No Rest for the Resistance in Kentucky

The Kentucky repugs are already gearing up to steal the governship from Andy Beshear, and they're not even trying to hide it.

There are obstacles, but they could definitely do it.  This isn't politics anymore; it's fighting to the death.  Every day, over everything large and small.

But there are election results far more disturbing than possibly losing the governorship.

Repugs have taken the only two state officers held by Democrats, and they are the most important ones:  Attorney General and Secretary of State.

With those in Democratic hands even while repugs took the entire fucking legislature and the Governor's Mansion, Democrats could still protect Kentuckians from the worst of Bevin's attacks on women, teachers, and families of disabled children, and from the massive voter suppression and election fraud repugs always run when they have the Secretary of State position.

The repug AG and SoS have more power than even a repug governor like Bevin had, and they will try to turn Kentucky into fucking Mississippi as fast as they can.

If they succeed, We. Are. Completely. Fucked.

There's only one way to stop them: Donate to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, who will be filing a blizzard of lawsuits to try to stop the Mississippification of Kentucky.

Keeping Beshear in the Governor's Mansion is great.  Obstructing the repug Attorney General and Secretary of State is absolutely critical.

Support the Black Women Who Are Protecting Abortion

Everywhere you look for the Real Resistance, the fight on the ground to protect women's reproductive rights, Black Women are in the vanguard.  It's way past time white women stepped the fuck up and supported them in the best way white women can: with MONEY.

Crooks and Liars:

Winstead is co-creator of The Daily Show, and (to me) even more importantly, is founder of Lady Parts Justice League. As the sole white woman on Joy's panel discussion of the simultaneously psychotic and pathetic Republican march towards eliminating the protections of Roe v. Wade, Winstead offered the following advice to people wondering how they can help.

I've been to every single one of these [states,] I've been to Alabama four times, Georgia twice, Mississippi five times, Kentucky twice. the activists on the ground, and this is super important to realize, is that the activists on the ground are doing incredible work and a lot of this work legislatively, the abortion funds helping poor women are run by tremendously bad-@ss, if I can, women of color. So when these things happen, when people are like, "What can I do, what can I do?" the first thing you can do is just Google that state and find out where their abortion fund is, find out where those reproductive justice organizations are on the ground and donate to them first. Support them first.

Do we hear that, white ladies? Black women are already ON THIS. They have already mobilized, and have been for YEARS. Because white people did this to Black women FIRST. We have been for centuries. Name me a moment - just a MOMENT in American history when Black women had total control over their reproductive lives. I'll wait. (No, I won't — I have things to do.) White women are so blown away by the Handmaid's Tale, and meanwhile Black women are saying, "We've been living this for centuries."

Fierce Resistance

I am going to dinner tonight in a deep-red town.  I am wearing my Obama Miss Me Yet? T-shirt. It's not much, especially if no one confronts me about it, but it's something.

Digby, channeling Lincoln in a column from the day after the election:

This is why the right-wingers are so angry. It's not enough for them to win. Those who opposed Trump must stop opposing him. We must agree that Muslims should be banned from entering the country, agree we should torture and kill suspected terrorists and their families, agree immigrants should be rounded up and deported, agree there should be guns in schools, agree women should be punished for having abortions and agree to all the rest of it. Until we stop resisting completely and declare that we are "avowedly with them," they will continue to believe that "all their troubles proceed from us."
That is not going to happen. Trump's forces may have won the election but they have not won the hearts and minds of the American people who didn't vote for him. And they won't. This administration will be met with fierce resistance from millions of people, from the moment Trump takes office until the day he leaves. There will be no appeasing him, and no easing of his followers' guilt for what many of them know in their hearts to be ugly and cruel impulses in consenting to this white nationalist program. It's all on them.
Lincoln had this to say to his fellow Unionists about how to proceed in a situation such as this:

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. 

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

The Resistance: We Can Only Win the Hard Way

For 64 years, since Brown - or maybe 80 years, since Parrish, progressives have been on the ascendant.  Not without setbacks, but on a steady course of expanding the rights and freedoms of the Constitution to everyone - non-white, female, immigrant, poor, gay - left out of the 18th-century document.

And every one of those victories, those giant steps forward, came through the Supreme Court.  No matter what clusterfucks the repugs and conservatards created in the states, we progressives could always count on even the repug-led Courts to rescue us.

