're in too deep. There's no reverse on this car. You don't get to "kinda collude" with Russia. That's an "all in" proposition, folks.
But that's far less relevant than the fact that the Republican Party has been laying the groundwork for this sinister takeover for decades. If there isn't a patriot among the party, it's because they were compromised by their own greed and malice long before they were compromised by Russia.
So here is where we are: We started this week with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe being forced out and Donald Trump unilaterally overruling Congress on Russia sanctions. We are ending the week with the President of the United States having declassified a memo, without even reading it, that was explicitly designed to discredit the institutions tasked with holding him accountable for his contempt for law and possible treason. And there is now a real possibility that Trump will fire and replace Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, using the Nunes Memo as an excuse.
I don't think it should be controversial to observe that it's incredibly difficult to come back from that. If it's possible at all.
To be clear: I am not giving up or giving in. That is not in my nature. And I have never, ever, hoped more desperately to be wrong than I hope to be about the fate of this nation.
But what I once predicted as our fate to a cacophony of charges that I'm a hysterical alarmist is now clearly, indisputably, one distinctly possible fate.
You don't have to agree that it's the likely outcome to acknowledge that it is eminently possible. Which is terrifying enough.
And I refuse to be silent about that terror. We must speak of it.
We cannot pretend, I will not pretend, that the potential future we're facing doesn't exist.
Friday Links!
This list o' links brought to you by earrings.
Recommended Reading:
Monica Roberts at TransGriot: Rep. Maxine Waters' SOTU Response Speech (Note: I haven't yet been able to find a transcript, but will share here when I do. If you beat me to it, please drop the link and/or text in comments!)
Vivian Kane at the Mary Sue: [Content Note: White supremacy] Ivanka Trump Says Black History Month Is About "All Americans" and That Went Over About as Well as You'd Expect
Bea Bischoff at Dame: [CN: Nativism] "Chain Migration" Is Not a Thing
Karthick Ramakrishnan and Janelle Wong at AAPI Data: Ethnicity Data Is Critical to Address the Diverse Needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Stephen A. Crockett Jr. at the Root: [CN: Anti-blackness; classism] In Shocking Report, 100 Percent of NFL's Black Men Surveyed Are Treated Like Black Men
Kashmira Gander at Towleroad via Newsweet: [CN: Homophobia] India's Gay Prince Opening up Palace as LGBT Sanctuary
Alex McLevy at AV Club: Alex Trebek Basically Shoved a Bunch of Nerds in Lockers on Last Night's Jeopardy! (That 100% would have been me, staring blankly at those American football questions, lol!)
Yasmin Tayag at Inverse: Best Friends Really Do Share Brain Patterns, Neuroscientists Reveal (See, all these years I've been saying that Deeky and I are BRAINTWINZ and it turns out I was RIGHT! Thanks, SCIENCE!)
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 379
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.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: As Long as We're All Having Fun While the Ship Sinks and BREAKING: Trump Declassifies Nunes Memo; Congress Publishes It.
The official GOP position is that police are an incorruptible force when it comes to patrolling Black neighborhoods, but also the top law enforcement agency in the nation is corrupt in its investigation of Trump
— Bree Newsome (@BreeNewsome) February 2, 2018
LOLOLOLOLOLOL
Obviously the big news today is the Nunes Memo, which Donald Trump reportedly wanted released before he'd even read it (I suspect he's never read it at all), but it's not the only news today...
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jim Sciutto and Nicole Gaouette at CNN: CIA Chief Met with Sanctioned Russian Spies, Officials Confirm.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo did meet with the head of Russia's foreign intelligence agency, an official barred from entering the US under 2014 sanctions, as well as the head of Russia's internal security agency, according to a US official with direct knowledge of the meetings.Couple of things:
...CIA Director Mike Pompeo defended the meeting in a Thursday letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, declaring that he and other officials met with Russians for the same reason their predecessors did — "to keep Americans safe."
Schumer, whose staff was briefed on the meetings and the legal process involved before giving a Tuesday news conference, said the meeting represented "a serious national security issue." And he continued to blast Pompeo on Thursday.
"If this administration is ignoring sanctions, that's very serious," the New York Democrat told CNN, noting that in the letter, Pompeo didn't directly acknowledge that he had met with his Russian counterparts. "Director Pompeo's refusal to answer that question is deeply troubling."
...Asked about allowing Naryshkin entry to the US, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said, "I can tell you in a general matter if something is considered to be in the national security interest of the United States, just like other countries, we have the ability to waive that so that people can come into the United States."
Nauert added that, "it is no secret that despite our many, many differences — and we just talked about them — with the Russian government, we also have areas where we have to work together, and one of those is combating terrorism and ISIS, and so I will leave it at that."
1. To my understanding, the special dispensation to which Nauert alludes can only be given by the Secretary of State, so we need a direct answer from Rex Tillerson on whether he provided one, accompanied by documentation if he says he did. Because otherwise, Pompeo broke the law by meeting with Sergey Naryshkin and Alexander Bortnikov.
