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Excellent Read: About Those “Terrorist Camps”…

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During my involuntary hiatus, I couldn’t even read Balloon Juice — I was checking Google cache on the regular, but that was spotty & I couldn’t manage to read entire comment strings. So you’ll have to forgive me if this got written up already, but I thought Philip Bump’s Washington Post explainer on the ‘terrorist training camps’ conspiracy theory was too interesting to miss.

Can’t work the auto-links function, so here’s the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/09/18/donald-trump-and-the-terrorist-training-camps-conspiracy-theory-explained/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b

… “We have a problem in this country: It’s called Muslims,” the questioner began, going on to state that President Obama was himself Muslim. “We have training camps, growing, where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”

Trump’s response met with immediate backlash. He didn’t correct the questioner’s incorrect assertion about Obama’s religion and, further, suggested that his administration was “going to look at that.” Trump’s campaign insisted that the “that” they’d be looking at wasn’t getting rid of Muslims — but rather, those alleged training camps.

Which is itself a weird proposition.

The idea that there are 22 (or, in some iterations, 35) terrorist training camps in the United States appears to stem largely from a 2005 report from the National White Collar Crime Center (https://www.nw3c.org/), a nonprofit organization that receives federal funding. The report, “Identifying the Links between White-Collar Crime and Terrorism,” (https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209520.pdf) focused on a group called Jamaat Ul Fuqra and the ways in which it used white-collar crime to fund its activities. An appendix to the report indicates a number of places where Fuqra had conducted activities or had training compounds across the country…

Other conservative sites have zeroed in on particular compounds. There’s Islamberg, along the eastern New York-Pennsylvania border, usually described as the “national headquarters” of Muslims of America — which the sites link to Fuqra — in the United States. There’s Mahmoudberg, near Sweeny, Tex., which has received a lot of attention thanks to an accidental shooting in 2002 that resulted in an FBI report (http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/exclusive-clarion-project-discovers-texas-terror-enclave#popup-1) on the compound. And there’s Islamville, in South Carolina, home of a holy shrine (http://www.holyislamville.net/). A Web site focused on Islamic terror called “Clarion Project” released footage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoykqCSruY&feature=youtu.be) that it claims shows weapons training in Islamberg…

A lot of the Fuqra’s nefarious activity occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. The point of the White Collar Crime Center report, after all, was that Fuqra was involved in white-collar crime, like workers-compensation fraud. That’s tough to pair with spooky music…

So why the conspiracy theories? Because that’s how conspiracy theories work. Conspiracy Web sites often point out how close to New York City Islamberg is — even though it’s really not very close at all. It’s far enough away that Brooklynites see it as a refuge from the city’s noise and activity… In a response to Trump’s comments, a commenter at FreeRepublic.com (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3338327/posts) points to the 2006 arrest of Muslims near Virginia — right near “the Virginia Muslim cemetery [where] the Chechen who bombed Boston was buried.” We’re through the looking glass here, people…

So, there’s “reasons” why those numbers keep getting passed around. The looking glass is warped and cracked, but there are weird images from which the Wingnut Wurlitzer ink-blots a new nutball “explanation” for every purpose…

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PMURT PMURT PMURT

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The Washington Post has the most promising GOP poll numbers yet…for the Democrats.

Businessman Donald Trump surged into the lead for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, with almost twice the support of his closest rival, just as he ignited a new controversy after making disparaging remarks about Sen. John McCain’s Vietnam War service, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Support for Trump fell sharply on the one night that voters were surveyed following those comments. Telephone interviewing for the poll began Thursday, and most calls were completed before the news about the remarks was widely reported.

Although the sample size for the final day was small, the decline was statistically significant. Still, it is difficult to predict what could happen to Trump’s support in the coming days and weeks as the controversy plays out.

Even with the drop in support on the final night of the survey, Trump was the favorite of 24 percent of registered Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. That is the highest percentage and biggest lead recorded by any GOP candidate this year in Post-ABC News polls and marks a sixfold increase in his support since late May, shortly before he formally joined the race.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who announced his candidacy a week ago, is in second place, at 13 percent, followed by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, at 12 percent. Walker’s support is strongest among those who describe themselves as “very conservative.”

