Donald Trump was in Europe the past couple of days, behaving like an absolute nightmare, the puppet of Vladimir Putin that he has always claimed not to be.
Observe their expressions as Putin approaches pic.twitter.com/okDnM2T4qt
— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) November 11, 2018
Anyone else notice the extra love tap that Putin gave his boy, @realDonaldTrump?🙄#PutinsPuppet#TrumpRussiapic.twitter.com/sVDk13wUUL
— Dr. Dena Grayson (@DrDenaGrayson) November 11, 2018
It’s not only that nationalism is on the rise around the globe, but also its pernicious twin, authoritarianism. From Poland to Hungary, Brazil to the Philippines, liberal democracy is being challenged everywhere and America must rise to its defense. We must be freedom’s champion. https://t.co/tGrftK7OaZ
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 12, 2018
Malice is the agenda. https://t.co/XL54XvNI1S
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 10, 2018
This list o' links brought to you by cherries.
Recommended Reading:
Jean Coulter with Rich Juzwiak at the Muse: [Content Note: Sexual harassment; retaliation] Harassed Out of Hollywood: A Veteran Stuntwoman Reflects on Life in the Movies and on the Blacklist
Alice Driver with Migrant Refugees at Longreads: When You Carry All That You Love with You
Yessenia Funes at Earther: [CN: Environmental devastation] The Congo's Ancient Forest Could Be Gone in Our Lifetime
Doreen St. Félix at the New Yorker: Samin Nosrat's Sensual, Compassionate Food Travels in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Kathryn VanArendonk at Vulture: [CN: Spoilers] The Best Hidden Jokes You Missed in The Good Place Season 3
Staff at Marine Megafauna Foundation: Innovative Techniques Used on Whale Sharks in the Galapagos to Find Out More About Their Reproduction
Kerry Wolfe at Atlas Obscura: Callanish Stones
And congratulations to my friend Mustang Bobby on 15 years (!) at his blog Bark Bark Woof Woof!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
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.
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1. The Democrats won the House, in case you hadn't heard!
2. I made a good stew last night, hearty and healthy and delicious, and there was enough left over for lunch today.
3. One of my favorite people on the planet is visiting this weekend. Huzzah!
A federal judge has blocked construction of Keystone XL pipeline, dealing a major blow to the Trump administration. https://t.co/PFvXpXcJ4Z
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 9, 2018
This is the proclamation. It's bad. https://t.co/5qUkh2HVFS
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) November 9, 2018
Trump, threatening to further retaliate against the free press if he doesn’t like their coverage, now saying “there could be others” whose credentials he pulls if they’re “not respectful”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 9, 2018
You mean they are just now finding votes in Florida and Georgia – but the Election was on Tuesday? Let’s blame the Russians and demand an immediate apology from President Putin!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
The rapidly-spreading Camp Fire erupted Thursday and overnight effectively devastated the entire town of Paradise, home to 27,000 people northeast of San Francisco. First reported at 6:30 in the morning, by noon the fire was spreading an astonishing 80 acres per minute. As of Friday morning it had burned 20,000 acres.My god. The threat is still nowhere near over. And this is going to be our new normal, because of climate change that our president and his party refuse to even acknowledge is real.
"Pretty much the community of Paradise is destroyed, it's that kind of devastation," the AP reported CALFIRE Captain Scott McLean saying. "The wind that was predicted came and just wiped it out."
...At the same time as the Camp Fire, some 75,000 homes were also evacuated due to the Woolsey Fire just north of Los Angeles. Spreading across 8,000 acres, the evacuations have been described as "unprecedented for the area," LA Bureau chief Jon Passantino tweeted.
At the same time, it took just 12 minutes for the Hill Fire — burning just 9 miles away from the Woolsey Fire — to jump Highway 101, consuming 10,000 acres.
The full extent of the damage is still being assessed and as of Friday morning the fires were "zero percent contained." The three fires, all fueled by intense seasonal winds, add to an already unprecedented fire season this year.
This summer saw 16 different fires in California alone.
Here is your semi-regular makeup thread, to discuss all things makeup and makeup adjacent.
Do you have a makeup product you'd recommend? Are you looking for the perfect foundation which has remained frustratingly elusive? Need or want to offer makeup tips? Searching for hypoallergenic products? Want to grouse about how you hate makeup? Want to gush about how you love it?
Whatever you like — have at it!
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As I keep mentioning every time I post a Makeup Thread, lol, I haven't gotten any new products in a long time, but I just received (literally this morning) Kerry Washington's Force of Nature Eye Palette for Neutrogena, and I am very excited about it!
[Content Note: White supremacy; misogyny.]
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bernie Sanders actually said this shit (emphases mine):
RS: Do you have any thoughts about the leadership in the House?Bernie. No.