So over-confident were we that we didn't notice until far too late that the neo-confederates and the conservatives and the repugs were reacting to always losing at the Supreme Court by building up an electoral victory machine of unmatched power, even as we let our voters languish and drift away and give up.

Now the worm has truly turned, and we're the ones who have to start building an electoral machine to overcome the literally lethal rulings the Trump Court is going to issue over the next 50 years.

First, the polite version:

Josh Marshall:

Today’s High Court decision upholding the President’s anti-Muslim travel ban should focus us on a key, important fact: the federal judiciary is now heavily stocked not just with Republican appointees but conservative ideologues. This isn’t simply a commentary on this decision. It does include major exceptions – the Court’s jurisprudence on marriage, for instance. But we simply cannot rely on the Court’s as presently constituted to make rulings which are in line with the actual constitution or our national traditions. This is in significant part because of the corrupt appointment of Justice Gorsuch. But there’s no undoing that. We are on the cusp of what will likely be an even more dramatic example of rightwing judicial activism against labor rights. On issue after issue, change and justice or simple preservation will have to rely on building robust political movements. This is a point I plan and hope to see as a guiding premise of our upcoming voting rights and democracy series.

It’s not either/or. I spoke to a friend a few days ago who said flatly, the courts are a lost cause. It’s all about politics and elections. That’s wrong. It’s not a pure either/or. Courts and litigation remain still absolutely critical. We’ve seen that even in the last year. Critically important. But on many issues, in this period of testing, saving the country will come from robust political movements, ones which will have to succeed in the face of daunting challenges to the right to vote in order to eventually redeem those rights.

Now, the rude version:

Rude Pundit:

I've been saying this shit for nearly 15 years now. Democrats keep pretending there are rules. That didn't start with Trump. Democrats were playing badminton while Republicans were playing with flamethrowers during the Clinton administration. There are no rules except the ones Democrats keep making themselves follow. That's all so naive.

SNIP

We've been working on the fight in November for one or both houses of Congress. And that fight stands. But another fight is here now. Democrats have to be willing to fight dirty. Oh, sure, there are a lot of less dirty things that we can and should do. But these motherfuckers have gone too long without having their faces shoved in the mud.

Let's wallow in anger and shock for moment. Yet don't get caught up in the bullshit blame game. We have no time for childish things. I don't give a fuck about who voted for what in 2016 anymore, not in the election, not in the primaries. We either put that aside for this fight or we may as well just roll over and wait for the fucking. (By the way, that doesn't mean ignoring important election results this year or the utter failure of Democratic congressional leadership on this and other issues.)

Tomorrow, I'll get to how to fight dirty. Legal, yes, but fuckin' dirty, man. Getting chanted out of restaurants will look like a tiptoe through a meadow. Fuck chess. It's time for a barb wire cage match.

The Resistance: No More Being Nice

Zandar:

So no, the notion that Republicans will turn on Trump even should Mueller or the Senate present evidence of conspiracy or worse is ludicrous.  They will defend Trump even at the cost of their own livelihoods.  The Republican party is nothing more than the racist, misogynist, bigoted cult of personality that worships Trump, and so are all of his voters.

I'm tired of being nice to them.  It's only made them love Trump more.

It's time to call these assholes out this November and throw them out of power for good.  Get registered, get ready, get friends, get to the polls.  At every turn President Obama's open hand was met by fist after fist.

Now it's time to fight.

The Resistance: Seeds Coming Up

From Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

Finally, as a budding gardener pinning for spring up here in the tundra, I love this!

The Resistance: Venganza

Not just for Puerto Rico, but for every crime against Democracy and the U.S. Constitution committed by repugs since Reagan took over.

Revenge. By votes.

Rude Pundit:

Meanwhile, there has been an exodus of Puerto Ricans to the mainland United States, which they can do freely and legally (sorry, Trumpenheimers) because they are Americans. Hundreds of thousands of them have come to settle here. At least 200,000 are now living in Florida, which Trump won by 113,000 votes in 2016. Anecdotally, many of those new residents are registering to vote. PR Gov. Rosselló is saying he will work to mobilize the millions of Puerto Ricans in the states to take revenge on Republicans in 2018. 

And that, in the end, will be the only way to unfuck a part of the United States that our madman president wants us to forget about.

