Month: July 2016

Friday Night Soother: The Beav

by digby

See, fuzzy orangish hair and tiny little hands can be very cute —  when they aren’t Donald Trump:

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Forget religious tests. We need literacy tests. For Senators.

by digby

The constitution expressly prohibits religious tests for office. But I don’t see anything that says we can’t require literacy tests. It’s obvious that we need to:

Republicans have never made it easy for President Barack Obama to confirm judges. But Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) came up with a new reason the Senate shouldn’t be filling empty court seats: It’s not our job.

Democrats including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii) made repeated requests Wednesday to confirm a batch of Obama’s judicial nominees who are ready for votes. Each time they tried, Tillis objected and suggested the Senate shouldn’t be spending time on judges.

“What we get are things that have nothing to do with doing our jobs,” he said. “I’m doing my job today and objecting to these measures so we can actually get back to pressing matters.”

It’s a weird thing to say since it is literally the Senate’s job to confirm judges, as spelled out in the Constitution.

WTH is happening here? Does he really not believe it’s his job to confirm judges? It’s his explicit job description!

Thinking about the literacy test, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s get to the nub of the problem: the Senate. It’s an undemocratic institution that really has no place in a modern democracy. It’s decided not to bother doing the few specific jobs it does as an individual body. Even with the loons running the House today the only legislative body this country would not be in any worse shape. So really, why are we paying for it at all? It’s useless.

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The GOP establishment owns him now

by digby

Such a humble, graceful victor, trying hard to bring the party together:

#NeverTrump is never more. They were crushed last night in Cleveland at Rules Committee by a vote of 87-12. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2016

They love him, they really love him. Well, not exactly:

Anti-Trump Republicans had been lobbying for changes to the convention rules that would allow enough delegates would cast their vote for a candidate other than Trump. The effort was described variously as “Delegate revolt,” “Dump Trump,” and “convention of conscience.”
[…]

National Review‘s Tim Alberta reports that the party leadership and Trump allies succeeded in squelching any proposed rule changes that might have impeded Trump’s coronation.

The proceedings were a sweeping and uninterrupted success for what is widely and vaguely described as the party “establishment” — in this case, those GOP officials intent on safeguarding the RNC’s authority and preserving Trump’s nomination based on the results of this year’s primaries. Many of these Republican heavyweights have made clear, and reiterated on Thursday, that Trump was not their preferred candidate, yet they insisted on reflecting the will of the voters and protecting the integrity of the nominating process.

The “Never Trump” flank released a statement, published on The Resurgent early Friday morning, saying in part:

Donald Trump is no lover of liberty. Donald Trump is no respecter of the law. And Donald Trump is certainly no man of character.

We believe that Mr. Trump is morally, experientially, temperamentally, attitudinally and philosophically unfit for the Oval Office. We do not believe he is emotionally stable; we do not believe he is personally decent; he appears to be neither principled nor even particularly competent. And we believe the record shows, and his unreleased tax returns would further demonstrate, that he is not even a big business success – aside, that is, from having proven abilities at product branding, and at being a successful reality-TV showman. Apart from those two skills, Trump has a serial record – to use one of his favorite words – of being a loser.

In the unsparing statement, they go on to describe Trump as being an “admirer of tyrants,” an inveterate cheater who has trammeled ordinary Americans and veterans, one who routinely incites violence and traffics in bigotry; being “fundamentally, irredeemably dishonest” and “terrible – ignorant, and just plain wrong – on policy almost across the board.”

“The litany of Trump’s abominations could continue almost indefinitely,” they write.

By the way, according to CNN, Trump tried to change his mind about pence last night at midnight but it was too late.

Pence must feel just great about that …

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Some interesting perspective on terrorism

by digby

Some political scientists see terrorism, as we currently define it, as happening in four major waves.

