Hullabaloo

Monday, September 21, 2015

 
Will the cruel busybodies win this one?

by digby

These wingnut zealots are determined to ban abortion. But since they can't get it banned altogether at the moment, they will settle for banning it after 20 weeks. Here's a story about the consequences of doing that by Rebecca Cohen in the Washington Post:

If such a ban had been in place a year ago, I would have been condemned to carry and give birth to a baby who had no chance at life.

I have been happily married for more than a decade, and I have two beautiful children. When my husband and I found out last year that I was pregnant again, we were overjoyed.

At 20 weeks, my husband and I went for our favorite prenatal visit: the detailed ultrasound anatomy scan that shows your baby’s heart, kidneys, bladder, stomach, spine and brain and whether you’re having a girl or a boy. I could barely contain myself as I sat on the exam table, eager to meet our baby more intimately. My husband and I chit-chatted with the ultrasound technician, gabbing and laughing when we recognized familiar features on the ultrasound images.

But after five minutes, only my husband and I were talking. The technician had grown quiet. She just kept printing picture after picture and pressing the wand deeper into the gel on my stomach.

My husband and I reached for each other’s hands. We asked the technician if everything was all right, and she said we should wait for a doctor to talk to us. When the OB/GYN entered, I remember asking point-blank, “Is there a chance our child will be okay?” He responded kindly, softly and unequivocally: “No.”

Over the next week came referrals to high-risk pregnancy specialists and more, longer, in-depth ultrasounds. In our baby’s brain cavity, where gray matter should have been visible, there was only black. The diagnosis was the same from every doctor: Something — we would learn it was not genetic or chromosomal — had caused two leaks in our baby’s brain, one on each side, destroying it almost entirely.

We would have done anything to save the baby. We asked if there was any possibility for repair, if the brain tissue could regrow. There wasn’t. My baby would either die in the womb or shortly after birth.

Our child would never gain consciousness.

Our little one was gone.

I have never known horror quite like that. Adding to the pain, the brain stem was not affected, so the baby’s body was still moving involuntarily. But I knew there was no person in there anymore. I couldn’t sleep and could barely eat, and every time the baby jerked, I suffered and mourned.

I didn’t know what to tell my kids. They kept kissing my belly, feeling for kicks and singing to the baby. I didn’t know what words to choose, but it hardly mattered, because I couldn’t finish a sentence without sobbing.

I had a choice. I could try to live with the husk of a child inside of me for more than 100 days, swallowing tears at every cheery inquiry as I grew bigger. Or I could have an abortion. And the choice wasn’t just about me. I have young children who would have had to see their mother endure this torture and give birth to someone they would never meet. So we made the painful, but I believe merciful, decision to terminate.

Even after we made that decision, it was difficult to find an available provider, even in an area with as many medical providers as the District. The hospitals had weeks-long waits. In the end, we were able to schedule an appointment at a surgical clinic for the following week.

My pregnancy was 21 weeks on the day of my abortion.

I mourn the loss of my baby every day. But I have no doubt that I made the right decision for myself and my family, and I am grateful that it was my choice to make. I am indebted to my medical providers for their compassion and care. They answered my questions, spent hours on the phone to give me as many options as possible and followed my lead.

According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, just more than 1 percent of abortions take place at week 21 or later, many because of devastating medical situations like ours. Each of these mothers must battle through her own hell to decide on and find the medical care she needs, gather her friends and family to lean on, and grieve.

Congress should not take this decision away from any woman — any family — who is in need. Banning abortions after 20 weeks would be arbitrary, and its consequences would place an unimaginable burden on women like me.

When an abortion was the best of only horrible options, I was beyond grateful that one was available in a safe, compassionate medical establishment. And that my family could begin to heal. I hope our senators will consider women and families like mine before casting their votes.

These anti-abortion zealots are cruel busybodies who are determined to control women and their families' most intimate decisions. There is no greater intrusion of the government into the lives of individuals than this. Sorry, taxing your income or regulating the water supply doesn't rate up there with making a woman carry a dying fetus with no brain inside of her in order to appease some fanatics who think she should be forced to do it for reasons that make no sense at all.

And yet these people (people like Rand Paul) who fetishize freedom and liberty in every other case, believe that this is the one exception to their rule.

People like to say that those who are anti-abortion are good people and I'm sure they have many good qualities. But this is a heartless and callous encroachment into the most elemental aspect of women's lives and I'm hard pressed to see it as anything but malevolent.


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digby 9/21/2015 09:00:00 AM

 
Clinton on the Keystone Pipeline: "I can't wait too much longer, and I am putting the White House on notice"

by Gaius Publius


This short video turned up recently, and I can't begin to figure out what it means, what the source of her impatience is. But it looks like the harbinger of an announcement on the Keystone Pipeline from the Clinton campaign:

Ms. Clinton (emphasis hers):

I can't wait too much longer, and I am putting the White House on notice. I'm going to tell you what I think ... soon ... because I can't wait. I thought they would have it decided ... way, you know, by now. And they haven't.

So yes, I think we have to move toward clean renewable energy, so of course I don't want to ... see us exploiting ... unnecessarily ... new fossil fuel deposits. But I will tell you about Keystone Pipeline one way or the other if they don't decide it very soon. OK?

If you recall, after leaving the State Department and before announcing as a candidate, Clinton said this, speaking at upstate New York's Hamilton College (my emphasis):

Late into the lecture portion of Clinton’s Oneida County appearance, she referenced a report that the U.S. in on track to surpass Russia in domestic oil-and-gas production. That’s good news, Clinton said.

Does she still think it's important to maintain "oil and gas superiority"? Which way will she go on Keystone (which, if you remember, will carry the dirtiest of dirty oil from Canada to the U.S. for shipping overseas)? I can guess, based on the hedging statement above — if you listen, note the emphasis on "unnecessarily." But if the campaign will be announcing soon, it might just be time to wait for it.

GP




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Gaius Publius 9/21/2015 07:30:00 AM

 

Well, you know We all want to change the world

by Tom Sullivan

Local organizers held Bernie Bash 2015 Sunday afternoon. Some music, some food, and some Bernie Sanders swag. Lots of enthusiasm. (Some of the Bernie swag was homemade.) Whether any of it will translate into convention votes is another matter.

Anis Shivani at Salon believes Sanders' next moves must include:

a) dramatic emphasis on minority outreach; b) expansion of his economic message to one of social harmony; and c) delegitimization of the negative populism pervasive in the Republican primary.