2. It's fascinating (and stomach-churning) to me that Nauert is defending Pompeo's meeting by very specifically citing "combating terrorism and ISIS," because, as I've carefully documented, the absurd idea that the U.S. should ally with Russia to defeat ISIS in Syria played a peculiar role in the 2016 presidential campaign:
Before the 2016 election, joining forces with Russia to defeat ISIS was not a mainstream position, on either side of the aisle, because, as Hillary Clinton explained during the second presidential debate, Putin "isn't interested in ISIS" and Russia's assault on Aleppo was instead intended to destroy Syrian rebels opposed to Assad's regime.A more cynical person than I, ahem, might suggest it looks a hell of a lot like a code to conceal collusion as "meeting with Russia to talk about adoption law" has become code for discussing sanctions.
Nonetheless, during the 2016 election, the one in which Russia interfered with the objective of critically weakening Clinton, every single one of her leading opponents suggested working with Russia in some manner, using the justification of joining forces to defeat ISIS.
* * *
Idrees Ali at Reuters: Mattis Says Has No Evidence of Sarin Gas Used in Syria, But Concerned. "U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday that while he does not have evidence of the nerve agent sarin being used by the Syrian government, the United States was looking into reports about its use and was concerned. ...'We are even more concerned about the possibility of sarin use... I don't have the evidence, what I am saying is, that other groups on the ground, NGOs, fighters on the ground, have said that sarin has been used, so we are looking for evidence,' Mattis said. ...'We are on the record and you all have seen how we reacted to that, so they would be ill-advised to go back to violating the chemical (weapons) convention,' Mattis said."
When Mattis says "we are on the record" and references "how we reacted," he's referring to the missile strike Donald Trump ordered on the Shayrat Air Base last April during dessert.
* * *
Hey, remember when Trump spilled to the Russians some highly classified intelligence given to the U.S. by Israel? Well, it turns out that it was worse than originally disclosed.
Israeli investigative reporter says Trump shared more information than has been publicly revealed with the Russians https://t.co/muRC81DkQ5 pic.twitter.com/HvujgYV33W
— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) February 1, 2018
Cool cool cool.
This administration is really doing everything it can to ensure that we have no allies at all. Which will leave us in a very scary and very vulnerable place.
Even worse than we already are.
* * *
Ali Breland at the Hill: Senate Receives Official Net Neutrality Notice from FCC. "The Senate has received the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) official notice of measures to scrap net neutrality rules, two congressional sources confirmed. The notice is one of the first procedural steps in starting the 60-day deadline Congress has to stop the FCC's net neutrality repeal with the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The House must also receive notice, and it must be published in the Federal Register for the rest of the process to start. Sources said that it has yet to be determined when this will happen but noted it could be as early as Friday or next week. After the 60-day deadline, Congress would no longer be able to use a CRA resolution to stop the FCC's plan from continuing." MAKE YOUR CALLS.
[CN: References to self-harm; violence; child abuse; misogyny] Paul Lewis at the Guardian: 'Fiction Is Outperforming Reality': How YouTube's Algorithm Distorts Truth.
Much has been written about Facebook and Twitter’s impact on politics, but in recent months academics have speculated that YouTube's algorithms may have been instrumental in fuelling disinformation during the 2016 presidential election. "YouTube is the most overlooked story of 2016," Zeynep Tufekci, a widely respected sociologist and technology critic, tweeted back in October. "Its search and recommender algorithms are misinformation engines."Fucking hell. FUCKING HELL.
If YouTube's recommendation algorithm really has evolved to promote more disturbing content, how did that happen? And what is it doing to our politics?
...[Guillaume Chaslot, a 36-year-old French computer programmer with a PhD in artificial intelligence and former Google employee who has spent the last 18 months exploring bias in YouTube content] believes one of the most shocking examples was detected by his program in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. As he observed in a short, largely unnoticed blogpost published after Donald Trump was elected, the impact of YouTube's recommendation algorithm was not neutral during the presidential race: It was pushing videos that were, in the main, helpful to Trump and damaging to Hillary Clinton. "It was strange," he explains to me. "Wherever you started, whether it was from a Trump search or a Clinton search, the recommendation algorithm was much more likely to push you in a pro-Trump direction."
...Chaslot sent me a database of more YouTube-recommended videos his program identified in the three months leading up to the presidential election. It contained more than 8,000 videos — all of them detected by his program appearing "up next" on 12 dates between August and November 2016, after equal numbers of searches for "Trump" and "Clinton."
...I spent weeks watching, sorting and categorising the trove of videos with Erin McCormick, an investigative reporter and expert in database analysis. From the start, we were stunned by how many extreme and conspiratorial videos had been recommended, and the fact that almost all of them appeared to be directed against Clinton.
...There were dozens of clips stating Clinton had had a mental breakdown, reporting she had syphilis or Parkinson's disease, accusing her of having secret sexual relationships, including with Yoko Ono. Many were even darker, fabricating the contents of WikiLeaks disclosures to make unfounded claims, accusing Clinton of involvement in murders or connecting her to satanic and paedophilic cults.
...The sample we had looked at suggested Chaslot's conclusion was correct: YouTube was six times more likely to recommend videos that aided Trump than his adversary. YouTube presumably never programmed its algorithm to benefit one candidate over another. But based on this evidence, at least, that is exactly what happened.