Are there Democratic candidates running for every office in your city and county and state?  Why not? That's the only way to win this fight.

As the Resistance Becomes Class War

 Tom Sullivan at Digby:

Sound Familiar?

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

The Resistance: Solidarity

from Down With Tyranny:

They're Coming to Lexington

Kentucky's second-largest city is only slightly less un-welcoming to white supremacists than Louisville is. Our police are eager to avoid the national embarrassment that the Charlottesville cops earned. And our proudly non-violent Resistance can handle a bunch of redneck clowns without any help from armed and masked antifas, thank you very much.

So bring it on, motherfuckers.

From the Herald:

White nationalists are planning a rally in Lexington to oppose the planned removal of two Confederate statues from the lawn of the former Fayette County Courthouse, and they’re considering a lawsuit aimed at blocking the move, a leader in the movement said Tuesday.

Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the Traditionalist Worker Party, said his group is discussing plans for the rally with others allied under an umbrella organization called the Nationalist Front.

Heimbach said people in the Lexington area asked his group to get involved. The group has members in Kentucky and plans to try to recruit more, he said. 

No date has been chosen, but the goal is to have the event “sooner rather than later,” Heimbach said.

SNIP

Lexington Police Chief Mark Barnard said he has spoken with officials in Charlottesville to begin preparing for a white nationalist rally in Lexington. He said Kentucky State Police and Louisville Metro police have already pledged to help the city if needed.

“If they were to come to Lexington, we would plan to have an overwhelming amount of law enforcement to greet anyone and to ensure everyone was safe and had the right to free speech,” Barnard said.

The police department has successfully managed many large, public events — including sometimes rowdy celebrations after NCAA men’s basketball tournaments, said Brenna Angel, a spokeswoman for Lexington police. 

“That’s not just a credit to our police officers but to the people of Lexington,” she said. “We work closely with groups that organize protests here and have a good relationship with them.” 

Outside groups, though, are a concern, she said.

In Lexington, it is legal for groups to gather in public spaces without a permit as long as they do not block traffic. If traffic is blocked, a permit is required, she said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has included Heimbach’s group and others allied under the Nationalist Front on a list of what it defines as hate groups.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article167276197.html#storylink=cpy

They're going to have to get their Traitors in Defense of Slavery gear and tchotchkes online; that shit is banned from the Kentucky State Fair.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article167276197.html#storylink=cpy

We Always Beat 'Em

Blatantly Stolen from Juanita Jean:

Own It, Republicans. Own It or Get the Fuck Out

D.R. Tucker at Political Animal:

If Painter has been a Republican for 30 years, then he knows damn well how long his party has been race-baiting. He knows damn well how the Republican Party resisted integrated schools, affirmative action, efforts to stop police brutality, and any and all efforts to remedy discrimination against African-Americans and other non-majority groups. He knows damn well that the GOP stopped embracing Abraham Lincoln decades ago–and wrapped its arms around the reactionary forces that gave rise to the viciousness in Virginia. 

If Painter is so morally offended by what happened in Charlottesville yesterday, he will renounce the GOP today and leave the party. If Ana Navarro is so morally offended by what happened in Charlottesville yesterday, she will renounce the GOP today and leave the party. If any Republican who bore witness to yesterday’s terrorism is horrified by what they saw, they will renounce the GOP today and leave the party.

As disgusting as many of George Will’s views are, he at least had enough common sense to get the hell out of the GOP the moment Trump won the GOP nomination. He knew that to remain a Republican after Trump became the party’s leader was to be morally complicit in Trump’s actions.

As for us, the Resistance, our moral obligation is to politely ask every trump voter we encounter that they specifically blame the white supremacy embedded in the GOP for the Deliberate Murder committed in Charlottsville yesterday.

If they refuse or deny, simply nod your head sadly, take up your cell phone and slowly and carefully type that person's name into a list headed "White Supremacist Motherfuckers."

Protests for Civil Rights Older Than You Think

White Supremacy never dies, and never quits fighting to restore the 1850s.  The Resistance can't stop, either.

From the NAACP:

We celebrate the centennial of the NAACP’s Silent Protest Parade, held on July 28, 1917.




