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You are here: Home / Politics / Activist Judges! / Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! Liberte and Egalite Have Won Edition

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! Liberte and Egalite Have Won Edition

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liberty-leading-the-people

(Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People)

France’s highest administrative court, The State Council/Council de Etat, overturned the local burkini bans that had popped up in French beach towns over the past several weeks. The panel of three senior judges ruled that the ban:

“has dealt a serious and clearly illegal blow to fundamental liberties such as the freedom of movement, freedom of conscience and personal liberty.”

They found that no evidence produced in favour of the prohibition proved a risk to public order was being caused by “the outfits worn by some people to go swimming”.

 There will, of course, be pushback. The Mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet, who is also a member of France’s parliament, has indicated that he will push legislation in the next session to address the issue. Municipal authorities in Nice, Frejus, and Sisco have already stated that they will keep the ban in place despite the ruling. We will now have to wait and see how the different levels of French government, and the French themselves, reconcile themselves to the Council de Etat’s ruling.

Reader Interactions

156Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    Good call. How does policing what Muslim women wear further civil rights or make people safer?

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: ne vous embrassez votre mère avec cette bouche?
    (Please remember my French isn’t that good, so if I just called your Mom a dwarf planet or a hatbox or something, I apologize in advance!)

  6. 6.

    redshirt

    Also too, I’ve always found the fashions in this painting hard to understand. It seems like it was a complex and confused era of French fashion.

  9. 9.

    gvg

    they get to ignore their highest court ruling? I know other countries do things differently but wow.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @gvg: They don’t. There will be a showdown over the court’s order being enforced. I doubt it will be pretty. They don’t have a Federal system.

  11. 11.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: Ma mere est morte, et mon pere aussi, so I think they’re past the point of caring…altho’ yes, she would have clucked. He would have laughed.

  13. 13.

    Hungry Joe

    It’s a damn shame, is what it is. I liked the idea of walking up and down the beach telling women to take their clothes off. I liked the idea A LOT.

  15. 15.

    ASV

    French nullificationists? As a Francophile, these assholes are seriously bumming me out. It’s like when somebody you were friends with in high school starts posting Trump memes on Facebook.

  17. 17.

    Calouste

    @rikyrah: I think religious discrimination is only part of it. Part of it is also to keep “those people” off some of the fanciest beaches in the world.

  20. 20.

    MomSense

    Speaking of intolerant assholes, the governor of our great state of Mainehas humiliated us again with his vulgarity.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    Good. The burkini bans were bullshit laws that were clearly designed to discriminate against Muslim women. That said, the religion-inspired modesty strictures placed on woman are horrible and oppressive too, and I hope someday burkinis go the way of the dodo due to lack of demand. Overturning stupid laws like the bans get us closer to that goal, IMO.

  24. 24.

    Corner Stone

    @MomSense: Speaking of ignorant assholes, Chuckles Todd has declared this the lowest of the low of all possible low points in campaigning. Everlow.

  25. 25.

    grandpa john

    @ASV<@ASV: Hell how about when some of the kids you taught in high school ,ones that you thought were the intelligent logical thinkers have turned out to be trump idiots. Probably living in South Carolina has something to do with it.

  26. 26.

    Corner Stone

    If I hear Trump referring to his issues with erectile dysfunction one more fucking time…

  29. 29.

    MomSense

    @redshirt:

    When I saw the video of the cops harassing the woman wearing the headscarf I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever worn a top on a beach in France. And I don’t even want to think about some of the swimming attire the males wore. MOAR fabric please!

  31. 31.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Trump twitter report

    He retweeted a Washington Examiner tweet showing a slide purported to be army training that lists HRC as insider threat, and had another tweet purporting to introduce lifelong Ds now supporting Trump. Then there were these. You see from the time stamp how recent they were.

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump · 2h2 hours ago

    “Hillary Clinton Deleted Emails Using Program Intended To Prevent Recovery” #CrookedHillary

    Donald J. Trump Retweeted

    MATT DRUDGE ‏@DRUDGE · Aug 25

    Watched ‘Clinton Cash’ last night. Scariest movie since The Invitation! You’ve been warned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM …

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump · 4h4 hours ago

    How quickly people forget that Crooked Hillary called African-American youth “SUPER PREDATORS” – Has she apologized?

    Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump · 6h6 hours ago

    Wonderful @pastormarkburns was attacked viciously and unfairly on @MSNBC by crazy @morningmika on low ratings @Morning_Joe. Apologize!

