State GOP leaders, in a predictable but closely watched vote, have defeated a proposal to ask Texas voters whether they favor secession.
In a voice vote Saturday afternoon, the State Republican Executive Committee rejected a measure that would have put the issue on the March 1 primary ballot. The ballot language would have been non-binding, amounting to a formal survey of voters on whether they would like to see Texas declare its independence from the United States.
While the proposal's defeat was expected, the measure had sparked some heated debate on the 60-member executive committee, the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas. Seeking to avoid a protracted fight, the executive committee voted earlier Saturday afternoon to cap discussion of the issue at 30 minutes then put it to an up-or-down vote.
Tanya Robertson, the SREC member who introduced the proposal, argued at the executive committee meeting in Austin that the measure would have been "harmless," allowing voters to register an "opinion only." She also suggested the ballot language would have helped "get out the vote" among some Texas Republicans who have been sitting out recent elections.
"The goal of these is to take a thermometer of how Texans feels about an issue, and what better issue for Texans to do that with?" she asked.
Opponents of the proposal argued it would have been an unproductive way for Texans to register their dissatisfaction with the federal government, however strongly they feel. One of the opponents, SREC member Mike Goldman, said he was "sorry we are even having the conversation" about secession.
The pro-secession measure was sent to the full body on Friday after approval by its Resolutions Committee. The ballot language before the executive committee Saturday afternoon read, "If the Federal Government continues to disregard the Constitution and the sovereignty of the State of Texas, the State of Texas should reassert its prior status as an independent nation."
Calling it "unpatriotic," the Texas Democratic Party had seized on the secession debate as evidence that the state GOP was falling victim to extremists in its own ranks.
"Every hardworking Texan should be worried that fringe issues are now the hot topic in the same party that controls state government," Crystal Kay Perkins, the executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement after the vote Saturday.
Earlier Saturday, the executive committee defeated another controversial proposal, one in favor of moving the party's 2016 convention from Dallas to Houston. The proposal, which was shot down in a nearly unanimous vote, was inspired by opposition to Dallas' updated non-discrimination ordinance. Leading the charge to relocate the convention was Jared Woodfill, a key figure in the successful effort to repeal a similar law in Houston and a potential challenger to Texas GOP Chairman Tom Mechler.
For reasons hard to fathom, the Republicans seem to have made up their minds: they will divide, degrade and secede from the Union.
They will do so with bullying, lies and manipulation, a willingness to say anything, no matter how daft or wrong. They will do so by spending unheard of sums to buy elections with the happy assistance of big business and wealthy patrons for whom the joys of gross income inequality are a comfortable fact of life. By gerrymandering and denying the vote to as many of the poor, the elderly, struggling low-paid workers, and people of color as they can. And by appealing to the basest impulses of human nature: anger, fear and bigotry.
Just four-and-a-half years ago, Washington mainstays Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein shocked the inside-the-Beltway establishment (especially the press, with its silent pact to speak no evil of wrongdoers lest they deny you an interview) when they published their book, It's Even Worse than It Looks [ http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465074731 ]. The two esteemed political scientists wrote, "The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."
In the years since, an ugly situation has only gotten increasingly dire, with right-wing radicals whipped into a frenzy by a Republican establishment that thought it could use their rage, only to find it running amok and beyond their control. In a recent interview with Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg View, Norman Ornstein said, "The future still looks pretty grim." And Thomas Mann noted [ http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-14/thomas-mann-and-norman-ornstein-on-republicans-gone-wild ], "The burden is on the GOP because they are currently the major source of our political dysfunction. No happy talk about bipartisanship can obscure that reality. Unless other voices and movements arise within the Republican Party to changes its character and course, our dysfunctional politics will continue."
The fever is pandemic not only among the party's presidential candidates but throughout the House and Senate right down to our state governments. Witness erstwhile GOP presidential candidate and current Wisconsin governor Scott Walker cutting off food stamps for the hungry and possibly bankrupting food pantries in his state just in time for Christmas -- because many of those on the lowest rung of the ladder haven't yet found a job.
And here's multimillionaire Bruce Rauner winning the governorship of Illinois after spending some $65 million -- half of which came from himself and nine other individuals, families or the companies they control. Now he's calling once again on his wealthy friends and allies around the country who, The New York Times reports [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/politics/illinois-campaign-money-bruce-rauner.html ], "are rallying behind Mr. Rauner's agenda: to cut spending and overhaul the state's pension system, impose term limits and weaken public employee unions" -- even though a majority of ordinary citizens in Illinois are opposed.
Meanwhile, with just a few weeks until they adjourn for the holidays, Republicans in the US Congress will try to cram in as much pettiness and vituperation as they can before they head back to their states and districts, no doubt to lead the home front in the fight against "the war on Christmas" launched this time every year by the Republicans' propaganda arm (Fox News) and its shock troops on talk radio.
Congressional Republicans have vowed to free Wall Street from oversight and accountability and to prevent children fleeing the Syrian inferno from coming ashore on US soil. And yes, they will once again be in full throat against gun control (despite the latest tragedy in San Bernardino, California). They're on constant attack against the science of climate change, with the latest salvo two House bills passed December 1 that undermine Environmental Protection Agency rules (the president will veto them). And believe it or not, once again they'll try to scuttle Obamacare, as in Kentucky where the self-financed, wealthy Republican governor-elect has vowed to cut loose hundreds of thousands of people from health insurance.
Take a look at some of their other plans, including the riders congressional Republicans are contemplating for inclusion in the omnibus spending bill that must be passed by December 11. The whole mess is a Bad Santa's list of loopholes benefiting High Finance, tax cuts for the rich, and budget cuts for everyone else, even as they drive the nation deeper into debt and disrepair.
All of these sad examples are but symptoms of a deeper disease -- the corruption and debasement of society, government and politics. It is a disease that eats away at the root and heart of what democracy is all about. Remember the opening phrase of the Preamble to the Constitution committing "We, the People" to the most remarkable compact of self-government ever -- for the good of all? The Republicans are shredding that vision as they make a bonfire of the hopes that inspired it and, in the process, reduce the United States to a third-rate, sorry excuse for a nation.
Why? For an analogy and an answer we have to go back to the slave-holding Democrats of the 1840s and 50s who were prepared to destroy the Union if necessary to protect and expand the brutal system of human slavery on which their economy and way of life were built. The extremism and polarization engendered made it impossible for politics peacefully to resolve the moral dilemma facing our country. If the Republicans -- and the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln -- had not championed and fought to preserve the Union and its government, the United States would have been no more.
Now it is the Republicans who are willing to wreck the country to maintain the gross inequality that divides us -- inequality which rewards the party leaders and their donors, just as slavery rewarded white supremacists. They would tear the Republic apart, rip to pieces its already fragile social compact, and reap the whirlwind of a failed experiment in self-government.
"Our No. 1 goal for the next year is to put together a complete alternative to the left's agenda," he said.
Despite the speech's sweeping oratory and careful stagecraft, Ryan clings to seven dumb ideas that are also cropping up among Republican presidential candidates.
Here they are, and here's why they're dumb:
1. Reduce the top income-tax rate to 25% from the current 39%. A terrible idea. It's a huge windfall to the rich at a time when the rich already take home a larger share of total income that at any time since the 1920s.
2. Cut corporate taxes to 25% from the current 35%. Another bad idea. A giant sop to corporations, the largest of which are already socking away $2.1 trillion in foreign tax shelters.
3. Slash spending on domestic programs like food stamps and education for poor districts. What?! Already 22% of the nation's children are in poverty; these cuts would only make things worse.
4. Turn Medicaid and other federal programs for the poor into block grants for the states, and let the states decide how to allocate them. In other words, give Republican state legislatures and governors slush funds to do with as they wish.
5. Turn Medicare into vouchers that don't keep up with increases in healthcare costs. In effect cutting Medicare for the elderly. Another awful idea.
6. Deal with rising Social Security costs by raising the retirement age for Social Security. Bad! This would make Social Security even more regressive, since the poor don't live nearly as long as the rich.
7. Finally, let the minimum wage continue to decline as inflation eats it away. Wrong again. Low wage workers need a higher minimum wage.
These 7 ideas will harm most Americans. Ryan is wrong.
Future historians — if there are any future historians — will almost surely say that the most important thing happening in the world during December 2015 was the climate talks in Paris. True, nothing agreed to in Paris will be enough, by itself, to solve the problem of global warming. But the talks could mark a turning point, the beginning of the kind of international action needed to avert catastrophe.
Then again, they might not; we may be doomed. And if we are, you know who will be responsible: the Republican Party.
O.K., I know the reaction of many readers: How partisan! How over the top! But what I said is, in fact, the obvious truth. And the inability of our news media, our pundits and our political establishment in general to face up to that truth is an important contributing factor to the danger we face.
What people may not realize, however, is how extraordinary the G.O.P.’s wall of denial is, both in the U.S. context and on the global scene.
I often hear from people claiming that the American left is just as bad as the right on scientific issues, citing, say, hysteria over genetically modified food or nuclear power. But even if you think such views are really comparable to climate denial (which they aren’t), they’re views held by only some people on the left, not orthodoxies enforced on a whole party by what even my conservative colleague David Brooks calls [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/opinion/the-green-tech-solution.html ] the “thought police.”
And climate-denial orthodoxy doesn’t just say that the scientific consensus is wrong. Senior Republican members of Congress routinely indulge in wild conspiracy theories, alleging that all the evidence for climate change is the product of a giant hoax [ http://wndbooks.wnd.com/the-greatest-hoax/ ] perpetrated by thousands of scientists around the world. And they do all they can to harass and intimidate [ http://www.vox.com/2015/10/26/9616370/science-committee-worse-benghazi-committee ] individual scientists.
In a way, this is part of a long tradition: Richard Hofstadter’s famous essay [ http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ ] “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” was published half a century ago. But having that style completely take over one of our two major parties is something new.
It’s also something with no counterpart abroad.
It’s true that conservative parties across the West tend to be less favorable to climate action than parties to their left. But in most countries — actually, everywhere except America and Australia — these parties nonetheless support measures to limit emissions. And U.S. Republicans are unique [ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12122/full ] in refusing to accept that there is even a problem. Unfortunately, given the importance of the United States, the extremism of one party in one country has enormous global implications.
By rights, then, the 2016 election should be seen as a referendum on that extremism. But it probably won’t be reported that way. Which brings me to what you might call the problem of climate denial denial.
Some of this denial comes from moderate Republicans, who do still exist — just not in elected office. These moderates may admit that their party has gone off the deep end on the climate issue, but they tend to argue that it won’t last, that the party will start talking sense any day now. (And they will, of course, find reasons to support whatever climate-denier the G.O.P. nominates for president.)
Everything we know about the process that brought Republicans to this point says that this is pure fantasy. But it’s a fantasy that will cloud public perception.
More important, probably, is the denial inherent in the conventions of political journalism, which say that you must always portray the parties as symmetric — that any report on extreme positions taken by one side must be framed in a way that makes it sound as if both sides do it. We saw this on budget issues, where some self-proclaimed centrist commentators, while criticizing Republicans for their absolute refusal to consider tax hikes, also made a point of criticizing President Obama [ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/centrist-self-parody/ ] for opposing spending cuts that he actually supported. My guess is that climate disputes will receive the same treatment.
But I hope I’m wrong, and I’d urge everyone outside the climate-denial bubble to frankly acknowledge the awesome, terrifying reality. We’re looking at a party that has turned its back on science at a time when doing so puts the very future of civilization at risk. That’s the truth, and it needs to be faced head-on.
