Call me Ad or Mercury or something.
I'm fond of birds and other inane things.
I prefer they/them/their or masculine pronouns, with regards to those.
At this point half of this place is sentimentality directed at/reblogged from Iron (<3), you have been warned.
If you want me to tag something for you, please tell me! I'm more than willing.
...That's pretty much it.
Icon: Absiste
Background/hover image: 1.
we, in a manner akin to that of a man who once was, in Rome, an orator of significant skill, who was then for his elegance of speech renowned and now for his elaborate structure of sentences cursed by generations of scholars of Latin, the language which he spoke and we now study, Cicero, write, rather than by any efficiency, functionality, or ease of legibility have our words, our honors, the breaths of our hearts, be besmirched.
Franceās politicians and community leaders have criticised the āintolerableā violence against Parisā Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars.Ā
please please please spread this around, please speak up about this, please let everyone know that this is not okay, please please please protect my people from a second kristallnacht, pleaseĀ
Listen. Ā I love my followers and my mutuals dearly. Ā You know how occasionally I post something likeĀ āevery Jew on this site has a list in their head of who reblogs what and who ignores posts about Jewsā? Ā Iām talking about this shit. Ā I have been seeing things on my dash about the situation of Jews in France for over a year, but itās coming from other Jews 99% of the time. Ā Please stop ignoring this. Ā This is literally history repeating itself and we canāt be the only ones calling it out again.
Lawblr side of Tumblr, here. I donāt think anybody even understands how terrifying this is. If the Executive can ignore the Judiciary, then we have a full-on Constitutional Crisis on our hands. Our country immediately falls apart. The only options for enforcement of judicial orders are 1) U.S. Marshals (which are ordered around by the Judiciary but ultimately still a part of the Executive as part of the Department of Justice), in which case we have an ACTUAL ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, or if the Marshals refuse to comply, 2) the Governor of the state, say Virginia, sends in the National Guard of the state, which leads to AN ARMED CONFLICT BETWEEN A STATE MILITIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
In case you werenāt getting the picture, let me be blunt and dramatic: this is literally Civil War-level shit right here.
And Trump has been in office a week.
This is fucking terrifying.
I spent the day at SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport). We got very little done because CBP refused to talk to us at all. When one of the attorneys with us annoyed them so much that they finally answered their office door (she literally knocked on it for 10 minutes straight), they directed her to the press release on their website (side note: I donāt know if there even is a press release on the CBP website). They told her they donāt care how many attorneys show up, they donāt take orders from attorneys or judges. Senator Patty Murray showed up just after 4:00 & CBP refused to talk to her, too. I will repeat that: Customs and Border Patrol refused to talk to a sitting United States Senator. They refused other senators at other airports, too, according to a WaPo article I read earlier.
I had to return to Portland tonight because I have work tomorrow. ACLU & International Refugee Assistance Project attorneys will be back at SeaTac tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. (including my law school bestie, I am so proud).Ā
There were 13 people detained at SeaTac yesterday who were secretly transferred to a detention facility in Tacoma, so the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is working with attorneys to straighten that right out.Ā
Basically: Shit is going down, yāall. The women I went up with today? Both were Arabs. One was from Pakistan, the other was from Lebanon (a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew walk into an airportā¦). When I asked them if I was overreacting by feeling like this was a coup-in-progress, they said no. Thatās precisely what this is.
I thought we had a coup-proof system. I was mistaken.
Keep fighting the good fight, lawyers. And if youāre in Portland, Iāll see you at Perkins-Coie tomorrow at 5:30 for the L4GG meeting.
At Dulles, CBP has been stonewalling four members of the US House of Representatives, the governer and attorney general of Virginia, and Senators Cory Booker (NJ) and Mark Warner (VA)āthe latter of whom chewed out the head of CBP in person. No dice. Not even with a federal court order telling CBP at Dulles, only them, and them in particularĀ to give detainees access to lawyers.
And theyāre pulling an old trick from the national-security handbook thatās been used to evade the courts on issues like domestic surveillance:Ā āLawyers and advocates still didnāt know how many people were being held in the secondary inspection area at Dulles or what their immigration status was, which led to a catch-22: Attorneys couldnāt file for contempt of court without having proof that legal residents were being detained and not being given access to lawyers, but they couldnāt get proof without getting access.ā (x)
At least two VA reps have found out (via friends and family) about constituents being detained at Dulles, at which point CBP released them in order to dodge the access-to-lawyers issue. The representative for my district isĀ on the warpathāand also on the House Oversight Committee.Ā Hereās hoping these fuckers get slapped with contempt of court so hard their ears ring, then get hauled in front of a committee hearing to see if they want to try their chances with contempt of Congress.