At the break of summer 1917, racial tension simmered across the nation. In East St. Louis, white residents launched a bloody attack on the rapidly expanding black community. Dozens of black residents were killed and thousands more were left homeless after their neighborhood was burned to ashes. The NAACP wasted no time in composing a retort and soon issued a call for a Silent Protest Parade. “You must be in line,”  the Association commanded. 


On July 28, nearly 10,000 black men, women, and children wordlessly paraded down New York’s Fifth Avenue. Silently marching to the beat of a drum, the throngs of protesters clutched picket signs declaring their purpose and demanding justice. 

“Make America safe for democracy.”

“We march because we deem it a crime to be silent in the face of such barbaric acts.”

“We march because we want our children to live in a better land.”

Their tactic was silence, but their message resounded: anti-black violence is unjust and un-American.  It was the first protest of its kind in New York, and the second instance of African Americans publicly demonstrating for civil rights. 


The NAACP has issued marching orders many times in the years since: in 1965, we marched in Selma in pursuit of our right to vote; in 2012, we held a second Silent March in New York to denounce stop-and-frisk policing; in 2015, we marched 1,002 miles from Selma to Washington, D.C. on our Journey for Justice.   


At our 108th Annual Convention in Baltimore this week, we marked the Silent Parade’s centennial with an interactive art installation. Art Force 5 invited convention attendees to collaborate on a mosaic memorial that will debut today in New York City.





  
Activists created the NAACP in 1909 to fight racialized violence. Then, we called it “lynching.” Today, we call it “police brutality.” But the effect is the same, and so is the ferocity of our retort. 

For more than a century, the NAACP has protested, litigated, and legislated to defend our dignity and our lives. Today, we keep marching. We are at school board meetings, county courthouses, and in the halls of government fighting for our rights because we still cannot afford to stand idle in the face of an administration that is so keen on rolling back our rights. 

We’re marching. And we need you beside us.

Keep Fighting and Laughing

From the great and good Doc Zoom at Wonkette:

The Resistance: Keep Fighting Zombie Trumpcare

It's ON!  Today, in every town where someone will die if Trumpcare passes, we will gather to say why our health is on the line.

Zombie trumpcare never dies, and neither will our protests.

In Shelbyville, it's going to be at Fifth and Main, in front of the county Courthouse, 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.  Bring signs.  There will be a line on which to hang the reasons Our Lives Are On The Line.

In Louisville, it will be at Metro Hall, 11 a.m.to 1 p.m.

Join us on Saturday, July 29 at Metro Hall in Louisville, 527 W. Jefferson St. Americans are coming together all across the country to say: OUR LIVES ARE ON THE LINE if Republicans pass Trumpcare and strip our health coverage.

Healthcare reform should be a deliberate, thoughtful, and bipartisan effort. Neither the house nor the Senate versions of healthcare legislation achieve bipartisan support and both seek to undermine core tenets of the Affordable Care Act that have helped more than 20 million Americans gain equitable, comprehensive coverage. Don’t let Congress turn back the clock on all the progress that has been made.

Organized by Indivisible Kentucky, this is Louisville’s event in Our Lives On The Line, a nationwide day of action being hosted on July 29 by a diverse group of organizations including The Tax March, The Women’s March, Indivisible, MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Our Revolution, Center for American Progress, and others.

WHAT: Our Lives Are on the Line! Rally for Healthcare for All
WHERE: Metro Hall in Louisville, 527 W. Jefferson St.
WHEN: Saturday, July 29, 2017, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/events/571851719605104/

The Resistance: Hit the Streets

Digby:

I'm glad to see it. This is from Move On, but I think it's happening with every Resistance group in the country:

Host a Mueller Firing Rapid Response Event

New revelations of Russia's meddling in our elections are increasing the odds that Donald Trump will try to block the investigation of his Administration's potential collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice.
Experts believe that there is a good possibility that Trump will fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
If Trump fires Mueller, we want to be ready to take the streets to protest within hours - to demand that Congress respond quickly and forcefully – to protect our democracy and justice system.

This isn't hysteria. People need to be prepared for what they will do in case this constitutional crisis comes to pass.

The Resistance: KY SoS Tells Trump's Nazis to Fuck Off and Die

No, of course she didn't use those words.  She's a lady.  I'm not.

State officials from Virginia, California and Kentucky said Thursday that they will refuse a request for voter roll data from President Trump's commission on election integrity.

