The Fusion GPS Transcript Highlights

• Glenn Simpson is a co-founder of Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the intelligence reports that Buzzfeed published as the "Steele dossier".
• In August, Simpson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The transcript of that testimony was released on January 9, 2018.
• There are a couple of threads on Twitter analyzing the transcript and its import, which are excellent. This is not an attempt to write that kind of thread. I'm not a Russia expert (shocker). I'm also not a spy expert (what?!). I'm just a girl, standing in front of a democracy, asking it to function. To that end, I pulled out the literal pieces of the transcript that will (I hope) help an average human understand what went down.
• Note: What journalists and others refer to the dossier is actually a series of memos that were sent to Glenn Simpson one at a time by Christopher Steele. In the words of Glenn Simpson:
• "To be totally clear, you know, what people call the dossier is not really a dossier. It's a collection of field memoranda, of field interviews, a collection that accumulates over a period of months."

***

1. Who or what is a Fusion GPS?

"[Fusion GPS is] a research company. So generally what we do is provide people with factual information." (21)

"Public information is our specialty. We generally are all ex-journalists and specific type of journalists, investigative reporters, and, you know, being a journalist is all about finding public information. At least, you know, the kind of journalism I practiced was based on documents. I'm a document hound and so are my colleagues. So essentially we gather up large quantities of public information and we process that. We've sort of more recently branched into data science and, you know, digital data, obtaining databases through FOIA. We do a lot of Freedom of Information Act work. We work with court records a lot, corporate records a lot. Some of my employees do a lot of financial crime and money laundering and fraud investigations, tax evasion, that sort of thing. Those are my specialties." (53-54)

***

2.  How the whole thing started

Q. So you had mentioned a few minutes ago that you had done some political or campaign research in the course of the 2016 election and you clarified that that was work related to then Candidate and now President Trump. What can you tell us about that work? Can you just describe it first generally and then I'll ask you some follow-up. 

A. It was, broadly speaking, a kind of holistic examination of Donald Trump's business record and his associations, his bankruptcies, his suppliers, you know, offshore or third-world suppliers of products that he was selling. You know, it evolved somewhat quickly into issues of his relationships to organized crime figures but, you know, really the gamut of Donald Trump. 

What we generally do at the beginning of a case if it's possible is to order all the books about the subject from Amazon so we're not reinventing the wheel and we know what's been written and said before. So this was typical. We ordered every Donald Trump book and, to my surprise, that's a lot of books. I was never very interested in Donald Trump. He was not a serious political figure that I'd ever had any exposure to. He's a New York figure really. So anyway, we read everything we could read about Donald Trump. Those books cover his divorces, his casinos, his early years dealings with labor unions and mafia figures. I'm trying to think what else. His taxes certainly have always been a big issue. Again, it was sort of an unlimited look at his -- you know, his business and finances and that sort of thing. 

Q. And when did this work begin? 

A. It was either September or October of 2015. I recall being in London on other business and hearing somebody wanted for us to take a look at it. 

Q. And what can you tell us about who engaged you initially to do that work? 

MR. LEVY [Mr. Simpson's attorney]: The answer to that question might implicate privilege. 

BY MS. SAWYER: Q. So it has been publicly reported that the initial engagement of September to October 2015 was 19 by someone with ties -- with Republican ties. Can you confirm whether that is accurate or not? 

MR. LEVY: We're not going to talk about the identity of clients.  

[Hint: It was later revealed in the press to be the Washington Free Beacon.] 

***

In the early -- the very first weekend that I started boning up on Donald Trump, you know, I found various references to him having connections to Italian organized crime and later to a Russian organized crime figure named Felix Sater, S-A-T-E-R. It wasn't hard to find, it wasn't any great achievement, it was in the New York Times, but as someone who has done a lot of Russian organized crime investigations as a journalist originally that caught my attention and became something that, you know, I focused on while other people looked at other things. So from the very beginning of this organized crime was -- Russian organized crime was a focus of interest. I guess I should just repeat, you know, this is a subject that I covered extensively at the Wall Street Journal. 

***

Q. And specific to the engagement with regard to the research on Candidate Trump, why did you specifically ask Mr. Steele to do that work?

A. The way our firm runs we pursue things, you know, somewhat out of curiosity. So we didn't know -- it was opaque what Donald Trump had been doing on these business trips to Russia. We didn't know what he was doing there. So I gave Chris -- we gave Chris a sort of assignment that would be typical for us which was pretty open ended. We said see if you can find out what Donald Trump's been doing on these trips to Russia. (82-83)

***

"The thing that people forget about what was going on in June of 2016 was that no one was really focused on sort of this question of whether Donald Trump had a relationship with the Kremlin. So, you know, when Chris started asking around in Moscow about this the information was sitting there. It wasn't a giant secret. People were talking about it freely. " (87-88)

3. How the investigation proceeded to the first memo

"So the purpose of this was to see if we could learn more, generally speaking, about his business dealings in Russia. What came back was something, you know, very different and obviously more alarming, which had to do with -- you know, which outlined a political conspiracy and a much broader set of issues than the ones that we basically went looking for. You know, initially we didn't know what do with this. The main thing we did with it, the use we made of it was as intelligence, which is to understand what's happening. So when this arrived the first indicators were starting to float around that there was something bigger going on, the government of Russia or someone was doing some hacking. I don't really remember the precise details. I just remember there were rumblings at that time about whether there had been lot of hacking and there was going to be -- political digital espionage was going to be a component of the campaign." (143-44)

***

After being asked how they assessed the accuracy of what Steele reported in:

"We [who operate the company] do public records work. So we deal in documents and things that are very hard and that are useful in court. . . . Chris[topher Steele] deals in a very different kind of information, which is human intelligence, human information. So by its very nature the question of whether something is accurate isn't really asked. The question that is asked generally is whether it's credible. Human intelligence isn't good for, you know, filing lawsuits. It's good for making decisions and trying to understand what's going on and that's a really valuable thing, but it's not the same thing. So when you evaluate human intelligence, human reporting, field reporting, source reporting, you know, it's sort of like when you're a journalist and you're trying to figure out who's telling the truth, right. You don't really decide who's telling the truth. You decide whether the person is credible, right, whether they know what they're talking about, whether there's other reasons to believe what they're saying, whether anything they've said factually matches up with something in the public record. So, you know, we would evaluate his memos based on whether he told us something we didn't know from somewhere else that we were then able to run down." (93-94)

4. How Fusion GPS evaluated what Christopher Steele was telling them in the first memo

Q. You had indicated that when you received it you found it unusual, it was sensitive information. Did you take steps to verify any of the information?

A. We assessed it for credibility, whether it was credible. The question of the credibility of the information is obviously a big question here, can this be believed. There's other secondary questions that would follow on from that, can it somehow be used, does it have any use and that sort of thing, but the threshold question is is it credible information. You know, there were two background factors to that. One was who is it coming from. It's coming from Chris Steele who's a guy that I've worked with for, you know, about eight or nine years and Chris, as I say, has a Sterling reputation as a person who doesn't exaggerate, doesn't make things up, doesn't sell baloney. In my business, I mean, there are a lot of people who make stuff up and sell baloney. So the one thing that you get good at if you do this for a while is finding reliable sources, finding reliable people who have a record of giving it to you straight and not making stuff up and not making mistakes. So from that perspective, you know, this was alarming because Chris is a credible person, he's well respected in his field, and, as I say, everyone I know who's ever dealt with him thinks he's quite good. That would include people from the U.S. government. So the issue is where is it coming from and then the other issue is does it make sense or are there events in there that can be externally, you know, reviewed or backed up. On the question of whether it makes sense -- well, let me stay on the question of some of the events that are described. We were aware of some of these trips and we were obviously aware of the hostility toward Hillary Clinton and, you know, there was a lot of general knowledge that we had that fit with this just in terms of dates and places and roles of people in the Kremlin. (148-49)

5. Did the first memo suggest Russian interference in our election?

[Q] "So this particular memo that we've been talking about, this first one doesn't specifically mention, as far as I can see, any efforts to interfere by Russia. It does talk about potential -- as it's called in here, a dossier of compromising material on Hillary Clinton. Did you take any steps to verify whether that dossier of compromising material existed on Hillary Clinton?

A. I will answer that, but can I just back you up a little bit. I think your observation it doesn't mention anything about interfering I wouldn't agree with.

Q. Okay.

A. I mean, one of the key lines here in the second paragraph says "However, he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his democratic and other political rivals." So the issue with the Trump Tower meeting, as understand it, is that the Trump people were eager to accept intelligence from a foreign government about their political rivals and that is, you know, I would say, a form of interference. If you're getting help from a foreign government and your help is intelligence, then the foreign government's interfering. I mean, you know, I think that also -- of course, in retrospect we now know this was pretty right on target in terms on what it says. So anyway --

Q. In reference to you think that particular sentence?

A. I mean, it clearly refers to, you know, them being interested in and willing to -- it depicts them as accepting information. What we have seen to date with the disclosures this year is they were at a minimum super interested in getting information. (154-55)

6. The second memo

"I believe -- it's my recollection that what prompted this memo was, in fact, the beginning of public reporting on the hack. I think -- what is the date again? Yeah, it's 26 July. So by this time Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been the subject of a very aggressive hacking campaign, weaponized hack, the likes of which, you know, have never really been seen. We've seen hacking in politics before, but this kind of, you know, mass theft of e-mail and then to dump it all into, you know, the public sphere was extraordinary and it was criminal. So the question by now of whether this was Russia and whether this might have something to do with the other information that we'd received was, you know, the immediate question, and I think this is also -- by the time this memo was written Chris had already met with the FBI about the first memo.

So he's -- if I can interpret a little bit here. In his mind this is already a criminal matter, there's already a potential national security matter here." (158-59)

7. Who had the idea to contact the FBI?

"I mean, this is basically about a month later and there's a lot of events that occurred in between [the two memos]. You know, after the first memo, you know, Chris said he was very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat and said he wanted to -- he said he thought we were obligated to tell someone in government, in our government about this information. He thought from his perspective there was an issue -- a security issue about whether a presidential candidate was being blackmailed. From my perspective there was a law enforcement issue about whether there was anillegal conspiracy to violate the campaign laws, and then somewhere in this time the whole issue of hacking has also surfaced.

So he proposed to -- he said we should tell the FBI, it's a national security issue. I didn't originally agree or disagree, I just put it off and said I needed to think about it. Then he raised it again with me. I don't remember the exact sequence of these events, but my recollection is that I questioned how we would do that because I don't know anyone there that I could report something like this to and be believed and I didn't really think it was necessarily appropriate for me to do that. In any event, he said don't worry about that, I know the perfect person, I have a contact there, they'll listen to me, they know who I am, I'll take care of it. I said okay. You know, I agreed, it's potentially a crime in progress. So,you know, if we can do that in the most appropriate way, I said it was okay for him to do that." (159-60)

8. When and how did that go down?

Q. And do you recall when you -- when you and Mr. Steele decided kind of that he could or should take this to the FBI, approximately the time frame of that?

A. I believe it was sometime around the turn of the month. It would have been in late June or at latest early July. That's my recollection.