All of which doesnāt even get into the Monday Night Massacre clusterfuck insideĀ the executive branch, when the acting attorney general of the United States refused to make the DoJ defend the lawfulness of the immigration order in court. And was summarily fired and replaced with someone more compliant. So hereās alsoĀ hoping the Senate puts Jeff Sessions through absolute hell on his role in all this before they vote to confirm him as AG.
Even if you agree with the ban, this is not right. Due process must take place before moving forward with any action. We are a democracy and we must have proper checks and balances in place to avoid abuses of power.
Itās not the thing that scares me the most;Ā but one of the truly terrifying things about our current situation is the realization of how much theĀ āchecks and balancesā of our government come down to āthis is how itās supposed to work, but if youāre a big enough asshole to do an end-run around it, thereās not actually a mechanism in place to stop youā. Ā The system is rife to be brutally abused if you put someone in power whoās enough of an asshole to take advantage of it, and thatās what weāve got in Steve Bannon.
āEven if you agree with the ban, this is not right.ā Also just FYI since it came up, if you agree with the ban youāre a shitty human being and a bigot.
The number of notes on that post advocating to not pursue an impeachment of Trump due to Pence is actually horrifying.
1. Pence is running things anyway. Showing the public the man behind the curtain is quite crucial. Remember, when Trump offered vp to Kasich, he told him heād be in charge of both domestic and foreign affairs.
2. Trumpās temperament is likely to have extremely negative geopolitical consequences in a way that Penceās wouldnāt. Who do you see as more likely to engage in a ground war along with Russia? Trump already talked about invading Iraq again. And this isnāt touching the nuclear arsenal thing.
3. Pence is not popular in Congress at all. A republican who is hugely hated in Indiana does not really have a ton of political capital, especially since he tanked their economy. A lot of the reason GOP swung to Trump late is because *he* was the charismatic face that was creating this supposed populist āmovementā (the marches sort of knocked the wind out of that a little). Itās Trump that is being held up, and itās Trump specifically the neonazis are looking towards (Bannon wrote his fucking inaugural address). We need Trump, the man, to go ASAP for that reason.
Pence will be our worst president, but heāll be survivable, heāll have no chance at reelection, and seeing as heās already most definitely the one driving policy (Dep of Ed pick was his, almost without question, for instance), we at least need to have that recognized so he can be held accountable.
Pence is not the āreal Hitler.ā Authoritarian movements prop up one person. In this case it was Trump. The MAGA hats have jack-all to do with Pence, and exceedingly little to do with policy. Which is why Trump, specifically, is the threat to our democracy.
it BLOWS MY MIND to see yāall pretend pence represents even half the danger of trump. pence is a by-the-book, lab-created tea party facebook meme republican, which is by no means good, but still entirely capable of making sure the nation doesnāt start a fucking nuclear holocaust because heās upset about the way his thighs look in a press photo
Besides, itās not like any of us cockroach motherfuckers are going to magically stop fighting with Pence officially in the helm. Fuck, guys, WE KNOW HEāS TERRIBLE, TOO. If anything, switching from fighting chaotic evil to lawful evil will allow us to regroup and focus instead of playing fucking whack-a-mole.
(1) Priebus made two public statements today. One is that the ban on Muslims will no longer be applied to green card holders. Notably absent from his statement was anything about people with other types of visa (including long-term ones), or anything about the DHSā power to unilaterally revoke green cards in bulk.
The other was that the omission of Jews from the statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day was deliberate and is not regretted.
A point of note here is that Priebus is the one making these statements, which is not normally the Chief of Staffās job. Iāll come back to that below.
(2) Rudy Giuliani told Fox News that the intent of yesterdayās order was very much a ban on Muslims, described in those words, and he was among the people Trump asked how they could find a way to do this legally.
(3) CNN has a detailed story (heavily sourced) about the process by which this ban was created and announced. Notable in this is that the DHSā lawyers objected to the order, specifically its exclusion of green card holders, as illegal, and also pressed for there to be a grace period so that people currently out of the country wouldnāt be strandedāāāand they were personally overruled by Bannon and Stephen Miller. Also notable is that career DHS staff, up to and including the head of Customs & Border Patrol, were kept entirely out of the loop until the order was signed.