[CN: White supremacy] Blake Montgomery at BuzzFeed: White Supremacists Are Targeting Colleges "Like Never Before," Researchers Say. "White supremacists are targeting colleges 'like never before,' with the number of posters, banners, and other messages on campuses up 258% in 2017, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League. 'They see campuses as a fertile recruiting ground, as evident by the unprecedented volume of propagandist activity designed to recruit young people to support their vile ideology,' ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. Comparing the fall semester of 2016 (Sept. 1 to Dec. 30) to that of 2017, the ADL found that the number of instances of white supremacists putting up stickers, posters, and banners on college campuses went from 41 to 147, an increase of 258%."
* * *
You know how I keep calling Republicans the Democracy Killers? Well, here are a couple of good examples why:
1. Steve Bousquet at the Tampa Bay Times: Judge Strikes Down Florida's System for Denying Felons' Voting Rights.
2. John Baer at the Philly Inquirer: The Emerging Story Behind the Story of Pennsylvania Gerrymandering.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
BREAKING: Trump Declassifies Nunes Memo; Congress Publishes It
Donald Trump has declassified Rep. Devin Nunes' memo alleging bias at the FBI and Justice Department. It was declassified "in full" and no redactions were made. Congress (that is, the Republican majority) is now free to release it to the public.
Trump, who spent this morning on Twitter escalating his feud with the FBI and the Justice Department, made an incredibly inappropriate and distressing statement, upon the announcement of the declassification.
Pres. Trump says GOP memo has been declassified: "Congress will do whatever they're going to do. But I think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country...A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves." https://t.co/OfR9pu29Wo pic.twitter.com/wJHEptrGrk
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 2, 2018
The memo was sent to Congress; it was declassified. Congress will do whatever they're going to do. But I think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. And when you look at that, and you see that, and so many other things, what's going on— [nods and mumbles] A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves, and much worse than that.Reporters asked if Trump still had confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which he refused to answer. He was then asked if the memo makes it more likely that he will fire Rosenstein.
So I sent it over to Congress. They will do what they're going to do. Whatever they do is fine. It was declassified. And let's see what happens.
But a lotta people should be ashamed. Thank you very much.
"You figure that one out," replies @POTUS to question about whether #NunesMemo makes it more likely he'll fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) February 2, 2018
Congressional Republicans wasted no time in publishing the memo [pdf], of course.
And, as expected, it alleges that senior government and law enforcement officials abused their authority by favoring Democrats over Republicans during the election, based on cherry-picked and/or misrepresented information.
In the simplest terms: the memo is a Republican's claim that the FBI was wrong to use information from a former top spy in applying for a warrant, because the former top spy didn't like Trump, was kind of a leaker, and was working (eventually) for Democrats.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 2, 2018
In addition to being dishonest, the memo is also just self-evidently stupid. As stupid as it is dangerous, because countless people who don't know better — and many people who should know better — are going to believe its mendacious contents.
The biggest scam in the memo is misrepresenting as partisanship what was actually a profound and justified distrust of Donald Trump.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 2, 2018
Trust in federal law enforcement and the Justice Department will erode even further, despite the fact that any sensible person should be asking themselves why the Republican Party has a vested interest in undermining public trust in institutions that hold corrupt federal officials accountable.
We were already mired in a constitutional crisis, and now it will get even worse.
Discussion Thread: Good Things
One of the ways we resist the demoralization and despair in which exploiters of fear like Trump thrive is to keep talking about the good things in our lives.
Because, even though it feels very much (and rightly so) like we are losing so many things we value, there are still daily moments of joy or achievement or love or empowering ferocity or other kinds of fulfillment.
Maybe you've experienced something big worth celebrating; maybe you've just had a precious moment of contentment; maybe getting out of bed this morning was a success worthy of mention.
News items worth celebrating are also welcome.
So, whatever you have to share that's good, here's a place to do it.
* * *
I just rewarded myself for swimming a mile when I really didn't fucking feel like it by ordering a new swim cap that says "I'm really a mermaid."
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 2, 2018
BECAUSE I'M A FUCKING ADULT.
When I went back to look at what my last "good thing" was, it was also a swim cap, lol! Look, what can I say? I am easily delighted by $5 swim caps.
(BTW: Literally the very first response to this tweet last night was a dude telling me I have "awesome boobs." Wonder not why I long for a private pool. I can't even talk about swimming without getting creeped on!)
Anyway! Swimming is continually a good thing in my life, and I am grateful that I finally have a place to do it.
As Long as We're All Having Fun While the Ship Sinks
I hate this article at Politico by Darren Samuelsohn so much: Russia Probe Lawyers Think Mueller Could Indict Trump.
First, the entire premise is rubbish. It's a bunch of speculation by anonymous sources, which of course most of the reporting on this subject is (and much of that has been irresponsible, too), but making predictions about outcomes is truly unhelpful.
Unless, that is, the objective is to issue reassurances (that should not be offered without any guarantees) to a resistance who are patiently and compliantly placing their hopes in the outcome, trusting that it will solve the Donald Trump Problem, while, in the interim, Trump and Congressional Republicans undermine the republic, our democracy, and everything we value at every turn.
Then making broad guesses makes a lot of sense, I guess. Cough.