All good. But feeling the Bern won't get supporters like those I met into the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. That will take credentials. Getting credentials will take Sanders winning delegates in the Super Tuesday primaries and his supporters getting elected as Sanders delegates per their state party's procedures. Sanders supporters new to or ideologically opposed to participating in what some may consider a tainted, insiders' game will be playing catch-up. Or else they won't. Hillary Clinton's supporters will know the process inside out. Vox provides an update on where that stands:

Hillary Clinton picked up the endorsement of New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan Friday, adding the state's top Democrat to a list of backers that also includes Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the state chapter of the National Education Association, and a small army of current and former government and party officials.

She's also getting campaign-trail help from two top Democrats that come from rival Bernie Sanders's neighboring home state of Vermont — Gov. Peter Shumlin and former Gov. Howard Dean.

Jonathan Allen argues why endorsements matter:

1. Members of Congress, governors, and certain other party officials are "superdelegates" to the Democratic National Convention next year, meaning they have a vote in the tally that decides the nomination and that they aren't pledged to vote for a candidate chosen by the voters of their state or district.

2. Elected officials often — though not always — have pretty significant political organizations and fundraising networks. They can help a presidential candidate put together a ground game on their home turf and squeeze every last dollar out of of every last donor. This is particularly true of top statewide elected officials such as governors and US senators.

3. The policy differences between candidates in a party primary can be pretty small, and some voters may take cues from their favorite local pols to pick a candidate for the nomination. The endorsement of a popular official confers a certain credibility on a candidate.

That seems about right. Clinton's people know the inside game in a way Bernie supporters of the righteously independent, self-organizing sort will not. Clinton has been courting superdelegates for some time, as a friend in the DNC told a room full of activists on Saturday. He got home later to find a letter from Clinton and a copy David Brock's newest effort. I presume he'll let me know when he hears from Bernie Sanders. Or Joe Biden.

"It will take a revolution" to change the system, one supporter told me at the "Bash" Sunday afternoon. At least they have numbers that suggest they might eventually form one. That hope seems not to have been seasoned by disappointment with Obama's tenure.

But earlier Sunday, I took a call from a man from south of here who was looking for information on how to find the "Bernie Bash." He had changed his registration a couple of months ago, he said. He'd been a registered Republican (in a very Republican county) all his life. His thick accent attested to the "all his life" part, and the tenor of his voice supported his claim to being the same age as Bernie Sanders. He went on at length about how if the crooked banks were too big to fail, they were too big to exist. Sanders wants to break them up, and he was all for that. That is why he was behind Bernie. (He liked Elizabeth Warren too, for the same reason, only she isn't running.) I don't remember him even mentioning Hillary Clinton. Or Donald Trump.

Makes you wonder how many more there are out there like him.

Undercover Blue 9/21/2015 06:00:00 AM

Sunday, September 20, 2015

 
Bing Bong, when we were strong

by digby

"Jail would be inappropriate" for someone who was held as a prisoner of war for over 1700 days? How weird.

Entering the final day of testimony at a military hearing to decide whether Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will face a court-martial on desertion charges, a general ordered to investigate his capture discussed his findings for the first time and testified for the defense about why Bergdahl does not belong in jail.

Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl said Bergdahl was “unrealistically idealistic” when he left his remote post in Afghanistan six years ago for a nearby base, hoping to draw the attention of a commander to problems that he believed were putting his unit at risk.

Bergdahl, now 29, was a private when he vanished June 30, 2009, and was captured by the Taliban and held for nearly five years by members of the militant Haqqani network. On Friday, an expert who debriefed him described the conditions as the worst endured by any captive since the Vietnam War.

Bergdahl was freed last year after President Obama agreed to release five Taliban prisoners, a controversial swap he defended even after the military announced Bergdahl would be charged.

Dahl said Bergdahl, whom he interviewed for a day and a half as part of his investigation, admitted during the interview that he had been “young, naive and inexperienced” at the time of his capture, and was “truthful” and “remorseful” about endangering fellow soldiers forced to search for him.

But Dahl noted that no soldiers died searching for Bergdahl and said he did “not believe there is a jail sentence at the end of this process” for the sergeant, calling it “inappropriate.”

I'm sure we'll hear from Generalissimo Trumpie on this. Recall his earlier comments:

“We get a traitor like Berghdal, a dirty rotten traitor, who by the way when he deserted, six young beautiful people were killed trying to find him. And you don’t even hear about him anymore. Somebody said the other day, well, he had some psychological problems.


You know, in the old days ……bing – bong. When we were strong, when we were strong.”

I'll bet he'd tell that General "you're fired" so fast his head would spin.

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digby 9/20/2015 06:00:00 PM

 
When George Washington filled Madison Square Garden

by digby

22,000 Nazi supporters attended an American Bund rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, under police guard. Demonstrators protested outside. An American Bund parade through New York’s Yorkville district on Manhattan’s Upper East Side drew both supporters and protesters and the press. Aside from its admiration for Adolf Hitler and the achievements of Nazi Germany, the German American Bund program included antisemitism, strong anti-Communist sentiments, and the demand that the United States remain neutral in the approaching European conflict.

Interesting that they didn' round all these guys up and put them in internment camps when the war broke out, isn't it? I wonder why.

They venerated George Washington as the American Hitler, leader of men and action hero.

Just saying.
digby 9/20/2015 04:30:00 PM

 
QOTD: Fiorina

by digby

“When you’re talking about massive layoffs, which we did, perhaps the work needs to be done somewhere else."

[A]fter Mrs. Fiorina emerged from a relatively smooth primary (with the exception of a bizarre ad that portrayed her opponent as a demonic sheep), the Boxer campaign unleashed attacks on her HP record. The barrage came against the backdrop of the state’s more than 12 percent unemployment rate.

In one ad, called “Outsourced,” footage showed Mrs. Fiorina defending sending jobs overseas. “When you’re talking about massive layoffs, which we did, perhaps the work needs to be done somewhere else,” she said.

In another, called “Workers,” former HP employees spoke solemnly into the camera. “I had to pack my bags, and I was out the door that night,” said Larry, who worked at HP for 10 years. Another victim of the layoffs, Teri, said, “We even had to train our replacements.” (Mrs. Fiorina has said she saved 80,000 positions.)

Jim Margolis, the ad maker for the Boxer campaign, is now a senior media adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“People don’t know her yet,” Ms. Boxer said in an interview before last week’s debate. “What they’ll understand pretty quickly is that she is the face of income inequality and Wall Street greed.”