Q. And Mr. Steele was the one who was then responsible for doing the initial outreach to them and making that contact?

A. Yes. Well, I mean, let's be clear, this was not considered by me to be part of the work that we were doing. This was -- to me this was like, you know, you're driving to work and you see something happen and you call 911, right. It wasn't part of the -- it wasn't like we were trying to figure out who should do it. He said he was professionally obligated to do it. Like if you're a lawyer and, you know, you find out about a crime, in a lot of countries you must report that. So it was like that." (163-64)

***

Q. Did you seek anyone else's approval for him to go to the FBI?

A. No.

Q. Did anyone ever encourage you to ask him to go to the FBI?

A. No.

Q. Did anyone discourage you from having him go to the FBI?

A. No. (167)

9. Do you know what did the FBI did with the information Steele gave them?

Q. Was there a discussion about whether and when he would take [additional] information to the FBI?

A. Not that I recall. After the initial memo he told me that he had briefed him. I don't remember anything specific about the issue arising again other than to say generally that as the summer progressed the situation with the hacking of the Democrats and the efforts by the Russians to influence the election and the possibility that the Trump organization was, in fact, doing things to curry favor with the Russians became more and more serious as external developments occurred.

So, for instance, they changed the Republican platform, which is addressed in here. Carter Page shows up in Moscow and gives a speech. He's a campaign advisor and he gives a speech about dropping sanctions. Trump continues to say mysterious things about what a great guy Putin is. So I vaguely recall that these external events prompted us to say I wonder what the FBI did, whoops, haven't heard from them. So that was basically the state of things through September. (169-70)

10. But Steele did meet with the FBI again, right?

Q. So when did that -- you had said the FBI then came back and contacted Mr. Steele?

A. That's my understanding.

Q When did that, to the best of your knowledge, take place?

A. Mid to late September. . . .

11. What the FBI told Steele in September (!!!)

Q. You said that [Mr. Steele] told you of the meeting with the FBI in Rome in mid or late September, that he "gave them a full briefing"?

A. A debrief I think is what he probably said, they had debriefed him. I don't remember him articulating the specifics of that. You know, my understanding was that they would have gotten into who his sources were, how he knew certain things, and, you know, other details based on their own intelligence. Essentially what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that -- that they -- my understanding was that they believed Chris at this point -- that they believed Chris's information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.

Q. And did you have any understanding then or now as to who that human intelligence source from inside the Trump campaign might have been?

MR. LEVY (Simpson's lawyer): He's going to decline to answer that question.

MS. SAWYER: On what basis?

MR. SIMPSON: Security.

MR. LEVY: Security. (173-74)

***

"It was someone like us who decided to pick up the phone and report something." (176)

12. What the FBI did next (HOLY SHIT)

Q. Now, with regard to -- just to finish up on the interactions with FBI, do you know were there any additional interactions between Mr. Steele and the FBI?

A. There was some sort of interaction, I think it was probably telephonic that occurred after Director Comey sent his letter to Congress reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mails. That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation. So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI. So, you know, we began getting questions from the press about, you know, whether they were also investigating Trump and, you know, we encouraged them to ask the FBI that question. You know, I think -- I'm not sure we've covered this fully, but, you know, we just encouraged them to ask the FBI that question.

On October 31st the New York Times posed a story saying that the FBI is investigating Trump and found no connections to Russia and, you know, it was a real Halloween special.

Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on. So he stopped dealing with them."

***

Q. So you had indicated that Mr. Steele said he had -- I think your phrase was "broken off" with the FBI. What did you understand that to mean?

A. That Chris was confused and somewhat disturbed and didn't think he understood the landscape and I think both of us felt like things were happening that we didn't understand and that we must not know everything about, and therefore, you know, in a situation like that the smart thing to do is stand down. (230)

**Editorial pause**

The Republicans and Democrats trade off every hour, which means that every hour, you get dragged to a completely different line of inquiry. EVEN AFTER HEARING that someone in Trump's camp was saying the same thing, they plowed their way right back to trying to make Fusion GPS look shady and shitty. That was their only goal. They were not successful, in my opinion, but the questions were pointedly about - or at least aimed at - Fusion. The Democrats, meanwhile, asked about Steele, Trump, the FBI, etc., so those are the things I've been quoting.

This is the Republicans' first mention of Christopher Steele that I noticed, and it occurs on page 192:

Q. Do you believe that the FBI generally considers sources more credible if they have previously provided reliable information?

A. That's my understanding.

Q. Was Mr. Steele's reportedly successful history in working with the FBI a factor in deciding to hire Orbis for the Trump project?

A. No.

13 What about the White House claim that Russia is paying you to talk shit?

Q. So in an August 1, 2017 news briefing White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders 2 said "The Democrat linked firm Fusion GPS actually took money from the Russian government while it created the phoney dossier that's been the basis for all of the Russia scandal fake news." What is your response to that statement? 

A. It's not true? 

Q. And what in particular is not true about it? 

A. Well, it's a false allegation leveled by William Browder before this committee and in other places for the purpose of his advantage. She's repeating an allegation that was aired before this committee and in other places that we were working for the Russian government and it's not true. Most importantly the allegation that we were working for the Russian government then or ever is simply not true. I don't know what to say. It's political rhetoric to call the dossier phony. The memos are field reports of real interviews that Chris's network conducted and there's nothing phony about it.. . .

Q. And I think you've already answered you contend that you were not taking money from the Russian government and that was in relation to the litigation work you had done with Baker Hostetler, correct? 