Second, I find it quite troubling that the article doesn't make it abundantly clear that Bob Mueller's recommendations might never be made public if Rod Rosenstein doesn't decide to make them public. Many people, I have discovered, hold the expectation that, the moment Mueller issues a report, it's going to see the light of day and we're all gonna get to read it. That is not the case. And I'm not sure that this passing and insufficient explanation makes that clear, at all:
The Justice Department regulations that govern Mueller's work offer no clear endgame for the public to follow his investigation.And I don't think it's anything resembling responsible journalism to have a headline blaring "Russia Probe Lawyers Think Mueller Could Indict Trump," but expect readers to travel all the way to the 35th paragraph to find this single line on a critically important piece of information: "Rosenstein could also deny any attempt by Mueller to indict Trump."
They do stipulate that the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, has oversight of and final say on all major decisions by Mueller — specifically including any indictments. Rosenstein is also required to submit a report to Congress on the grounds for closing the investigation.
Third:
The lawyers' assessments hardly resolve the public debate about whether a federal prosecutor can indict a sitting president — one that several attorneys involved in the Russia probe said they are closely tracking through online op-eds and Twitter dustups. ("It's so much fun!" said one.)Glad they're getting their giggles over the question of whether a traitorous president can be indicted for his crimes against the nation.
Listen, maybe the lawyer who said that isn't a glib asshole with no stake in the future of their country, but someone who just needs to detach from the work a bit because they're extra invested in the future of their country. I don't know. But what I do know is that shit didn't need to make it into the article.
And neither did this: "Whatever Mueller and his deputies have planned, the attorney said, it is not likely to be anticlimactic."
Anticlimactic.
I guess the catastrophic failure of a year-long investigation to result in any accountability for an authoritarian traitor president who would thus be empowered to feel like he can literally do anything he wants with total impunity could be described as "anticlimactic."
Blink.
I Support Rep. Brenda Lawrence's Choice to Play Candy Crush or Ignore Donald Trump in Whatever Other Way She Chooses
I know I'm supposed to be OUTRAGED!!!1!!11 about this, but I'm really, really not. 😂😂😂 🍭🍬💯 https://t.co/ViW0dzufWd
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 1, 2018
When I first read about this last night, I burst out laughing, and Iain asked what was funny, and, as I tried to explain, I was laughing so hard he could barely understand what I was saying.
The thing that was making me laugh until tears were streaming from my eyes was reading conservatives LOSING! THEIR! SHIT! on Twitter about this. Just so fucking angry, spewing with RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION their totally trenchant commentary on the DISRESPECT of playing Candy Crush while THE PRESIDENT is speaking!!!
Just to be clear: The same people who thought white supremacist Rep. Joe Wilson was a hero for shouting "You lie!" at President Barack Obama now believe that Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a Black woman, is "disrespectful" for quietly redirecting her attention away from a Donald Trump, a president who has consistently denigrated Black women.
Do conservatives never tire of being the most ludicrous hypocrites?
That's rhetorical.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Liz Miller: "What thing do you really want but won't or can't buy for yourself and so you really hope you get it as a gift?"
An extension on my house with a heated pool, so I don't have to deal with creepers and fat-haters when I swim at the gym anymore.
Robert Wagner Is Officially a "Person of Interest" in the 1981 Death of Natalie Wood
BREAKING: Robert Wagner officially named as a "person of interest" in Natalie Woods’ death https://t.co/sSbWqtUTXa
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 1, 2018
Wow. I suspect a lot of folks are about to find out some shit they didn't know about Christopher Walken, too. https://t.co/Inzrjv9KGA
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 1, 2018
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] CBS News: Investigator Calls Robert Wagner a "Person of Interest" in Natalie Wood Drowning Death.
Nearly four decades after the unexplained drowning death of Hollywood star Natalie Wood, Los Angeles County Sheriff's investigators tell 48 Hours that her then-husband, actor Robert Wagner, is now a person of interest.I'm still not convinced that anything will come of this, even in this moment when there is more urgency than usual to hold men accountable for harming women. But I hope something does come of it. I want relief for Natalie Wood's sister, Lana, who has been seeking answers for nearly four decades.
..."As we've investigated the case over the last six years, I think he's more of a person of interest now," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant John Corina says of Wagner in an interview with 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. "I mean, we know now that he was the last person to be with Natalie before she disappeared."
Wood drowned off the coast of Catalina Island in California in November 1981 after she went missing from the Splendour, her family's yacht. Also aboard that night were Captain Dennis Davern, Wagner, and Wood's friend and fellow actor, Christopher Walken. The next day, the actress was found floating in the water wearing a red down jacket and flannel nightgown. After a two-week investigation, the death was ruled an accident. But, in 2011, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department reopened the death investigation. And in 2012 the Los Angeles Coroner's Office amended the death certificate, changing the manner of death from an accidental drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors."
I was 7 years old when Natalie Wood died. I am now 43. That's a very long time to not know what happened to a woman who was on a small yacht with three men.
Shaker Gourmet
Whatcha been cooking up in your kitchen lately, Shakers?
Share your favorite recipes, solicit good recipes, share recipes you've recently tried, want to try, are trying to perfect, whatever! Whether they're your own creation, or something you found elsewhere, share away.
Also welcome: Recipes you've seen recently that you'd love to try, but haven't yet!
Trump, Baby Hope, and What Wasn't Said
[Content Note: Reproductive coercion; addition.]
If you were disturbed by the "uplifting" story told by Donald Trump about the Holets family, who were his guests at the State of the Union, you are not alone.