Keep in mind Fiorina ran during the greatest national Democratic bloodbath in recent memory --- 2010. And she lost by double digits.

Her senate campaign manager said that GOP voters didn't care about her failed record only the general electorate. As if that is a selling point.

The problem for Fiorina is that unlike Romney or Trump, this failed business record of hers is literally the only accomplishment she's got. She has never done a thing beyond that in her life. She climbed the corporate ladder in one company, damn near destroyed it, was fired and that's it. It's deeply ironic that she loves firing this nasty line about airplane miles not being an accomplishment at Clinton when she should be worried about using the word at all lest someone start asking what hers are.


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digby 9/20/2015 02:00:00 PM

 
First the clown car, now here come the daring young wingnuts on the flying trapeze

by digby

.... featuring the amazing leadership jugglers.

Stan Collender says that there is now a 75% chance that the GOP is going to shut down the government.

Over Planned Parenthood.

And Boehner could very easily lose his job over the whole thing:

In the face of the House and Senate leadership’s effort to come up with a compromise, many primarily Republican anti-abortion groups intensified their demand for a shutdown aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, even if it ultimately won’t be successful.

House GOP leaders offered to provide ways other than through a continuing resolution for members to demonstrate their opposition to Planned Parenthood, but the Freedom Caucus and its supporters rejected those options as meaningless gestures. The prospect of voting on these alternatives (one of the votes happened in the House last Friday) didn’t stop the shutdown talk and may have further infuriated those opposing funding for Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, the threat to John Boehner continuing as speaker became so real that senior members of the House Republican caucus began to campaign to move up in the leadership ranks if there’s an election. The three top members of the GOP House leadership after Boehner – Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) – reportedly were all openly jockeying for position.

The campaigning then pushed McCarthy and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to announce that they supported Boehner even though having to make such an announcement demonstrated the true weakness of the speaker’s position.

Adding to the forces working against a CR, Texas Senator and GOP presidential contender Ted Cruz vocally and vociferously supported a shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding during last week’s Republican presidential debate while the three other Republican senators also running for president – Lindsay LNN -4.29% Graham (SC), Marco Rubio (FL) and Rand Paul (KY) – either said nothing or were far less strident about it. Cruz’s position put significant added pressure on the other three either to support a shutdown or cede ground in the GOP presidential nomination with a key group of Republican voters. If, as is likely because of Cruz, all four oppose a CR, McConnell’s position on the issue will become untenable.

There's more. You really should read it. With trump in the center ring, we haven't been following this sideshow but it's a doozy.

My question is whether this would make the GOP base realize that this nuttiness is going to make it impossible for them to win the presidency and sober them up, opening the door for one of the less irrational candidates. (I'll leave it to you to figure out who that might be.) Or will this just make them keep doubling down as they so far?

As Collender says, stay tuned.

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digby 9/20/2015 12:30:00 PM

 
Some of his best friends are Muslim

by digby

Trump said some Muslims are fabulous but there is a problem with militancy and it's going to have to solved. And Putin is in Syria because he's trying to take back places in the world he had long ago and has no respect for the president. It's all about leadership and getting along with people. Also too, respect. And the problem is that Obama refuses to talk to foreign leaders. But you don't want to start WWIII over Syria.

Donald Trump said Sunday that "radical Muslims" are a problem in the United States -- even if all of the religion's members aren't -- and said some Americans believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

"You have radicals that are doing things. I mean, it wasn't people from Sweden that blew up the World Trade Center, Jake," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."

His comments come after a controversy that erupted late last week when, at a Trump campaign event, a man said, "We have a problem in this country -- it's called Muslims."

He defended his decision not to correct the man, saying, "It was a question that was asked in front of a totally packed house."

Trump also said he has friends who are Muslims -- but that the religion's extreme elements are responsible for terrorist attacks.

"We do have a problem with radical Muslims, there's no question about that," Trump said Sunday.

Trump also wouldn't say whether he believes -- as the man at his campaign event falsely claimed -- that President Barack Obama is a Muslim who wasn't born in the United States. Obama is a Christian who was born in Hawaii.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he'd be comfortable with a Muslim president, Trump said: "Would I be comfortable? I don't know if we have to address it right now. But I think it is certainly something that could happen. Some people have said it already happened, frankly -- but of course you won't agree with that" -- a reference to Obama.

"I don't talk about people's faith. Now, in all fairness, he said he was a Christian and he said he is a Christian. He attended the church of Rev. Wright. And so, you know, I'm willing to take him at his word for that. I have no problem with that," Trump said.

He deflected questions about Obama's place of birth and religion on ABC's "This Week," too.

"Well, you know, I don't get into it, George. I think about jobs. I'm talking about the military. I don't get into it," he said, when asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether he now believes Obama was born in the United States. "Frankly, it's of no longer (of) interest to me. We're beyond that. And it's just something I don't talk about."

Asked about whether Obama isn't a Muslim, Trump said, "George, you have raised the question. I haven't raised the question. I don't talk about it and I don't like talking about somebody else's faith. He talks about his faith and he can do that. But I don't talk about other people's faith. It's not appropriate for me to talk about somebody else's faith."

Four years ago, Trump had pressed Obama to release his birth certificate -- which Obama did.

But, as usual Ben Carson was even more extreme, he just said it quietly:

CHUCK TODD: Let me wrap this up by finally dealing with what’s been going on, Donald Trump, and a deal with a questioner that claimed that the president was Muslim. Let me ask you the question this way. Should a President’s faith matter? Should your faith matter to voters?

BEN CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it’s inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

TODD: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?

CARSON: No, I don’t, I do not.

TODD: So you–

CARSON: I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.

That's why they love him. If GOP voters hear about this he may bump back up in the polls.

As Judd Legum at Think Progress pithily explained:

In suggesting a religious test for potential presidents — where some religions would be “inconsistent” with the constitution — Carson appears somewhat unfamiliar with the text of the constitution. Article VI, paragraph 3 of the United States constitution states “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

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digby 9/20/2015 10:30:00 AM

 
You'll get your turn girls, don't worry

by digby


Oh look.

A new study released Monday from the Media, Diversity and Social Change Initiative (MDSC) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism found a lack of gender equity in international films. In the 120 films the MDSC analyzed, only 30.9 percent of speaking and named characters were women.