Amid war and political vitriol, Congress opts out of democracy
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/4/15
Rachel Maddow notes that while the parliaments of other democratic countries have voted to go to war against ISIS, the United States Congress hasn't bothered to vote, even as the issue of the fight against ISIS has a substantial influence on politics, particularly on the right. Duration: 17:52
[note: the complete Trump interview with Alex Jones is in the "Full Show - Donald Trump and Ted Nugent Sound Off on the Alex Jones Show - 12/02/2015" Alex Jones YouTube included below]
Pope Francis: 'Christians And Muslims Are Brothers And Sisters'
Pope Francis (C) looks on, alongside Imam Nehedid Tidjani (2-L), during a visit to the Central Mosque in Bangui on November 30, 2015. Pope Francis said on November 30 that Christians and Muslims were 'brothers', urging them to reject hatred and violence while visiting a mosque in the Central African Republic's capital which has been ravaged by sectarian conflict. GIUSEPPE CACACE via Getty Images
Pope Francis waves to faithful from a car during his visit to Central Mosque in Bangui, Central African Republic on November 30, 2015. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Pope Francis (L) arrives at the Central Mosque in the PK5 neighborhood to meet with members of the Muslim community on November 30, 2015 in Bangui. GIANLUIGI GUERCIA via Getty Images
Muslims from the PK5 neighborhood are greeted by Christians, outside the Barthelemy Baganda stadium, ahead of the arrival of Pope Francis on November 30, 2015 in Bangui. GIANLUIGI GUERCIA via Getty Images
The pope took his message of peace to the Central African Republic, where thousands have died in clashes that have split the country along religious lines.
By JOE BAVIER AND PHILIP PULLELLA 11/30/2015 10:35 am ET
Pope Francis ventured into one of the world's most dangerous neighborhoods on Monday to implore Christians and Muslims to end a spiral of hate, vendetta and bloodshed that has killed thousands over the past three years and divided a nation.
Ending his three-nation Africa tour under intense security, Francis passed through a no-man's zone to enter PK5, a district where most Muslims who have not fled Central African Republic's capital Bangui have now sought refuge. He later celebrated Mass in the national stadium before flying back to Rome.
The PK5 neighborhood has been cut off from the rest of the city for the past two months by a ring of so-called anti-balaka Christian militias, who block supplies from entering and Muslims from leaving.
A heavy deployment of United Nations peacekeepers with rifles and bullet-proof vests was present throughout PK5 and armored vehicles mounted with machine guns were positioned along the route of Pope Francis' motorcade.
U.N. sharpshooters looked out from the tops of the minarets crowning the freshly repainted green and white mosque, where hundreds of PK5's Muslims listened as Francis made an impassioned appeal for an end to the violence.
"Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters," he said after a speech by Imam Tidiani Moussa Naibi, one of the local religious leaders trying to foster dialogue.
"Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace," he said, noting that Christians, Muslims and followers of traditional religions had lived together in peace for many years.
He appealed for "an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the face of God and whose ultimate aim is to defend particular interests by any and all means."
Central African Republic descended into chaos in early 2013 when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the majority Christian country, sparking reprisals from Christian militias. Leaders from both sides say the hatred has been manipulated for political gain.
Healing rifts between Christian and Muslim communities has been a theme throughout Francis' first visit to the continent, which has also taken him to Kenya and Uganda.
However, nowhere is his call for peace and reconciliation more pressing than in Central African Republic, where thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced in clashes that have split the country along religious lines.
UNPRECEDENTED SECURITY
"Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself. God is peace, 'salam,'" the pope said, using the Arabic word for peace.
Unprecedented security measures have been laid on for the pontiff's two-day visit to the former French colony, which took place amid a surge in violence.
In addition to around 500 national police and gendarmes, Central African Republic's United Nations peacekeeping mission brought in additional forces and deployed over 3,000 soldiers in an attempt to secure the city during the pope's visit. French troops based in Bangui were also on alert.
Tit-for-tat killings in and around the tiny PK5 enclave have claimed at least 100 lives since late September, according to Human Rights Watch.
Imam Naibi has called PK5 "an open-air prison", but on Monday he struck a optimistic tone.
"The relationship between our Christian brothers and sisters and ourselves is so deep that no maneuver seeking to undermine it will succeed," he told the pope.
"The Christians and Muslims of this country are obliged to live together and love each other."
Both Christians and Muslims have welcomed the pope's visit, hoping he can spur renewed dialogue and help restore peace.
Thousands of Muslims lined the roads of PK5 to get a glimpse of the pontiff, and a group of young Muslims in cars and motorbikes ventured out of the enclave, following the pope's motorcade as it headed to the national stadium.
There, Francis was greeted by believers who packed into its 20,000 seats or onto the soccer pitch, dancing and singing.
After celebrating a final Mass before the cheering crowd, the pope took a lap around the stadium in the back of a modified Toyota pick-up before heading to the airport and flying back to Rome.
“Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable,” the letter, published Wednesday, reads.
“Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores. We are therefore alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition [ http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-11-19/republican-campaign-against-refugees-is-just-beginning ] to welcoming refugees.”
The letter (reproduced in full below) was signed by several of the country's most influential rabbis, including bestselling author Joseph Telushkin; David Ellenson, chancellor emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York; and Sharon Brous, the founding rabbi of the Jewish organization IKAR.
It calls for the country’s “elected officials to exercise moral leadership” during this challenging time, and warns the U.S. against making “the same mistake” as one made decades ago.
“In 1939, the United States refused to let the S.S. St. Louis dock in our country [ http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27373131 ], sending over 900 Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps. That moment was a stain on the history of our country -- a tragic decision made in a political climate of deep fear, suspicion and antisemitism,” the letter said. “In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy. In 2015, let us not make the same mistake.”
We, Rabbis from across the country, call on our elected officials to exercise moral leadership for the protection of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.
Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable. Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores.
We are therefore alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition to welcoming refugees.
Last month’s heartbreaking attacks in Paris and Beirut are being cited as reasons to deny entry to people who are themselves victims of terror. And in those comments, we, as Jewish leaders, see one of the darker moments of our history repeating itself.
In 1939, the United States refused to let the S.S. St. Louis dock in our country, sending over 900 Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps. That moment was a stain on the history of our country – a tragic decision made in a political climate of deep fear, suspicion and antisemitism. The Washington Post released public opinion polling from the early 1940’s, showing that the majority of U.S. citizens did not want to welcome Jewish refugees to this country in those years.
In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy. In 2015, let us not make the same mistake.
We therefore urge our elected officials to support refugee resettlement and to oppose any measures that would actually or effectively halt resettlement or prohibit or restrict funding for any groups of refugees.
As Rabbis, we take seriously the biblical mandate to “welcome the stranger.” We call on our elected officials to uphold the great legacy of a country that welcomes refugees.
As the country continues a long and dangerous campaign to root out and prevent terrorist threats, it is concerned but not helpless. Federal investigators are starting a terrorism investigation [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/us/tashfeen-malik-islamic-state.html ] in the California mass shooting, and more facts will emerge about the background of the killers and their links to the Islamic State.
Wherever the investigation leads, Americans must guard against overreaction, and subdue the panicked reflex of distrust and hatred toward the Americans among us who are Muslims. This has been a problem at least since 9/11 and will remain one as long as ignorance about Islam remains deep and widespread. Today the ignorance is being inflamed by know-nothings in the political sphere — by Republican presidential candidates calling for American Muslims to be registered and monitored, and for mosques to be spied on or shut down. Governors of more than two dozen states have declared their borders shut to Syrian refugees, in open defiance of common sense, the Constitution and human decency.
Contrast these amateurs’ panic with the behavior of law-enforcement experts, like the counter-terrorism officials of the Los Angeles Police Department who met on Thursday with Muslim-American leaders [ https://www.facebook.com/mpacnational/videos/vb.26689153393/10153900945323394/?type=2&theater ] to reassure them and the community at large that they are not alone and that they are facing this challenge together.
“Muslim communities are our strength — not our weakness,” Deputy Chief Michael Downing told The Times [ http://www.lapdonline.org/lapd_command_staff/comm_bio_view/7598 ]. “We can’t let this deteriorate our relationship or allow others to isolate or stigmatize the Muslim community.”
Chief Downing said law enforcement needs the trust and cooperation of the majority of Muslims in the mainstream, those who can raise the alarm about the radicalized few. But scapegoating and intimidation are already happening; he said a bullet-riddled Quran had been left at a mosque in Orange County, and violent threats were phoned in to the Islamic Center of Southern California. This kind of reaction to the carnage in San Bernardino, Calif., shows a free society damaging itself.
When Muslim-American leaders stood beside Farhan Khan, the brother-in-law of the shooter Syed Farook on Wednesday night, they spoke of standing “shoulder to shoulder” with the victims’ families as partners in this week’s suffering and grief.
“I cannot express how sad I am for what happened today,” Mr. Khan said, his eyes clouded by anguish and shock. “My condolences to the people who lost their life.”
Muslim-Americans, like other Americans, are horrified by the massacre and frightened at the prospect of terrorism striking here. They also carry a separate burden, having lived for years under the suspicion that ties them, broadly and unjustly, to criminal atrocities committed by killers linked to Islam. Many Muslim-Americans were doubtless concerned their own safety would be threatened by those driven by fear and hate. The mass shooting in San Bernardino may give rise to more fear, but murderous gun rampages, an everyday occurrence in the United States, have been set off by workplace resentments, anti-abortion and anti-government zealotry, paranoia, suicidal megalomania, various other forms of sociopathy, and by no evident reasons at all.
There is nothing wise — particularly from a law-enforcement and security perspective — about the urge to isolate and stigmatize Americans of any faith or heritage.
Liberty University President Tells Students To Arm Themselves So 'We Could End Those Muslims'
Melissa Cronin 12/06/15 11:31am
Liberty University’s president decided that an arena full of people whose frontal lobes have not yet finished developing was the perfect place to denounce Islam and promote carrying dangerous weapons, all in the same breath.
In an address during the school’s convocation on Friday [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/05/us/liberty-university-urges-armed-students/ ], university president Jerry Falwell Jr. began his rousing call-to-arms by referring to something he was holding in his back pocket, presumably a gun (but who knows? Maybe it was just a stick of gum):
“If some of those people in that community center had what I have in my back pocket right now … Is it illegal to pull it out? I don’t know ... I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in ... and killed them.”
“I just wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course. Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”
A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) called Falwell’s comments “rash and repugnant.”
So there you have it, from the lips of the president of the largest Christian university in the world: blessed are the concealed carriers, for they shall confer a degree.
On a Sunday appearance on ABC News, Hillary Clinton [ http://jezebel.com/tag/hillary-clinton ] condemned the president of Liberty University who earlier this week encouraged students to arm themselves and “end those Muslims.”
In an address to students following the San Bernardino attacks, Jerry Falwell, Jr. encouraged students at the influential evangelical university to get concealed weapons permits. “We offer a free course,” Falwell added [ http://gawker.com/liberty-university-president-tells-students-to-arm-them-1746505840 (just above)]. “Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”
“This is...not only hateful response to a legitimate security issue, but it is giving aid and comfort to Isis and other radical jihadists.
With respect to the gun issue, it’s legal to buy a gun in America. If you are eligible to buy a gun, you can go buy a gun – and hundreds of thousands of people apparently are in the aftermath of what happened in San Bernardino.”
On Friday, Falwell confirmed that he was a proud holder of a concealed weapons permit; he began carrying a .25 in his “back pocket” after the California shooting (he offered to “pull it out” during his address). He also added that his literal call to arms had been successful, saying that more than 100 members of the Liberty community had inquired about the weapons permit course offered by the university. Seems like a strange use of university resources.
Clinton was not the only politician to condemn Falwell’s inflammatory rhetoric. On Saturday, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe called the comments “reckless.” Falwell later clarified [id.] that he didn’t mean all Muslims as there are “many good Muslims.”
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://theslot.jezebel.com/hillary-clinton-condemns-liberty-university-presidents-1746508847 [with comments, including ( http://theslot.jezebel.com/falwell-s-comments-are-just-a-perfect-encapsulation-of-1746514627 ): "Falwell’s comments are just a perfect encapsulation of how these idiots think. The racism, of course, but also the action hero fantasy bullshit that they tell themselves. This is a dude who was never in the military, never in law enforcement, probably never been closer to a firefight than a really mean towel-snapping contest in the locker room at the club. And he thinks he’s going to pull out an itty bitty .25 popgun and take on two shooters with assault rifles and body armor. You’d have been under a table crying, Jerry. The only lesson you’d have taught them was the one they already knew: Gun nuts are cowards."]