Here is the story Trump told to the nation, as the camera lingered on the young white parents and the white baby being cradled in her adoptive mother's arms:
As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America. We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, an officer with the Albuquerque police department. He is here tonight with his wife, Rebecca. Thank you, Ryan.This story, when I heard Trump tell it, did not seem like the inspirational tale of people who "embody the goodness of our nation" to me. It seemed like a crass and exploitative yarn that reduced the identity of Hope's birth mother to a nameless, faceless junkie and invisibilized Trump's vile healthcare and childcare policies that leave many pregnant people and addicts without any good options.
Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.
In that moment, Ryan said he felt god speak to him. "You will do it, because you can." He heard those words. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope. Ryan and Rebecca, you embody the goodness of our nation. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan and Rebecca.
(And while I have no idea if Ryan and Rebecca Holets would have been so quick to adopt Baby Hope if her birth mother were not white, I strongly suspect that Trump would not have told the story if she hadn't been.)
Many of us wondered: Was there not a better solution? Would it not have been a greater kindness to secure the help and recovery that Hope's biological mother needed to get sober, instead of (or, at minimum, in addition to) separating her child from her?
Many of us wondered what had happened to the woman who was written out of the story, in Trump's telling.
At the New York Times, Jennifer Weiner answers some of these questions ("Baby Hope's biological mother is named Crystal Champ."), and observes how writing Crystal Champ out of the story — her story, as much as anyone's — acts in service to an anti-choice agenda where women (and other people who can get pregnant) are nothing more than incubators, whose humanity is decidedly inconvenient.
Think of the posters often brandished at anti-abortion marches and rallies, with the image of a fetus in utero, floating free, like an astronaut, with the umbilical cord, untethered, trailing off into the darkness. The spaceship — a woman — was, of course, nowhere to be seen, an important framing. With the woman literally out of the picture, abortion foes can advance the claim that a fertilized egg is just as much a unique human life, deserving of protection as a living, breathing, toddler.Trump's erasure of Crystal Champ acted in service to this narrative — the position I frequently describe as fetuses being valued more highly than the people who carry them.
They can argue that the only difference between an embryo, a newborn baby, and a kidney patient on dialysis is age, size, location and circumstance.
In this formulation, a pregnant woman, a living, breathing, thinking person, becomes no more than an environment, or a tool, whose story ends once she's given birth.
Once we put the woman back in the picture, once we insist on seeing her as a person, not a place or a thing, we've got to acknowledge what is, for abortion opponents, an inconvenient truth. ...That embryo requires the support, the partnership and the body, of one specific individual: The woman carrying it.
The way around that is for abortion opponents to simply take the woman out of the story, to erase her from the picture, or to characterize her as nothing more than the place that "pre-born baby" happens to reside.
It is an argument unique to anti-choice rhetoric: No one else is obliged to let their bodies be used without their consent to sustain another life. We don't even let organs be harvested to save a life unless the donor, or someone empowered to make decisions for them, consents to it.
That is why anti-choicers, including the president, choose to tell stories designed explicitly to conceal how far outside medical practice in all other circumstances forcible birth is, a central part of which is disappearing people who gestate the fetuses emblazoned on anti-choice propaganda.
But Trump had other things to conceal, as well: The fact that his policies failed Crystal Champ, and Baby Hope, in every conceivable way.
In the very same speech in which he held out this story as an example of "the best in America," he enthusiastically boasted about getting rid of the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, which makes healthcare affordable for and accessible to millions of people. He wants to restrict healthcare access further still.
He has declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, but took no action and requested no funds to do anything to address the problem beyond saying the words that got him a day's worth of headlines to make it look like he gives a shit.
He supports no early childcare policies that would help a mother struggling with addiction parent her own child; no policies at all that prioritize keeping families together. To the absolute contrary, he is an aggressive advocate of policies that tear families apart, from his cruel immigration policies to his Justice Department's renewed "war on drugs" that will continue to dismantle families via incarceration.
And his economic policies mean that people like Champ, and her daughter, will continue to be casualties of the class warfare being waged by his administration and Congressional Republicans.
All of these catastrophic failures were concealed in Trump's story, along with the identity and personhood and humanity of Crystal Champ.
He didn't say her name, and he didn't tell the truth about how conservative policy conspired to make Champ's best choice to give away her daughter, to a police officer who shamed her for being an addict in a country that treats addiction like moral weakness.
This story was emblematic of America, all right. But not in the way Trump would have us believe.
Daily Dose of Cute
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
We Resist: Day 378
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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Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: This Is a Constitutional Crisis and Hope Hicks May Have Conspired with Trump to Obstruct Justice.
As I mentioned in comments earlier, Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi has sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan calling for Rep. Devin Nunes to be removed as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Congressman Nunes' deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as Chairman, and he must be removed immediately from this position.Meanwhile, Carol D. Leonnig, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima, and Karoun Demirjian report at the Washington Post: Trump Expected to Approve Release of Memo Following Redactions Requested by Intelligence Officials.
House Republicans' pattern of obstruction and cover-up to hide the truth about the Trump-Russia scandal represents a threat to our intelligence and our national security. The GOP has led a partisan effort to distort intelligence and discredit the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities.
It is long overdue that you, as Speaker, put an end to this charade and hold Congressman Nunes and all Congressional Republicans accountable to the oath they have taken to support and defend the Constitution, and protect the American people.