In the 1880s, an initial “Anarchist Wave”(6) appeared which continued for some 40 years. Its successor, the “Anti-Colonial Wave” began in the 1920s, and by the 1960s had largely disappeared. The late 1960s witnessed the birth of the “New Left Wave,” which dissipated largely in the 90s leaving a few groups still active in Sri Lanka, Spain, France, Peru, and Columbia. The fourth or “Religious Wave” began in 1979, and, if it follows the pattern of its predecessors, it still has twenty to twenty-five years to run.

Revolution was the overriding aim in every wave, but revolution was understood differently in each. Most terrorist organizations have understood revolution as secession or national self-determination. This principle, that a people should govern itself, was bequeathed by the American and French Revolutions. (The French Revolution also introduced the term “terror” to our vocabulary.(7)) In leaving open the question of what constitutes a “people,” the principle is very ambiguous and can lead to endless conflict.

… Every state affected in the first wave, for example, radically transformed its police organizations. Plain-clothes police forces were created as indispensable tools to penetrate underground groups. The Russian Okhrana, Scotland Yard, and the FBI are conspicuous examples.(4)The new organizational form remains a permanent, perhaps indispensable, feature of modern life.

Terrorist tactics invariably produce rage and frustration, often driving governments to respond in unanticipated, extraordinary, illegal, and destructive ways. Because a significant Jewish element, for example, was present in the several Russian terrorist movements, the Okhrana organized pogroms to intimidate the Jewish population, compelling many to flee to the West and to the Holy Land. Okhrana fabricated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a book that helped stimulate a virulent anti-Semitism that went beyond Russia and continued for decades, and that influences the Christian and Islamic terrorist worlds still.(5)

Democratic states over-react too. President Theodore Roosevelt proposed sending all Anarchists back to their countries of origin, though many had not committed crimes and were opposed to terror. Roosevelt’s proposal was not acted upon; but President Wilson authorized Attorney General Palmer (1919) to round up all Anarchists, though many committed no crimes, in order to ship them to the Soviet Union. That led to the 1920 Wall Street Bombing which then became the impetus for an immigration quota law making it much more difficult for persons from Southern and Eastern European states (the original home of most Anarchists) to immigrate to America for several decades….

It’s tempting to believe that the US invasion of Iraq was one of those overreactions but it really wasn’t. It was instead a cynical opportunistic act by a group of people who were actually still fighting the last war — against totalitarianism. They didn’t care about terrorism and had never taken it seriously. When it happened in such spectacular fashion they simply used it as an excuse to do what they had been wanting do before for other reasons.

So far, the West has actually been fairly restrained by historical standards. Trump and Marine LePen in France and other right wing politicians will definitely over-react if they gain power. More mainstream leaders might do as well if these individual acts of terrorism continue to pile up.

If this paper is correct, perhaps we can see one remedy: stop romanticizing revolution,including our own glorious founding. Yes, it’s sometimes been necessary to throw off the yokes of oppression through violence. But we’ve also seen that it doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe we should glorify peaceful civilized change instead. Shocking thought, I know.

h/t to EJG
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Trump visits with a fellow demagogue

by digby

Michael Savage in his previous scam

That would be talk radio psycho Michael Savage. This one’s a doozy:

Savage declared that President Obama “has not only been flooding America with immigrants who cannot or will not work, he’s bringing in people who have brought back illnesses that were once basically eliminated in America” and offered to “help” Trump with the problem if he’s elected president.

“It’s a disaster to bring in diseased immigrants, don’t you agree?” Savage asked.

“Well that’s what’s happening,” Trump said, “and people don’t like talking about it and certainly it’s not politically correct to talk about it and that’s why they don’t do it, because everything we do today has to do with political correctness. If something’s a little bit off, off just a little bit, they say, ‘Oh, please don’t mention that.’ Even my people tell me ‘don’t mention that’ and I decide to mention things anyway, even though I know it’s going to end up being a firestorm I mention them anyway. But there’s something that’s one of the other elements, and the people are pouring into this country and, in many cases they’re not well people, in many respects.”

He’s one step away from calling them vermin.