(4) The Guardian is reporting (heavily sourced) that the āmass resignationsāof nearly all senior staff at the State Department on Thursday were not, in fact, resignations, but a purge ordered by the White House. As the diagram below (by Emily Roslin v Praze) shows, this leaves almost nobody in the entire senior staff of the State Department at this point.
As the Guardian points out, this has an important and likely not accidental effect: it leaves the State Department entirely unstaffed during these critical first weeks, when orders like the Muslim ban (which they would normally resist) are coming down.
The article points out another point worth highlighting: āIn the past, the state department has been asked to set up early foreign contacts for an incoming administration. This time however it has been bypassed, and Trumpās immediate circle of Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, son-in-law Jared Kushner and Reince Priebus are making their own calls.ā
(5) On Inauguration Day, Trump apparently filed his candidacy for 2020. Beyond being unusual, this opens up the ability for him to start accepting ācampaign contributionsā right away. Given that a sizable fraction of the campaign funds from the previous cycle were paid directly to the Trump organization in exchange for building leases, etc., at inflated rates, you can assume that those campaign coffers are a mechanism by which US nationals can easily give cash bribes directly to Trump. Non-US nationals can, of course, continue to use Trumpās hotels and other businesses as a way to funnel money to him.
(6) Finally, I want to highlight a story that many people havenāt noticed. On Wednesday, Reuters reported (in great detail) how 19.5% of Rosneft, Russiaās state oil company, has been sold to parties unknown. This was done through a dizzying array of shell companies, so that the most that can be said with certainty now is that the money āpayingā for it was originally loaned out to the shell layers by VTB (the governmentās official bank), even though itās highly unclear who, if anyone, would be paying that loan back; and the recipients have been traced as far as some Cayman Islands shell companies.
Why is this interesting? Because the much-maligned Steele Dossier (the one with the golden showers in it) included the statement that Putin had offered Trump 19% of Rosneft if he became president and removed sanctions. The reason this is so interesting is that the dossier said this in July, and the sale didnāt happen until early December. And 19.5% sounds an awful lot like ā19% plus a brokerage commission.ā
Conclusive? No. But it raises some very interesting questions for journalists to investigate.
What does this all mean?
I see a few key patterns here. First, the decision to first block, and then allow, green card holders was meant to create chaos and pull out opposition; they never intended to hold it for too long. It wouldnāt surprise me if the goal is to create āresistance fatigue,ā to get Americans to the point where theyāre more likely to say āOh, another protest? Donāt you guys ever stop?ā relatively quickly.
However, the conspicuous absence of provisions preventing them from executing any of the ānext stepsā I outlined yesterday, such as bulk revocation of visas (including green cards) from nationals of various countries, and then pursuing them using mechanisms being set up for Latinos, highlights that this does not mean any sort of backing down on the part of the regime.
Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the courtās order, citing āupper management,ā and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the Presidentās orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in todayās updates is any lack of suggestion that the courtsā authority played a role in the decision.
That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.
A second major theme is watching the set of people involved. There appears to be a very tight āinner circle,ā containing at least Trump, Bannon, Miller, Priebus, Kushner, and possibly Flynn, which is making all of the decisions. Other departments and appointees have been deliberately hobbled, with key orders announced to them only after the fact, staff gutted, and so on. Yesterdayās reorganization of the National Security Council mirrors this: Bannon and Priebus now have permanent seats on the Principalsā Committee; the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have both been demoted to only attending meetings where they are told that their expertise is relevant; the Secretary of Energy and the US representative to the UN were kicked off the committee altogether (in defiance of the authorizing statute, incidentally).
I am reminded of Trumpās continued operation of a private personal security force, and his deep rift with the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Kellyanne Conway (likely another member of the inner circle) said that āItās really time for [Trump] to put in his own security and intelligence community,ā and this seems likely to be the case.
As per my analysis yesterday, Trump is likely to want his own intelligence service disjoint from existing ones and reporting directly to him; given the current staffing and roles of his inner circle, Bannon is the natural choice for them to report through. (Having neither a large existing staff, nor any Congressional or Constitutional restrictions on his role as most other Cabinet-level appointees do) Keith Schiller would continue to run the personal security force, which would take over an increasing fraction of the Secret Serviceās job.