The integrity of the House is at stake. We look forward to your immediate action on this subject.
No matter how many people try to convince him not to release the memo, with our without redactions, Donald Trump is going to go ahead and do it — because that was the entire point of Nunes drafting it in the first place.
Which is why, among many other reasons, he needs to be removed. And so does Trump.
Judd Legum at ThinkProgress: The Sketchy Past of Carter Page, the Man at the Center of the Republicans' Memo Obsession. "[The memo] really comes down to one question: Was an obscure Trump adviser named Carter Page a legitimate subject of FBI surveillance, or was he targeted improperly? ...Was the Steele dossier the sole basis to justify the surveillance? Based on what we know about Page, this is very unlikely. Page 'has been known to U.S. counterintelligence officials dating back to at least 2013, nearly three years before he joined the Trump campaign.' In 2013, Page met repeatedly with Victor Podobnyy, who was posing as 'a junior attaché at the Russian consulate.' In 2015, Podobnyy was charged with 'posing as a U.N. attaché under diplomatic cover while trying to recruit Mr. Page as a Russian intelligence source.' ...The memo may make it seem like the Steele memo was the primary or sole basis for surveillance of Page, but the reality is almost certainly far more complicated."
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[Content Note: Genocide]
BREAKING: The Associated Press confirms more than 5 mass graves in Myanmar through videos, interviews with dozens of survivors
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 1, 2018
Horrifying.
In November, Trump "pledged support" for the Rohingya, but it's not entirely clear to me what that has meant, aside from the United States acknowledging the campaign against the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing. This is the best information I could find on what the U.S. has been doing:
"This is a tragedy that's worse than anything that CNN or BBC has been able to portray about what has happened to these people," Mattis told reporters during a trip to Indonesia, Reuters reports. "And the United States has been engaged vigorously in the diplomatic realm trying to resolve this, engaged with humanitarian aid, a lot of money going into humanitarian aid."That's absurdly nonspecific, but there doesn't appear to be any better information available — and I suspect that's because the U.S. government isn't actually doing anything meaningful.
(And in case you're wondering: Yes, there are meaningful actions we could be taking. But we have not taken them.)
The lack of available solid information on what constitutes our "vigorous engagement in the diplomatic realm" highlights another critical issue: I literally don't know if we even have any functioning State Department in that part of the world at this point.
Which is another indication of how far gone our country already is. That we had qualified, competent ambassadors and other diplomatic staff in place during a crisis virtually anywhere on the planet was something I used to be able to take for granted. Now I have no fucking clue what is going on abroad.
And suffice it to say there would not have been a complete collapse of the State Department if Hillary Clinton were president.
Trump continues to fail us, and continues to fail the world.
In news related to the abject demolishment of the U.S. State Department:
Declan Walsh at the New York Times: As Strongmen Steamroll Their Opponents, U.S. Is Silent.
Matthew Lee at the AP: Top Career U.S. Diplomat to Step Down in Blow to State Department.
So things are only going to keep getting worse.
* * *
Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer at Politico: Behind Pence's Plan to Rescue the Republican Majority in 2018. "Vice President Mike Pence is launching one of the most aggressive campaign strategies in recent White House history: he will hopscotch the country over the next three months, making nearly three dozen stops that could raise tens of millions of dollars for House and Senate Republicans, all while promoting the party's legislative accomplishments. If done right, Pence said in an exclusive interview with POLITICO backstage before his speech to the House and Senate GOP here Wednesday night, Republicans could expand their majority in both chambers."
Setting fundraising aside, Pence will be accomplishing two things with this cross-country hobnobbing: 1. He will effectively be mounting a campaign that he's ready to be president, just in case. 2. He is laying the groundwork for the explanation when Republicans mysteriously have totally unexpected electoral success in the midterms. It won't be because Mike Pompeo rigged it with the Russians, but because Pence worked so gosh darn hard and visited all those places Washington doesn't care about blah blah fart.
I see you, Pence. I am annoyed that very few people in power seem to see you, including and especially Bob Mueller.
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Catherine Garcia at the Week: HUD Lawyers Warned Ben Carson About Letting His Son Get Involved in Department Business. "Lawyers with the Housing and Urban Development department warned HUD Secretary Ben Carson that by having his son, businessman Ben Carson Jr., actively involved in organizing a listening tour in Baltimore last summer, he was risking violating federal ethics rules, The Washington Post reports. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Post obtained a July 6, 2017, memo written by Linda M. Cruciani, HUD's deputy general counsel for operations, who said she had been told by HUD officials they were concerned about Carson Jr. and his wife, Merlynn, inviting people to tour events. ...[Cruciani expressed her concern] 'that this gave the appearance that the secretary may be using his position for his son's private gain.'"
[CN: War on agency; hostility to consent; nativism] Ed Pilkington at the Guardian: Trump Officials Considered Contentious Method to 'Reverse' Undocumented Teen's Abortion. "An anti-abortion activist who was appointed by Donald Trump to head a federal agency that detains undocumented immigrant children considered using a highly contentious and untested technique to stop a teenager from completing an abortion that was already in process, it has emerged. Scott Lloyd, the Trump administration's pick as director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, raised the prospect last March of administering the hormone progesterone to a 17-year-old girl from El Salvador who had entered the U.S. illegally and was being held in custody in San Antonio, Texas. The procedure is unrecognized by the medical profession as a means of reversing abortion and has side-effects attached to it."