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Feel the magic

by digby

Apparently Mike Pence has decided he has no future in politics:

I’m disappointed they didn’t go with the royal lion:

Nice on a normal beautiful day…

It’s happened again — more death and carnage and horror in the streets of a major city. This time it happened in Nice, France a beautiful city on the French riviera where people from all over the area had come down to the famous Promenade des Anglais at the beach to watch the fireworks celebration for Bastille Day, the day the French people come together to celebrate their country. A madman drove a big truck over a mile through the crowd killing at least 80 people, including kids, and seriously injuring dozens more. As I write this, all we know of the motivation is that the president of France has declared that the attack was of a “terrorist nature” and told the country, “all of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism.” Again. Still.

Whether it’s a lone wolf attack like the one the US just experienced in Orlando Florida or a directly coordinated ISIS plot like the Paris attack a few months ago is unknown. We’ll undoubtedly find out soon enough. At this moment, for everyone but the authorities, it doesn’t matter. Lunacy has ripped apart our sense of security and that, of course, is the whole point. If one of the goals of terrorism is to scare the public into believing that taking part in any normal activity with fellow citizens is a risk, whether it be attending a concert or sitting in a cafe or attending a Christmas party at work, hanging out with friends at a dance club or a fireworks show, the latest iteration of Islamic extremist violence is getting the job done.

9/11 was the most catastrophic terrorist attack in history and the US has recently experienced Islamic extremist terrorism in San Bernardino and Orlando so the sense of being under siege is strongly felt among Americans right now too. But the US is also suffering from an epidemic of violence of the domestic variety such as that we recently experienced in Dallas and before that Roseburg and Charleston and Newtown and Aurora and so on, so our problem with mass killings is actually more complicated in many ways than what is being experienced elsewhere. We have a profusion of Lone Wolves with as many motivations as they have deadly weapons.

But that doesn’t make this particular threat any less chilling. Many countries have been hit with terrorist attacks in recent years. Violence perpetrated against strangers as they go about their daily lives in order to make a point, whether it stems from mental derangement or political/religious extremism, is becoming all too common.

But even though these attacks are happening all over the world, it does seem that France is the epicenter for ISIS coordinated terrorism as opposed to the lone wolf or locally inspired splinter groups. And there are reasons for this, which are being studied and discussed by scholars throughout Europe. France has a long colonial history in the Middle East, specifically in Syria and its experience in Algeria was particularly brutal. It has the largest Muslim population in Europe and French society has traditionally been somewhat culturally intolerant, insisting that newcomers strictly adapt to French mores rather than embracing diversity. All of this has unfortunately created a combustible mixture in a dangerous time.

No country assimilates culturally diverse populations without some resistance, of course, but some are better at it than others. The US, for all its horrific history, has generally been one of the best at doing it. The many waves of immigration over centuries from all over the world made American society no less bigoted than anyone else’s but perversely more fatalistic about pluralism, at least most of the time. But we do have periodic xenophobic and nativist spasms and we are in one right now. Indeed, a large number of Americans support Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims. And he’s also very ostentatiously promising to build a big wall to keep people from Mexico and Central America out of the country, much to the delight of millions of his followers. Nonetheless, we still grow up with the idea that immigrants are natural and normal parts of our society even if we are uncomfortable with a specific type of “foreignness” at any given time.

Muslims were easily accepted into American society for many decades even as they kept their own religious traditions. Until 9/11 no one saw anything threatening about them at all. That’s changed, sadly. Now we have people being profiled and investigated on airplanes for writing mathematical equations that some passenger didn’t understand. There are protests against the building of mosques in places where no one would have ever cared before. There’s a lot of paranoia. But we simply have not seen the same level of organized radicalism that they have seen in France, at least not yet. Our underlying commitment to diversity may be hanging by a thread but it’s still here and American Muslims still believe in it too.

France is in the midst of a very serious homegrown Islamic terrorism crisis. It’s unclear how much more its people will take before it turns to draconian solutions. Certainly there are plenty of people advising them to do it and politicians waiting for the opportunity. And here in the US, despite our different scale of violence, we have Trump and his minions pounding the table and making little sense. Let’s hope both countries keep their heads.