BS: I will let them work that out themselves. I'm obviously not a member of the House anymore. We'll let them make their own decisions. But this is what I absolutely do believe. I absolutely believe that from day one, the Democrats in the House have got to come out with a progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working people. And that leads to — as you know, the Medicare-for-all bill I introduced, which is to be implemented over four years, lowers the eligibility age from 65 to 55, covers all of the children, and lowers the cost of prescription drugs. My guess is that about 80-percent of the American people would support a proposal like that. It's wildly popular. And that's what the Democrats have got to do. They've got to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour, they've got to make public colleges tuition-free, and they've got to lower student debt. All of these proposals are enormously popular. And they're good public policy. And here's what I think, Matt, that maybe nobody else in the world believes. As you know, Trump is a 100-percent political opportunist, who has no political views other than how he can win elections.
RS: Well, that's true.
BS: Today, if he is a racist and a sexist, tomorrow he may be a great civil rights champion — if he thinks it gets him five more votes. He has no core values. I would not be shocked that if the Democrats passed popular, good legislation, that Trump would look around him and say, "Hey, why not? What do I give a damn?" And he may come on board, because ultimately he doesn't believe in anything except winning. So I believe it's terribly important that the Democrats come out of the gate full-steam ahead and start passing really good legislation that puts Trump and the Republicans on the defensive.
[Content Note: Gun violence; disablism; toxic masculinity.]
Over the last 24 hours, we've learned the identities of the people who were killed when Ian David Long who opened fire in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California yesterday, killing 12 people and injuring others before killing himself: Sean Adler, 48; Cody Coffman, 22; Blake Dingman, 21; Jake Dunham, 21; Ron Helus, 54; Alaina Housley, 18; Daniel Manrique, 33; Justin Meek, 23; Marky Meza, Jr., 20; Kristina Morisette, 20; Telemachus "Tel" Orfanos, 27; and Noel Sparks, 21.
My condolences to their families, friends, and all who knew them. I am so sorry.
We've also learned more about Ian David Long, a former marine who was thought to have PTSD, though apparently did not have an official diagnosis. Naturally, many people are using reports of his having PTSD to spin the old "mentally ill lone wolf" chestnut, but Long had a history of being abusive that predated his time in the military. Like virtually every other mass shooter, he was abusive toward women:
"He attacked me. He attacked his high school track coach," said [Dominique Colell]. "Who does that?"Long had also had multiple interactions with police over many years, most of them for minor infractions, but there was a serious confrontation in April of this year, during which police were seen by neighbors "drawing their guns and rifles and training them on the house," because Long was inside thrashing irately and refusing to come out. He eventually came outside to talk to police, but they decided he wasn't a threat and left.
...Colell says it happened during practice when someone found a phone and she was trying to figure out who it belonged to.
"Ian came up and started screaming at me that was his phone," said Colell. "He just started grabbing me. He groped my stomach. He groped my butt. I pushed him off me and said after that — 'You're off the team.'"
But Colell says she was encouraged by other coaches and the school to accept an apology to not ruin his future in the Marine Corps.
"I should have reported it then," said Colell.
And although she never would have predicted this, Colell says she doesn't believe this is just a case of PTSD. She says Long had issues long before he was ever a Marine.
"There are hundreds of thousands of people with PTSD," said Colell. "They don't go around shooting people. This kid was mentally disturbed in high school. There were signs and the administration knew it."
Deputies who responded to the incident said Long was irate and acting irrationally, said Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean. The sheriff's crisis-intervention team and mental health specialist met with Long, and those who evaluated him discussed the possibility that "he might be suffering from PTSD," Dean said, because of Long's service.Long's mother was worried about him, but Long reportedly refused help. It's unclear if she was the one who called police in April, or if it was one of the neighbors who heard him violently raging inside their home, but someone certainly urged authorities to pay attention to Long.
Under a 5150 order, authorities are allowed to take people into custody and hold them for up to 72 hours because they are considered a threat to themselves or others. But the mental health crisis team that evaluated Long cleared him, Dean said. If they had placed him under a psychiatric hold, he would have lost the legal right to own a gun.
Suggested by Shaker Quinalla: "What is the most interesting thing you've figured out about yourself lately?"
That I'm more tenacious than I even thought.
A thread for sharing what we're currently reading: Fiction, nonfiction, novels, short stories, historical fiction, biographies, romance, fanfic, comic books, graphic novels, longform journalism, research papers, stuff for pleasure, stuff for work, whatever.
I haven't had a chance to read anything for the past week or so, because I've just been too busy with all the news and too tired to read when I have downtime, but I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else is reading!
What are you reading now?