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French far-right makes major breakthrough to top regional elections
Supporters react after the announcement of French National Front political party leader and candidate Marine Le Pen results during the first round of the regional elections at a polling station in Henin-Beaumont, France, December 6, 2015. Reuters/Pascal Rossignol
Marion Marechal-Le Pen, French National Front political party member and candidate for National Front in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur (PACA) region is surrounded by media as she leaves the polling station after casting her ballot during the first round of the regional elections. Reuters/Jean-Paul Pelissier
By Ingrid Melander and John Irish Sun Dec 6, 2015 5:47pm EST
PARIS (Reuters) - France's far-right National Front pulled off a historic win on Sunday, topping the vote in the first round of regional elections, in a breakthrough that shakes up the country's political landscape before 2017 presidential elections.
Boosted by fears over the Islamic State attacks that killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, as well as by record unemployment and immigration, Marine Le Pen's party secured 29.4 percent of the vote nationally, the interior ministry said, with over 85 percent of the votes counted.
That is the highest score ever for the anti-Europe, anti-immigration party, which came first in six regions out of 13.
"This is a historic, extraordinary result," FN lawmaker Marion Marechal-Le Pen told TF1 television. "The old system died tonight."
Twenty-five year old Marechal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and niece of party leader Marine, led the first round in southeast France with 42 percent - twice her grandfather's score there in 2010.
Run-offs will be held on Dec. 13.
Even one outright victory would be a major boost for Le Pen, who wants a base of locally elected officials to help her target power at the national level.
Her eye is on the 2017 presidential and parliamentary elections, with French politics now clearly a three-way race after Sunday's election, ending decades of domination by the Socialists and conservatives.
While the FN is well placed to win one or more regions in the Dec. 13 run-off, especially after Marine Le Pen attracted over 41 percent of the votes in the north, the Socialist party lowered its chances of doing so by announcing that it was pulling its candidates out of the race there and in the southeast.
The Socialist party is putting up a "barricade" to the far-right where it is far behind, party chief Jean-Christophe Cambadelis said. "The Left is the last shield of democratic France against the xenophobic far-right," he said.
However, opinion polls before the election had shown that Le Pen could win even if the Socialists pulled out.
"THE SHOCK"
Right-wing daily Le Figaro's front page on Monday will read "The Shock," while left-wing daily Liberation headlines "It's getting closer," referring to the party's quest for power.
The FN's success comes as a wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa boosts support for eurosceptic parties across Europe, from Germany's AfD party to Britain's anti-EU UK Independence Party and the Law and Justice government in Poland.
Long content with attracting protest votes, the FN has changed strategy since Le Pen took the party over from her father Jean-Marie in 2011, seeking to build a base of locally elected officials to target the top levels of power.
The FN has in the past won control of less than a dozen French towns, but has never taken an entire region.
Former President Nicolas Sarkozy ruled out any pact with President Francois Hollande's Socialist party to keep the far-right out.
Sarkozy's conservative Republicans party and their allies came second in the overall national vote, at just under 27 percent, behind the far-right National Front but ahead of the Socialists at 22.7 percent, according to an interim count of the votes.
The conservatives and their allies were leading in four regions, including Paris, and the Socialists in three. Sarkozy, who just a few weeks ago was hoping for a landslide victory that would boost his chances for 2017, faces a smaller victory than expected on Dec. 13 because of the FN's growing popularity.
Hollande's Socialists, who had won all but one region in 2010, face major losses next week but can hope to win points in the longer term with their decision to pull out of some regions to try and keep the FN out of power there.
French regions rule over local transport and economic development as well as high schools and vocational training, with beefed-up powers after a reform that cut their numbers from 22 to 13.
(Additional reporting by Morade Azzouz in Henin-Beaumont; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Richard Balmforth, Kevin Liffey, Andrew Callus and Jonathan Oatis)
American Muslims have alerted law enforcement to more terror suspects than U.S. intelligence has
Muslims are the most racially diverse religious group in the country
By Holly Yan, CNN Updated 6:35 AM ET, Tue December 8, 2015
(CNN)—Donald Trump unleashed a firestorm of criticism from liberals, conservatives and those in between when he called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
But while such a ban is unlikely to be implemented in a country founded by immigrants, the cheers that followed his announcement at the South Carolina rally are telling.
"I think that we should definitely disallow any Muslims from coming in. Any of them," supporter Charlie Marzka, 75, told CNN. "The reason is simple: we can't identify what their attitude is."
Indeed, the truth about Muslims in America is shocking -- but not in the way Trump and his supporters might think.
A look at polls and studies conducted in the last few years show that Muslims have been crucial in helping law enforcement find terror suspects in the United States. Many have served in the military protecting the country against terrorists [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/24/world/muslim-id-hashtag/ ]. And in many ways, they're a lot like other everyday Americans.
Here's the reality of Muslims in America -- and how it smashes stereotypes:
They are a miniscule portion of the U.S. population
It's difficult to come by hard numbers because the U.S. Census doesn't collect religious data. But the fear of Muslims taking over and imposing Sharia law is unfounded. By some estimates, Muslims make up less than 1% of the U.S. adult population [ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/ ]. By 2050, their numbers will grow -- to 2.1%. Of all the Muslims in America, 63% are exactly the kind Trump wants banned -- immigrants.
... but they're not as dogmatic as they are portrayed
Much has been made about fundamentalist Muslims and their strict interpretation of the Quran. But most American Muslims are different. A Pew religious landscape survey found [ http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ ] that 57% of American Muslims say there is more than one way to interpret Islam's teachings. A similar number says many different religions can lead to eternal life.
There have been Muslims involved in terrorism ...
Since September 11, 2001, until the end of 2014, 109 Muslim-Americans plotted against targets in the United States. And terrorism by Muslim-Americans killed 50 in the same time period. Contrast that with the deaths from other mass shootings just last year: 136 - more than twice as many as all the deaths [ http://sites.duke.edu/tcths/files/2013/06/Kurzman_Terrorism_Cases_Involving_Muslim-Americans_2014.pdf ] from 13 years of Muslim-American terrorism.
... but they've also spoken out against it
After every terrorist attack at home and abroad, the refrain rises, "Where is the Muslim condemnation?" American Muslims have spoken out -- and done much more. A Duke University study found more terrorism suspects and perpetrators were brought to the attention of law enforcement by members of the Muslim-American community [ http://sites.duke.edu/tcths/files/2013/06/Kurzman_Muslim-American_Terrorism_in_20131.pdf ] than were discovered through U.S. government investigations. And a Pew survey found that roughly half of U.S. Muslims say their religious leaders aren't speaking out enough against Islamic extremism.
I used to think that it was just me, that it was my problem, my deficiency, my moral defect.
It had to be.
All those times when I felt like an outsider in this American Jesus thing; the ever-more frequent moments when my throat constricted and my heart raced and my stomach turned.
Maybe it came in the middle of a crowded worship service or during a small group conversation. Maybe while watching the news or when scanning a blog post, or while resting in a silent, solitary moment of prayer. Maybe it was all of these times and more, when something rose up from the deepest places within me and shouted, “I can’t do this anymore! I can’t be part of this!”
These moments once overwhelmed me with panic and filled me with guilt, but lately I am stepping mercifully clear of such things.
What I’ve come to realize is that it certainly is me, but not in the way I used to believe.
I am not losing my mind. I’m not losing my faith. I’m not failing or falling or backsliding. I have simply outgrown American Christianity.
I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling. I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation. I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy. I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party. I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience. I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism. I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities. I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail. I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway.
Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in.
If religion it is to be worth holding on to, it should be the place where the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care, where the outsiders find the safest refuge.
It should be the place where diversity is fiercely pursued and equality loudly championed; where all of humanity finds a permanent home and where justice runs the show.
That is not what this thing is. This is FoxNews and red cup protests and persecution complexes. It’s opulent, big box megachurches and coddled, untouchable celebrity pastors. It’s pop culture boycotts and manufactured outrage. It’s just wars and justified shootings. It’s all manner of bullying and intolerance in the name of Jesus.
Feeling estrangement from these things is a good thing.
For the past two decades I’ve lived within the tension of trying to be in the thing and not be altered by the thing, but that tension has become too great. Ultimately it’s a spiritual compatibility issue.
It’s getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so rather than becoming less loving and staying—I’m leaving.
I’m breaking free from religion for the sake of my soul.
I’m not sure practically what that looks like, but I can feel myself consciously and forcefully pulling away; creating distance between me and a system that can no longer accommodate the scale of my God and the scope of my aspirations.
Jesus said that the Spirit moves[ https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=wind+blows&qs_version=NIV ]where it pleases, and with it go those in its glorious grip. In my heart and in the hearts of so many like me, that Spirit is boldly declaring its emancipation from the small, heavily guarded space that wants to contain it, and taking us out into the wide, breathtaking expanses of unfettered faith.
Every day people tell me that this great releasing is happening within them too; that they are finding freedom beyond the building and the box, and rediscovering a God right sized.
I am a Christian and an American, but I refuse to settle for this American Christianity any longer or be defined by it.
I know that there is something much greater beyond it worth heading toward; something that looks more like God and feels more like love.
Maybe you see it in the distance too. Maybe we can go there together.
Fear is in the rear view, freedom in the windshield.
Copyright 2015 John Pavlovitz (emphasis in original)
Study Finds People Who Fall For Nonsense Inspirational Quotes Are Less Intelligent
"The unexplainable is in the midst of boundless chaos."
By Elyse Wanshel 12/04/2015 05:24 pm ET
Have you ever found yourself scrolling through a social media feed and all of a sudden stumbling upon a quote like: “By evolving, we exist.”
And at first you’re like Oh, that’s nice and a second later, you find yourself confused?
That is because the above quote is complete bullshit. In fact, it was generated by a website called “New Age Bullshit Generator [ http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ ],” a site that randomly creates phony, spiritual, Tumblr-esque aphorisms for geeky amusement.
When Ph.D. candidate Gordon Pennycook stumbled on the site, he found it profoundly entertaining -- at first. But then he got a little disturbed:
"I thought, 'I wonder if people would actually rate such blatant bullshit as profound,'" he told The Huffington Post. "The study sort of went from there."
His study, “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit [ http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.html , http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf ],” was published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making in November. Pennycook, along with a team of researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, tested close to 800 participants on whether they could determine if a statement was bullshit.
The study, by the way, mentions the word "bullshit" in it 200 times -- and that's not a bullshit claim.
The researchers used randomly generated sayings from New Age Bullshit Generator and another site called “Wisdom of Chopra [ http://wisdomofchopra.com/ ]” -- the last a sarcastic nod to the new age teachings of best-selling alternative medicine author Deepak Chopra -- for the study.
They found that people who are receptive to this kind of “pseudo-intellectual bullshit” are less intelligent than those who aren't. The study also found that they tend to have strong religious beliefs, are not reflective and are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, alternative medicine and the paranormal.
“The basic idea is that people who are more intelligent should be better able to detect that the statements are bullshit," Pennycook told The Huffington Post. "And, similarly, that people that are more skeptical about supernatural claims should be more skeptical about the bullshit that we presented to them.”
The Huffington Post gave these generator sites a whirl, and we pulled up the following gems:
New Age Bullshit Generator
Wisdom of Deepak
New Age Bullshit Generator
Wisdom of Deepak
Defining “bullshit” outside of its literal meaning may seem like a difficult thing to do, but, holy cow, does Pennycook grab this opportunity by the horns. To help him define it, he cites the deceptively deep sentence “Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.”
The study explains: "Although this statement may seem to convey some sort of potentially profound meaning, it is merely a collection of buzzwords put together randomly in a sentence that retains syntactic structure."
"Bullshit, in contrast to mere nonsense, is something that implies but does not contain adequate meaning or truth," it continues.
In the first of four tests, participants were asked to rate how profound the statements were on a scale of one to five.
About 27 percent of subjects gave an average score of three or more, which suggests they found the sentences to be somewhere from profound to mind-blowing deep.
The second test used more bullshit-generated sentences, mixed in with tweets posted by Deepak Chopra [ https://twitter.com/DeepakChopra ].
The results of this test were similar. Many participants showed that they had a hard time telling the difference between the generated statements and Chopra’s quotes.
Just to make sure participants weren’t labeling everything as profound, researchers conducted two more tests that threw in mundane sentences like "newborn babies require constant attention."
Although most participants could spot the mundane statements, around 20 percent found them somewhat profound. Which makes us wonder: do they understand the definition of “profound?”