This study is the first from the institute to take a specifically international perspective. Rather than looking at the top films overall, the MDSC compared 10 domestically popular movies with the top 10 films from the 10 largest international markets: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United Kingdom (the study also looked at 10 films produced collaboratively in the U.S. and U.K.).

The United States is far from a leader: Of the 11 most profitable film-producing territories, the United States ranks near the bottom in allocating speaking roles to women.

But surely it means nothing. And don't bore us with further nonsense about women's equality being an issue. That half the population is so underrepresented and underpaid in everything from board rooms to politics to sports and entertainment is just the way it is. We really need to quit our whining and concentrate on important issues. The ones that affect men.

I get that most people look at that and don't see it as a problem because this is how the world has always been organized. It feels normal. Even many women feel this way. But it's not normal. It's an anachronistic throwback to a more primitive time. And frankly, I'm getting sick of the excuses I keep hearing from otherwise evolved people as to why this situation is not urgent and we must focus our attention on more important matters. For some reason there are always more important matters than equality for women.


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digby 9/20/2015 09:00:00 AM

 

National Voter Registration Day - Tuesday

by Tom Sullivan

In which Latino voters flex their American muscle. And in which I agree with Team Trump. Politico reviews the part Latino voters will play in the 2016 elections:

Hispanic activists have two words for Donald Trump — thank you.

“I think the greatest thing to ever happen to the Hispanic electorate is a gentleman named Donald Trump, he has crystalized the angst and anger of the Hispanic community,” U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Javier Palomarez told POLITICO in an interview. “I think that we can all rest assured that Hispanics can turn out in record numbers.”

Let's hope that's true.

The Trump camp is not worried, and it says it sees more Hispanic voters as a good thing.

“I don’t hear any empirical evidence that that is going to happen,” campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said about the idea that more Hispanic voters could hurt his chances. “The more people that take part in the election process, the better, and I think it’s clear that Mr. Trump has invigorated people who aren’t traditionally participating in the process.”

I couldn't agree more. That is a rather refreshing sentiment coming from a Republican campaign, considering Republicans' decades of pretzel logic, "voter fraud" propaganda, and legislative legerdemain aimed at defunding and disenfranchising voters who traditionally do not support Republicans. How much of the cheap talk from Team Trump is any more than that remains to be seen. Cheap talk being its candidate's stock in trade and all.

The Center for American Progress provides Top 6 Facts on the Latino Vote:

1. The number of Latinos is growing

By 2016, there will be an estimated 58.1 million Latinos in the United States. As of 2014—the most recent population estimates available—there were 55.4 million Latinos in the United States, making up 17.4 percent of the population. Between the last presidential election in 2012 and the next one in 2016, the Latino population will increase by 5 million people. Between 2014 and 2060, the Latino population is expected to increase 115 percent to some 119 million people; Latinos will be 29 percent of the U.S. population. 

2. The Latino electorate is increasing

Latinos over the age of 18 will comprise 16 percent of the U.S. adult population in 2016. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the 2016 Latino over-18 population at nearly 39.8 million. A total of 800,000 Latinos turn 18 each year—one every 30 seconds or more than 66,000 individuals per month. Ninety-three percent of Latino children are U.S.-born citizens and will be eligible to vote when they reach age 18. As of 2014, one in four children in the United States—17.6 million total—were Latino. This contributes to the fact that people of color already make up nearly a majority of the under-18 population nationally. The share of the U.S. population under age 18 that is Latino is expected to increase from around 24 percent in 2014 to more than 33 percent in 2060.

3. The Latino share of eligible voters is growing

Latinos will make up 13 percent of all eligible voters in 2016, a 2 percent increase from 2012. And the numbers are much higher in some states. In Florida, for example, the share of eligible voters who are Latino will increase from 17.1 percent in 2012 to 20.2 percent in 2016. In Nevada, the 2012 to 2016 Latino eligible voter increase is 15.9 percent to 18.8 percent. Projections show that Latino eligible voters could reach 28.5 million nationwide in 2016.

4. Latinos are underrepresented on registered voter rolls

In 2012, there were 13.7 million Latinos registered to vote. However, given that 23.3 million Latinos were eligible to vote that year, 9.6 million Latinos—41 percent—were eligible to vote but did not register. And this does not include Latinos that could naturalize but have not. As of 2013, 8.8 million lawful permanent residents were eligible to become citizens that had not naturalized; at least 3.9 million of them were from Latin American countries, with more than 2.7 million from Mexico.

5. Latinos are showing up in greater numbers at the polls

More than 11.2 million Latinos voted in the 2012 presidential election. While impressive, that still means that 2.6 million Latinos who were registered did not vote. Moreover, 12.1 million—52 percent—of the 23.3 million Latinos who were eligible to vote did not do so. Latino voters made up 8.4 percent of the 2012 voting electorate. This share is 15 percent higher than 2008, an increase of 1.5 million voters. For 2016, estimates show that the Republican presidential nominee must garner the support of 47 percent to 52 percent of Latino voters in order to win the general election.

6. Immigration is the top issue for Latino voters

Polling clearly shows that immigration is the key issue for Latino voters, with wide support for comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship and implementation of the recent administrative actions. Immigration comes in significantly ahead of the next two top issues—the economy and education.

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day. Make the most of it.

Undercover Blue 9/20/2015 06:00:00 AM

Saturday, September 19, 2015

 
Saturday Night at the Movies


Masculin-feminin: The New Girlfriend **1/2

By Dennis Hartley

I was a better man with you as a woman than I ever was with a woman as a man.

-Michael (aka ‘Dorothy’), from Tootsie

If you have a list of 10 reasons to transition, sex would be number 10.

-Caitlin Jenner

Girls will be boys and boys will be girls

It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world

Except for Lola

La-la-la-la Lola

-Ray Davies

***** This week’s review contains possible spoilers *****

Do you remember this tag line from When Harry Met Sally: “Can men and women be friends or does sex always get in the way?” In his latest film, The New Girlfriend, director Francois Ozon (Swimming Pool) aims to up that ante, asking “Can a straight, cross-dressing man and a straight woman be friends, or does sex always get in the way?”