[CN: War on agency] Nicole Knight at Rewire: GOP Lawmakers Are Pushing 'Make-Believe Health Care' Across the U.S. "Proponents of abortion pill 'reversal' aim to gain a foothold in Idaho with Republican legislation to tell those seeking abortion care about the unproven treatment. Patients would receive a 'fetal development packet' with information on 'interventions, if any, that may affect the effectiveness or reversal of a chemical abortion' and where to find providers, under a bill introduced Monday by state Sen. Lori Den Hartog (R-Meridian). Abortion pill 'reversal' purports to stop a medication abortion by delivering a large dose of the hormone progesterone before a patient takes the second pill in a series of two required medications to have a medication abortion. Backed by anti-choice lawmakers, legislation advocating for the experimental treatment has appeared in at least ten states since 2015, with limited success. Colorado legislators are also considering an abortion pill 'reversal' bill this year. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has condemned the so-called reversal treatment, saying it is 'not supported by the body of scientific evidence.'"
[CN: White supremacy] Rebecca Klein at the Huffington Post: American Students Aren't Learning the Full Truth About Slavery. "American students are being taught an inadequate and often sanitized version of history when it comes to slavery, according to a new report. The report, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, looks at how slavery is presented in K-12 classrooms and found that students are often taught a deeply incomplete version of events. ...Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed by an independent polling firm for the study identified slavery as the primary reason for the Civil War. Almost half identified tax protests as the main cause."
This is incredible. I feel like one learns the Civil War was about slavery by osmosis, and really has to be TAUGHT that it was about something else. https://t.co/5bRhRLM8ll
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 1, 2018
Recall what I was just saying this morning about white supremacists being the gatekeepers of Black history.
[CN: Environmental racism] Oliver Milman at the Guardian: Air Pollution: Black, Hispanic, and Poor Students Most at Risk from Toxins. "Schoolchildren across the U.S. are plagued by air pollution that's linked to multiple brain-related problems, with Black, Hispanic, and low-income students most likely to be exposed to a fug of harmful toxins at school, scientists and educators have warned. The warnings come after widespread exposure to toxins was found in new research using EPA and census data to map out the air pollution exposure for nearly 90,000 public schools across the U.S. 'This could well be impacting an entire generation of our society,' said Dr Sara Grineski, an academic who has authored the first national study, published in the journal Environmental Research, on air pollution and schools."
Jenny Rowland at ThinkProgress: The National Monuments Slashed by Trump Will Officially be Open to Mining on Friday. "Trump took an unprecedented step for a U.S. president in December — signing a proclamation that dramatically reduced the size of two national monuments. Bears Ears National Monument was cut by more than 85 percent and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was reduced by half. This resulted in the largest elimination of protected areas in U.S. history. The move put tens of thousands of Native American sacred sites at risk, along with key wildlife habitat, and areas used for outdoor recreation. While the longer-term fate of Trump's likely illegal action will play out in the courts, also buried in his December proclamation was a provision that on February 2, 2018, the areas excluded from the monuments would become open to private mineral companies to begin staking mining and drilling claims."
The @CFPB office that specializes in holding financial firms accountable for breaking discrimination laws now has no enforcement powers. To address Trump's patronizing question directed at African American voters, this is one of many things we had to lose. https://t.co/qREsmEpty0
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) February 1, 2018
Whitney Filloon at Eater: Tip-Pooling Will Cost Workers Billions, According to Hidden DOL Data. "As the debate around tip pooling continues, new evidence shows the Department of Labor hid data from the public that revealed its proposed regulations would cost restaurant workers billions of dollars, Bloomberg Law reports. The DOL reportedly conducted an analysis indicating that, if tip pooling was made legal again — that is, if restaurant owners were allowed to collect servers' tips and redistribute them as they see fit, including being allowed to pocket them — it would transfer billions of dollars' worth of gratuities from workers to business owners. These findings were left out of the department's December proposal to reverse the Obama administration rule that banned tip pooling."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Hope Hicks May Have Conspired with Trump to Obstruct Justice
As the top levels of federal government plunge ever deeper into crisis over Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation, the investigation continues apace — and the New York Times has published a significant report that White House Communications Director Hope Hicks may now be in Mueller's sights, too.
[A]s Mr. Trump's aides and family members tried over 48 hours to manage one of the most consequential crises of the young administration [regarding Don Jr's meeting with Russians at Trump Tower], the situation quickly degenerated into something of a circular firing squad. They protected their own interests, shifted blame, and potentially left themselves — and the president — legally vulnerable.My guess is that Mueller's interest will not be limited to just this incident and a single phrase, but will be piqued to explore in what other ways Hicks may have conspired with Trump to obstruct justice to protect him and his family.
The latest witness to be called for an interview about the episode was Mark Corallo, who served as a spokesman for Mr. Trump's legal team before resigning in July. Mr. Corallo received an interview request last week from the special counsel and has agreed to the interview, according to three people with knowledge of the request.