This death and destruction will end not because some western power decides to invade someplace and use lethal force to “take out” the terrorists or because government becomes authoritarian and cracks down on dissent. It will end because these radical extremists are sowing the seeds of their own demise by bringing the whole world together in solidarity rather than what they seek to do which is to make people turn on one another. For all the chest beating and political posturing after one of these events, the vast majority of the human population feels tremendous empathy for people they never even thought much about before. They see themselves in the faces of the family members of people from other countries who lost loved ones. Social media connects them instantly to the event and they are linked to it emotionally. Our common humanity becomes real. The more violence these extremists inflict, the more it backfires.

Slaughter in Nice
by Tom Sullivan

More senseless slaughter, this time in Nice, France. Al Jazeera reports (Thursday night):

At least 80 people were killed and another 100 injured in the southern French city of Nice after an attacker drove a lorry into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday.

The attacker behind the wheel on Thursday drove at high speed along the famed Promenade des Anglais seafront hitting the mass of spectators who had been watching a fireworks display. Police then shot and killed the driver, officials said.

Identity papers belonging to a 31-year-old French-Tunisian were found inside the truck, a police source told AFP news agency on Friday.

Thousands began running.

Sophie Sanderlands is on holiday in France and has described the moment she saw thousands of people sprinting #sun7 https://t.co/bmUF3hpdbv— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) July 14, 2016

From the BBC:

Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice resident, said: “It zigzagged – you had no idea where it was going. My wife… a metre away… she was dead. The lorry ripped through everything… poles, trees. We have never seen anything like it. Some people were hanging on the door and tried to stop it.”

Police killed the driver after exchanging gunfire. The truck, the Al Jazeera report says, “was loaded with arms and grenades.” It is not clear from the early reports if any grenades were used. Two American citizens, a Ukrainian and a Russian are among the (now) 84 victims.The BBC reports this morning that 50 people were injured, 18 critically.

President Obama issued a statement:

“On behalf of the American people, I condemn in the strongest terms what appears to be a horrific terrorist attack in Nice, France, which killed and wounded dozens of innocent citizens,” President Obama said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and other loved ones of those killed, and we wish a full recovery for the many wounded.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. Embassy in Paris was working to account for the welfare of U.S. citizens in Nice. The American consulate in Marseille said it was trying to “determine if any U.S. citizens were injured in the event.”

The exact nature of the attack was unclear, but the Paris anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office was put in charge of the investigation.

The state of emergency in place in France since the Islamic State attacks last fall has been extended for three months. No group yet has claimed culpability (responsibility is too polite a term) for the attack.
ISIS-affiliated terrorists are suspected, as in previous French attacks. As ISIS has lost territory in Iraq and Syria, external, mass-casualty attacks such as those in Istanbul and Baghdad have increased. High-profile terror attacks are meant to reassure believers that the Islamic State is still viable, according to experts cited by the Washington Post.

A knee-jerk response from the West would simply add to that message and encourage ISIS recruitment.

Enter Donald Trump. Without knowing details about the attack, Trump wants to declare war. On whom, he doesn’t say. On what basis, he doesn’t know. A NATO country has been attacked, sure (by a lone individual as far as we know now). But Trump thinks NATO is obsolete and the U.S. pays too much for it. Others should pay. So with that for background, when Bill O’Reilly asked Trump if he would send in air and ground forces (somewhere) Trump said:

“I would, I would” when asked if he would seek a formal declaration of military action from the US Congress. “This is war,” Trump continued. “If you look at it, this is war. Coming from all different parts. And frankly it’s war, and we’re dealing with people without uniforms. In the old days, we would have uniforms. You would know who you’re fighting.”

But since Trump doesn’t know who that is and can’t force whoever it is to wear uniforms, what this situation absolutely requires is a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part. And Trump is just the guy to do it. Count on him to try to make somebody else pay for it. In the end, that someone would be us.