    There were three others in the same time frame, but you get the idea. He’s freaked out.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Iowa Old Lady: Hope it gets out of moderation. I can skim them quickly and get it over with.

    BTW, do you know what is going on in Iowa that it is a tossup? That seems odd to me.

  37. 37.

    redshirt

    @Iowa Old Lady: All because of a viable 3rd party candidate.

    After the result of Nader and Cutler, I will never support a 3rd party, unless something terrible has happened and the political scene is very different.

  38. 38.

    jl

    Bad news for Trump and the Trumpists, is that there are other bigshots just as dumb as he is, and they are willing to cause trouble.
    Steve King warns Trump not to waffle on promises to attempt the impossible, and thereby commit international human rights crimes.

    I wondered how much difference Trumps pivot on immigration would make. I mean, the faithful xenophobes should expect their candidate to start dog whistling more as election day approaches. But if GOP bigshots start warning Trump to not back off from promising to do stupid criminal tricks in office, any waffle will make a big difference. And luckily, here is Steve King to come make Trump’s situation worse. Congrats, Steve. Stand strong.

    Rep. Steve King on Trump’s immigration stance
    Yahoo news

    King also indicated that if Trump is changing his position, it could lead to a lot of his potential supporters to stay home in November.

    https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/rep-steve-king-trump-immigration-050019805.html

  40. 40.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @jl: @jl: I really don’t know. We’re a white, elderly state. @Oldgold also pointed out the other day that the farm economy is in a slump, ironically because crop yields have been high which drives prices down.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Iowa Old Lady: Well, MY racist uncle(s) would never threaten to shoot someone between the eyes. That would mean one less person to hector and bicker with, which is one of their main joys in life, it seems.

  43. 43.

    Anoniminous

    @redshirt:

    Note the revolutionary tricolor being waved. The various styles of clothing are meant to convey all classes of France have united behind Lady Liberty.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    @Betty Cracker:

    That style of swimsuit will never go away as long as skin cancer exists. IIRC, that’s what it was originally developed for and ended up being adopted as “modest dress” by various religions.

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Iowa Old Lady: That slide is real. It was done by a unit for, most likely, their quarterly insider threat training. It also listed GEN (ret) Petraeus. US Army Training and Doctrine Command has already ordered the slide pulled, issued guidelines on acceptable examples, etc. The four star headquarters doesn’t control this type of stuff – meaning the specifics – that are included in the quarterly unit training done by units at every echelon. And specifically the training done at Ft. Leonard-Wood, which is Manuever Support Command Center of Excellence, is under the control of the 3 star commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth.
    https://www.armytimes.com/articles/army-pulls-training-slide-listing-clinton-petraeus-as-examples-of-insider-threats

  56. 56.

    Chip Daniels

    Events like this are what make me more receptive to even the most strident feminist criticism of society.

    The single minded laser-like focus on women’s clothing, appearance, sexuality and reproduction by men seems increasingly bizarre and unhealthy to me, and I’m one of the male species myself.

    It just seems to pop up everywhere, and interlace itself into every single aspect of a woman’s life, from her hair style, to her facial expressions, to the way she speaks; I never really got a taste of it until I became a stepfather to a teenage girl and saw how from the moment she woke up to the moment she fell asleep, she was considered to be on display, and constantly weighed, judged, evaluated, critiqued, and analyzed, and of course, always found lacking somehow.

    Other than wishing for a pandemic of blindness among men, I don’t know what to do about it, but I do believe that the answer is to change the behavior of men, not women.

  57. 57.

    Adam L Silverman

    @MomSense: I thought using his middle name was a nice touch. “This is Governor Paul Richard LePage” really classed up the voicemail.

  58. 58.

    Miss Bianca

    @MomSense: And didn’t he also just slam the Khan family for being scam artists or something? I’m starting to think this guy tops (bottoms? or does this take us somewhere we don’t want to go?) even Scott Walker and Rick Scott for classless and low. And that’s really going low.

  59. 59.

    Patricia Kayden

    @MomSense: Sadly for LePage, a Black family at my church plans to move up to Maine to live. I hope he doesn’t run into the Father and think he’s one of those Black drug dealers named “Pookie” that he was warning everyone about.

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: My guess is that this was for insider threat training. So it was some junior NCO (E4 most likely) in the intel shop that put it together. Since they were using it for over a year before it leaked out, my guess is whoever made the slide is no longer assigned there.

  67. 67.

    Anoniminous

    @Chip Daniels:

    Have to understand the system.

    Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate that the global beauty industry—consisting of skin care worth $24 billion; make-up, $18 billion; $38 billion of hair-care products; and $15 billion of perfumes—is growing at up to 7% a year, more than twice the rate of the developed world’s GDP.

    MarketResearch.com: The U.S. Beauty and Cosmetics Market Expected to Exceed $62 Billion in 2016

    Hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising is spent to support and increase these sales and it all depends on convincing women they lack something or another and THIS product will fix it.

  69. 69.

    jl

    @Chip Daniels: Wasn’t there an effort in France to ban suspect Muslim head dress for both sexes? I’m not sure. Maybe did not get as much attention, since the burkini ban was particularly asinine and fun to make fun of.

    Anyone know?

  72. 72.

    Mary G

    (Warning, Politico link)

    GOP has already agreed to 100% obstruction of Hillary’s presidency.

    Republicans operatives on the Hill, for instance, are already planning to block Clinton’s agenda by strategically targeting individual Democratic senators who will be up for reelection in 2018. “Take Joe Manchin in West Virginia,” explained one GOP operative of the strategy.

    Well, Joe Manchin isn’t much of a Democrat, and his daughter’s big “fuck you” to the people objecting to her company’s gouging on EpiPens is going to hurt him. It seems pretty certain that WV would elect a rabid Republican to replace him.

    So the strategy is clear, say no to everything for two years, plus what I’m sure will be a never-ending stream of lies and investigations. Then in 2018 demonize the inaction and gridlock in DC as all Hillary’s fault and hope to take the Senate back and the White House in 2020.

    The only problem is that they will almost certainly shoot themselves in the foot, if the past two years are any indication.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Those are normally done by the Equal Employment Opportunity Office/Officer (EEOC). So there normally done correctly.

  80. 80.

    Mary G

    @Baud: Maybe President Obama will go back to his roots and community-organize the Democratic Party into voting in mid-term and off-year elections.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: @Baud: I’m going to preface this with: I am not dumping on Secretary Clinton. Nor do I think she’s any form of insider threat. As far as a discussion point, given the other people listed on the slide, she’s actually a good one. In this case its creating the possibility for yourself of becoming an insider threat without meaning to do so. For instance, while the secure unclassified server she used/had set up is, as far as has been reported, more secure that the Department of State’s and Department of Defense’s and several other agencies and offices, it could have gone down differently. Similar with personnel on her staff sending her stuff, without the appropriate page markings for her to know that she was getting something from below the tear line on a classified document/email/memo, so she wouldn’t have known to pass it on. Essentially, she’s the case study for “this could have gone really, really bad, but it didn’t and while no laws were broken and there was no malice aforethought or mens rea, all of us doing this work have to be extraordinarily careful not to inadvertently become an insider threat”. This is different from GEN Petraeus’s example or MAJ Hassan or Snowden, but its still a useful example.

  83. 83.

    rikyrah

    @Mary G:
    1. A Voting Rights Act applicable to the entire country.

    2. An infrastructure bill 40% higher than what President Obama asked for.

    3. Introduction to correct Citizens United

  85. 85.

    D58826

    Somewhat OT. Latest poll has Hillary up by 5 which is down from 12 a week ago. Also only up by 2 in Fla. Now this isn’t about one poll in August. They will change as often as the weather between now and November.

    What I find depressing is that after a year of ‘old little hands’ and his antics as much as 40% of the nation will vote for him. And that the majority of the public views Hillary vs Trump as a choice between two evils, each bad in their own way. That people are convinced that Hillary, even if the baggage was half way true, is as bad as Trump is just downright depressing.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @Adam L Silverman: Sure. A lot of protocols are set up to prevent more serious harms. I’ve always likened this situation to speeding. We’ve all done it, but it would be silly to consider all of us a public safety threat, even though there are real examples we could point to where speeding has resulted on real tragedy.

  87. 87.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Yeah, that was my take too. She’s a good example of how difficult classified material can be to handle.

    I don’t doubt at the same time some Conservative put her on the slide to mock her as well.

  88. 88.

    Baud

    @D58826: I could have told you that he would get at least 40% without looking at any polls. It is depressing, but not unexpected.

  89. 89.

    D58826

    @Adam L Silverman: While I agree in principle, I just wonder how easy it is to dot all of the ‘i’s’ and cross all of the ‘t’s’ in the course of 12-14 hour workdays with most of the world turning to mush.