Earlier today, USA Today investigative reporter Brad Heath tweeted: "Mueller's office told the D.C. Cir. that if the acting attorney general instructs them not to take particular investigative steps, that's that. 'It is not the case that the special counsel is off wandering in a free floating environment.'"
Now, as far as I can tell, this statement is nothing more than Bob Mueller saying he doesn't view the scope of the special counsel as unconstrained; that he answers to someone.
(Usually that someone is the Attorney General, when the Attorney General isn't compromised and then obliged to recuse himself and then fired and then replaced by a nightmare who hates the special counsel's investigation.)
The statement came as part of an answer to questions from the bench this morning during a scheduled D.C. Cir. argument "that the purpose of Mueller's appointment was to make the investigation of Russian interference sufficiently independent 'that the American people could have confidence in it.'"
So, on the one hand, it's entirely innocuous. On the other, given the context and timing, it sure seems to be communicating something urgent about the fate of the investigation.
Maybe that Matthew Whitaker is already asserting his power over its direction. Maybe that the investigation has already been killed. At minimum, it seems like a plea that, without intervention, the investigation is doomed.
Which I certainly and reasonably surmised, once a fervent critic was handed control.
Still, here is what seems to be a signal for help, coming from Mueller. That is troubling, even though the crisis was entirely expected.
It's evident that Whitaker is wholly prepared to disallow any of Mueller's findings from reaching Congress. If he is even allowed to finish his investigation and make a final report, it will remain in the darkness.
At this point, I believe our best hope for seeing Mueller's report may be Mike Pence, who I still believe may be cooperating with Mueller. And even if he's not, he may be willing to use Mueller to make his own move.
Pence has wanted to be president virtually his entire life, and I can't shake the feeling that he is tired of waiting. Surely he knows that if Trump goes down in an election loss in 2020, his last chance at the presidency goes down with it. That's looking far more likely after the midterms — which means Pence's best bet at this point is to make sure that Trump goes down via resignation or impeachment.
Otherwise, I fear that the only other way Mueller's report will ever see the light of day is if Mueller himself breaks the law to publicly disclose it. And I don't imagine that's very likely.
This is your semi-regular thread in which fat women can share pix, make recommendations for clothes they love, ask questions of other fat women about where to locate certain plus-size items, share info about sales, talk about what jeans cut at what retailer best fits their body shapes, discuss how to accessorize neutral colored suits, share stories of going bare-armed for the first time, brag about a cool fashion moment, whatever.
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A going-to-the-movies-with-a-friend look, part of which was seen in the last selfies thread, but here's the whole thing:
⚠️ If you voted with a provisional ballot, you need to make sure your vote is counted. Contact your Supervisor of Elections office immediately before the 5 PM deadline. If you have questions, call our Voter Protection Hotline: (833) 868-3352 ☎️ https://t.co/tpd7dtEjiw
— Florida Democrats (@FlaDems) November 8, 2018
I really want to understand how you — or, anyways, so many women like you — chose a man like Donald Trump over a vastly more qualified Hillary Clinton. I want to know if you honestly thought he had the moral compass, not to mention the mental wherewithal, to be president of these United States. There may be a good number of reasons that you're just flat out tired of the Clinton name. However, I can guarantee you that she wouldn't have left people to suffer in Puerto Rico. The City of Flint would have gotten the federal funding it needs to completely overhaul its water systems. We certainly would not be the laughingstock of leaders from around the globe. No one would have been snickering during her address to the United Nations.This is a very good piece by Goldie. I don't pretend to know the minds of white women who vote Republican, and I don't know what on earth will reach them, but I desperately hope that they accept this plaintive but firm invitation.
...Surely, you heard the way he talked about women on that Access Hollywood tape? You weren't convinced when he called undocumented immigrants 'rapists' and 'murderers'? Or when he said in a nationally televised interview that women who seek reproductive healthcare to end an unwanted pregnancy should be punished? Seriously, I think he meant jail. According to a Pew public opinion poll, 40 percent of Republican women are pro-choice. Overall, more than half of all women believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But, y'all still voted for this guy.
...Did you not hear the fight in Stacey Abrams' voice? Did you not hear her when she dropped all the ideological talking points and crafted a plan for her state that prioritizes an investment in families? Did you not hear her when she said Republicans are actively declining $8 million a day in federal dollars because they refuse to expand Medicaid?
...I sincerely hope that one day I will be able to count on you as an ally, to call you — without hesitation — my sister.
Aid agencies and medical staff on the ground in Hodeidah have begged the international community to intervene to stop the violence in the besieged Yemeni city as coalition and Houthi rebel forces struggle to gain the upper hand ahead of a planned ceasefire at the end of the month.Fucking hell. The Democrats' scrutiny of Trump's foreign policy cannot come soon enough. Literally.
