“Yes, There’s A July 4 Terror Threat From The Right”: I Believe It. But I Bet It’s Not From Muslims
Representative Peter King (R-NY) told us on Wednesday that we need to be afraid, no, very afraid, of Muslims over the July 4th weekend. Why? Well, King, in his typical Muslim fear-mongering style, warned, “Because if there is a threat, if there is gonna be something happening, it’s gonna come from the Muslim community.”
Apparently King only sees a threat by Muslims to America. But while ISIS is a threat, how is he blind to the growing right-wing terror threat we see in this country? I have never seen a more alarming level of “chatter” and acts of terror by people on the right as in the last few weeks.
Here are a few recent examples of what I mean:
1. Calls for violence surrounding gay marriage: After the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that gay couples have the same freedom to marry as the rest of us, Pastor Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church called for the stoning death of any pastor who would perform a same-sex marriage. He also called for the murder of all LGBT people, stating, “I hate them with a perfect hatred… I count them mine enemies.”
And keep in mind we have heard other Christian pastors in recent times also call for gays to be “put to death” and make statements like “homosexuality is a death worthy crime.” Can we responsibly dismiss these people as “crazies” until someone actually heeds their call and kills gay Americans?
2. Black churches are burning: At least two of the six black churches that caught fire last week are believed to have been cases of arson.
This threat is so serious that the NAACP issued a warning this week urging black church leaders to take “necessary precautions” to protect themselves from other attacks.
3. Right-wing politicians’ alarming rhetoric could radicalize people: After the Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage, we heard the shrill cries of victimhood by some conservative politicians. For example, Mike Huckabee remarked that he expects civil disobedience by some Christians in light of the court decision. Let’s be blunt, this is Huckabee’s attempt to inspire civil disobedience. We also heard Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal describe the Court’s ruling as “an all-out assault” against the “rights of Christians.”
The words of political leaders can inspire people to do good and to do bad. We saw that during the civil rights movement, when the inflammatory rhetoric of people like George Wallace validated the views of scared white people that equal rights for blacks was a threat to our nation as well as to them personally. The response to these words, by some, was violence against blacks and even white supporters of the civil rights movement. Similarly, the constant drumbeat we hear today from some conservative politicians that gay marriage is a threat to our nation and an attack on Christianity could possibly incite a person on the far right to violence.
4. We have 784 hate groups on U.S. soil. Per the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), hate groups have grown by 30 percent since 2000. These groups, as the SPLC notes, include the Klan, neo-Nazis, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, border vigilantes, and others. In fact, the SPLC is so concerned by the threat posed by these homegrown terror groups that last week it sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to hold “hearings on the threat of domestic terrorism.”
Adding to my concerns is that we just witnessed a terrorist attack on our soil on June 22 in Charleston, South Carolina. And yes, I am aware that the U.S. government has not as of yet classified, and may never classify, this incident as “terrorism” under federal law. (How the assassination of a state senator and the execution of eight black people by a man who wanted to start a race war is not considered terrorism is truly mindboggling.) Putting aside the debate over the T-word, the killer, per his own manifesto was radicalized at least in part by the racist words of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a right-wing hate group per the SPLC.
And keep in mind that domestic terrorists have been killing far more Americans than Islamic-related ones over the past 14 years. As The New York Times reported last week, “since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics, and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims.” Dr. Charles Kurzman, a terrorism expert, explained in that article: “Law enforcement agencies around the country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the threat from right-wing extremists.” Consequently, we need to be just as concerned when a person posts images associated with white supremacist causes on Facebook as when a person posts images supporting ISIS.
These facts truly deem the government’s warning of a potential terror attack on U.S. soil that much more credible. Let’s hope they are wrong. But if a terrorist attack is committed by a right-wing actor, we can’t claim there were no warning signs.
By: Dean Obeidallah, The Daily Beast, July 3, 2015
“THE United States of America”: How America ‘Won’ Its Independence 2 Years After July 4, 1776
I’m sure several of you are shaking your heads, wondering if I got the title wrong. But while American political figures officially declared their independence on July 4, 1776, winning it was another matter. And that came on a hot day in June, instead of a cold day in December.
There’s nothing wrong with your textbooks, of course. Emboldened by George Washington’s ability to maneuver the British out of Boston thanks to positioning his artillery at Dorchester Heights, America’s 2nd Continental Congress did declare their independence in Philadelphia. It’s all grandly captured in David McCullough’s book 1776 as well.