  91. 91.

    hovercraft

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    According to Chuckles, there is a correlation between the number of college educated white voters and the polls. NV and IA have fewer, whereas NC, PA, and VA have higher levels.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Iowa Old Lady: There’s a larger problem. Our unclassified systems can’t keep up with both current needs and we’re constantly fighting the power curve against the hackers – be they 12 year olds from Toronto or the Israelis.
    http://gizmodo.com/israeli-cyber-weapon-dealers-figured-out-how-to-hack-ev-1785747391

    Israeli Cyber Weapon Dealers Figured Out How to Hack Every iPhone

    There’s never enough bandwidth. Remote access can be hit and/or miss. If something goes down for just one person it can still be a major lift to get it fixed. There are a lot of people working to fix this stuff, but its a constant fight and the sequester and an entire cohort of Federal legislators that don’t know how to do anything but crisis budget doesn’t help.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Baud: Basically the discussion needs to occur across a continuum of information assurance and security – specifically how its changed dramatically just over the past 20 years or so and is going to continue to fight the curve for the foreseeable future.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @D58826: That’s a complicating factor to be discussed. That unless you’re spending your entire shift in a Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) unintentional mistakes will happen during high stress situations.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It’s like how I would still like to know exactly what went wrong at Benghazi and how the State Dept and CIA planned to fix the problems that led to the consulate being vulnerable, but we’re never going to be able to talk about that because the wingnuts are so intent on having their “gotcha!” moment.

  98. 98.

    debbie

    The U. of Chicago won’t allow coddling.

    “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

    Hopefully, professors will be smarter than the dean of students.

  100. 100.

    jl

    @Keith P.: Heard a news item about Trump’ Super Doctor. If he is going to talk and act like a careless insane quack in the media, that might be a good thing overall.

    Apparently dashed off his letter on Trump’s health in five minutes while Trump limo was waiting for it outside his office after skimming some test results. He likes Trump because he thinks Trump likes him.

    Good to know.

  101. 101.

    Immanentize

    If you have a racist friend,
    Now is the time
    Now is the time
    For your friendship to end…

  103. 103.

    West of the Rockies (been a while)

    @Miss Bianca:

    Don’t you just know he has to be a playful, patient husband, father, and friend?

    Voters of Maine, you have some ‘splainin’ to do.

  104. 104.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    Dear French people:

    YOU NEED TO BAN SPEEDOS ON ANYBODY OVER 200 LBs… oh wait you use the metric system hold on… ANYBODY OVER 92 KGs!

    Signed,
    People who have clawed their eyes out seeing too many fat European guys wearing Speedos.

  108. 108.

    Bill_D

    @redshirt: More than that, in both 2010 and 2014 it was a three-way race and the anti-LePage vote was split. He came in under 40% both times, which by now should be a familiar number.

  112. 112.

    Jibeaux

    I thought NC gov McCrory had the thinnest skin since Trump. The man holds a peevish press conference for every story in the paper. So, way to go, LePage, on achieving the nearly impossible task of making him look like a guy with a brush-off function.

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    O/T, but there was a really nice interview with Chris Jackson a short while ago on the normally execrable With All Due Respect. (Halperin is on vacation, so it was conducted by Heileman and, I think, Alex Witt or somebody.) Anyhow, very interesting and worth your time if you haven’t caught it. Here’s the link.

  116. 116.

    Jibeaux

    @BlueNC: he’s just beyond lame and not even interesting. It’s like you want a beer at a party and are offered a Bud Light. LePage is probably at least like a canned michelada. Repulsive and gross, but interesting.

  119. 119.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    My mother went there in the ’30s and learned this song as a student:

    We all come from the U of C,
    Where the communists are free
    Ah ah aaaaaahh
    Buy the Daily Worker!
    Buy the Daily Worker!

    Stalin’s orders you must follow,
    Or your stomachs will be hollow,
    Ah ah aaaaaahh
    Buy the Daily Worker!
    Buy the Daily Worker!

    It was sung to a faux-menacing Russian workers’ tune (Volga Boatmen style) and when I was a kid I thought it was funny, sophisticated, and ever so daring.

  120. 120.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ahem. As a citizen and a taxpayer, I have a right to know what happened and how the government plans to fix the problem. I may not need to know specific details about whatever CIA ops are going on, but if the CIA and State are having turf battles that are getting employees killed, they need some sunlight on them to make them knock that shit off.

  122. 122.

