Fascism Watch, December 1

The press didn't do the work of showing us the forest for the trees. We're going to have to keep doing it ourselves, as individuals.

— Kristin Rawls (@kristinrawls) December 1, 2016

General Fascist Nonsense

This heading moves to the top today because of this story:

The NSA director says Russia interfered with our election.

All of the Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have asked Obama to declassify information on Russia’s role in the election.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked almost 900 hate incidents since the election. Quite a few bigots seem to be using Trump’s election as justification for more overt hate and violence.

In much smaller-scale news, Arizona’s welfare director had been stockpiling weapons and ammunition in the agency’s basement out of fear of “jihadists.”

Trump

The NYT illustrates exactly what constitutes “conflicts of interest” for the Trump family. Just one example of many:

The Carrier deal to save 1000 jobs in Indiana got a lot of attention, but Carrier is still moving a lot of jobs out of the US, and is getting a bunch of state and federal incentives in return. Media Matters doesn’t think much of Fox News’s double standard for Trump’s Carrier deal vs. Obama’s auto industry deal.

Another metric: Trump would have to do one Carrier-sized deal a week for 30 years to save as many jobs as Obama's auto bailout

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 30, 2016

The reporter who investigated Carrier’s plans to send jobs to Mexico denied access to the Trump event–by Carrier officials, not Trump’s team.

Pence

Pence’s neighbors are flying Pride flags in their windows. Outstanding.

Transition Team & Cabinet Appointees

Trump has named James “Mad Dog” Mattis as Secretary of Defense. That’s illegal, since Mattis has  been retired less than seven years and the job is required to go to a civilian.

Voting

Several Wisconsin counties are reportedly refusing access to the recount team. Trump’s SuperPAC has sued to stop the recount in Wisconsin; Michigan’s AG is suing to block the recount there.

This story about a Trump staffer being convicted of voting fraud is making the rounds, but given that the fraud took place in 2012, I say “meh” unless someone finds evidence that he was up to the same thing on Trump’s campaign.

Protests

The FAA has declared a no-fly zone over the protests at Standing Rock, preventing the sort of drone footage that showed protesters being hit with water canons (in sub-freezing weather) and rubber bullets last month.