But what the texts often forget, but McCullough doesn’t, is what happened to the Americans after Independence Day. Washington suffered his worst defeat, at the Battle of Long Island. 1776 continues to be a year to forget, as Americans lose Ft. Washington and other key outposts. The army is in full retreat, and it looks bleak.
But while wins at Trenton (the famous attack on the Hessians after Christmas) and against a rear guard at Princeton give Americans a little hope, it’s dashed the following year at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. The British capture the American capital at Philadelphia in 1777. Many in politics want Washington replaced, by either Charles Lee or Horatio Gates.
While the British enjoy the homes and comforts of the City of Brotherly Love, Washington and his men suffer outside the town at Valley Forge. But they don’t just suffer. They train with Lafayette and Von Steuben in the snow, while the British take it easy, and the King’s officers party away. By contrast, the American officers share the miserable conditions with their men.
The next test takes place on June 28 of 1778 at Monmouth Court House (a battle reenacted every year), as the British march across New Jersey. Washington hits General Henry Clinton’s army in broad daylight, out in the open. This will be no holiday ambush, or hitting a small portion of a force. It means attacking British regulars at their full strength.
General Lee, who dislikes the plan, leads it poorly and produces a disorganized retreat. Washington relieves him of command on the spot, and organizes a rally. “Mad Anthony” Wayne, General Stirling, and Henry Knox’s artillery, the goats of Germantown, are ready to withstand an attack by General Charles Cornwallis.
The result is spectacular. Washington’s men stop Cornwallis’ attack cold, a combination of snipers and stiff resolve (and heroic stories like the legendary Molly Pitcher). While America’s cannon rake the enemy, the British guns are off on their timing. As temperatures climb to well over 100 degrees, Washington’s order for his men to leave their coats behind is brilliant. The “by-the-book British” keep the heavy items, and lose hundreds more than the Americans to heat stroke. And it’s clear who has been hard at work, practicing over the winter. Americans lose fewer soldiers in the pitched battle, and hold their ground, as the British leave the region for New York City.
But there’s a final piece that Monmouth battle archaeologists discovered, as seen on the History Channel’s Battlefield Detectives. They found, arguably for the first time, buttons issued with a simple pair of words: U.S. No longer would we see ourselves as New Yorkers first, or North Carolinians first, or Rhode Islanders first. We would be THE United States of America. And that’s a spirit the British could never beat. We’re still united, and can’t be divided.
By: John A. Tures, Professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga; The Blog, The Huffington Post, July 3, 2015
“Teamwork On The Supreme Court”: Discipline On The Left Side, Disarray On The Right
Now that the current term is over for the Supreme Court, analysts are digging into the record to draw conclusions about what happened. In a fascinating analysis, Adam Liptak writes: Right Divided, a Disciplined Left Steered the Supreme Court.
The stunning series of liberal decisions delivered by the Supreme Court this term was the product of discipline on the left side of the court and disarray on the right.
In case after case, including blockbusters on same-sex marriage and President Obama’s health care law, the court’s four-member liberal wing, all appointed by Democratic presidents, managed to pick off one or more votes from the court’s five conservative justices, all appointed by Republicans.
They did this in large part through rigorous bloc voting, making the term that concluded Monday the most liberal one since the Warren court in the late 1960s, according to two political-science measurements of court voting data.
“The most interesting thing about this term is the acceleration of a long-term trend of disagreement among the Republican-appointed judges, while the Democratic-appointed judges continue to march in lock step,” said Eric Posner, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
For example, this session there were 19 SCOTUS decisions that were decided 5/4. In 10 of those, the four liberals voted together and were joined by one conservative. In contrast, the conservatives only voted together 5 times.
Ian Millhiser suggests that the problem for the conservative justices is that they “represent three – and possibly as many as five – distinct versions of judicial conservatism.”
* The Ideologue – Clarence Thomas
* The Partisan – Samuel Alito
* The Reaganite – John Roberts
He points out that Scalia purports to be an “originalist” (like Thomas), but mostly votes as a partisan. And he can’t seem to find a way to characterize Kennedy.
Liptak credits the cohesion among the liberal justices to the leadership of Justice Ginsberg. But I’m also interested in how they managed to pretty consistently pick off one of the conservative justices to vote with them. I was reminded of something Adam Winkler wrote about Elena Kagan almost 2 years ago. He described her as a justice in the mold of Earl Warren.