Trump's comments in the wake of the Paris attacks seem to have crossed a line in the eyes of some GOP elites, who are now openly calling him a fascist. Duration: 17:31
In odd twist, Trump SNL gig gives rivals free ad time
The Rachel Maddow Show 11/25/15
Rachel Maddow reports on the how four Republican candidates will be given free ad time on some NBC networks to make up for the time Donald Trump spent on the air recently as the host of Saturday Night Live. Duration: 10:12
Republicans are taking Donald Trump head-on. John Kasich and his super PAC released two ads hitting Trump, and a new conservative group is planning a "guerilla campaign" against the frontrunner. Michael Steele and Jonathan Alter join Lawrence for more. Duration: 12:35
On this Wednesday, December 2 edition of the Alex Jones Show we look at the double standard operating on American college campuses as a Black Lives Matter supporter who promised to carry out a racially-motivated rampage against “white devils" is allowed to return to the University of Chicago. We also cover how the White House was forced to admit it would backtrack on its countless promises there would be “no boots on the ground” in Iraq and the hypocrisy of the State Department as it complains about Russia closing down the Soros color revolution machine. Special guest billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump discusses attacks from the liberal media attempting to derail his campaign. On today’s worldwide broadcast we talk with legendary rocker Ted Nugent and Lord Christopher Monckton who was part of a Heartland Institute delegation attending the COP21 warmist confab in Paris.
Ted Nugent Says He Would Make A Great President, Would Have Launched Jewish Rebellion Against The Holocaust 12/4/2015 In an enlightening interview with Alex Jones yesterday, conservative musician and NRA board member Ted Nugent declared that Americans need to “cleanse this country” of “subhuman freak” liberals like President Obama and Nancy Pelosi who want people “bending over and taking it in the ass.” The two then laid out how America would be great if only someone like Donald Trump or Ted Cruz were to become president … or maybe Nugent himself. Nugent fashioned himself as not only a good president, but also as someone who could have thwarted the Nazis had he lived in the 1930s. [...] http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-nugent-says-he-would-make-great-president-would-have-launched-jewish-rebellion-against-h [with embedded video of the Nugent segment included in this full-show YouTube]
Michigan Lawmaker: 'We Can't Make An African-American White'
State Sen. Marty Knollenberg says his comments were misinterpreted. 12/05/2015 A Michigan state lawmaker has come under fire for responding to data showing educational disparities by saying "we can't make an African-American white." State Sen. Marty Knollenberg (R) made the comment during a hearing Thursday after seeing state data breaking down academic performance among different demographic groups. The data indicated most students who were struggling were students of color, Knollenberg later told WXYZ Detroit [ http://www.wxyz.com/news/state-sen-knollenberg-responds-to-outrage-over-comments-perceived-as-racist ]. "You mention why these schools districts fail, and you mention economically disadvantaged and non-white population are contributors to that. And we can’t fix that. We can’t make an African-American white," he said at the meeting. "That's just, it is what it is." A spokesman for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) told WXYZ that the state officials presenting the data specifically did not suggest causality between race or economic status and academic achievement. [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marty-knollenberg-african-americans-white_56631e64e4b072e9d1c66d9d [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUxOmd0iAJs [as embedded; with comments]
Fernandez calls Trump a 'hater' and 'BULLYionaire.'
By Marc Caputo 12/04/15 01:47 PM EST Updated 12/04/15 07:46 PM EST
Calling Donald Trump “a hater” and a “narcissistic BULLYionaire,” Jeb Bush’s biggest donor has decided on his own to take out full page ads trashing the Republican poll leader in newspapers in Miami, Las Vegas and Des Moines.
Fernandez said he decided to make the ads on his own out of frustration with Trump and his supporters, whom he describes as “a segment of the electorate who have come to think of Trump as a god, when in fact he is worse than the devil himself.”
“Look at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Peron in Argentina. When people lose hope, they are susceptible to those who offer to think for them. Today, in our midst, one ‘popular’ man stands first in the polls,” the ad says. “The more divisive and outrageous he is, the more he appeals to some people. I worry as I witness whipped-up crowds emboldening and encouraging forked-tongue hatefulness.”
Fernandez, who arrived in the U.S. as a penniless 12-year-old Cuban immigrant in 1964 and became a self-made health care tycoon, said he’s particularly infuriated with Trump’s rhetoric concerning undocumented immigrants and his opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. But, Fernandez said, Trump’s “hateful” rhetoric extends far beyond immigrants.
Fernandez said he came up with the idea on his own and didn’t share it with the Bush campaign or Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting the former Florida governor.
“This is me talking. This is what I believe in,” Fernandez said. “And there will be more of it. These aren’t the last bullets I’ll shoot.”
Top Jeb Bush political donor in Miami: I’ll vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump Billionaire Mike Fernandez is fed up with the GOP backing Trump He bought anti-Trump newspaper ads He says he won’t back Trump if he’s the party’s nominee December 4, 2015 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/elections-2016/article48067815.html [with comments]
*
Donald Trump threatens to sue Jeb Bush donor in Miami who bought anti-Trump ads Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Saturday in Davenport, Iowa. Trump sent health magnate Mike Fernandez a letter Friday It warned about legal action over Fernandez’s newspaper ads Trump also sent the letter to a pro-Bush PAC December 7, 2015 http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/elections-2016/article48446165.html [with comments]
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At Donald Trump Rally in North Carolina, the Protesters Just Keep Coming
Protesters were escorted out of a Donald J. Trump rally in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday. Credit Ray Whitehouse for The New York Times
By Nick Corasaniti Dec. 5, 2015 12:07 am ET
RALEIGH, N.C. – The calls for “Security!” rang out through the crowd near the podium 15 minutes before the event even began.
Loud boos poured down from the rafters of the cavernous arena, as three police officers quickly descended on the man with a long ponytail wearing a brown hoodie, who walked out peacefully.
That early escort, for what other attendees described as rude behavior, set the tone for one of the most protest-riddled campaign rallies held yet by Donald J. Trump. More than two dozen people were escorted from the event at Dorton Arena here for various forms of protest, causing the candidate to stop his stump speech about 10 times until the shouts and boos subsided.
“Be very nice to the protester,” Mr. Trump said after he was interrupted just five minutes into his speech. He then paused to discuss the demonstrators, making sure to criticize the way the news media covers the protests at his events.
“When I’m rough and I say ‘Get them out of the room,’ they say, ‘Oh, that’s terrible,’ ” Mr. Trump said, mimicking media reports. “Then when I’m nice, I say, ‘Be very careful, be very gentle, don’t hurt the protester,’ then they say, ‘He was very weak tonight.’ So you can’t win. So I’ll try and cut it right down the middle. Make sure that young lady is in beautiful shape, and if she’d like us to let her back in, do we invite her back in? I don’t know.”
The protesters came armed with various chants and signs. Two women who brought red signs reading “Stop the hate. We make America great” were quickly confronted as they began shouting. A female Trump supporter standing nearby grabbed the signs, ripped them up and threw them on the ground.
“If I wasn’t afraid of getting in trouble, I would have pulled their hair or I would have punched them, but I don’t want to get in trouble,” the woman, who declined to give her name, said after the event.
Another group, high in the bleachers, began shouting “Black lives matter” during a question-and-answer period. They were quickly blanketed by supporters, who blocked their faces with big “Trump” signs, eventually encasing them in placards before security walked them down the stairs and out, although apparently too slowly for Mr. Trump.
“Why didn’t you take them out the nearest door instead of walking them through the whole place?” a clearly annoyed Mr. Trump said.
Other incidents were less peaceful. A man with his hair pulled back into a bun and sporting a scraggly beard began shouting loudly, peppering accusations of fascism with profanity. He was forcefully shoved into a metal barrier by a Trump supporter, before officers quickly grabbed the shouter and escorted him out.
At first, the supporters in the crowd of more than 7,000 – drastically outnumbering those protesting – seemed on guard, ready to defend their candidate with shouts, shoves and boos, or, their favorite tactic, blocking demonstrators’ faces and bodies with numerous “Trump” campaign signs.
But by the end of the rally, they seemed simply annoyed. One man, clad in a checkered peacoat, started shouting, “Love, not hate! We’re not a fascist country!” People around him glanced at him, one woman nearby saying, “Shut up, dude,” as he got through about four rounds of his chant. Eventually, a guard grabbed him by the arm and pulled him through the crowd. People just stared at him as he went by.
The protests appeared to wear on Mr. Trump.
“There’s hatred between people, we want to bring it together,” he said, with a slight sigh, as four protesters were escorted down from the bleachers.
He added: “Our country is so divided, it’s such a sad thing.”
Related Coverage
95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Donald Trump’s Tongue DEC. 5, 2015 “Something bad is happening,” Donald J. Trump [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/16/us/elections/donald-trump.html ] warned New Hampshire voters Tuesday night, casting suspicions on Muslims and mosques. “Something really dangerous is going on.” On Thursday evening, his message was equally ominous, as he suggested a link between the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and President Obama’s failure to say “radical Islamic terrorism.” “There is something going on with him that we don’t know about,” Mr. Trump said of the president, drawing applause from the crowd in Washington. The dark power of words has become the defining feature of Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House to a degree rarely seen in modern politics, as he forgoes the usual campaign trappings — policy, endorsements, commercials, donations — and instead relies on potent language to connect with, and often stoke, the fears and grievances of Americans. The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months. The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns, demonstrating how Mr. Trump has built one of the most surprising political movements in decades and, historians say, echoing the appeals of some demagogues of the past century. [...] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/politics/95000-words-many-of-them-ominous-from-donald-trumps-tongue.html
President Obama delivered remarks from the Oval Office on the U.S. counter-terrorism strategy both at home and abroad. December 6, 2015.
*
Address to the Nation by the President
Oval Office December 06, 2015
8:01 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. On Wednesday, 14 Americans were killed as they came together to celebrate the holidays. They were taken from family and friends who loved them deeply. They were white and black; Latino and Asian; immigrants and American-born; moms and dads; daughters and sons. Each of them served their fellow citizens and all of them were part of our American family.
Tonight, I want to talk with you about this tragedy, the broader threat of terrorism, and how we can keep our country safe.
The FBI is still gathering the facts about what happened in San Bernardino, but here is what we know. The victims were brutally murdered and injured by one of their coworkers and his wife. So far, we have no evidence that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home. But it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West. They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs. So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people.
Our nation has been at war with terrorists since al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11. In the process, we’ve hardened our defenses -- from airports to financial centers, to other critical infrastructure. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted countless plots here and overseas, and worked around the clock to keep us safe. Our military and counterterrorism professionals have relentlessly pursued terrorist networks overseas -- disrupting safe havens in several different countries, killing Osama bin Laden, and decimating al Qaeda’s leadership.
Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase. As we’ve become better at preventing complex, multifaceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turned to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society. It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood in 2009; in Chattanooga earlier this year; and now in San Bernardino. And as groups like ISIL grew stronger amidst the chaos of war in Iraq and then Syria, and as the Internet erases the distance between countries, we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people like the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernardino killers.
For seven years, I’ve confronted this evolving threat each morning in my intelligence briefing. And since the day I took this office, I’ve authorized U.S. forces to take out terrorists abroad precisely because I know how real the danger is. As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the security of the American people. As a father to two young daughters who are the most precious part of my life, I know that we see ourselves with friends and coworkers at a holiday party like the one in San Bernardino. I know we see our kids in the faces of the young people killed in Paris. And I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure.
Well, here’s what I want you to know: The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us. Our success won’t depend on tough talk, or abandoning our values, or giving into fear. That’s what groups like ISIL are hoping for. Instead, we will prevail by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by drawing upon every aspect of American power.
Here’s how. First, our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary. In Iraq and Syria, airstrikes are taking out ISIL leaders, heavy weapons, oil tankers, infrastructure. And since the attacks in Paris, our closest allies -- including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom -- have ramped up their contributions to our military campaign, which will help us accelerate our effort to destroy ISIL.
Second, we will continue to provide training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground so that we take away their safe havens. In both countries, we’re deploying Special Operations Forces who can accelerate that offensive. We’ve stepped up this effort since the attacks in Paris, and we’ll continue to invest more in approaches that are working on the ground.