    JanieM

    @Bill_D:

    More than that, in both 2010 and 2014 it was a three-way race and the anti-LePage vote was split. He came in under 40% both times, which by now should be a familiar number

    No matter how many times it is repeated, this is simply not true. He got 48.2% of the vote in 2014, to our shame.

  123. 123.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I was making a sarcastic riff on the old saw of intel officers everywhere: “if you needed to know the information, you already would”.

  124. 124.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @hovercraft:

    Thanks. I know there are several of them with more or less interchangeable names, but I can’t be bothered to learn to tell ’em apart.

  125. 125.

    Mnemosyne

    @eclare:

    I hope you like it! It’s quite bizarre and a little kinky (made just before the Production Code clamped down), but it’s one of the great duels between Karloff and Lugosi.

  128. 128.

    hovercraft

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    No problem, she’s no longer at msnbc, she was part of the purge when they got rid of Schultz, Toure, Crystal Ball, Abby Huntsman, et al. Are you watching Hardball, it’s so much better without Tweety.
    EDIT Useless trivia, Wagner is married to ex Obama personal chef Sam Kass of Lets Move fame.

  130. 130.

    JanieM

    @Bill_D: I was just going to add: you were right that both races were three-way. Cutler was a close second to LePage the first time, but fell off drastically in 2014 (8% or so). He should have stayed home, although it seems that it still would have been a depressingly close race one way or another.

  132. 132.

    gene108

    @Mary G:

    So the strategy is clear, say no to everything for two years, plus what I’m sure will be a never-ending stream of lies and investigations. Then in 2018 demonize the inaction and gridlock in DC as all Hillary’s fault and hope to take the Senate back and the White House in 2020.

    The only problem is that they will almost certainly shoot themselves in the foot, if the past two years are any indication.

    The strategy worked in 2014 and would have worked better in 2010 and 2012, but they nominated some kooks to run for Senate, like the “not a witch” lady in Delaware. But they did take back the House, in 2010, and expanded their majority in 2014.

    The demise of the Republican Party is vastly overrated.

    They have one advantage, in aggregate, that demographics, etc are not going to change: Money.

    And having more money than your opponent usually leads to wins.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    No, I get that it was a joke, but it is something that really annoys me. We can never fix any problems because conservatives are so goddamned busy playing their stupid “gotcha!” games, and then incompetent bureaucrats hide behind their fear of that.

    Just another way the right wing ensures that our system stays broken.

  134. 134.

    Major Major Major Major

    @gene108: It’s not money. Money doesn’t move the needle as much as people think.

    What they have that we don’t is white-hot seething rage against modernity, driving them to the polls to vote for the people who will burn this fucker to the ground. Also gerrymandering, but that’s only because they had a lot of white-hot seething rage in 2010. That they are easily led in their enraged state is not a factor of money. We have plenty of money too.

    @Mnemosyne: Like with the ACA. I wish we lived in a world where we could discuss the flaws in the law, but any time you admit there’s a problem it leads directly to repeal. As do all other roads.

  136. 136.

    cynthia ackerman

    @jl: The burkini ban follows attempts to ban the burka and hijab as a matter of offense to freedom from religion, going way back.

    France has a thing about secularism which is not reflected in the comments here.

    Yes, it’s stupid from our perspective to require immodest attire, and undoubtedly there are layer upon layer of right-wing anti-immigrant rractionary impulses in play, but much of the intent relates to deep-seated distrust of expressions of religion as anti-democtratic, sort of like German laws regarding nationalist trappings.

    None of which defends the local French burkini laws, just a reminder that we Statesiders don’t grok context east of Coney Island.

  137. 137.

    D58826

    @Major Major Major Major: they also have the advantage of how the founders set up the system. Twenty red states with a combine population less than Calif. will send 40 reactionaries to the senate. Only takes one more to get to 41 and a can block any attempt to invoke cloture on a filibuster.

    Even w/o the gerrymandering many democratic votes are concentrated in a few urban districts.

  140. 140.

    D58826

    @cynthia ackerman:

    The burkini ban follows attempts to ban the burka and hijab as a matter of offense to freedom from religion, going way back.
    France has a thing about secularism which is not reflected in the comments here.

    True but they also ban crosses/yamakas/etc. Sol it would not have been as obvious if it was a more generic ban on a religious symbol.

  141. 141.

    redshirt

    @West of the Rockies (been a while): I don’t get your Shakespeare reference (please explain) but the referendum was to ban a hunting practice called “bear bating” whereby for weeks/months before hunting season starts you dump a bunch of junk food and sugar and jam and all kinds of sweet crap in a bucket suspended between trees such that only a bear could get at it. Then you also build a tree stand in the immediate vicinity of the bait spot. And then you stock it regularly such as the beat gets used to coming to the spot for sweet treats, then when hunting season starts you shoot them dead.