Warren didn’t accomplish these by embarrassing his colleagues or by making sharper arguments on the merits. Warren was a master politician, one who’d sit with the other justices and bring them along slowly and steadily to his side. He sought to understand other justices’ concerns and address them. Unlike most of today’s justices, Warren was willing to work the halls to gain five votes.
He says this about why Kagan was chosen to be the dean of Harvard’s Law School:
She was seen as someone who could bring together a faculty known for ideological and personal divisions that institutionally hobbled the law school, especially when it came to hiring. As dean from 2003 to 2009, she calmed faculty tensions, launched an aggressive hiring spree that netted 32 new professors, and earned praise from both left and right.
I remember that some liberals opposed Elena Kagan’s nomination. But it strikes me that President Obama would see “bridge-builder” as a necessary role for someone to play on the Supreme Court. It’s exactly how people describe his tenure as President of the Harvard Law Review.
If that’s the case, here’s what we know about the 3 women on the Supreme Court: the senior member is Ruth Bader Ginsberg – the Notorious RBG – tiny woman who throws quite a punch. Then there’s my hero, Sonia Sotomayor, the wise Latina with a heart as big as they come. And finally, there’s Elena Kagan, the bridge-builder. What a team!
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, July 2, 2015
“Blowing With The Winds”: Conservatives Love Scott Walker’s Anti-Gay Transition
Scott Walker has his groove back with social conservatives and he has the Supreme Court to thank.
After the court ruled that the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, Walker released a statement calling for a constitutional amendment to let states define marriage as between one man and one woman. Social conservatives loved it, and it came at a moment when he needed all the love he could get.
Back in May, the Wisconsin governor traveled to Washington to meet with a bevy of leaders from the party’s more conservative wing.
And in that meeting, there were lots of Walker skeptics.
Penny Nance—the president of the influential conservative group Concerned Women for America—emailed to The Daily Beast after that meeting to say she still wasn’t convinced Walker was a strong enough opponent of same-sex marriage.
“I think people are still trying to discern” his position, she wrote.
His list of confusing comments about the issue over the years made it a little tricky for some on the right to ascertain his position.
In 2014, for instance, after a district court judge declared that the Badger State’s ban on same-sex marriage wasn’t constitutional, he gave an oddly obtuse answer on the topic at a press conference.
“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” Walker told reporters, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It’s in the Constitution.”
Then he refused to clarify his position on the marriage question.
“No,” he said. “I’m just not stating one at all.”
For gay marriage foes, that little exchange didn’t exactly make him a profile in courage.
And it wasn’t the only time he telegraphed a position on the question that was a bit more nuanced than you might expect from, well, a Republican presidential candidate.
In a 2013 interview with Bloomberg, the likely 2016 contender indicated that he could be comfortable with federal legislation protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination. Walker noted that Wisconsin didn’t let same-sex couples marry, but still afforded them those employment protections.
“There’s a healthy balance there,” he said.
Opponents of same-sex marriage are not interested in finding “a healthy balance,” and they weren’t thrilled with Walker’s comments.
But all this changed on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed.
In response, Walker released a statement saying he favored amending the Constitution to let individual states decide whether or not to allow those unions. As The Daily Beast noted at the time, this distinguished him from other top-tier Republican contenders who refused to back changes to the Constitution.
And people noticed. When the Beast asked Nance if Walker’s full-throated support of a constitutional amendment gave her more confidence that he would side with her on the marriage question, she emailed, “Boy has it!”
“In calling for a federal marriage amendment that would allow states to determine their own laws on marriage Walker has put to final rest any questions social conservatives had on his willingness to lead on the matter,” she wrote.
And though Nance—like most activists—doesn’t have a 2016 favorite yet, she said taking a Walker-esque position on marriage is a must.
“Just as Roe made the issue of life central to support for a presidential candidate, the Obergefell decision has hardened our resolve on marriage,” she wrote. “The courts have made them issues that candidates for federal office can no longer duck.”
Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, is in the same boat. He said he was “distraught” with the comments Walker made last year about the overturn of Wisconsin’s constitutional amendment.
“I thought it was a huge mistake,” Brown said. “But ever since then, he has been working very hard to be a leader on the marriage issue.”