Open Carry Rules For RNC: Black & White Versions
 by Spocko

It’s only called ‘open carry’ when the man is white. It he’s black it’s ‘oh shit, he’s got a gun!’ #PhilandoCastile pic.twitter.com/cgjSCWvd7L

— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) July 7, 2016

The Wall Street Journal gives the rundown of what is allowed in the area of the RNC.

Considering all open carriers: Who is going to be in more danger of being arrested for suspicious behavior before the event? During? After?

White men 

Black men

I think many of the black men considering open carry will be arrested before the event on some trumped up charge, just to keep them out of the picture.  The ones who make it through will be fine, unless there is a panic. We all know what happened to the last black guy who open carried at a protest and there was a panic.

I believe many of the white men considering open carry won’t be arrested before the event. The government treats the white Republican men differently, even if they have a previous criminal history of protesting with guns. (See Bundy Ranch and Malheur refuge stories below)

I do predict that some open carriers will be arrested at the event. They want to show how peaceful they are and how they aren’t afraid of the police. They want to prove average people shouldn’t be afraid of them.

In my experience the people who open carry work closely with local law enforcement in advance of events. They tell them who they are, where they will be, and what they will be doing at what time. They know the state and local laws cold (which they will happily gunsplain to you). The also know which public locations are safe as well as which private businesses welcome them.

After the protect any arrested open carriers will sue for false arrest and declare that their 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment rights were infringed. (They might even get the ACLU to help them!)


Win or lose, the image of an open carrier being peacefully arrested by big government will be used to fuel their righteous anger. Photos will show the open carriers are the real victims and their rights are under siege at all times, everywhere, by everyone.

Do we use trumped up charges or just old ones? 


The government will use trumped up or old charges for white Oath Keepers too. But the government won’t try as hard to arrest them as they will to arrest peaceful democratic protesters. I think that is a mistake and a waste of resources, but arresting dirty hippies is always on the to do list. But why won’t they arrest more in advance?

I think it’s because the police expect the RW white gun guys to follow the rules. Of course if they don’t, it they screw up and have an accident, they are given a pass because they have “good intentions.” They also believe that in a tense situation RW white guys will comply with their orders.

The idea that is pushed by the gun carriers is that protestors with guns will help the police in a shoot out. Do police believe white open carriers are automatically on the side of police? Do they feel the same about open carriers of other colors?

One thing we do know is that some white people who protest with guns aren’t on the side of government law enforcement–at all.

The Bundy Gang’s White Gun Privilege: 
Feds: “We’ll give you two years to stop pointing your guns at us!”

Eric Parker near Bundy Ranch NV,   April 12, 2014 Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Urquhart

Remember this guy, Eric Parker? Here he is in April of 2014 aiming his rifle at federal agents near the Bundy Ranch in Nevada. He also went up to Burns Oregon to protest, but wasn’t on site at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in December 2015.

Eric Parker April 12, 2014 Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Urquhart

The government treated Parker and his buddies,white men pointing guns at the feds, with fear and respect.

The government didn’t arrest them at the time because they didn’t want to have an incident. This is a perfectly rational thing to do, since it avoids bloodshed. After the event is over, the arrests begin at a time and place of the government’s choosing. (I love this phrase by the way, it sounds so badass.)

However, instead of arresting and prosecuting those people right away, I believe deals were cut in exchange for no further protesting, or for turning state’s evidence on others in the group.  You will note that people who stopped going armed to protests made statements in the media saying that what happened in Malheur was wrong.

However, in a big group, not everyone gets the memo to stop poking the tiger.
I think these are the people who will be showing up at RNC to protest while openly carrying. They want to give the impression to the public that they are good people to be trusted. But whatever happened to that group of white men who protested with guns?

It turns out that the government shouldn’t have trusted them. Some didn’t honor their agreements, others ignored the conditions they got in exchange for not being arrested. Imagine that, an anti-government group going back on their word with the government! So now the government gets to arrest them with stronger evidence. Yay for justice, but it took two years too long.