Third, we’re working with friends and allies to stop ISIL’s operations -- to disrupt plots, cut off their financing, and prevent them from recruiting more fighters. Since the attacks in Paris, we’ve surged intelligence-sharing with our European allies. We’re working with Turkey to seal its border with Syria. And we are cooperating with Muslim-majority countries -- and with our Muslim communities here at home -- to counter the vicious ideology that ISIL promotes online.
Fourth, with American leadership, the international community has begun to establish a process -- and timeline -- to pursue ceasefires and a political resolution to the Syrian war. Doing so will allow the Syrian people and every country, including our allies, but also countries like Russia, to focus on the common goal of destroying ISIL -- a group that threatens us all.
This is our strategy to destroy ISIL. It is designed and supported by our military commanders and counterterrorism experts, together with 65 countries that have joined an American-led coalition. And we constantly examine our strategy to determine when additional steps are needed to get the job done. That’s why I’ve ordered the Departments of State and Homeland Security to review the visa waiver program under which the female terrorist in San Bernardino originally came to this country. And that’s why I will urge high-tech and law enforcement leaders to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape from justice.
Now, here at home, we have to work together to address the challenge. There are several steps that Congress should take right away.
To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.
We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino. I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures. But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies -- no matter how effective they are -- cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do -- and must do -- is make it harder for them to kill.
Next, we should put in place stronger screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a hard look at whether they’ve traveled to warzones. And we’re working with members of both parties in Congress to do exactly that.
Finally, if Congress believes, as I do, that we are at war with ISIL, it should go ahead and vote to authorize the continued use of military force against these terrorists. For over a year, I have ordered our military to take thousands of airstrikes against ISIL targets. I think it’s time for Congress to vote to demonstrate that the American people are united, and committed, to this fight.
My fellow Americans, these are the steps that we can take together to defeat the terrorist threat. Let me now say a word about what we should not do.
We should not be drawn once more into a long and costly ground war in Iraq or Syria. That’s what groups like ISIL want. They know they can’t defeat us on the battlefield. ISIL fighters were part of the insurgency that we faced in Iraq. But they also know that if we occupy foreign lands, they can maintain insurgencies for years, killing thousands of our troops, draining our resources, and using our presence to draw new recruits.
The strategy that we are using now -- airstrikes, Special Forces, and working with local forces who are fighting to regain control of their own country -- that is how we’ll achieve a more sustainable victory. And it won’t require us sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil.
Here’s what else we cannot do. We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world -- including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology. Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.
That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.
But just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization, it is the responsibility of all Americans -- of every faith -- to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. Because when we travel down that road, we lose. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes -- and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that.
My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history. We were founded upon a belief in human dignity -- that no matter who you are, or where you come from, or what you look like, or what religion you practice, you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law.
Even in this political season, even as we properly debate what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe, let’s make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional. Let’s not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear; that we have always met challenges -- whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks -- by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people. So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.
Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
ISIS is the best thing that happened to Donald Trump since he narrowly averted bankruptcy as a real estate mogul. And Donald Trump is the best thing to happen to ISIS since George W. Bush blew up the status quo in the Middle East by needlessly invading Iraq.
The new normal is random acts of mayhem, inspired, but not coordinated by, ISIS. We have feared something like this ever since the attacks of 9/11. Until now, these were problems for somebody else's country like Spain or France, places where home-grown, deeply alienated Muslim young people were either recruited and orchestrated by radical Islamists, or looked to ISIS for inspiration.
Now the reality of free-lance terrorists has come home. If mayhem can strike an obscure health facility in San Bernardino, it can strike anywhere. All it takes is a young Muslim or Muslims with no record of radical activity (and therefore no police file or intelligence footprint) to become sufficiently radicalized and alienated.
With weapons easily purchased in the U.S., it's just too easy to assemble an arsenal and evade detection -- unless we want to solve the unemployment problem by becoming a police state.
This new reality has several consequences. First, it means that even if we obliterate ISIS in Syria and Iraq, mutant radicalism will keep proliferating in our own backyard. For this, there is no easy cure, even if we increase the surveillance state ten-fold.
My wife and I went to a Broadway show over the weekend. There, just inside the entrance, was a benign looking golden retriever, who turned out to be a bomb-sniffing dog. As we walked in, a friendly local patrolman said to the dog's handler, "Call me if you need me."
Are you kidding? You can just imagine the result if suicide commandoes with AK-47s chose to assault that theatre. The dog would be hamburger along with dozens, if not hundreds, of patrons.
By escalating fear of random attack, anywhere, anytime, ISIS has changed one other fact on the ground. Attacks like these are the best windfall for the Republican Party since 9/11.
As you may recall, George W. Bush was feckless and adrift until the events of that awful day. After a day of Dick Cheney running the country while Air Force One flew aimlessly around, Bush was reborn as a wartime president, repeatedly declaring that he'd found the defining mission of his presidency. His gratuitous war in Iraq seeded today's conflicts.
By the same token, the Republican field was a stalemated mess until the latest attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Trump was ahead, but not decisively ahead, while various anti-Trump figures were jostling for position and canceling each other out. Party leaders were wringing their hands, knowing that Trump could drag down the whole party [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/politics/wary-of-donald-trump-gop-leaders-are-caught-in-a-standoff.html ] and that a Macro Rubio would likely be a much stronger candidate in the general election, but had an uphill climb to be nominated.
But that was then. Americans are increasingly terrified, and the tough-guy bravado of Trump is just what the moment rewards. Every new attack boosts Trump's standing in the polls.
So escalating Islamist radicalism is a gift to Donald Trump. If attacks continue and the country is increasingly terrified, those unnamed Republican leaders could well decide that Trump as GOP standard-bearer in the general election is not such a bad idea. He might even win.
Then you have to wonder what happens next -- a religious test for immigrants and refugees? A mass round-up of Muslims on the model of the World War II Japanese internment? A mass-surveillance state?
What's less obvious is how the Republicans help ISIS. But consider: The right wing's fervent defense of the right to buy assault weapons makes the U.S. a sitting duck for random mayhem. Yes, terrorists were able sneak weapons into France, where gun laws are much tougher, but that's because the cops were asleep at the switch. Several earlier plots involving those guys had been foiled. They were on the radar screen and should have been intercepted before they struck.
America, by contrast, is a terrorist's paradise -- not because of civil liberties but because of the ease of purchase of military arms. All of the assault weapons purchased for the San Bernardino attack were bought legally. Terrorists getting more assault weapons, committing more random attacks, generating more fear, producing more support for the insane premise that armed Americans might stop such attacks, equals a virtuous circle for the NRA and the GOP.
And there is a second way in which Donald Trump and other rightwing Republicans are ISIS' best friends. Every time Trump disparages Muslims who are not radicals, he increases the chances that some will turn into radicals. Trump's collected speeches are like an ISIS recruiting video.
Take a close look, and none of the right wing bravado adds up to a serious program for containing or destroying Islamist radicalism, either in the Middle East or at home. But with Americans increasingly afraid, it may have more appeal than rational leadership.
In recent years, business elites have had the fantasy that a billionaire savior is just what the Republic needs. They had in mind a thoughtful moderate like Michael Bloomberg, not a swaggering demagogue like Donald Trump.
For more than two centuries, America has navigated crises without succumbing to the temptation to turn to a dictator. This could be our closest call yet -- if we are lucky.
President Obama's Oval Office address Sunday night [just above] was one of his best, reminding Americans that "tough talk," or "giving into fear," or discrimination against Muslims will not keep us safe. His speech was forceful, yet rooted in reality and respectful of the complexity of the challenge that we face. It was the opposite of demagoguery.
It is Barack Obama's fate to be a relatively soft spoken and measured leader -- and Hillary Clinton's fate to be a woman -- at a time when too many Americans are looking for a simplistic macho cross between Mussolini and Patton. Somewhere in hell, the zealots of ISIS and the extremists of the Republican Party are doing a danse macabre together.
"Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine," Trump said in the statement. "Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again."
The White House, through spokesman Josh Earnest, quickly condemned the comment. Earnest told MSNBC Monday afternoon that the proposal is "entirely inconsistent with the kinds of values that were central to the founding of this country."
"Not only is it contrary to our values, but if we actually want to have a comprehensive strategy for combatting extremist elements in the Muslim community, then we actually need to work with the Muslim community, work with Muslim leaders to root out those voices and to root out that messaging," Earnest said.
Donald Trump, who has now called for a ban on Muslim immigration, has ushered the spirit of bigotry onto the main stage of American politics more overtly than any figure in decades. Credit Photograph by Joe Raedle / Getty
By Evan Osnos December 7, 2015
On Monday afternoon, the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, called for the United States to bar all Muslims, including American citizens who are Muslim and currently abroad, from entering the country until leaders can “figure out what is going on.” Trump’s statement, five days after a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, and several hours after a new poll showing that Trump had lost his lead in Iowa, advocates a religious prohibition that is unlike anything in American history.
On June 28th, twelve days after Trump’s announcement, the Daily Stormer, America’s most popular neo-Nazi news site, endorsed him for President: “Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: it’s time to deport these people.” The Daily Stormer urged white men to “vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests.” … Matthew Heimbach, who is twenty-four, and a prominent white-nationalist activist in Cincinnati, told me that Trump has energized disaffected young men like him. “He is bringing people back out of their slumber,” he said.
In the days ahead, some may dismiss Trump as more of an opportunist than a considered racist, a politician desperate to help his poll numbers [ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/262306-poll-cruz-surges-ahead-of-trump-carson-in-iowa ] in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses. But the harder question is more awkward to ask: What does it say about all of us, as Americans, that he has made it so far? Trump is adept at dividing the world into “us” and “them,” because he knows that audiences find it comforting. But to pretend that we have not allowed his spirit to fester is to grant ourselves a measure of relief that we do not deserve.
Trump Goes Over the Brink, Calls for Banning Muslims From Entering the Country
Donald Trump. Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
By Ed Kilgore December 7, 2015 5:50 p.m.
It's become something of a joke to notice that Donald Trump greets each Islamophobic lurch to the right by the Republican Party and his presidential rivals by staking out a new position beyond what had earlier been the pale. It's getting to be not so funny.
With Republicans going collectively nuts over President Obama's calm and decidedly non-Islamophobic speech [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/us/politics/obama-speech-terrorism.html ] on terrorism Sunday night, it seems Trump figured he'd better leap to a place where nobody this side of the gates of delirium has been: proposing [ http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-shutdown-muslim-immigration (above)] a "total and [if that's not enough!] complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." How long would this emergency measure last? "[U]ntil our country's representatives can figure out what's going on." Given Trump's general attitude toward "our country's representatives," that would appear to mean until he's inaugurated as president and we see how many Muslims (and others) voluntarily flee elsewhere.
Trump's statement justifies this step by quoting a survey from that fine objective source the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney's Islamophobic fever swamp [ https:/www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frank-gaffney-jr , https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/center-immigration-studies-reports ], claiming Muslims are seething with hatred for America. But it is reasonably clear that "Muslims" here or abroad are no different from the way they were a week ago, and furthermore, that a conspiracy among all of them to kill people at a social-services center in San Bernardino is about as likely as Donald Trump showing some self-restraint.
On the outside chance that Trump is elected president, we should all pray this is his last stop on the road to a very different America where religious tests are suddenly constitutional and huge categories of people are treated as presumptive terrorists. He's already called for [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/politics/donald-trump-paris-attacks-close-mosques/index.html ] a database of all Muslims and for monitoring and perhaps shutting down mosques. More generally, he's already promising to do everything within his power to alienate allied countries with significant Muslim populations, while ignoring the suffering of the Muslims who are the primary victims of ISIS and their ilk. But one can theoretically imagine the next Trump step: maybe expulsions of Muslims already here; maybe the compulsory wearing of yellow crescents; and maybe something worse we have yet to imagine.
December 7, 2015: GOP Presidential candidate and front-runner Donald Trump held a Pearl Harbor Day Rally on the USS Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, SC and spoke to thousands of supporters.
Donald Trump Calls for Barring Muslims From Entering U.S.
By Patrick Healy and Michael Barbaro Dec. 7, 2015 4:36 pm ET Updated, 10:42 p.m.
Donald J. Trump called on Monday for the United States to bar all Muslims from entering the country until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on” after the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., an extraordinary escalation of rhetoric aimed at voters’ fears about members of the Islamic faith.