Trump getting close to Cole’s Number (27%) here because he’s saying exactly what the lizard-brain base wants him to say: I’ve Got Mine, Screw The Rest Of You.  It’s working.

Yes, he’s going to take a hit for his McCain remarks but eventually that’s going to be a point in his favor.  The guy is unrestrained red-state, red-meat id and the mob loves him.

Trump is who the Republican party really is: a horrifically racist rich bully who does not give a damn who he steps on to get more. He’s not leaving the race. The donors can’t cut him off. The party can’t censure him. He simply is, barbaric yawp and all. Besides, El Rushbo is rallying the troops to defend him.

Human political metastasis personified is a strange thing to watch, but it does explain the hair.

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Prepare the Ice Floes

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The New York Times reports on the next great cost saving measure in the US:

Medicare, the federal program that insures 55 million older and disabled Americans, announced plans on Wednesday to reimburse doctors for conversations with patients about whether and how they would want to be kept alive if they became too sick to speak for themselves.

Time to prepare the ice floes for Grandma before global warming forces us to use more expensive methods…

Or this is a simple, minor technocratic fix that enables people to make more fully informed decisions about their lives, their families and their expectations while they are not under pressure of contradictory information and values?

show full post on front page

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Impotent Wingnut Rage Part abajillion

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Thanks to LGM, I see a quasi-prominent “intellectual” right winger impotently raging in the corner:

I would support all manner of reactions that the GOP will lack the guts to try — and that, if they did try, would cause them to get shellacked in the elections. For example, I would support impeachment of any and all of the Justices that voted in the majority of either King v. Burwell or Obergefell. That, in my view, is a proper constitutional reaction to lawless decisions (notwithstanding the disastrous precedent established by the Samuel Chase impeachment proceedings).

But look. We didn’t impeach the Justices who made up a right to abortion in Roe. What makes you think they would impeach anyone now?

Besides noting the weaselly conditionality of the statement, he wants impeachment… We as liberals should cower in fear of a Republican led doomed impeachment attempt for the six justices in question… as the worst case scenario is a swing faction that is personally and professionally pissed off at the reactionary faction on the court and their external allies.  A plausible case scenario for liberals if a new court with 6 Dem appointed justices where the median voter is 74, so we could expect a locked in Dem appointed majority for at least six to ten years even if the Republicans win in 2016.  The best case scenario would be a 6-3 Dem majority court with the older justices retiring to be replaced by late 40 somethings to lock in a Dem appointed majority for twenty to thirty years.

We need to encourage this rage.

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How Dare The President Run Out Of Damns To Give

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Over the weekend President Obama had arguably his best stuff yet on display at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, ripping into Republicans, Democrats, and the Village alike. The annual scolding and pearl-clutching from the right is almost as hysterical, albeit for different reasons. This year’s accidental comedy routine comes from the pen of Assrocket himself, and it delivers loads of laughs.

There has been quite a bit of news coverage of this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Don’t ask me why. The annual lovefest between Democratic politicians and Democratic journalists hasn’t generated any actual news in a long time. But this year’s event was perhaps notable because it exposed our president’s bitterness, as he approaches the end of his term. Humor is often revealing. Obama began with a joke that would be considered crude in a junior high school locker room:

After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me, “Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?” And I said, “Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’” (Laughter and applause.)

Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. (Laughter.) New climate regulations? Bucket. It’s the right thing to do. (Laughter and applause.)

If I had said something like that when I was 12, my father would have whacked me. Now, we have a president so pitiful that he thinks such crudeness is appropriate humor.

Oh, how quickly we forget what actual crude humor from bitter presidents actually looks like.

Besides, when Assrocket was 12, George Wallace had just become Governor of Alabama, so if Barack Obama had said anything of the sort at the time in the state, he probably would have been lynched.

Oh wait, wasn’t he in Kenya at the time?

Ahh, but our friend grabs a shovel and digs deep for that cesspool at the bottom when it came to President Obama’s routine with Luther the Anger Translator on climate change, of course calling the president “uneducated”. and having “no idea what he is talking about.”