In March of 2016, in the state of Idaho, the government acted:

FBI Raids Going Down: More Bundys Arrested, Eric Parker And Other Militants 

— Story from Freak Out Nation: Making Tea Partiers Cry Since 2009

Chayevsky had it nailed a long time ago

by digby

According to political scientist Matthew Dickinson, studies show that media can definitely influence primary voter behavior since voters at that point are not driven by party identification and often don’t know the candidates very well. His article at Vox lays out in specific how media coverage during this period can make a big difference.

How might these media effects have contributed to Trump’s victory? The most obvious effect came about through the sheer number of news stories about Trump’s candidacy, many of them appearing in agenda-setting positions on front pages and at the top of news shows. Numerous studies have documented that Trump received far more media coverage than did his Republican rivals, even before any votes were cast. For example, one study finds that Trump received almost a billion dollars’ worth of free media coverage through February — an amount dwarfing that of any of his rivals.

Political scientists believe this outsize coverage likely produced several effects. First, it signaled that Trump’s candidacy was something to take seriously, rather than a novelty act that viewers might dismiss. Moreover, the disproportionate coverage of Trump’s views on issues like trade and immigration made these issues more salient to voters, meaning they were more likely to consider them when choosing a candidate.

Conversely, Trump’s media domination meant that his 16 Republicans rivals, and the issues they might like to see highlighted, were not getting beneficial exposure. Molly Ball’s defense of the media notwithstanding, it appears that by focusing coverage so heavily on Trump, journalists did, however inadvertently, put their thumb on the scale.

What about the argument that the media coverage followed Trump’s popularity rather than inspiring it? Importantly, the heavy media focus on Trump began before his rise in the polls and in the absence of other traditional indicators of candidate strength, such as campaign fundraising prowess. That’s suggestive of media influence, but research also backs up the idea that causality runs in that direction.

For both the 2012 and 2016 Republican presidential races, political scientists Kevin Reuning and Nick Dietrich analyzed daily data from the start of election polling up to the Iowa caucus. They looked at public interest in candidates (gauged by online searches), polling support for candidates, and media coverage on major cable news stations. They found that increased media coverage influenced the polls — not vice versa.the lead horse

But Trump benefited from more than disproportionate media coverage. He was also helped by the horse race frame most of the press adopted (which again, works differently in the primaries than in a two-party contest).

Harvard’s Thomas E. Patterson found that more than half of the coverage of Trump focused on some aspect of his standing in the race, including his position in the polls, his debate performance, or the size of his crowds. In contrast, only 12 percent focused on his issue stances or political beliefs, including his incendiary comments. “Trump is ahead” gets interpreted by voters as a positive frame, the research shows.

And even when the media did focus on Trump’s position on the issues or his inflammatory comments, the potential negative effect of covering Trump’s policies was weakened by the media’s pursuit of balance by quoting supporters of those stances.

In sum, it is true, as Ball argues, that voters “are the ones who decide — not the media.” But the research shows that voters’ decisions are predicated on information about candidates that is partly gleaned via media campaign coverage.

Those academic studies suggest that the volume and tone of information provided by the media influenced the way voters viewed Trump’s candidacy, and contributed to his surge in the polls and his eventual victory. (Though surely Patterson takes things a step too far by calling Trump “arguably the first bona fide media-created presidential nominee.”)

So what now?

Dickinson says that it won’t work the same for Trump in the General because the media will seek to give Clinton equal time and his appeal will be undercut because they will be anxious to show her counter-framing of much of Trump’s agenda.

Right. More likely, the press will continue to give Trump much more coverage and will try to turn Clinton into a monster who is his equal in order to “balance it out.”

Anyway, it’s an interesting piece that refutes the notion that the press had nothing to do with
Trump’s unlikely rise. But I also have some pity for the media too. They are in a business crisis and along comes this demagogue who will say anything and people will tune in. It’s “Network” come to life. Ratings are king.

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