Mr. Corallo is planning to tell Mr. Mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with Mr. Trump and Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, according to the three people. Mr. Corallo planned to tell investigators that Ms. Hicks said during the call that emails written by Donald Trump Jr. before the Trump Tower meeting — in which the younger Mr. Trump said he was eager to receive political dirt about Mrs. Clinton from the Russians — "will never get out." That left Mr. Corallo with concerns that Ms. Hicks could be contemplating obstructing justice, the people said.
In a statement on Wednesday, a lawyer for Ms. Hicks strongly denied Mr. Corallo's allegations.
This Is a Constitutional Crisis
Last night, Rep. Adam Schiff, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, disclosed that Democrats had discovered the Republican Chair of the Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, had sent to the White House an altered version of his reckless memo alleging bias at the FBI and Justice Department. Because the president has to decide whether the document will be publicly released, Nunes sending a different memo is a big deal.
BREAKING: Discovered late tonight that Chairman Nunes made material changes to the memo he sent to White House – changes not approved by the Committee. White House therefore reviewing a document the Committee has not approved for release. pic.twitter.com/llhQK9L7l6
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 1, 2018
In his letter to Nunes, Schiff wrote:
After reviewing both versions, it is clear that the Majority made material changes to the version it sent to the White House, which Committee Members were never apprised of, never had the opportunity to review, and never approved.Not only did Nunes alter the memo before sending it to the White House; he did so after explicitly assuring Democratic Rep. Jim Himes that he would not alter it.
This is deeply troubling, because it means that the Committee Majority transmitted to the White House an altered version of its classified document that is materially different than the version on which the Committee voted. The White House has therefore been reviewing a document since Monday night that the Committee never approved for public release.
In a formal meeting, I asked Chairman Nunes not once, but twice, if his memo would be released precisely as we reviewed it. He said yes. Then altered it. pic.twitter.com/vWa1oFz9qX
— Jim Himes (@jahimes) February 1, 2018
Schiff wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Post that Nunes' memo "crosses a dangerous line." FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein reportedly met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Monday to make "a last-ditch plea" and warn about "the dangers of publicly releasing" the memo. The Department of Justice has also warned House Republicans against releasing the memo. And the FBI issued a formal statement yesterday expressing "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."
To be blunt: The minority party of the legislative branch and the intelligence community are essentially now in open war with the legislative branch majority and the executive branch.
And it is all because the president and his party are trying to stop an investigation into the subversion of our democratic process by a foreign adversary.
This is a constitutional crisis. It is not hyperbole to say that the very future of the republic is at stake.
Detailing what has led us to this point, under the troubling but accurate headline "Trump's Saturday Night Massacre Is Happening Right Before Our Eyes," Norm Eisen, Caroline Fredrickson, and Noah Bookbinder at Politico write: "All this has built steadily toward a crisis for American democracy — a Saturday Night Massacre in slow motion."
Two days ago, G. Willow Wilson published an important thread on Twitter, in which she noted that living in a dictatorship doesn't suddenly, in a single moment, feel different than what life felt like previously. "It's a mistake to think a dictatorship feels intrinsically different on a day-to-day basis than a democracy does," she wrote. "I've lived in one dictatorship and visited several others — there are still movies and work and school and shopping and memes and holidays."
A dictatorship often comes in steps, with slow erosions of public institutions, the rule of law, a free press, democratic processes, and the feeling of safety in exercising rights that still ostensibly exist.
"So if you're waiting for the grand moment when the scales tip and we are no longer a functioning democracy, you needn't bother," Wilson continued. "It'll be much more subtle than that. It'll be more of the president ignoring laws passed by congress. It'll be more demonizing of the press."
It will be — it is — the President of the United States deciding to make public a mendacious memo in direct contravention of all sage counsel and no matter the cost, because it's politically expedient for him to do so and because he refuses to be bound by the trust we have imparted in the office of the presidency and its holder, to prioritize what's best for the country over what's best for himself.
This crisis was inevitable, the moment that Donald Trump was allowed to step foot inside the Oval Office.
He did not have the nation's best interests at heart then, he does not now, and he never will.
And if his despicable party ever did, that moment has long since passed.
Black History Month
Today begins Black History Month, and I wanted to open a space for people to share resources — books, films, interviews, music, collections of poetry, art, blogs, speeches, links to events, anything explicitly associated with Black History Month or any content created by Black people that has been meaningful to you.
Head to comments with your recommendations!
As a white USian who grew up in a predominantly non-black community, Black history, especially as told by Black people, was largely concealed from me. What Black history I did get, at school and at home, was largely filtered through the lens of white supremacy and white privilege.
I reached 17 without ever encountering the idea that that was a problem.
It is a colossal problem that overwhelmingly white media get to shape the news, get to the tell the stories, get to choose whose voices are heard, get to define what Black lives look like, and get to redefine the effects of White Supremacy as Black Failure.
It is a problem in the historical record, and it is a problem in the record that is being created today. The Black perspective, the truth, was and is still being written out of history documented and controlled by white people.
Pushing back against this erasure is incredibly urgent in the Age of Trump, a white supremacist president who has repeatedly engaged in overtly anti-Black rhetoric.
Black history is living history. To mark the beginning of this month, I want to reaffirm my commitment to supporting and amplifying the voices of Black people who are telling their stories, to regard them as authorities on their own lives and lived experiences, to listen to them and believe them, to respect Black people as the definitive sources of their own history.
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