    Seems terribly unsporting to me, but it got the red necks fired up.

    Also, that the Dem for Governor was outed as gay during the election. A truly great public servant named Mike Michaud.

  143. 143.

    gene108

    @Major Major Major Major:

    not money. Money doesn’t move the needle as much as people think.

    What they have that we don’t is white-hot seething rage against modernity, driving them to the polls to vote for the people who will burn this fucker to the ground. Also gerrymandering, but that’s only because they had a lot of white-hot seething rage in 2010. That they are easily led in their enraged state is not a factor of money. We have plenty of money too.

    But the big money channeled and broadcast the rage in 2009. It turned what would have been isolated folks into a larger movement. It turned all the aspirations of Obama into seething rage and general frustration among the rest of the voters.

    Rick Santelli goes on a rant about taxes paying to bail out bums, who cannot pay their mortgage, in early 2009.

    By April 15, a fully fledged Taxed Enough Already nation wide protest is under way. And even though turn out was modest, Fox News gave it wall-to-wall coverage.

    The “grassroots” “spontaneous” Tea Party was egged on by right-wing media, in the first quarter of 2009, and every rally was paid for by billionaires, like the Koch brothers, with an axe to grind.

    Do you really think privatizing Social Security or Medicare vouchers, promoted by Speaker Ryan, would still be a thing, if big money was not interested in pushing it?

    The reason right-wingers are able to sustain organizations that pollute the public discussions with lies and distortions is because people with money want it this way.

    You would not have as much white hot fury, without the noise coming from Fox News, the MSM and other news outlets, which are fed lies from right-wing “think tanks” to promote.

    I mean for fuck’s sake, crime is at an all time low, teen pregnancy is at an all time low and high school graduation rates are at an all time high, plus unemployment is down, the stock market is up and yet most folks think things are terrible, because the people with money are paying folks to distort the truth to advance their agenda.

  144. 144.

    ? Martin

    @D58826: The way to think of it, you would never, ever see French police telling a nun to remove her habit at the beach. French secularism is, as usual, selective.

  145. 145.

    Adam L Silverman

    Rick Perlstein is far too nice a guy when he does TV. Someone needs to get him toughened up!

  146. 146.

    Mnemosyne

    @D58826:

    As Martin said, the problem seems to be selective enforcement that disproportionately affects French Muslims. The standard seems to be “ostentatious” display of religious symbols, which is a standard that is quite frankly begging for unscrupulous people to exploit it.

    Until the police similarly tell a French Jewish man at the beach to remove his yarmulke or be arrested, there is a double standard in operation here, and the line seems to be whether the religious garb in question is identifiable as being Islamic.

  149. 149.

    Miss Bianca

    @cynthia ackerman: Forgive me, but some of us *do* grok the context of laicite just fine. I think it’s just that even those of who do – and sympathize with it – are finding the burkini ban a bridge too far, so to speak. If only because, as others have pointed out, the “religious dress code enforcement” mostly seems to be enforced against women.

  150. 150.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @redshirt: Bear baiting was an “entertainment” in Tudor England and other eras too. A bear was chained in the middle of an arena (called a pit) and dogs (often pit bulls) were turned loose to harass it until enough blood and death occurred to make the audience happy.

  151. 151.

    rikyrah

    @D58826:

    Somewhat OT. Latest poll has Hillary up by 5 which is down from 12 a week ago. Also only up by 2 in Fla. Now this isn’t about one poll in August. They will change as often as the weather between now and November

    Somebody tweeted that they changed the entire formula of how they poll. So….

  155. 155.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I really don’t see a lot of tightening going on in, say, Huffington Post’s national poll aggregates. The polls that mention Johnson and/or Jill Stein tend to be closer than the two-ways, but even Quinnipiac has Clinton up 10 in the two-way and 7 in the three-way. Rasmussen just posted one that was Clinton +4, and you know them.

    There’s some “UPI/CVOTER” poll that has Trump +1, but it seems to be an extreme outlier. The leads in the state poll aggregators are holding steady too.

  156. 156.

    louc

    The French have peculiar ideas about swimwear anyway. True story: A Facebook friend who lives elsewhere in Europe went to France and got kicked out of the pool because he was wearing board shorts. The lifeguard said they were unsanitary.

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