A. Yes. They are a well-regarded law firm that has obligations to determine the sources of funds when they take a client and, to my knowledge, they did so and the money was not coming from the Russian government.   (256-58)

14.  But aren't you just a Democrat who works for Democrats and eats Democrat food and sleeps on Democrat sheets?

MR. LEVY: We're not going to get into specific client matters that are outside the scope of this interview. He's told you he's represented clients on the right and left, but he's not going to get into other matters beyond Prevezon and what he did in the 2016 election. 

MR. SIMPSON: I did investigate Senator Obama's campaign in 2008 when I was working for the Wall Street Journal and wrote an article that  caused his campaign chair to resign. The record is replete -- or the public report of my work is replete with examples of investigations I've done of Democrats that resulted in them losing their elections and being prosecuted.

MR. LEVY: At the Wall Street Journal?

MR. SIMPSON: Yes.

15.  But don't you just hate Donald Trump and love Democrats? (questions that follow asked by a Democrat)

Q I think what I'm trying to get some sense of comfort around is to the extent there might be concerns that the work being done was driven in a direction designed to reach a particular conclusion for a client or because of the client's identity was that the case?

A. I think it's safe to say that, you know, at some point probably early in 2016 I had reached a conclusion about Donald Trump as a businessman and his character and I was opposed to Donald Trump. I'm not going to pretend that that wouldn't have entered into my thinking. You know, again, I was a journalist my whole life. So we were, you know, trained not to take sides and practiced in not taking sides.

So most of what I do as a research person is we try to avoid getting into situations where one's etiology [sic] or political views would cloud your work because it's a known hazard, but, you know, I reached an opinion about Donald Trump and his suitability to be president of the United States and I was concerned about whether he was the best person for the job.

Q. And given that you had been trained not to allow etiology [sic] to cloud your work, it sounds like you reached a conclusion and had concerns about Candidate Trump. What steps did you take to then ensure that your conclusion didn't cloud the work that was being done? 

A. Well, to be clear, my concerns were in the category of character and competence rather than -- I didn't have any specific concerns for much of the time about his views, which I don't share, but that wasn't really the issue. Most of what we do has to do with do people have integrity and whether they've been involved in illicit activity. So those were the things I focused on. 

Q. So the conclusion that you reached, was it informed by the research that you were -- your personal conclusion, was it informed by the research that you were conducting? 

A. Yes. We deal in factual information and over the course of this project we gathered lots of facts about Donald Trump. (291-93)

***

Q. And what can you share with us about the findings, your findings?

A. Well, I've tried to share as much as I could think of over the course of today. As I say, there were various allegations of fraudulent business practices or dishonest business practices or connections with organized crime figures. In fact, you know, there was numerous others that I can't remember the names of. It was a long history of associations with people accused of involvement in criminal activity.  (294)

16.  Can you give us some Donald dirt, beyond the dossier?

Q. Did you reach any conclusions based on your review of his tax bills? I think you mentioned that in connection with trying to assess either financial connections or his financial standing. Did you reach any conclusions with regard to either of those? 

A. Yes. I concluded -- we concluded that his statements about what individual properties were worth were greatly exaggerated and at odds with the information that he'd supplied, you know, in legal filings with tax authorities and other records, corporate records.  (298-99)

***

Q. You mentioned as well, you brought up Trump golf courses. What in particular were you looking into with regard to Donald Trump's golf courses? 

A. The original inquiry was into the value of the courses, whether he had to borrow money to buy them, whether they were encumbered with debt, how much money they brought in, what valuations he put on them, and property tax filings. 

Q. And in general can you share what findings 24 and conclusions you reached? . . . .

A. A number of them don't make any money. His valuations of the properties are questionable. I guess those would be the main findings. 

Q. You just mentioned broadly but didn't 8 describe it, you mentioned research on Scotland. I don't know if it was particular properties or something with regard to Scotland. Can you just describe what that research was. 

A. Sure. He has golf courses in Scotland and Ireland and one of the facets of UK . . . company law is that private companies have to file financial statements, public financial statements. So when you're looking at a guy like Donald Trump who doesn't like to share information about his company, it's useful to find a jurisdiction where he's required to share that information with the local government. So we went and ordered the records -- the financial statements of the golf courses. There's also a long-running land use controversy -- I think there's multiple long-running land use controversies over those properties. We haven't really touched on this at all, but there were also 2 environmental issues that were part of the research. 

Q. With regard to the public financial statements, did you reach any conclusions based on that? 

A. That they were not profitable entities. I don't specifically recall. I just remember that these were not doing very well and that he'd sunk a 10 lot of money into them and he hadn't gotten a lot of money back yet. 

17.  But seriously.  You're a democrat and you fucking hate Trump, eh? (Question that follows from a Republican)

MR. FOSTER: You weren't hired to find positive information about Mr. Trump, were you? 

MR. SIMPSON: To the contrary. I think when you're doing research on any subject you're trying to figure out what the truth is. So if Donald Trump's got a good business record and he's really worth billions of dollars, that's important information. In fact, you shouldn't be feeding reporters stories about how Donald Trump is not worth billions of dollars if he's worth billions of dollars. So, you know, I think the connotation of negativity, I get, you know, where you're coming, but, in fact, [as a researcher] you're [meaning "I'm"] just trying to figure out what's true.

Positive Peace

Today, in The Guardian, Paul Lewis and Tom Silverstone reported on an interview they conducted with Donald Trump's campaign chair for Mahoning County, Ohio, a white woman named Kathy Miller, who looks to be in her 60s, and who believes that the responsibility for racism in America lies solely with Barack Obama.  Indeed, before Obama, we simply didn't have racism.  Lewis and Silverstone write: "Miller also dismissed the racial tensions of the 1960s, when she said she graduated from high school. 'Growing up as a kid, there was no racism, believe me. We were just all kids going to school.'  Asked about segregation and the civil rights movement, she replied: 'I never experienced it. I never saw that as anything.'"