"The violence is unbearable, I cannot tell you. We're surrounded by strikes from the air, sea, and land," said Wafa Abdullah Saleh, a nurse at the barely functioning al-Olafi hospital in the Houthi-controlled city centre.
"The hospital treats the hungry and people injured in airstrikes day in and day out, but there is a serious shortage of medicine," she said. "Even if we try our hardest we cannot treat patients because we lack the necessities for basic operations."
...In a joint statement on Thursday, several international aid agencies condemned the intense new violence in Hodeidah, calling it a "deeply disturbing development," and calling on all parties to the conflict to cease the fighting and engage with the UN-sponsored peace process.
A new round of peace talks to end the war — which has killed an estimated 56,000 people and left 14 million on the brink of starvation — are scheduled for early December in Sweden.
At the UN, diplomats were working frantically to get agreement on a draft resolution by next Friday that would demand a ceasefire and the free flow of humanitarian aid. But there is concern that the U.S. is demanding the draft include passages criticising Iran's role in Yemen that might be sufficient to prompt a Russian veto.
Any sensible person fully expected that outgoing Attorney General Jeff Sessions' replacement would be even worse than he was. The only question was what particular flavors of terrible it would be.
Sessions' interim (and possibly permanent) replacement, Matthew Whitaker, who's been handed control of Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation, is already shaping up to be a total fucking nightmare.
Last year, he penned a piece for CNN entitled "Mueller's Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far."
In a piece by Betsy Woodruff et. al. at the Daily Beast about the secretive, anti-Democrat group he led, a Department of Justice trial attorney is quoted saying, "Whitaker is on record as being more interested in propping up Trump than in upholding the rule of law. It's hard to have confidence that he'll do anything other than what the president had said in his tweets."
Like Donald Trump, Whitaker is a con artist who was "involved in a Miami-based invention-marketing company the Federal Trade Commission shut down last year after calling it a scam," and like Mike Pence, Whitaker is a Christian Supremacist who believes that judges should have "a biblical view."
In July of 2017, Whitaker was a guest on a CNN panel where he defended Don Trump Jr.'s taking the Trump Tower meeting with Russian operatives offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, because: "You would always take that meeting."
Speaking of Don Jr., his father is reportedly (and take that with a grain of salt) very worried that his son is about to be indicted by Mueller: "In recent days, according to three sources, Don Jr. has been telling friends he is worried about being indicted as early as this week. One person close to Don Jr. speculated that Mueller could indict him for making false statements to Congress and the F.B.I. about whether he had told his father about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting."
If Trump is worried about his son being indicted, presumably it's less out of actual concern for his son but because he is worried about his own guilty hide. He may feel like he's next, which is why he has "already begun reviewing with his lawyers the written answers to questions from special counsel Robert Mueller."
And why he acted swiftly to oust Sessions and shove Rod Rosenstein aside to put Whitaker in charge of the Mueller investigation.
Trump and Whitaker share one very important thing in common: They both believe Whitaker's primary role at the Justice Department is to shield Trump from justice.
[Content Note: Authoritarianism; misogyny.]
Yesterday, during Donald Trump's post-midterms press conference, CNN's Jim Acosta, who has been a regular target of Trump's ire, was dismissed and scolded by Trump when he asked about Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation and questioned Trump's incendiary language about the migrant caravan headed toward the southern border.
Trump sneered at Acosta: "That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. Put down the mic. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. You're a very rude person."
Acosta continued to try to ask his questions, as is his job, and a White House aide, a young woman, was sent over to him to try to grab the microphone away from him. He held onto it, persisting as Trump shouted at him that he'd had enough.
Later in the day, the White House announced that it was suspending Acosta's press pass "until further notice." In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said he would be stripped of his "hard pass," which grants access to the White House grounds.
Sanders defended the decision by accusing Acosta of "placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern," which she added was "absolutely unacceptable."
This was, to be clear, an outright lie. The video clearly shows that Acosta did not "place his hands" on the woman who was trying to rip the microphone away from him, casting furtive glances at Trump the entire time she was doing it.
At one point, Acosta's hand does come in contact with her arm, but only because he was trying to get away from her as she was grabbing at the mic. It is clearly a defensive and accidental contact.
Sanders, however, was determined to make the case that Acosta assaulted the young woman, so she deployed doctored video, slowed down in that section, to make it appear as though Acosta is making a downward "chopping" motion.
1) Took @PressSec Sarah Sanders' video of briefing
— Rafael Shimunov 🔥 (@rafaelshimunov) November 8, 2018
2) Tinted red and made transparent over CSPAN video
3) Red motion is when they doctored video speed
4) Sped up to make Jim Acosta's motion look like a chop
5) I've edited video for 15+ years
6) The White House doctored it pic.twitter.com/q6arkYSx0V