A prohibition of Muslims – an unprecedented proposal by a leading American presidential candidate, and an idea more typically associated with hate groups – reflects a progression of mistrust that is rooted in ideology as much as politics.
Saying that “hatred” among many Muslims for Americans is “beyond comprehension,” Mr. Trump said in a statement that the United States needed to confront “where this hatred comes from and why.”
“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Mr. Trump said.
Repudiation of Mr. Trump’s remarks was swift and severe among religious groups and politicians from both parties [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trumps-republican-rivals-condemn-his-call-to-ban-muslims-from-entering-u-s/ ]. Mr. Trump is “unhinged,” said one Republican rival, former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, while another, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, called the ban “offensive and outlandish.” Hillary Clinton said the idea was “reprehensible, prejudiced and divisive.” Organizations representing Jews, Christians and those of other faiths quickly joined Muslims in denouncing Mr. Trump’s proposal.
“Rooting our nation’s immigration policy in religious bigotry and discrimination will not make America great again,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of Interfaith Alliance, putting a twist on Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan.
Experts on immigration law and policy expressed shock at the proposal Monday afternoon.
“This is just so antithetical to the history of the United States,” said Nancy Morawetz, a professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, who specializes in immigration. “It’s unbelievable to have a religious test for admission into the country.”
She added: “I cannot recall any historical precedent for denying immigration based on religion.”
Putting the policy into practice would require an unlikely act of Congress, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor of law at Cornell and a prominent authority on immigration.
Should Congress enact such a law, he predicted, the Supreme Court would invalidate it as an overly restrictive immigration policy under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
“It would certainly be challenged as unconstitutional,” he said. “And I predict the Supreme Court would strike it down.”
Mr. Trump has a track record of making surprising and even extreme comments whenever he is overtaken in opinion polls by other Republican candidates – as happened on Monday just hours before he issued his statement about Muslims. A new Monmouth University survey of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers found that Mr. Trump had slipped from his recent top spot in the state, which holds the first presidential nomination contest on Feb. 1. According to the poll, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas earned 24 percent of support, while Mr. Trump had 19 percent and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had 17 percent. But another Iowa poll released on Monday, by CNN/OCR, showed Mr. Trump with a comfortable lead but Mr. Cruz gaining ground on him [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/us/politics/after-months-of-lying-in-wait-and-watching-rivals-ted-cruz-sees-payoff-in-polls.html ].
Mr. Trump, who boasts about his strong poll numbers at the beginning of virtually every campaign speech, launched an unusually stinging attack [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/13/trump-asks-iowans-how-stupid-are-they-to-believe-carson/ ] against Ben Carson, another Republican candidate, when Mr. Carson took a lead in Iowa polls this fall; Mr. Trump, citing Mr. Carson’s memoir about his sometimes-violent youth, called him “pathological” and compared his state of mind to a child molester’s.
Several Republican strategists and politicians said they believe that Mr. Trump’s maneuver against Muslims was partly a challenge to Mr. Cruz and other Republicans to stake out positions on terrorism that were as audacious as his own. But they also said that the ban reflected anxiety and anger among many voters that the federal government was not acting aggressively enough to protect them at home.
“I think Trump’s idea may be too strong, but I think something jarring is very helpful in leading to a national debate in how big this problem is, and how dangerous it is,” said Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker of the House who ran for president in 2012. “Nine percent of Pakistanis agree with ISIS, according to one poll. That’s a huge number. We need to put all the burden of proof on people coming from those countries to show that they are not a danger to us.”
Tens of thousands of Muslims enter and stay in the United States each year as tourists or through the immigration system, experts say, with an estimated 100,000 Muslims becoming United States permanent residents in 2012, according to the Pew Research Center. The United States issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in the five-year period from fiscal year 2009 through fiscal year 2013, according to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, which cited data from the Department of Homeland Security.
At a rally at the U.S.S. Yorktown in South Carolina on Monday night [just above], Mr. Trump drew sustained cheers from the audience as he outlined his idea for the ban.
“We have no choice,” Mr. Trump said. “Our country cannot be the victim of tremendous attacks by people who believe only in jihad.”
While several Republican presidential candidates have called for increased intelligence gathering and more aggressive investigations of suspected terrorists, as well as a halt to Muslim refugees entering the United States from Syria, Mr. Trump’s pointed suspicions about Muslims have been in a category by themselves.
At his campaign rallies, he has drawn strong applause from thousands of voters for his calls on the government to monitor mosques, and he has refused to rule out his earlier proposal to enter names of Muslims in America into a database. He has also made a series of ominous comments about President Obama’s leadership in fighting terrorism [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/politics/95000-words-many-of-them-ominous-from-donald-trumps-tongue.html ], suggesting that there was “something going on” with Mr. Obama that Americans were not aware of.
In his statement, Mr. Trump quoted a poll by the Center for Security Policy, whose president and founder, Frank Gaffney, has claimed that President Obama is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist political movement born in Egypt, and that agents of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the U.S. government, the Republican Party and conservative political organizations.
Barring non-citizen Muslims from the United States has drawn support from organizations like the Society of Americans for National Existence and the Daily Stormer, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as hate groups.
The proposal drew immediate condemnation from Muslim-Americans. Eboo Patel, the president of Interfaith Youth Core, based in Chicago, said, “I’m standing in a building right now where I am looking up at the Sears Tower, which was designed by Fazlur Rahman Khan,” a structural engineer originally from Bangladesh who was behind what is now known as the Willis Tower.
“What if we had barred Russians from America because of the Cold War? Who would have invented Google?” Mr. Patel asked, referring to Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin.
While many critics of Mr. Trump reassured themselves that neither he nor his idea would ultimately go anywhere, they were aghast that a mainstream presidential candidate would ever utter it.
“It would be particularly bizarre,” said Ms. Morawetz, “to have an immigration test based on religion given that the country was founded by people who were fleeing religious persecution.”
Donald Trump’s message, particularly when it comes to terrorism, is uncannily similar to that of France’s far-right National Front. Credit Photograph by Noam Galai / WireImage via Getty
By John Cassidy December 7, 2015
This post was updated on Monday evening, after Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
On Saturday, Donald Trump took his rabble-rousing Presidential campaign to Davenport, Iowa, and, naturally enough, he addressed the attack that took place in San Bernardino on Wednesday, and the fact that the two perpetrators appear to have been inspired by the Islamic State. “That shit is not going to happen any more,” Trump told a cheering crowd [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-iowa-siege-mentality-216455 ]. “We’re going to be so vigilant. We’re going to be so careful. We’re going to be so tough and so mean and so nasty.”
Just how mean and nasty? Trump didn’t say. He did, though, point out that his support has grown since last month’s terror attack in Paris—a fact confirmed by a new poll [ http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/12/04/cnnorc12042015gopprimarypoll.pdf ], released on Friday, by CNN, that shows him more than twenty points ahead of his nearest Republican rival, Ben Carson. “Every time things get worse, I do better,” Trump said. “People want strength.”
That might be true, but the number of people who respond positively to the windy brand of toughness that Trump is offering shouldn’t be overestimated. About forty per cent of voting-age Americans identify themselves as Republicans or leaning Republican, and the latest polls show him garnering about thirty per cent of their support. This suggests that perhaps twelve per cent of the American electorate can be counted as members of the round-’em-up/put-’em-on-a-watch-list/send-’em-back brigade. (It should be noted, however, that the poll was carried out before the attack in San Bernardino.)
Meanwhile, France has supplied a disturbing example of how terror attacks can generate support for an authoritarian backlash against immigrants and Muslims. On Sunday, the ultra-right-wing National Front made big gains in the country’s regional elections [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35018849 ]. Exit polls suggested that the Party, which is led by Marine Le Pen, had won about thirty per cent of the vote, well ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right Republican Party and President François Hollande’s center-left Socialist Party. Depending on what happens in the run-off elections, next month, the National Front could end up controlling local governments in vast swaths of France.
While rising support for the National Front predates the two major terrorist strikes that took place this year in Paris, concerns about Islamic radicalism and rising antagonism toward immigrants undoubtedly helped Le Pen and her colleagues. In the wake of last month’s coördinated attacks on the Bataclan theatre and other sites, Le Pen restated her earlier call [ http://www.amren.com/news/2015/09/marine-le-pen-calls-for-end-to-legal-immigration-to-france/ ] for an end to all immigration into France, legal and illegal. She said that the mainstream parties had failed to protect the French people and demanded an immediate police crackdown. “Islamist fundamentalism must be annihilated,” she said [ http://www.fdesouche.com/668917-marine-le-pen-la-france-et-les-francais-ne-sont-plus-en-securite ]. “France must ban Islamist organizations, close radical mosques, and expel foreigners who preach hatred in our country as well as illegal migrants who have nothing to do here.”
In some ways, Trump hasn’t gone as far as Le Pen. He still favors legal immigration, for example. But, in other ways, his message is uncannily similar to Le Pen’s; on one issue, he’s even outdone her. On Monday, he issued a statement calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” In typical fashion, Trump didn’t provide any details or background material to support his proposal, which came hours after polls showed Ted Cruz leading him in Iowa. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump said in the statement. “If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again.”
Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-im-not-playing-on-fears-of-muslims/ ]” on Sunday, Trump stepped up his attacks on President Obama for failing to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism,” and said that the United States wouldn’t defeat ISIS until Obama “gets the hell out” of the White House. Trump also called for stepped-up surveillance of Muslim communities and institutions, such as mosques, and he endorsed police profiling of Muslim individuals.
“I think there can be profiling,” Trump said [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-won-beat-terror-obama-hell-article-1.2456852 ]. And, he went on, “A lot of people are dead right now. So everybody wants to be politically correct, and that’s part of the problem that we have with our country.” He later added, “You have people that have to be tracked. If they’re Muslims, they’re Muslims.”
For now, at least, some of the other Republican candidates are distancing themselves from Trump’s most incendiary statements. “The fact is, we don’t need to be profiling in order to be able to get the job done here,” Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, said, also on “Face the Nation.” He cited what happened after 9/11 in New Jersey and other states, where the authorities created closer relationships with Muslim communities and mosques but didn’t engage in overt profiling. “What you need is a President who’s had the experience and the know-how to do this,” Christie said [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/06/donald-trump-and-chris-christie-square-off-over-racial-profiling/ ], “and not someone who’s just going to talk off the top of their head.”
On ABC News’s “This Week,” Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, expressed similar sentiments [ http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-hillary-clinton-jeb-bush/story?id=35596885 ]. “We don’t have to target the religion,” Bush said. “We just have to target those that have coöpted the religion and make sure that we’re fully aware of the radicalizations taking place, not just here but all around the world.” On Monday evening, in response to Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, Christie and Bush criticized him again. “This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don’t know what they are talking about,” Christie said on a radio show. “We do not need to resort to that type of activity, nor should we.” Bush tweeted, “Donald Trump is unhinged. His ‘policy’ proposals are not serious.”
It remains to be seen whether this measured attitude will survive contact with the G.O.P.’s base. As I write this, the Real Clear Politics poll average [ http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_republican_presidential_nomination-3823.html ] shows Christie and Bush garnering the backing of 6.8 per cent of potential Republican voters, between them. Trump has 29.5 per cent. With the American public increasingly alarmed about the possibility of future terrorist attacks, and with conservative commentators baying for blood, it is far from clear that reason and restraint will be rewarded. “As much as anyone may disagree with his policies (and I do), Trump is not hurting himself with GOP voters with his negativity toward Muslims,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a Republican strategist who advised Mitt Romney in 2012, said on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/EricFehrn/status/673998866392457216 ] Monday evening. He followed up by writing [ https://twitter.com/EricFehrn/status/674003301541769216 ], “Sad but true: GOP attitudes toward Muslims are very low, especially among white Evangelical Protestants (i.e. Iowa)”
The mocking tone is one of Trump’s defining characteristics. Another—as the Times pointed out this weekend, in an analysis of his public comments [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/politics/95000-words-many-of-them-ominous-from-donald-trumps-tongue.html ]—is a relentless focus on the threat to America, and to American values, presented by outsiders of various kinds: Mexican immigrants, Syrian refugees, radical Muslims. A third trait of his campaign is the constant refrain that he will restore American greatness.