It does not appear to strike Miller that as a white woman, she would quite literally never be the subject of anti-Black racism.  She simply (and unabashedly) takes the position that racism exists only to the extent that she as a white woman is aware of it. 

Let's think about that.  Let's oversimplify that to expose its absurdity.  What if Miller had been asked, "Do things exist only if you're aware of them?"  Or how about, "Do things matter in the world only if they are important to you personally?"  Of course not.  Segregation doesn't cease to matter because a white woman named Kathy Miller went to an integrated school.  Yet that's her implication.  "I never saw that as anything"; therefore, it has no relevance to American history.  "I never experienced it"; therefore, I don't have to acknowledge that it happened.

And why is it so important for someone like Miller to declare that racism never existed before Obama?  Why downplay and brazenly attempt to invalidate the facts of history?  Because that's the only way to support the fantasy that we live in a meritocracy.  Because if racism and discrimination did not exist, then we've all had an equal shot, and white people have more often risen to the top because they're just frankly, you know, better - smarter, harder working, more law abiding, more deserving of success.  In Miller's own words, "If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you."

There are lots of points that could be raised just now about the obstacles placed in the paths of Black people in America that aren't placed in the paths of white people.  Since Kathy Miller works in real estate, she should at least know about red lining, restrictive housing covenants, and discriminatory and predatory lending practices.  Instead, she claims that it's because of her work in real estate that she knows there was no racism before Obama took office.  She doesn't explain how, but it doesn't matter how.  Facts are irrelevant; this is about her perception as a white woman.

It would be all too easy to dismiss Miller's racism as something separate from us sensible white people, but stay with me a moment longer while I trace a connection from Miller to myself, to a time when I caught myself saying, "Things have gotten so bad lately!  I don't ever remember it being this bad!"  There's no ill intention in a comment like that, but it's still guilty of all the same things Miller is doing.  Things aren't "bad lately."  Things are being discussed by white people lately.  Things are being covered in the mainstream (white) media lately, because unrepentantly racist people started reacting in big ways the second Obama got elected, and that brought racism to the attention of white people who just started paying attention lately.  That's not at all the same as what I said.  I suggested things were worse now, as though the severity or even the very occurrence of racism and police brutality were contingent upon my personal knowledge of them.  That's not a whole hell of a lot better than what Miller did, and intentions don't excuse me.  Miller did not and does not intend to be racist.  She intends to speak the truth, and she thinks that makes her brave.

As white people, it's easy to think about how far we are from Donald Trump, how low and despicable he is.  White people who consider ourselves individuals of conscience, however, what are we doing in response to police officers shooting down Black people in the streets?  Are we rising up?  Are we demanding change?  Or are we clucking our tongues, wagging our fingers, saying "we'd stand with you, if only."  If only you wouldn't break the windows of police cars.  If only you wouldn't fool with fake guns.  If only you would pull up your pants.  If only you would follow basic instructions.

Recall the opening of Martin Luther King, Jr's "Letter from Birmingham Jail":

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods.'

I would say that we are every bit as much of the problem as Kathy Miller, except that there are more of us than there are of her.  That also means we have more power than she does to pursue that positive peace, but we must use that power, and we must pursue that peace.

The Only Girl at the Table: Notes from a Con

This is a post about some of my gaming experiences at Gen Con, a large convention where people play games for four days with lots of junk food and very little sleep.  Tens upon thousands of human beings gather together to do this, and one of the things that happens is that you and your friends, if any, sit down at tables with strangers, hoping against hope that they'll be nice, or fun, or (please oh please) at least tolerable and (ideally) showered as you join together as a unified group to do the thing you love. Such games can go spectacularly well, or they can be abysmal.  Most often, they're fun experiences with flaws.  I want to talk about a persistent flaw that carried over from game to game that I played in the Games on Demand room. 

First, however, this briefest of backgrounds.  My boyfriend and I learned to play Magic together about 20 years ago, which was a fun and lovely experience that is forever bound up in my memory with lounging around the living room, half-dressed, ordering pizza so we didn't have to find our pants or stop playing.  We played privately like that for years, and in fact, we didn't play with strangers, even at Friday Night Magic (FNM), until after we got married and had a kid who was old enough to play along with us.  Going to my first few FNMs felt like a shock that wouldn't wear off.  Whether we played on Friday nights, Saturday afternoons, or Monday nights in a 16K, I was never a real gamer; I was a real gamer's wife.  I was also very often the only woman in the tournament, which is an isolating experience on its best day, and on every day, a reminder that I didn't belong, not really.  I will never forget the day a blond guy came up to my opponent after our match and asked, "Dude, did you win?"  When my opponent shook his head, the guy said, "YOU GOT BEAT BY A GIRL?!"  He collapsed in a fit of laughter.  Defeating me didn't mean much either, though.  Of course guys beat girls.  Girls can't play Magic.

About a year later, I won a Pre-Release with more than 50 players in it, and I started trying to get more serious about the game, brewing up a deadly blue and white board control deck, play testing it for hours.  As it turned out, however, the higher the stakes, the less men want to get beat by a girl.  The behaviors escalated.  There was some pretty serious sniping.  One guy managed to do something no one else had ever done: He made me cry in a crowded room in the penultimate round of a tournament.  Unfortunately for him, he made a bad play with 35 or so people standing around, watching us, and the judge wouldn't let him take it back.  We drew.  Implicitly, that bad play became my fault. He dropped out of the tournament and spent the whole of my final match staring at me from across the table, about four seats down. I gave up even trying to win the tournament and allowed both of my opponent's Planeswalkers to go ultimate (i.e. I let him load two cannons and point them directly at my face), just to fucking see what would happen.  I stopped playing on Saturdays and Mondays.  I switched the format that I play on Fridays.  I don't like it when my hobbies make me feel like puking.