Earlier Thursday, it was reported that the commission sent letters to all 50 states asking for voters' names, birthdays, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers and their voting history dating back to 2006.

SNIP

Later in the evening, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) said she too wouldn't offer up the information requested by the panel.

"The president created his election commission based on the false notion that "voter fraud" is a widespread issue – it is not," Grimes said in a statement Thursday.

"Indeed, despite bipartisan objections and a lack of authority, the President has repeatedly spread the lie that three to five million illegal votes were cast in the last election," her statement continued. "Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country."

Kentucky voters, you could have sent her to D.C. to restore Kentucky's integrity that Mitch McConnell has spent 32 years destroying, but no. And now you're going to die sick and penniless in a ditch, thanks to the motherfucker you preferred to vote for.

The Resistance: A Tool for Taking Action Now

From the Nation:

Each Tuesday, “Take Action Now” will feature a list of three actions curated by Nation editors to make the biggest impact—one of which will be an option that takes a few minutes to complete, another that will take a few hours, and the last will involve a deeper commitment. You can pick and choose which one to involve yourself with, no matter your schedule.

While we are all united in our desire to take action, most of us are busy, and our access to time and resources varies, day to day and week to week. So instead of a comprehensive list of everything that’s happening, “Take Action Now” will highlight three meaningful ways you can get involved each week—even if you already have a full plate. We don’t expect anyone’s activism to end at what they find in their “Take Action Now” emails, but we hope you’ll find it a great place to start.

Through “Take Action Now,” we intend to connect readers of The Nation both new and old to more of the vital work being done daily by women’s rights groups, climate justice activists, and immigrant-led community organizations, to name just a few of the people and institutions we admire and whose work we hope to lift up. Below you’ll find our first featured actions. Please sign up for “Take Action Now” here or using the form below—and we’ll be in touch!

NO TIME TO WASTE?
Call your senators at 202-224-3121 or their individual offices and demand that they stop Trumpcare and protect the Affordable Care Act. This is particularly important if you live in one of the 10 key states with senators who are more likely to vote against the bill, listed here. For Republican senators, demand that they oppose the bill. If you’re calling a Democratic senator, we recommend following Indivisible’s call script for demanding that the senator use a tactic called “filibuster by amendment.” (The link includes details about this tactic.)

GOT SOME TIME?
Host or attend a dinner to connect with your community. This Sunday, June 25, the Dream Defenders in partnership with United We Dream, the Women’s March, and other groups, are organizing a Day of Dinners across the country. These dinners are intended for people from all walks of life to connect and “start a new conversation about the country we want and the future worth fighting for.” Sign up here to attend or host a dinner.  Dream Defenders is a Florida-based youth organization formed in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin and United We Dream is the largest immigrant youth-led organization in country. Both are great organizations to support. The work of the Dream Defenders is particularly important now, less than a week after the acquittal of the police officer who killed Philando Castile near Minneapolis and just a few days after the killing by police of Charleena Lyles in Seattle.

READY TO DIG IN?
Organize a sit-in outside your senator’s office. We cannot overstate how important the fight to protect the ACA is right now. If you can organize your own sit-in, Indivisible has a step-by-step guide (step four on the list). If you’re not sure you have the time and resources to organize people on your own but want to connect with others who may have already gotten started, you can find an Indivisible group in your area here.

The Resistance: NYC School Shuts Door on La Migra

Not here, not our kids, not today, motherfuckers.

Crooks and Liars:

Is America great yet? Mic.com:

An officer from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services was denied entry Thursday to an elementary school in Queens, New York, when they arrived looking for a fourth-grade student, Mayor Bill de Blasio's office reported.

A school safety agent and administrator turned the agent away when they arrived at Public School 58 without a warrant, Gothamist reported. Mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips tweeted that the agent left when school officials failed to provide assistance, and that it was unclear why the agent was trying to locate the student.

"All students, regardless of immigration status, are welcome in NYC public schools, and parents should rest assured that we will do everything in our power to protect students, staff and families," chancellor Carmen Fariña said in a statement, according to Gothamist. "The federal agent was turned away — we're looking into this incident and are providing schools with additional information on our protocol and more trainings."

Because under Trump we have to train teachers "protocol" on how to resist fascist brownshirts arriving to haul away kids. Thank you, sanctuary cities. Stay strong.