He then ends with this:

More stupidity. Every serious scientist says that adopting Obama’s plan of a 28% reduction in CO2 emissions would have no perceptible effect on the Earth’s temperature, even if the alarmists’ models are correct (which they aren’t). See, e.g., Dr. Judith Curry’s Congressional testimony to the effect that best case, if the bogus models were correct, Obama’s proposal would “prevent three hundredths of a degree centigrade in warming by 2100.” Obama is simply ignorant. And “snowballs in the Senate”? What is that supposed to mean? Just another gratuitous partisan insult, added on top of scientific fantasy. That’s our president!

At the Correspondents’ Dinner, Obama played the supposedly comic role of the lame duck. The end of his tenure in office can’t come too soon.

That sputtering “I found one scientist who says this so I win!” tirade has got to be pretty embarrassing for a guy so blockheaded that he was duped into thinking Harry Reid was beaten up by his brother and wrote an entire series of posts exploring how the “truth” was stifled by a compliant media.

The folks with the credibility and judgment problems really should keep their opinions to their damned selves, starting with this clown.

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Life Comes At You Fast, Scott Walker

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So as far as I can tell, the story around Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker going from “interesting 2016 dark horse” to “steaming pile of horse manure” happened in about 72 hours, and involved tweeting.  It goes something like this:

1) Walker hired GOP consultant Liz Mair as his digital outreach guru on Monday. This was generally viewed as a good idea, since Walker has all the charisma of a room temperature 2-liter bottle of Sam’s Club diet cola.

2) Mair tweeted some stuff about Iowa politics in general and while even Nate Silver agreed with her she was immediately fired.  This was on Tuesday.

3) Liz Mair has a lot of friends over in right-wing blogger country.  She also has a lot of enemies. They got into a big ol’ fight over whether Liz was treated unfairly or if she was a squishy amnesty RINO.  This happened Wednesday.

4) And all this has led directly to today, where conservatives are now openly wondering if Walker should now even bother to continue his campaign:

Forcing Mair out was like amputating your finger to deal with a paper cut. Instead of having a problem with a few Iowans and a writer at Breitbart.com, Walker has now baffled his admirers across the right. Mair’s resignation signaled that Walker’s team either didn’t do its homework before hiring Mair, or that it was too spineless to defend her. It is hard to believe the former, since Mair consulted for Walker before during his 2012 recall.

Walker’s unwillingness to defend his own hire will give other consultants and policy experts jitters before joining the team. It totally undercuts his reputation as a tough-minded fighter who stands on principle. And it may contribute to an alternate interpretation of Walker as a ‘fraidy cat. Earlier this month, Walker caved to Iowa ethanol interests by reversing his position on the federal mandate.

The problem, in other words, wasn’t the tweets of a single staffer, but the way Iowa’s parochial concerns act like kryptonite on Walker’s convictions and reputation. He can certainly recover from this, but if Walker thinks his path to the nomination runs through Iowa, he needs to figure out how to win that state’s caucuses without turning into Tom Vilsack before he arrives in Nashua, New Hampshire.

So yeah, apparently last week Walker was somebody who may have been a contender.  As of today, he’s dog food.  It just reinforces the notion that whoever survives So You Wanna Be A Candidate 2016 here is going to be completely unelectable in the general.

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The Thin, Frothy Line

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Let’s not kid ourselves at the kind of president that Rick Santorum would be, folks.

“The reason Bibles are no longer in the public schools is because we let them take them out,” Santorum said to amens and applause at The Awakening conference, hosted by the right-wing Liberty Counsel. “You say, ‘Well, we can’t get them back in?’ Yes we can! Yes we can!”

“How much are you willing to sacrifice?” the former presidential candidate continued. “One person got the Bibles out of the schools. We have more than one person here! But you’ve got to have the same passion in preserving our country as they do to transform it.”

When they say “Take our country back!” they conveniently forget the “to the Dark Ages” part.  These guys are fanatics, and as we’re reminded, there’s nothing Republicans can do that would ever get them tagged as “radicals” the way anyone to the left of Joe Manchin is today.

The rest of us just tune out the entire process and say “You have to give me a reason to vote for the Democrats.  The fact they are not the GOP isn’t good enough.”  And for tens of millions of us, that will never change.

And neither will the Santorums of the GOP.

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