Last year, my husband made an interesting discovery: There are games other than Magic! Okay, okay, we all knew that already, but there are games that could overtake Magic in our hearts.  More specifically, there are RPGs in the world where you don't just slaughter goblins and loot their still-warm corpses.  On GooglePlus, my husband discovered a whole community of wildly creative independent RPG designers, many of whom - indeed, LOTS of whom - are women.  He also found them speaking about all kinds of issues that are politically important to us.  We played as many RPGs as we could squeeze into our days, and I liked all of them more than I had ever liked D&D. We talked about other games we wanted to buy at Gen Con.  We couldn't wait to get there.

It's quite possible that in my excitement about this online community, I might have made some overly generous assumptions about the people playing RPGs at Gen Con - to wit, that the players there would mirror the designers on GooglePlus in gender makeup and political coolness. Despite seeing women everywhere at Gen Con - far more, in fact, than we had seen the last time we were there - I kept finding myself as the only woman at the table.  And sometimes, that was fine.

But when people talked about the X card - that is, literally, the white card bearing the giant X that the Game Master (GM) places in the center of the table to be tapped or touched by any player who wants to signal discomfort with what's happening in the game - the men at the table looked at me.

And when I was one of three people whose characters decided to go investigate the noise down the hall, the GM didn't stray from his plan of having two baddies in that room.  Dude #1 got attacked, and he retaliated with lethal force, giving him two separate actions. Dude #2, same.  With my character standing behind Dude #2, eagerly awaiting her chance, the GM turned his head to the man next to him and said, "Let's move on to the outside."  Whoa!  Me, too?  I'm still here?  When I asserted my desire to have my turn, the man whose character was outside said, "Are you even going to do anything?"  That, I confess, really pissed me off.  I understand his point: There were two baddies, and they were already on the floor, dead.  But that's not my fault.  The GM could have invented a third baddie at any time.  Or put one in the pantry.  Or around the corner.  OR VERY LITERALLY ANYWHERE.  They were infesting our location, and they certainly seemed to be everywhere else.

The GM said, "I'm sorry; I guess I shouldn't let other players speak over you.  Go ahead."

Me: "Is there anything moving in the room?"
GM: "No.  What do you want to do?"
Me: "Go to my room and get my gun." 
GM: "Okay, you get your gun."  [Turns to next player, ending my turn]

Wow.

I don't mean to suggest that the GM was a jerk, because he seemed very nice, but by refusing to give me anything to interact with, he tacitly endorsed and actively perpetuated the idea that the only girl at the table had nothing to contribute and didn't even deserve the chance to try.  That felt superlatively shitty.  When I didn't get to take any actions on my next turn either, I assure you that didn't help my mood. 

The man facilitating the next game very kindly asked how I was doing, and when I referenced emerging from a rough game in which the GM seemed to forget my existence, he said, "I sense that you want to be listened to."  I laughed and agreed.  Unfortunately, the guy next to me went another way.  He had to have my turn re-narrated to him by his friend across the table for two rounds in a row because when I spoke, he apparently just . . . stopped listening.  No one else's narrative had to be summarized for this player, only mine.  From invisible to inaudible?  Seriously?!  That game turned out to be amazing, by the way, and I'm glad I pushed through the inaudible period, but there were several minutes there when I was fighting just to make myself stay at the table. 

We all want to escape for awhile when we role play, to have emotions and adventures and fantastical experiences.  Having to fight the internalized biases of other people at the table, however, is not the fun kind of escapist fighting.  That's just real life, needlessly and therefore cruelly reasserted in a fantasy space that's supposed to be enjoyable for everyone.  I'm certainly not giving up on RPGs, but I confess I'm inclined to stay home for awhile, guarding my table and playing it safe. 

Mike Pence from One Hoosier's Point of View

On Friday morning, I woke up to a friend posting on Facebook about Mike Pence.  On her feed, one person after another had been sharing feelings for Mike Pence - feelings like admiration, respect, and warmth, because Mike Pence!  What a nice guy!  I suspect my friend felt vaguely ill, and after I read her status update, so did I.  We all have the power to be nice, but we don't all wield power like Mike Pence.

Since accepting the dubious honor of becoming Donald Trump's Vice Presidential nominee, Pence has been touting his amazing accomplishments as Governor of the State of Indiana all over the television.  While Pence does credit long term Republican control of the Governor's mansion for Indiana's economic health, he doesn't credit his predecessor by name, which he should.  Since Mitch Daniels left office, Mike Pence hasn't scored a lot of big wins for Indiana.  He has, however, landed some enormous and embarrassing losses that have not only cast the state in a negative light, but have also threatened the freedoms of whole swathes of his constituents, which is to me the far bigger problem.  Watching him navigate these disasters has convinced me that he is unsuitable to be any part of an executive branch of government, whether state or national.

Let's start with Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which you can pronounce "riff-ruh" if you don't already.  RFRA purports to be about protecting religious liberty - but protecting it from what, you ask?  Well, as we all know from being alive here on planet Earth, some people are men, and some people are not.  Some people are redheads, and some people are not.  Likewise, some people are heterosexual, and some people are not.  Pence insists that he doesn't believe in discrimination, yet he has said time and again that some rights belong only to some people - in this case, those people who are heterosexual - and what is that if not discriminatory?