The straight, cross-dressing man is David (Romain Duris), a young widower whose late wife Laura was BFF with Claire (Anais Demoustier). The depth of the women’s friendship is parlayed via opening montage (the French invented that word, you know). It’s all there, from childhood blood oath (“Together forever!”) to dreamy, vaguely erotic scenes of Claire lovingly brushing Laura’s hair (age 7 through womanhood), to Meeting Cute with their respective future husbands (on the same night, at the same discothèque!), happy weddings, the christening of David and Laura’s daughter, then…Laura’s tragic demise soon after, from some non-specified wasting disease. (*sigh*) C’est dommage.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the film, which focuses on an unexpected relationship that develops between the two survivors after David outs himself to Claire as they are both still struggling to come to terms with Laura’s death, never quite shakes off the soapy residue left over from that sudsy preface. This film should have worked; it has an intriguing premise, Ozon (who adapted his screenplay from Ruth Rendell’s novel) does his best Douglas Sirk impression in tone and execution, and the two leads are charismatic and eminently watchable throughout, but the melodrama is just too overcooked (especially in the overly-contrived denouement). Puzzlingly, the film is billed as a “Hitchcockian thriller”, which did a flyover on me. Well, maybe there’s a touch of Vertigo, in that one of the characters becomes an idealized surrogate for the departed to the other character (I’m being vague, to keep this as spoiler-free as possible). You know what they say-it’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world. Except for Lola…

…and one more thing

Hollywood saw it coming, pt. MCMXCIX

I’m sure you heard about Ahmed Mohamed and his homemade digital clock earlier this week. The incident was so absurd; it’s like something out of a stoner comedy. Oh, wait…

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives

--Dennis Hartley

digby 9/19/2015 06:30:00 PM

 
Dispatch from torture nation

by digby

Here's a video of a police officer spotting someone walking down the road, pulling over, instantly demanding the person submit to him or get tasered, refusing to tell him why he's being detained, then tasering him into submission making him scream in pain, when he passively resists.

And then the officer arrests him for resisting arrest.

You cannot make this stuff up.



Now the whole thing has become a political issue in the town. The police chief originally said the video was egregious and appeared to have violated policy. Then she reversed herself. And now she has been placed on leave:

The police chief here will be paid to stay at home while investigators sort out how and why she returned an officer to work not long after the chief had called the cop’s use-of-force on a suspect “egregious,” the city manager said.

Opal Mauldin-Robertson placed Chief Cheryl Wilson on administrative leave on Thursday. The city manager faulted Wilson for being “inconsistent with agreed upon directives” between her and city officials.

Wilson, who had confirmed Friday morning that she was on leave, did not respond to a call seeking comment after Mauldin-Robertson’s 5-minute-long Friday evening news conference. Wilson’s attorney also didn’t respond to a request for comment after he had said Friday morning that he was waiting to hear why Wilson was on leave.

Mauldin-Robertson said that the next day, Wilson told her, Assistant City Manager Rona Stringfellow and City Attorney Bob Hager that the incident was “serious, and appeared to, at a minimum, violate our policy.”

Fine was reassigned pending an administrative review about whether he justifiably used his Taser. The department’s Taser instructor later said he used it appropriately, Mauldin-Robertson said.

Two weeks later, Wilson met with the mayor and Mauldin-Robertson to watch the video together. Mauldin-Robertson said Wilson agreed to keep them updated.

But after a Dallas County prosecutor and a Texas Ranger both said the officer was justified in stopping Tucker, Wilson returned Fine to his regular duty. Mauldin-Robertson said Friday the investigation had not been completed.

Mauldin-Robertson said Wilson, who became chief in 2013 after a career with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, waited five days to tell her the officer had been exonerated and returned to regular duty.

Mauldin-Robertson said Wilson’s decision to return Fine to the job “without any actions or recourse caused some questions and concerns regarding the completeness and independent review of this matter.” She said Wilson would remain on leave until those questions could be answered.

Mauldin-Robertson then ignored reporters’ questions after the news conference.

What appears to have happened is that the Chief understood immediately that this was a bad stop and an egregious use of the taser but came under pressure from her department to let it go. And the city officials aren't having it.

Both the chief and the city manager are African American women so it appears that this is as much a matter of the thin blue line in general as it is systemic racism.

Cops use tasers willy nilly on everyone, we know that, and it's horrifying for me to watch anyone screaming in pain during a police encounter when they are presenting no threat to the cop or it's clear that the situation could have been dealt without shooting a human being full of electricity to force their compliance.

But I cannot imagine how galling it to be a black person walking down the street, minding your own business, doing nothing wrong and have a white man run up and demand that you instantly submit to him on demand, without explanation for no reason. It's true that in the Jim Crow south for centuries any white man could do this and now it's only people in uniform who are allowed this "privilege", but the historical resonance is truly striking. I'm sure that African Americans feel this in their bones.


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digby 9/19/2015 03:30:00 PM

 
Let's visit the id, shall we?

by digby

I Guess Muhammad's Pencil Box is Cooler Than the Palin Kids'

"It doesn't look like a pencil box to me." I love Bristol's perspective on this. You have to read this: http://www.patheos.com/…/obama-invites-kid-mistakenly-arre…/

Talk about the dangers of a reactionary-slash-biased media! The first reports on this potential bomb-imitator were so fishy to begin with.

Friends, consider the kids disciplined and/or kicked out of school for bringing squirt guns to school or taking bites out of a pop tart until it resembled (to some politically correct yahoo) a gun. Or the student out deer hunting with his dad early one morning who forgot he had a box of ammo in his truck when he parked in the school's lot later that day. Kids humiliated and intimidated for innocent actions like those real examples are often marked the rest of their lives and made to feel really rotten. Whereas Ahmed Muhammad, an evidently obstinate-answering student bringing in a homemade "clock" that obviously could be seen by conscientious teachers as a dangerous wired-up bomb-looking contraption (teachers who are told "if you see something, say something!") gets invited to the White House.

By the way, President Obama's practice of jumping in cases prematurely to interject himself as the cool savior, wanting so badly to attach himself to the issue-of-the-day, got old years ago. Remember him accusing police officers doing their job as "acting stupid"; claiming if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin; claiming he needed to know who was a fault in an industrial accident so he'd "know who's a** to kick"; etc., etc. Those actions are about as presidential as his selfie stick.

Here's background on Muhammad's innocent "clock" he brought to school, and his suspicious refusal to answer authorities.

http://www.breitbart.com/…/09/18/real-story-istandwithahmed/
Yep, believing that's a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history. Right. That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England.

You want authentic? Sarah Palin is the most authentic voice of the American right we have in public life. Completely confident in its incoherence.