How far can Trump push it? To repeat, the polls suggest that his support is limited, however vocal it may be. And unlike Marine Le Pen, he doesn’t have a separate political party behind him. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, formed the National Front in 1972, and it has spent more than four decades agitating and building up its presence at the local level. But it wasn’t until the telegenic Marine took over as the Party’s leader, in 2011, and set out to “de-demonize” its public image that the National Front became a serious threat to the mainstream parties.
For now, Trump is trying to coöpt the Republican Party, some elements of which regard him as a cancer. If, as remains the most likely outcome, the Party unites around somebody to defeat him in the upcoming primary, he could still end up running in the general election as an independent or third-party candidate. (Just last week, he repeated that his earlier pledge to support the Republican ticket even if he doesn’t win the nomination depended upon him being treated “fairly.”) But given Trump’s self-centeredness and lack of interest in organizational details, it seems unlikely that he will bequeath to America a new right-wing party.
In any case, though, he is successfully demonstrating how far celebrity, riches, demagoguery, and favorable circumstances can take an ambitious and unscrupulous individual. Even a couple of months ago, it was clear that his campaign was tapping into deep veins of economic disappointment, ethnic resentment, and political disaffection. To that febrile mix, the fear of domestic terrorism has now been added. Hopefully, the President is right, and the country will overcome the threat of ISIS without ditching the values and liberties it claims to represent. Like France, though, America stands at a perilous political moment.
Former president George W. Bush, left, and former vice president Dick Cheney earlier this month. (Dan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
By Justin Wm. Moyer December 8, 2015
Former vice president Dick Cheney was one of many who condemned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Cheney then made the case for re-invading parts of the Middle East to destroy the Islamic State, which he referred to by the acronym “ISIS.”
“What’s going on in the Middle East is the result of a U.S. vacuum,” Cheney said [ http://www.hughhewitt.com/vice-president-dick-cheney-san-bernardino-obamas-foreign-policy-setting-history-straight/ ]. “It’s the result of the rise of ISIS, civil war in Syria. I’ve heard proposals that I think make sense that we ought to establish safety zones, if you will, in the northern part of Syria where you’ve got them secured, you’ve got sufficient forces, hopefully of locals that would be there to protect, the area, but that’s where people who are fleeing the terrible tragedy that’s going on inside the caliphate, a place where they could reside.”
Pointing out that the Islamic State is “far bigger than al Qaeda ever was by itself,” he added [id.]: “I think you have to go back, ultimately, and if you’re going to be successful in ultimately defeating ISIS, and destroy ISIS, which I think has to be your objective, you’re going to have to shut down the caliphate.”
Many remarked on how extreme Trump’s policy was if even Cheney — one of the most hawkish politicians in modern times — targeted it.
After Trump called Monday for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” Cheney was just one of many who swiftly criticized or condemned the proposal. Fellow Republican presidential candidates Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) — not to mention Democrats Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — also dismissed the idea.
Many not running for president landed blows as well.
“Trump’s worst comments don’t occur in a vacuum — or land without repercussions,” Arianna Huffington wrote at the Huffington Post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/a-note-on-trump_b_8744476.html ], noting the website would no longer cover Trump’s campaign as “entertainment.” “They affect the tenor of the conversation, frequently moving the line between what’s considered mainstream and what’s considered unabashedly extreme and unacceptable. So we’ll not only be covering the ways Trump’s campaign is unique in recent American politics, but also the disastrous impact it continues to have on his fellow candidates — and the national conversation.”
2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump returns for part two of a discussion with the Morning Joe panel on his proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the U.S., President Obama, 2016 and his message to Muslims. Duration: 28:34
San Francisco online lender credited with loan to San Bernardino shooter December 8, 2015 [...] ... the firms’ practice of lining up borrowers with investors online has led to speculation that ISIS or another group might have been able to use the platform to finance Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s rampage. People familiar with the industry say it’s exceedingly unlikely that Prosper or similar platforms, such as Lending Club, could be used in that way. [...] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-prosper-add-20151208-story.html [no comments yet]
Donald Trump defended his proposal to ban all Muslim travel into the United States on CNN's New Day.
Trump warns: 'Many more World Trade Centers' The GOP front-runner said people living in the U.S. want to destroy the country December 8, 2015 (CNN)—Donald Trump warned Tuesday that there will be additional terror attacks in the U.S. if his temporary ban on Muslim immigration is not put in place. "You're going to have many more World Trade Centers if you don't solve it -- many, many more and probably beyond the World Trade Center," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo in a contentious interview on "New Day." [...] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/donald-trump-ban-muslims/ [with embedded video clip]
Donald Trump points to a supporter at a Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day rally aboard the USS Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, S.C., on Monday. (Randall Hill/Reuters)
By Erik Wemple December 8, 2015
This is a proven strategy: Say something offensive. Get tons of corrective media coverage. Watch those poll numbers soar.
Yesterday Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. Now that’s grist for the morning shows.
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” had quite an experience pushing back against this fascistic proposal. Trump got on the air via phone and boasted of the crowd at his address last night on the USS Yorktown in Mount Pleasant, S.C., where he repeated his call for the shutdown until authorities can “figure out what the hell is going on.” He told co-host Mika Brzezinski not to fear that brand of hate-mongering, but rather to fear the terrorists. “Now everybody’s fighting to be tougher than me on immigration,” he said. And he even repeated January’s loose talk of neighborhoods in Paris where “the police refuse to go” because of radicalization.
And he just kept going. As Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough attempted to get the Republican front-runner to stop, Trump kept going. Scarborough said, “You gotta let us ask questions, you can’t just talk. No, you gotta let us actually ask questions.”
“Alright,” said Trump.
“You’re just talking,” said Scarborough.
“No, no, Joe, I’m not just talking. Joe, I’m not just talking. I’m giving you the facts,” said Trump, as Scarborough attempted to get him to shut up: “Donald, Donald, Donald, Donald.”
Scarborough continued, “We will go to break if you keep talking. We’re gonna ask you questions,” said Scarborough.
“Go to break then, Joe. All I’m doing is giving you the facts and you don’t want to hear the facts.”
“Go to break, everybody, go to break. Go to break. Go to break right now. We’ll be right back with more ‘Morning Joe,’ ” said Scarborough.
Some of that transcription may be a touch imprecise, given the heady amount of crosstalk between these two fellows.
After the commercial break, the program came back with a calmer product. Trump said that he was talking “common sense” solutions, though he made no sense at all. Pressed by Scarborough to identify the zones of Paris where police fear to tread, Trump responded: “I will get you the information.” Pressed by Willie Geist on when he’ll know to ease up on his blockade against Muslims, Trump said: “All it can be is a feel or a touch; we have to find it out.” Geist appeared astounded.
“Did the internment of the Japanese Americans violate your sense of American values? Yes or no?” “I don’t want to respond to it,” responded Trump, because that bears no resemblance to his proposal, he said.
Finger-pointing was part of the message from Trump: “The Muslim community has to help us … They’re not helping us. The Muslim community is not reporting what’s going on. They should be reporting that their next-door neighbor is making pipe bombs and they’ve got them all over the place. … The Muslim community — it’s not a one-way street. The Muslim community knew that this guy, what he was doing and his wife, his very heavily radicalized wife, they knew what they were doing was wrong. Nobody called the police.”
Geist asked just how this shutdown would happen in practice. What would a Customs agent say to entering travelers? “They would say, ‘Are you Muslim?’ ” responded Trump, in what may be the scariest soundbite yet from the candidate. Oh, perhaps check that. Scarborough asked Trump about his message to Muslims, and the candidate responded: “We love you, we want to work with you, we want you to turn in the bad ones. We all want to get along.”
In a solo interview with Trump before the “Morning Joe” session, CNN “New Day” co-host Chris Cuomo jousted with the Republican on these same themes. Cuomo pounded the guy again and again, citing falsehood after falsehood. Noting the widespread condemnation of Trump’s conspicuously anti-American proposal, Cuomo asked, “Do you have to impress anybody but yourself with these ideas?” Cuomo managed to explore Trump’s awful idea without tumbling into pettiness, which is quite an accomplishment given the material in front of him.
ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” also brought the accountability to Trump, who, again, didn’t seem to care about the implications of his proposal. Talking points ruled: As he did in both the “Morning Joe” and CNN sessions, Trump talked about these no-go zones in Paris, whose existence has been denied by Parisians [ http://www.businessinsider.com/french-comedians-are-roasting-fox-news-no-go-zones-coverage-2015-1 ].
In all, Trump racked up 32 (!) minutes on MSNBC, 15 on CNN and eight on ABC, for nearly an hour of exposure. Never have the media’s dreadful trade-offs vis-a-vis Trump coverage come through so starkly: Covering these moments gives Trump oxygen, name recognition and, quite clearly, a feeling of narcissistic achievement. Bad stuff, that. But what’s the alternative? Not challenge him on ideas that threaten the Constitution?
London Mayor Calls Trump's Comments on City 'Utter Nonsense'
In this Monday, March 23, 2015 file photo, Mayor of London Boris Johnson talks to the media during an event to promote busking and street performance in London. The mayor of London says Donald Trump's comments about the British capital are "nonsense," and has invited the U.S. Republican presidential hopeful to come and see for himself. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
By The Associated Press Dec 8, 2015, 1:46 PM ET
LONDON (AP) — Donald Trump's comments about London are "nonsense," the city's mayor said Tuesday, inviting the U.S. Republican presidential hopeful to come and see for himself.
Trump, who on Monday called for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," told MSNBC that some parts of London "are so radicalized that the police are afraid for their own lives."
But London Mayor Boris Johnson, a Conservative, said Trump's "ill-informed comments are complete and utter nonsense."
Joining a long list of British politicians criticizing Trump, Johnson said he would "welcome the opportunity to show Mr. Trump firsthand some of the excellent work our police officers do every day in local neighborhoods throughout our city."
"Crime has been falling steadily both in London and in New York — and the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump," Johnson said.
London's Metropolitan Police force said Trump "could not be more wrong" about their city and was "welcome to receive a briefing from the Met Police on the reality of policing London."
Prime Minister David Cameron, another Conservative, also criticized Trump's statements about Muslims — breaking the custom of British leaders not commenting on U.S. presidential contenders.
"The prime minister completely disagrees with the comments made by Donald Trump, which are divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong," said Cameron's spokeswoman, Helen Bower.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the right-wing U.K. Independence Party who has attracted his own share of criticism for his views on immigration, told the BBC that Trump's "knee-jerk reaction" to ban Muslims from entering America was "perhaps for him a political mistake too far."
Lawmaker Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate hoping to replace Johnson as mayor in next year's election, called Trump "one of the most malignant figures in modern politics" and branded his proposal to ban Muslims "completely insane."
President Obama’s address to the nation Sunday was intended to reassure anxious Americans [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/08/us/politics/obama-speech-terrorism.html ] that the United States will defeat the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, “by being strong and smart, resilient and relentless, and by drawing upon every aspect of American power.” But success, he noted, “won’t depend on tough talk, or abandoning our values, or giving into fear. That’s what groups like ISIL are hoping for.”
If that’s true, ISIS must have been cheered by the presidential field, most of whom did their best to talk tough and stoke fear without advancing any workable ideas.
Donald Trump, a bigot without foreign policy experience, showed that there is nothing he won’t say or support to sow hatred. On Monday he outrageously proposed barring all Muslims [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s/ ] from entering the country. There is no precedent for denying immigration based on religion, experts say, and any such test would surely be used as an excuse to attack Muslim Americans.
Marco Rubio took to Fox News [ http://video.foxnews.com/v/4649879128001/rubio-obamas-response-to-terror-has-americans-scared/ ] to remind Americans that they are, or should be, “really scared and worried.” He also said that “people are scared not just because of these attacks but because of a growing sense that we have a president that’s completely overwhelmed by them,” as if he alone had his finger on the pulse of America.
“Bolder action across the board is needed because our way of life is what’s at stake,” was the nonprescription from Gov. John Kasich of Ohio [ https://johnkasich.com/blog-posts/statement-gov-john-kasichs-response-to-president-obamas-national-remarks-on-terrorism/ ]. “Also, when terrorists threaten us, our response can’t be to target our own constitutional rights. Our rights aren’t the problem, our unwillingness to act to defeat extremists is the problem. We need to decisively and aggressively protect our nation and our ideals. We can’t delay.”