Pence always has reasons why his dance with discrimination doesn't mean anything and doesn't hurt anyone, not really.  In 2006, when he was a member of the US House of Representatives, he co-sponsored House Joint Resolution 88 to add a "Marriage Protection Amendment" to the Constitution, which stated, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman."  In a Press Release on June 5, Pence explained that despite his support for this amendment, "it is not my desire to impose views or attack any individual or anyone in a relationship in America."  Indeed, he said, activist judges were the ones doing the attacking.  That's why he needed to rush in to defend marriage, but "in a spirit of civility," of course, protecting that "institution that is cherished and is so essential to the American people in the life of our nation."  Wait, essential to the American people?  Huh?  If marriage is essential to Americans, how can it be denied - even extremely politely - to consenting adults who are "in a relationship in America"?  Do LGBT people live in a space that is somehow in the country but not of the country?  What exactly was Pence saying?   

I'm not nitpicking, here; I'm tugging at the end of a loose thread in a discursive tapestry of Pence's own weaving.  In 2011, Pence paid homage to National Marriage Week by enumerating the many benefits of the institution on the floor of the House, adding:

I have been a long-time advocate of traditional marriage, and have been proud to support numerous pieces of legislation to protect this sacred institution.  The family structure is the cornerstone of our society, and I can think of no better time to emphasize its importance than National Marriage Week.  I encourage all Americans to use this opportunity to renew their commitment and devotion to their spouse. (emphasis mine)

Again, if you insist on defining marriage as a solemnized union between one man and one woman - if you don't make marriage a legal option for all consenting adults - then "all Americans" can't possibly enjoy this amazing institution.  It is tempting to conclude that Mike Pence doesn't consider LGBT people to be Americans, but I think that phrasing might almost be too glib.  LGBT people are here, "in America"; Mike Pence simply doesn't think about them, or include them, in the America of his mind.

We can see this again with Senate Bill (SB) 101, the Indiana RFRA.  (If you need to get up to speed on the Indiana RFRA, I wrote a piece in 2015 that might help.)  Pence and his party had every conceivable warning that passing RFRA would produce a Category 5 shitstorm, but they knew better.  They were told businesses would pack up and leave, but they knew better.  Hoosiers rallied and protested, but they knew better.  Pence signed the bill behind closed doors surrounded by lobbyists, religious leaders, and nuns.  Press were not permitted behind the door or even just outside it. 

Once the storm hit, Mike Pence played the part of the woefully misunderstood, if not the actual victim of the entire debacle.  He insisted that RFRA was about protecting religious liberties, in general, the way you protect your home and its occupants by locking your front door.  One of the lobbyists in that picture, however, had already given up the game.  From the web site of Advance America:

SB 101 will help protect individuals, Christian businesses and churches from those supporting homosexual marriages and those supporting government recognition and approval of gender identity (male cross-dressers).

Here are just 3 examples:

• Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage!

• A Christian business should not be punished for refusing to allow a man to use the women’s restroom!

• A church should not be punished because they refuse to let the church be used for a homosexual wedding! (emphasis in original)

In all of these examples, the humiliation and discrimination suffered by LGBT people are completely erased.  In the Advance America narrative, there is no bride who brings her mother to her cake-tasting appointment with a baker she has used before, excited to design her dream wedding cake, only to be told very abruptly in front of her mother, in the middle of her joyful day, that someone who has accepted money from her in the past no longer will because there is no groom.  In the Advance America narrative, there is no crying in the car in the bakery parking lot, nor depression in the days following.  There is no wondering if the wedding should just be called off.  That story is not my fanciful imagining, by the way; it's summarized from a real case in Oregon with real women who suffered real pain.  In Pence's mind, there is no pain, or if there is, he doesn't intend it, and therefore, it doesn't matter.

During his interview with George Stephanopoulos, Pence continued the erasure, insisting that RFRA was simply about "empowering individuals when they believe actions of government infringe upon" their religious rights.  When Stephanopoulos asked, repeatedly, whether discrimination was now legal in Indiana, Pence refused to give an answer, meanwhile griping about the "avalanche of intolerance poured on" Indiana.  Oh, yes.  Poor Indiana.  The State famously had to spend $1 million dollars to hire a Public Relations firm to try to fix the damage Pence did by signing RFRA.  How's that for fiscal responsibility? And who empowers LGBT individuals when they believe the actions of government infringe upon their rights?

Pence's steadfast refusal to see the people he harms, the people whose rights he does not respect, makes him truly dangerous as a leader.  It's not something he does exclusively with the LGBT community, either.  Let's take reproductive rights as another example. When it comes to abortion, Mike Pence has a long and passionate history of being anti-choice.  In April of 2007, in a floor speech, Pence celebrated the Supreme Court's decision in Gonzales v Carhart, upholding the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of of 2003, signed by George W. Bush.  In an amicus brief prior to the decision, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) had pointed out: "'Partial-birth abortion' is not a medical term.  Neither Medical textbooks nor physicians use the term to define any particular procedure." As a result, the ban was regarded as overbroad and underinformed by physicians who would have to abide by it.  In the brief, ACOG quotes a physician saying, "None of my colleagues know or could state whether the abortions they perform now are covered under this law.  Indeed, as I read the definition of the banned procedures, any of the safest, most common abortion methods used throughout the second-trimester of pregnancy could proceed in such a manner as to be outlawed."  Again, however, neither the woman's safety nor the physician's charge over it was of any interest to Mike Pence, who said on the floor, "I commend President Bush for signing the bill, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who supported it, and Congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio, its principal author.  Life is winning in America. In big cities and small towns, American women are listening and learning."  Yes, high fives to all the dudes.  The women may be less safe, and their physicians less certain, but we'll eventually teach women to think right.