Here are some of her followers' remarks:

digby 9/19/2015 02:00:00 PM

 
Normal humans vs the clown show

by digby


Here's Sanders and Clinton both getting big cheers for progressive ideas on late night TV and a few laughs as well:

.@BernieSanders: The rare candidate willing to take a stand on issues that matter, and the ones that don't. #LSSC https://t.co/0fOhRYLXtB

— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) September 19, 2015

Compare and contrast:







Technically, Fiorina wasn't on late night but I had to include her since she's the new comer.  I assume she'll appear soon on a late night show. Probably the biggest act of chutzpah in all those clips, and that includes Trump, is Carly Fiorina saying "one of the things I think people are tired of is sanitized soundbites" and calling Hillary Clinton a liar.

Also too, she is not a very nice woman:



Seriously, the contrast among these people is extreme on every level as far as I'm concerned. Both Clinton and Sanders are lightyears more qualified, more articulate and more humane than these GOP clowns, creeps and climbers.


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digby 9/19/2015 12:00:00 PM

 
DTF for Trumpie

by digby

This is just too funny:

What does it take to impersonate a Donald Trump supporter? As Jimmy Kimmel Live correspondent Jake Byrd discovered Tuesday night, all you need is a lot of enthusiasm, a vehement opposition to Obamacare and the media, and a cowboy hat.

Byrd went undercover as a Trump voter at The Donald’s speech yesterday in Dallas, Texas, disguised in a ‘Make America Great Again’ cowboy hat. He first met with real-life Trump supporters outside American Airlines Arena, goading them into putting “Trump stamps” on their lower backs and convincing them to join him in cheers of “DTF,” which he said stood for “Donald Trump Forever.” The acronym, first popularized by the MTV show “Jersey Shore,” actually means “down to fuck.”

Byrd then ventured inside for Trump’s speech, where he managed to score a seat almost directly behind the GOP candidate. He met each of Trump’s applause lines with maniacal enthusiasm, burst into loud laughter at every joke and changed into a DTF hat mid-way through the speech. Trump seemed to eventually notice his happily unhinged fan, turning around to say, “I love these people back here.”

“We love you, Donny!” Byrd yelled back.

Yesterday on the Five on Fox Greg Gutfield said he thinks those questioners at the Trump rally were all hoaxters too. Unfortunately he neglected to note that Trump chose the questioners. And that what that guy said is everyday speech in right wing circles.
digby 9/19/2015 10:30:00 AM

 
He kept us safe?

by digby



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digby 9/19/2015 09:00:00 AM

 

A great disturbance in the Force

by Tom Sullivan

The glorious and all-powerful, self-correcting MARKET (its Name be praised; genuflect if the Spirit moves) found itself disturbed earlier this week when something that wasn't supposed to be possible happened. Very early on Sunday morning, the price of electricity went wonky in Texas (where else?). As Daniel Gross tells it:

And then a very strange thing happened: The so-called spot price of electricity in Texas fell toward zero, hit zero, and then went negative for several hours. As the Lone Star State slumbered, power producers were paying the state’s electricity system to take electricity off their hands. At one point, the negative price was $8.52 per megawatt hour.

Impossible, most economists would say. In any market—and especially in a state devoted to the free market, like Texas—makers won’t provide a product or service at a negative cost. Yet this could only have happened in Texas, which (not surprisingly) has carved out its own unique approach to electricity.

Texas being the sovereign republic of legend, the state has organized electricity production to make the state "an electricity island." Texas may allow oil and gas pipelines to cross its borders, but not power lines. Its power grid does not connect with other states. This makes the Texas market for electricity self-contained as well, and if there is surplus production the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) cannot sell it to the national grid. Plus, its unique market structure resets the price of power going into the grid through a bidding process every 15 minutes.

Here's the kicker: Texas also has more wind generating capacity than any other state. And it was particularly breezy in Texas last Sunday morning. Wind-farm owners had an incentive to lower their prices. And wind producers, Gross writes, still get a federal tax credit equal to $23 per megawatt-hour. You can do the math.

The MARKET will be displeased. Very. A sacrifice will be required. Guess whose?

In other Force-disturbing news, Apple's new iOS 9 operating system will allow ad-blocking. Within hours of the iOS 9 release, ad-blocking apps shot to the top of the list at Apple's App Store:

It was inevitable that something like this would happen. After all, we’ve been here before. In their pleas to readers that ad-blocking is killing their business, media executives sound exactly like their counterparts in the music and film industries who have spent untold millions searching for a way to prevent digital piracy. Some of those strategies worked better than others, but piracy in some form or another is here to stay. There will always be someone providing a new workaround, and audiences are rarely convinced by appeals to the sanctity of the artist’s—or, in this case, the journalist’s—craft.

In the near future, it seems likely that an arms race will break out. The answer to ad blockers is to create ads that can’t be blocked. The answer to those ads is to make more sophisticated ad blockers, and so on and so on.

The MARKET giveth and the MARKET taketh away. Blessed be the name of the MARKET.

(Taking a mental health day from the clown show.)

Undercover Blue 9/19/2015 06:00:00 AM

Friday, September 18, 2015

 
Nice

by digby



They look like they are enjoying life. So should we all. It's the week-end!

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digby 9/18/2015 06:00:00 PM

 

Why all the saber rattling?

by digby

This is true:

There’s actually a good reason why Republican candidates might want to avoid talking about the economy, both in televised debates and on the campaign trail more broadly. That’s because it’s hard to run against the economy these days, at least given the numbers.

Despite nearly seven years of stewardship by a supposedly crypto-socialist president, the U.S. economy is looking — dare I say it? — pretty good.

That's from Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post and it's a good survey of the economy going into the 2016 election.

But there's more to it than just wanting to avoid running against this economy. I've been writing for a good long while about their actual desire to run on foreign policy:

As we’ve seen many times over the years, foreign policy and national security are particularly tricky for Democrats even when one is a certified war hero like John Kerry (or even John Kennedy). Even the hardcore Cold Warriors of the Democratic Party suffered for the fact that the right had associated them with socialism during the Great Depression and turned that into sympathy for Communism. By the time the ’60s were over, they were routinely portrayed as cowardly and treasonous for opposing the Vietnam War and characterized in “feminized” terms such as “weak” and “emotional.” (Here’s a particularly crude example of the genre of recent vintage.)

All Democratic politicians have had to fight that stereotype ever since then. And all Democratic presidents have struggled while in office to deal with it. Even the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden under President Obama failed to stop them from calling him a weak and feckless leader, even to the point where they are willing to risk nuclear war to make their point. This dynamic has, over time, succeeded in making Democrats more hawkish and Republicans downright reckless.