Especially if combined with the DHS and the FBI, which appear to have remained loyal to the President throughout the recent transition, this creates the armature of a shadow government: intelligence and police services which are not accountable through any of the normal means, answerable only to the President.
(Note, incidentally, that the DHS already has police authority within 100 miles of any border of the US; since that includes coastlines, this area includes over 60% of Americans, and eleven entire states. They also have a standing force of over 45,000 officers, and just received authorization to hire 15,000 more on Wednesday.)
The third theme is money. Trumpās decision to keep all his businesses (not bothering with any blind trusts or the like), and his fairly open diversion of campaign funds, made it fairly clear from the beginning that he was seeing this as a way to become rich in the way that only dedicated kleptocrats can, and this weekās updates definitely tally with that. Kushner looks increasingly likely to be the money-man, acting as the liaison between piles of cash and the president.
This gives us a pretty good guess as to what the exit strategy is: become tremendously, and untraceably, rich, by looting any coffers that come within reach.
Combining all of these facts, we have a fairly clear picture in play.
Trump was, indeed, perfectly honest during the campaign; he intends to do everything he said, and more. This should not be reassuring to you.
The regimeās main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.
The inner circle is actively probing the means by which they can seize unchallenged power; yesterdayās moves should be read as the first part of that.
The aims of crushing various groupsāāāMuslims, Latinos, the black and trans communities, academics, the pressāāāare very much primary aims of the regime, and are likely to be acted on with much greater speed than was earlier suspected. The secondary aim of personal enrichment is also very much in play, and clever people will find ways to play these two goals off each other.
If youāre looking for estimates of what this means for the future, Iāll refer you back to yesterdayās post on what āthings going wrongā can look like. Fair warning: I stuffed that post with pictures of cute animals for a reason.
I donāt think people realize how much of an impact this kind of support can have, I donāt think everyone knows what these little things can mean to us.
It may just be me, I donāt know. But every single time I see this on my dash or on someoneās blog or anywhere else, I kind of just breathe a sigh of relief. Thatās one more person who cares. Thatās one more person who doesnāt hate me.
Because it means so much, especially when all the media is spewing out is that Iām a terrible person and no one wants people like me near them. It means so much because Iām tired of people who wonāt sit next to me in class, or who choose to join the longer line at the grocery store because they donāt want to be beside me and my family. It means so much when I have to lift my head any time someone says the words Islam or Muslim because Iām scared that theyāll say something thatāll hurt, when I have to pay attention to the news because who knows what so and so is saying now, who knows which of my people are being attacked now, who knows whatās going to happen to me now.
It means so much because Iāve been given the idea that the world is against me. And a huge part of it may be, but at least Iāve been reminded that some of it, just a small group of people, acknowledges that Iām a person too. That people like me are just that, people.
Maybe itās just me, I donāt know. But now you do, so thank you for believing that Iām human when so many people donāt.
āPresident-elect Donald Trumpās transition team has asked the State Department to list its workers who focus on gender equality and ending violence against women, in whatās being seen as an echo of an earlier request for the Energy Department to list employees who work on climate change.
In a brief email that was sent Wednesday morning, the Trump team asked the State Departmentās bureaus and offices to list any programs or activities that āpromote gender equality, such as ending gender-based violence, promoting womenās participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc.ā
The email was acquired and published by The New York Times, which reports:
āAlthough the wording of the memo is neutral and does not hint at any policy change, it rattled State Department employees, even those at senior levels. Some officials said they feared that the incoming Trump administration was trying to determine what programs were focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, though the memo did not refer to them.ā
The team also asked the department offices to ānote positions whose primary functions are to promote such issuesā and to highlight any funds for the current financial year that are āalready allocated to such programs and activities.āā
Enforcement of a political orthiodoxy and singling out anyone who goes against it within the governmental apparatus is pretty much part and parcel of both fascism and Stalinism (although Soviet Communism always had a tendency to this, it reached literally lethal levels in Stalinās era).
This should make anyone sit up and seriously take notice.
The good, great, wonderful news? Is that youāre hearing about this authoritarian bullcrap.
Kudos to everybody whose smart enough to see this, and rather than be intimidated? Gets pissed and laughs at it at the same time, and passes it to the nearest person who can get it public so we can all get pissed and goĀ āHA HA NOPEā to the dangerous morons slinging this shit.
Drag their mud into the light, kiddos. 2017 and onward in a nutshell.
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