Meanwhile, compare Pence's position on the abortion ban with his position on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.  In a floor speech given just one month after he celebrated the verdict in Gonzales v Carhart, he said, "Now, some of these thoughts and beliefs are abhorrent, like racism and sexism, and I disdain them.  But hate crime bills are broad enough to encompass legitimate beliefs as well, and protecting the rights of freedom of speech and religion must be paramount on our minds."  Indeed, he deplored the idea that someone could preach against homosexuality from the pulpit and be held responsible for those words, because then pastors and radio evangelists alike might hesitate to speak their minds on the evils of sodomy.  That, to Pence, is dangerous government overreach, but sacrificing women's safety?  That's fine.  As long as Pence's religious convictions are upheld, everything is fine.  No wonder Pence has repeatedly said that he is a Christian first, then a conservative, and only then a Republican. No breaks for women and trans men until Pence is stripped of the ability to impose his version of Christianity upon others.

Speaking of Pence's ability to impact others, in 2011, when Mitch Daniels was still Governor and Pence was in the House, Pence introduced a bill to cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortion services in the country.  The bill passed.  He called it the Pence Amendment.  In a press release, he said: 

I believe that ending an innocent human life is morally wrong. I also believe it is morally wrong to take the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans and use them to fund organizations that provide and promote abortions, like Planned Parenthood of America.

What's the moral over/under on cutting off care to people who visit Planned Parenthood clinics?  Once again, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter that Planned Parenthood uses no federal funding for abortion procedures.  That abortion services are provided in a Planned Parenthood clinic anywhere is justification for closing Planned Parenthood clinics everywhere.  Back in 2011, he insisted  that there are numerous other places people could seek care, yet look at the example of Scott County, Indiana, where the closure of a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2013 was followed in 2015 by an HIV outbreak.  By this point, Mitch Daniels had moved on, and Pence had shifted from the House of Representatives to the Indiana Statehouse, giving him a bird's eye view of the health crisis that had been spreading unchecked without Planned Parenthood on the ground.  People had nowhere to get tested, not even (at first) the local health department, which was also prevented by the State from giving out condoms.  According to Buzzfeed, Pence, who has strongly advocated for abstinence, coincidentally doesn't believe condoms are effective in preventing the spread of disease.  Forget the science; that's how he feels.  He also feels that "effective anti-drug policy" does not mean "handing out drug paraphernalia," which is to say, he doesn't like clean needle exchanges, even though, according to the Chicago Tribune, "numerous studies — from the Centers for Disease Control to the World Health Organization — have indicated that needle exchange programs do not result in higher rates of drug abuse in communities."  Pence did ultimately allow for a temporary needle exchange program in Scott County, which is comforting, I suppose, but barely.  And temporarily.

Given the attention the Scott County health crisis received around the country, and given the serious health threat posed by HIV, did Pence at least learn from the Scott County outbreak?  Did he make a public statement in which he acknowledged that Planned Parenthood, in addition to giving abortions, provides other care that is essential to public health?  Did he rethink his positions on condoms and needle exchanges? Would you like three guesses?

In March of 2016, Pence reached the pinnacle of his long career of anti-choice actions when he brought Indiana into the national spotlight - yet again - by signing House Enrolled Act 1337, an veritable smorgasbord of Constitutionally questionable abortion restrictions.  Admittedly, it is not Pence's fault that the Indiana legislature drafted this bill, but the women and trans men of Indiana promise you: That bill didn't sign itself.  Despite protests and rallies, Mike Pence picked up the pen with his very own hand, and the media responded with headlines like

• "After Penced signed HEA 1337, women's rights in Indiana are dead" (Nuvo, March 25, 2016)
• "Mike Pence's sadistic abortion law: Indiana passes draconian anti-choice bill geared towards humiliating and bankrupting women who have abortions" (Salon, March 25, 2016)  
• "The Crazy New Ways Indiana Will Restrict Abortion (thinkprogress.org , March 25, 2016)

The ACLU quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood, and a judge intervened to stop those "crazy" ways from taking effect, so in a repeat of RFRA, that was certainly a good use of time, money, and people's real emotional distress.

Mike Pence has done a lot of things over the course of his career.  He has wasted time and resources making purely symbolic efforts to repeal Obamacare.  He has pushed back against the EPA.  He has supported amending the Constitution to prohibit the desecration of the flag, because that act of free speech doesn't matter like the free speech of the religious.  He has co-sponsored a bill that, as summarized by VoteSmart, "would forbid federal courts and the Supreme Court from hearing cases questioning or interpreting the Pledge of Allegiance and its constitutionality."

Does Mike Pence seem nice on TV?  Honestly, now that you've read this, I hope not.

Don't Get Stalked

Don't get stalked on the internet
by a guy from high school
who never dated you
and never talked to you.

Don't get stalked by anyone
unless you're drop dead gorgeous,
because why you?
What's so special about you?

What did you do, exactly,
to call his attention to you?
What were you wearing?
Did your hair look nice?

If you do get stalked, don't overreact!
Because danger is in the eye of the beholder.
I'll let you know when you're in danger.
You should just block him.

Wait, don't underreact.
He's dangerous.
Call the police.
Don't be stupid.

It's sad, isn't it?
He's mentally ill.
He needs help.
He's in crisis.

It was the war.
PTSD.
He's out of his mind.
I feel sorry.

Don't give him another thought.
Ignore him.
Delete his messages.
Why are you even reading them?

What's the matter with you?
Why aren't you doing this right?
Why haven't you fixed this yet?
What are you working on?

Tell me about your art.
Tell me everything you've been creating.
Oh, really?
You're busy, I guess.
Your family, maybe.
How is your garden doing?