So where does this leave Hillary Clinton? She seems to have as good a resume for the Commander in Chief job as any woman could have with her close proximity to power in the White House for eight years, her eight years as senator and four years as Secretary of State. The only thing missing is a stint in the armed forces — which is also missing on the CV of most of the Republicans presenting themselves as fierce warriors, so it should be no harm, no foul there. (The exceptions being Texas Governor Rick Perry, a pilot in the Air Force, and South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, a member of the Air Force JAG corps.) 

But stereotypes are very hard to dislodge; even with her reputation for toughness, and despite her sterling resume, Clinton will be pushing against something very primal. The Republicans know this, which is why some of us have been pretty sure they would try to frame this election as a national security election if they could. And they are. Those elections always give them an advantage in any case, and if a woman is the standard bearer it stands to reason that advantage would be even greater. 

But what about the women voters who will presumably be less prone to follow such stereotyping? Unfortunately, it’s not a simple case of men being sexist. As Heather Hurlburt points out in this article in the American Prospect, we live in anxious times, and in anxious times, women can often revert to stereotypes as well: 

Gender politics magnify the electoral effects of anxiety in two ways. First, in surveys and other studies, women consistently report higher levels of anxiety. In fact, women poll twice as anxious as men, largely independent of the specific topic. Women are more concerned about security, physical and economic, than men. According to Lake, Gotoff, and Ogren, women “across racial, educational, partisan, and ideological divides” have “heightened concerns” about terrorism. Those concerns make women “more security-conscious in general and more supportive of the military than they were in the past.” 

Walmart-sponsored focus groups found women expressing a significant and steady level of anxiety over the months preceding the 2014 midterms. At one session, the explanation was Ebola; another, ISIS—whatever had most recently dominated cable-news headlines. The pollsters interpreted the responses as “emblematic of anxiety they feel regarding other issues, including national security, job security, and people ‘getting stuff they aren’t entitled to,’ such as health care and other government benefits.” 

The majority of voters express equal confidence in men and women as leaders, but when national security is the issue, confidence in women’s leadership declines. In a Pew poll in January, 37 percent of the respondents said that men do better than women in dealing with national security, while 56 percent said gender makes no difference. That was an improvement from decades past, but sobering when compared to the 73 percent who say gender is irrelevant to leadership on economic issues.

That isn’t inevitable, of course. A lot depends upon the individuals who are competing for the job. And from the looks of the GOP field there aren’t many who come across as great warrior leaders who can lay claim to any particular national security experience.
But as much as foreign policy and national security will likely be issues, so too will all those other anxiety-producing problems. And in that respect, Clinton is likely to be in much better shape than the Republicans who are retreating to their standard playbook organized around lowering taxes and regulations as the elixer that cures everything. It’s unlikely that anyone, much less working women, will find that to be soothing in these anxious times.

That was written before Sanders got into the race and he is focusing intently on these economic issues and Democratic women are responding to that.

And it must be noted that Republicans love reflexive, muscular warmongering.  The notion that Rand Paul represents more than a tiny percentage of them on these issues is a beltway fantasy. After the Bush debacle they were forced to retreat from that for a while but they are back at it with renewed vigor. This is a foundational issue for the Republican party and one that unites their coalition. So regardless of whether a woman was running on the Democratic side, they would be pushing these security issues, because that's what they always do.  They would simply feminize the male candidate. (Look how they talk about Obama...)

I honestly believe the main reason (aside from his somnambulant personality) that Jeb! is having a hard time finding  support so far is because Republicans just don't want to be reminded of George W. Bush. They are anxious to seize the national security issue and he just brings up a bad taste in their mouths. And he simply cannot find a reasonable, believable way to deal with that. They want a fresh warmonger without the Bush baggage. They may have to settle for him but I don't think they'll like it much.


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digby 9/18/2015 04:00:00 PM

 
Where do they get these ideas?

by digby

And people wonder where loonies like that guy in New Hampshire gets his info:

Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman, who once tried to lead a revolution to oust President Obama from office, appeared on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars” yesterday to reveal “Why Obama Has Declared War On Christianity.”

Klayman said that President Obama is a secret Muslim who, in his quest for power, has turned military leaders into subservient “yes-men,” adding: “Maybe Obama is pushing them to the point that maybe someday will wage a coup in this country. I’m not advocating that but I know that some of these retired generals and admirals have talked about it. I know that, it’s been in the public domain, because Obama, and I’ll say it straight up because no one else is, you will, Obama is a Muslim through-and-through. Obama sympathizes with a Muslim caliphate, Obama sympathizes with the mullahs in Tehran, he sympathizes with the radicals in the far-east.”

Recall that Trump's first statement after the Muslim brouhaha:

“The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging war against Christians in this country. Their religious liberty is at stake.”

Also that a large plurality of GOP voters could see supporting a military coup.

Now I'm watching Trump supporters on CNN bringing up Reverend Wright.

Oy vey ...

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digby 9/18/2015 03:30:00 PM

 
Clearing up Carly's confusion

by digby

There is still a lot of confusion about Carly Fiorina's apparently delusional description of those Planned Parenthood videos where she says it features an aborted fetus on a table with legs moving and breathing when other people say there is no such video at all. There is a video from another group, but the image is stock footage with no provenance, more likely to be a miscarriage than an abortion which absolutely no relationship to the voiceover. Moreover, there's nothing about "harvesting the brain"

If anyone wants to argue about the integrity of images in general in the Planned Parenthood videos, this should set you straight.  This bogus video is not their only lie, by any means.

The latest video intended to cast Planned Parenthood in an unflattering light relies on images of fetuses that were not actually aborted at Planned Parenthood clinics.

The Center for Medical Progress, a right-wing group engaged in a long-term video strategy to discredit the national women’s health organization, released its seventh video on Wednesday. Likeseveral videos before it, the newest footage relies heavily on an interview with Holly O’Donnell, a procurement technician who briefly worked for a biological company that partners with some abortion clinics to collect fetal tissue donations.

At several points, O’Donnell discusses the process of procuring fetal organs — which can be used to help advance scientific research, if abortion patients choose to donate the material after their procedure — before the camera cuts to photographs of fetuses. Although the video insinuates those fetuses are connected to the collection process that O’Donnell is describing, they’re actually recycled photographs from other sources, as RH Reality Check reports.