He also said that, in his view, Walker has changed his position on marriage, and for the better.
“If we ask people to sign pledges and stand for principles, then when they do it, we can’t second-guess them,” he said. “So I’m ecstatic he’s doing this.”
And Bob Vander Plaats, the president of the Iowa-based conservative group The Family Leader, said he was also delighted with Walker’s endorsement of an amendment.
He said his group was “openly concerned” with some of Walker’s previous comments on marriage, and that the governor’s stance has assuaged those fears.
Asked if he thought Walker had changed his position on how to handle marriage issues, Vander Plaats said, “Yea, without question.”
“I was thrilled to be able to see his response to this opinion,” he said.
Walker aides emailed to say that the governor’s position on the issue hasn’t actually changed, noting that in 1997 as a state legislator, he voted to ban same-sex marriage in the Badger State.
But while Walker’s single-minded opposition to same-sex marriage has won him favor with anti-same-sex-marriage activists, it’s already alienated some big Republican donors.
The Washington Post reported last week that Walker lost the support of one hedge-fund billionaire after having a long argument with him about the issue.
And an insider close with the New York Republican donor community expressed disappointment with Walker’s change of tone on the issue and support for a constitutional amendment, and suggested it could make it harder for him to secure New York Republican donors.
Mary Cheney, an openly gay political consultant who is also Dick Cheney’s daughter, expressed bafflement at Walker’s move.
“From a political perspective, I don’t understand why you would do that,” she said.
By: Betsy Woodruff, The Daily Beast, June 30, 2015
“Who Owns Most Of The Guns? ‘The Base!”: Overlapping Circles Of A Hard Core Of Dangerous Folks
It’s a research finding that is startling but not really surprising (per a report from NBC’s Maggie Fox):
A new study aimed at figuring out who owns gun in the United States and why suggests that about a third of Americans have at least one.
Most are white males over the age of 55, and a “gun culture” is closely linked with ownership, the team at Columbia University reports.
The study, published in the journal Injury Prevention, is one of several trying to pin down the number of gun owners in the United States. No agency keeps statistics on gun ownership and many pro-gun activists advocate keeping gun ownership private because of fears about potential future laws that might take guns away.
Yeah, well, if you really buy into the idea that good people like us need to stockpile weapons in case we need to overthrow a tyrannical socialist regime supported by those people, then I guess you want to present a moving target, eh? But I digress. The study also even less surprisingly shows a geographical gulf in gun ownership:
[Gun ownership percentages ranged] from 5.2 percent in Delaware to 61.7 percent in Alaska,” they wrote in their report. “Gun ownership was 2.25 times greater among those reporting social gun culture than those who did not,” they added.
In the Northeast, gun ownership rates ranged from 5.8 percent in Rhode Island to 28.8 percent in Vermont.
In the Midwest, rates ranged from 19.6 percent in Ohio to 47.9 percent in North Dakota. In the South and mid-Atlantic, rates ranged from 5.2 percent in Delaware to 57.9 percent in Arkansas. And in the West, California had the lowest rate of gun ownership at 20 percent, while nearly 62 percent of Alaskans said they had a gun.
Now this rural habit of disproportionate gun ownership is often related to the opportunity for and interest in hunting, and of a “gun culture” (to use the Columbia report’s terminology) in which social life revolves around gun-related activities. Both these factors are undoubtedly important. But there is something more basic than that: isolation. The first time in my life I really thought about owning a gun was one night when I was awakened at 2:00 AM in my central Virginia home at the end of a two-mile dirt road by approaching–and then extinguished–headlights. At that moment, I wasn’t real confident in the safety offered by a baseball bat, a Bichon Frise, and police officers who were at least 30 minutes away.
On the other hand, even then I didn’t really want an assault rifle, and I would have probably regretted firing hundreds of rounds at that parked car which in the end probably contained teenagers messing around or smoking pot.
Putting aside for a moment geography or the objective advisability of owning some sort of gun for self-protection, there is something fundamentally disquieting about the fact that the Americans most likely to own guns are also the Americans most likely to embrace a political rationale for gun ownership and most likely to believe they’re getting outvoted by people who don’t share their values. Somewhere in these overlapping circles is a hard core of dangerous folks who are being told constantly by Republican politicians that they are losing or have already lost their most fundamental rights. And this is why political extremism is a bad thing even if its devotees lose most elections.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, June 30, 2015
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