One of the photos (displayed at the video’s nine-minute mark) isn’t an aborted fetus at all. It’s actually a stillborn fetus prematurely delivered at 19 weeks.

The woman who took that photo, Alexis (or “Lexi”) Fretz, initially published it on her blog — where she also shared the story of grieving her stillborn son, whom she named Walter Joshua. In a Facebook post, Fretz said that she did not give permission for the Center for Medical Progress to use Walter’s photo, though she does not plan to take legal action against the group.

By Thursday morning, the description for the Center for Medical Progress’ YouTube video included a note at the top clarifying that the “image of Walter Fretz at 19 weeks” comes from a 2014 Daily Mail article about Lexi Fretz’s photographs of her stillborn child.

RH Reality Check notes that another photo featured in the new video is sourced to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, an anti-abortion group that specializes in graphic images of fetuses. The group has become infamous for its “Genocide Awareness Project,” an exhibit typically installed on college campuses that “juxtaposes images of aborted embryos and fetuses with images of victims of historical and contemporary genocides and other injustice.”

For years, abortion opponents have relied on graphic descriptions and bloody imagery to make their case against legal abortion. The Center for Medical Progress appears to be leaning in hard to this particular strategy, hoping that Americans will be compelled by photos of fetuses and disturbed by headlines proclaiming that “Planned Parenthood clinic cut through dead baby’s face to get his intact brain.”

Update: Sarah Kliff at Vox followed up with the Fiorina campaign. They are still very confused. But then, that's the point:



digby 9/18/2015 01:30:00 PM

 
About those training camps

by digby

That guy at Trump's rally wasn't just having a little daydream about Muslim Training camps. This is a very active wingnut conspiracy theory.  I wrote about it for Salon:

The right-wing press has been flogging the “terrorist training camp” meme for a long time. This piece from World Net Daily earlier this year gives a flavor of the discussion:

The FBI is aware of at least 22 paramilitary Islamic communes in the U.S., operated by the shadowy Pakistan-based group Jamaat al-Fuqra and its main U.S. front group, Muslims of the Americas.

With U.S. headquarters in Islamberg, New York, the group headed by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani operates communes in mostly remote areas of California, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee and other states.

The FBI describes the MOA compound in Texas, called Mahmoudberg, as an enclave and “communal living site.” Located in Brazoria County along County Road 3 near Sweeny, Texas, it was discovered more than 10 years ago by the FBI through a tip from an informant in New York, according to a 2014 article by the Clarion Project.

The Texas commune, in a heavily wooded area, is estimated by a local resident to encompass about 25 acres. It dates back to the late 1980s, the resident said, which is confirmed by the FBI documents previously reported on by WND.

This story goes back several years and has been promoted by extremist provocateur Pamela Geller, who maintains that these camps are populated by ex-con African American Muslim converts who are planning jihad against the United States. There’s even a documentary about this called “Homegrown Jihad” produced by a Christian group near Lynchburg, Va., (home of Liberty University) based upon a book written by the filmmakers called “Twilight in America: The Untold Story of Islamic Terrorist Training Camps Inside America.”

The book reads:

It’s happening right now, hidden in the rural neighborhoods of America, protected under the guise of religious freedom. In the privacy of Muslim compounds across our land, they are preparing our own citizens to wage a holy war—jihad—against America. As many state and federal authorities turn a blind eye, these Islamic extremists convert our own citizens, then teach them how to kill. One informant, who lived undercover on these compounds for more than eight years, warns: “They are asleep. They are a bomb” waiting to go off. Read Twilight in America and learn how the plan and ultimate goal of radical Islam is not just to inflict terror by attacking our nation, but to inspire homegrown terrorism from within, committed by Americans against Americans. The plan is working, and the goal is being achieved. This is the descent that the United States is experiencing—this is twilight in America.

As it turns out, the Muslims of America group has been around since the 1980s and has various communes around the country. And it does appear that the FBI is keeping an eye on them, which is hardly surprising, and the Anti-defamation League lists them as an anti-semitic group and suggests they have ties to a shadowy terrorist group from Pakistan. But even a World Net Daily article entitled “Sheriffs sound off on Islamic ‘terror camps’ in U.S.” tells an unintentionally hilarious story of a religious group living in obscurity while the local authorities are forced to deal with hysterical right wingers who spend too much time reading World Net Daily:

Sheriff John Carter of Wayne County, Georgia, received a hot tip in February last year that he remembers well.

The caller said he had reason to believe the Muslims of America, a mysterious Islamic commune with cult-like devotion to a radical Pakistani sheikh, was building underground bunkers on its land near the tiny town of Jesup.

He immediately paid a visit to the reclusive Muslim group’s compound, where Mecca Circle turns off of Oreo Road several miles north town. About 38 people live in the commune, where women wear burqas and the men don the skullcap common among Sufi Muslims.

“We haven’t had a lot of crime out there. They have not been unfriendly or rude in any way. They do want their privacy. It is a concern. We’re monitoring them, and I believe they’re monitored federally, although I don’t know that for sure because they’re not going to tell you,” Carter told WND. “But most of the concerns that bring us out there have come from outside the county.”

The sheriff has a file in his office about an inch thick titled “Mecca Circle,” filled with articles and CDs about the clannish Muslim enclave that keeps an extremely low profile in Wayne County.

And what about the report about those “bunkers?”

“I personally went up there, February a year ago, because this person was saying they were putting in bunkers,” he said.

He inquired of the leader, a man named Kareem, who led him to a site where the ground had been disturbed.

“They were replacing a septic tank,” Carter said.

Another sheriff from Virginia said basically the same thing and was clearly more upset by the outsiders than the Muslim locals in the compound:

“These people live there, they have their own mosque there. They don’t bother us. I’ve gotten a couple calls this week from West Virginia where they’re reading on the Internet what a militant place we have here and that’s not what it is,” Lacks said. “They’ve been here a good while, probably 10 to 15 years.

It’s not a city, it’s a residential area, probably 15 or 20 mobile homes there and a mosque. We go there all the time. It might be a civil paper we’re serving or it might be to unlock a vehicle. Routine stuff.” […]

“The biggest problem we have is people driving here from outside the area being nosy, trying to find out what we have here. They give us more problems than the Muslims.”

There is little mystery why these people would flock to Trump. He's a birther, after all. And he's also someone who is eager to deport "bad people." He's their guy.

More at the link
digby 9/18/2015 12:00:00 PM