Here’s Jeb Bush, on Fox News Monday morning [ http://video.foxnews.com/v/4649719548001/bush-on-obama-a-disappointing-speech-to-say-the-least/ ]: “The idea that somehow there are radical elements in every religion is ridiculous. There are no radical Christians that are organizing to destroy Western civilization. There are no radical Buddhists that are doing this. This is radical Islamic terrorism.”
What Mr. Obama called an “evolving threat” has taken a new form that authorities have long feared: via the Internet, Islamic extremists are inciting terrorist attacks inside the United States, without the foreign training and travel that makes such plans easier to detect and thwart.
On Sunday, before Mr. Obama spoke, Hillary Clinton suggested [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/us/politics/hillary-clinton-islamic-state-saban-forum.html ] that social media companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter should “disrupt” the Islamic State by taking down its content and making it harder for the group to recruit fighters and communicate online. While this approach may seem appealing, it is deeply flawed because private businesses are not equipped to decide what online speech should be taken down or which users should be silenced. And even if big Internet companies were successful at keeping terrorist organizations and their sympathizers from using their services, those groups and people would find other ways to communicate, for example, by using websites that are not well known or online services based in other countries.
Mr. Obama is in a tight spot. Elected by a war-weary nation as the candidate who promised to extract the United States from conflicts in the Middle East, he is facing calls by politicians and former advisers to step up airstrikes against ISIS and to deploy more Special Operations forces. With the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., the issue of radicalization grows more urgent and complicated. Whether one agrees with Mr. Obama’s approach or not, the problem of ISIS and other terrorist groups will persist long after he leaves office.
This is the moment for presidential candidates to show they’re ready to advance solutions that are palatable to the majority of Americans who, despite their anger and fear, don’t support another long war. So far, the candidates’ talk offers next to nothing, and in the case of Mr. Trump, something far worse.
World Reaction to Donald Trump’s Proposal Banning Muslims: Befuddlement and Despair
Donald J. Trump speaking at a rally on Monday on the aircraft carrier Yorktown in South Carolina. Credit Sean Rayford/Getty Images
By DAN BILEFSKY DEC. 8, 2015
LONDON — A day after Donald J. Trump [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/16/us/elections/donald-trump.html ] called for a ban on the entry of Muslims into the United States, much of the rest of the world looked at the American presidential election on Tuesday with a mix of befuddlement and despair.
How is it, many wondered, that the same nation that twice put the black son of a Kenyan in the White House could now be flirting with Mr. Trump and his divisive, exclusionary stances?
His remarks ignited widespread condemnation that crossed ideological and social lines in many countries.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France, which is still reeling from deadly attacks by Islamic extremists, wrote on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/manuelvalls/status/674175638442541056 ]: “Mr. Trump, like others, fuels hatred,” and “Our only enemy is radical Islamism.”
Responding to some of the blistering criticism on Tuesday, Mr. Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, steadfastly defended his proposal but said any ban would be temporary and would not apply to United States citizens.
His comments were widely shared on social media throughout the Arab world. In a region racked by conflict, his language had an impact, including in Egypt, where he was condemned by the country’s highest religious authority and by many others, who called him an Islamaphobe, a racist or, as Reem Khorshid, a 21-year-old engineering student and blogger, put it, “a madman who has no sense at all.”
Rachid Tlemcani, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers, warned that Mr. Trump could push young people toward the Islamic State.
“A lot of people in the Middle East think of the United States as the last place we can go if things turn really bad, as it is the place of freedom and liberty,” Mr. Tlemcani said. “I think that sort of comment could even invite some act of violence against America. I think he is not responsible.”
But Mr. Trump’s position also had its admirers. His stance on Muslim immigration drew several hundred favorable comments on China’s Twitter-like social media site, Weibo, where supporters linked his idea to their own fears of the Uighurs [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/uighurs_chinese_ethnic_group/index.html ], a minority Muslim group in China’s northwestern region, some of whom have resorted to militancy and violence.
The type of attention being paid to Mr. Trump stands in sharp contrast to the last time a presidential election in the United States riveted the world — in 2008, when Barack Obama’s candidacy was widely embraced in other nations eager for what they viewed as a revival of American ideals. During that campaign, Mr. Obama was greeted by more than 200,000 people in Berlin, and his victory was widely hailed [ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05global.html ] as an affirmation of the best of America.
As in the United States, Mr. Trump has incited particularly intense debate, not least in predominantly Muslim countries and in Europe, where far-right parties like Marine Le Pen’s National Front have been gaining ground by invoking anti-immigrant messages similar to those of Mr. Trump and where memories of 20th-century fascism still run deep.
Charles Grant, the director of the London-based Center for European Reform, said Mr. Trump was anathema to many Europeans because his populism had edged toward fascism and conveyed a willingness to preach an open hatred of religious minorities that many far-right leaders, from Ms. Le Pen in France to Nigel Farage of the euroskeptic U.K. Independence Party in Britain, tried to temper as they fought to move their parties into the political mainstream.
Mr. Grant added that Mr. Trump conveyed an ignorance of world affairs that Europeans found hard to stomach from a contender in a national election in the United States.
“Donald Trump strikes me as a very different kind of populist right-winger than the kind we’ve grown used to in Europe in that he shows a complete ignorance about the world,” Mr. Grant said. “While Le Pen and others may say things that are alarmist, they at least acknowledge the premise of religious tolerance we’ve had in Europe since the 18th-century Enlightenment.”
In France, which is grappling with the challenges of integrating a large Muslim population, the newspaper Le Monde called Mr. Trump’s comments “unprecedented.”
But observers in France, where the National Front won the first round of regional elections last weekend, also noted that Mr. Trump reflected a familiar nationalist and anti-immigrant impulse, extending from Paris to Budapest. After the recent influx of migrants to Europe, many of them from the Middle East, Prime Minister Viktor Orban [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/viktor_orban/index.html ] of Hungary said that his country had a right to protect its Christian traditions by refusing to accept large numbers of Muslims.
In La Défense, a business district west of Paris, Inès Lessieur, 23, a student, said Mr. Trump depressed her. “I am sure he’ll get elected,” she said. Another student, Laura Albat, 20, responded, “No, a country that voted twice for Obama cannot elect a man like that.”
Some analysts, however, said that Mr. Trump’s views were more recognizable in Europe than most people liked to admit and that his stances resembled those of not just Ms. Le Pen but also other larger-than-life politicians who appealed to voters fed up with the political mainstream.
“Many Italians think Trump is a sort of American version of Silvio Berlusconi, a big personality without the background of what it means to be a politician,” said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. “Both are outsiders with a politically incorrect style, dividing American politics as Italian politics were divided.”
In the Arab world, Mr. Trump’s anti-Muslim comments have yielded growing alarm, as many wonder what the approaching election could mean for the involvement of the United States in their region.
“There is something disturbing about where the Americans are going in their relations with the outside world in general and with the Arab and Islamic world in particular,” said Abdulkhaliq Abdulla, a retired professor of political science from the United Arab Emirates. “All of a sudden it seems that America, or at least some segments of America, have forgotten what America stands for.”
Hafez Al Mirazi, the director of the Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism at the American University in Cairo, contrasted Trump’s comments with the moment in 2009 when President Obama spoke in Cairo [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09 ] and attempted to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world, inspiring many with his personal story of success.
“What we are getting now is really terrible,” Mr. Mirazi said. “Stuff that only the Ku Klux Klan and others would say.”
Dar al-Ifta, the authority that issues religious edicts in Egypt, called Mr. Trump’s comments “extremist” and warned that they “threatened societal peace” in the United States.
Yet in a world in which terrorism has come to be associated with radical Islam, Mr. Trump’s stance resonated among people who perceive a similar threat.
“Honestly, I support his ideas,” wrote one user of the Weibo social media service in China. “If this guy could get in the White House, I hope he could do what he said — stop the entry of Muslims.”
Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, said Mr. Trump’s mentality of “maximum security” struck a chord with many Chinese, who live in a highly conservative society.
“Actually, the Chinese could be the people who understand Trump the most,” Mr. Shen said.
Reporting was contributed by Elian Peltier and Lilia Blaise from Paris; Hannah Olivennes from London; Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome; Ben Hubbard from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Carlotta Gall from Algiers; Jane Perlez and Yufan Huang from Beijing; Kareem Fahim from Cairo; and Amina Ismail from Ismailia, Egypt.
America comes to grips with Trump's flirtation with fascism
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/8/15
Rachel Maddow looks at the history of some fascist movements in Europe and the increasing use of the word "fascist" to describe Donald Trump's policy ideas, not so much as hyperbole but for simple accuracy. Duration: 19:16
Does anti-abortion violence influence pro-choice support? Colorado Springs police chief Pete Carey tells reporters that the shooting suspect at the Planned Parenthood center is in custody in Colorado Springs, Colorado November 27, 2015. Pro-choice support in the US is surging months after a shooting left three dead at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic, according to a new poll. December 22, 2015 http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1222/Does-anti-abortion-violence-influence-pro-choice-support
"Republicans' Playbook on Women Gets Even Scarier"
Clinton’s tenuous grasp on Iowa
Her lead in Iowa comes with caveats that should give the campaign pause.
By Steven Shepard and Katie Glueck
01/05/16 06:02 PM EST Updated 01/05/16 09:32 PM EST
At an event in Davenport on Monday, Hillary Clinton implied that a victory in Iowa, combined with winning New Hampshire eight days later, would essentially deliver her the nomination. | AP Photo
Hillary Clinton began 2016 with a two-day, six-stop swing across Iowa aimed at locking down her fragile lead over Bernie Sanders in the Feb. 1 caucuses.
There’s little doubt that Clinton is outpacing the insurgent Vermont senator in Iowa: It’s been four months since Sanders led Clinton in a reliable poll of likely or potential Democratic caucus-goers here. But it’s also been nearly a month since the most recent poll was conducted — a result of pollsters staying out of the field as Iowa voters were focused more on the holidays than on politics.
And while the former secretary of state has led in the past 14 polls conducted by live telephone interviewers, there is another caveat that could give the Clinton campaign pause: In those 14 polls, the only two that show her with a lead of less than 10 points were from The Des Moines Register and legendary Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer.
Selzer’s reputation for accuracy is well-earned: Her final polls in the 2014 Senate race, the 2012 general election and GOP caucuses, and the 2008 caucuses in both parties were famously predictive of the eventual results. An October survey from Selzer, which was commissioned by Bloomberg Politics and the Register, showed Clinton with a 7-point lead. In December .. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/12/14/clinton-builds-lead-over-sanders-new-iowa-poll-shows/77213730/ , Clinton’s lead had inched up to 9 points, 48 percent to 39 percent — significant, but hardly dominant.
Since the holidays, there has been a dearth of new public polls, with the most recent reliable surveys, like the Des Moines Register poll, all conducted in the first half of December. But the contemporaneous polls all show Clinton with larger leads — built upon her advantages with older caucus-goers and women, two constituencies well-represented on stops throughout her Iowa swing this week.
A Fox News poll in early December showed Clinton leading Sanders by 14 points, 50 percent to 36 percent. Sanders actually held a 2-point edge among men, 42 percent to 40 percent. But Clinton dominated among women, 57 percent to 31 percent.
There’s also a significant age gap. According to Fox’s crosstabs, Sanders leads among young caucus-goers — outpacing Clinton 56 percent to 34 percent among those under age 45. But Clinton has strong appeal with older voters — leading Sanders 59 percent to 24 percent among those 45 and older.
Even in the Des Moines Register poll, Clinton captures 64 percent of voters aged 65 and older, and 54 percent among likely female caucus-goers.
One major Clinton play at older voters: her experience as first lady, senator and secretary of state. At a town hall in Osage on Tuesday morning, she laid out the challenges and responsibilities facing the next president, and added, “I think I’m the only candidate with the experience to fill that job description.” And in her final event in Iowa, on Tuesday night in Council Bluffs, she urged Democrats to weigh their candidates’ “electability.”
Those arguments resonate with 70-year-old James Piros — a retired doctor from Carlisle, Iowa, who said he was torn between Clinton and Sanders.
“Cerebrally, I am” leaning toward Clinton, Piros said at Clinton’s rally in Des Moines on Monday. “Morally, I tend more toward Bernie,” he said.
Sanders’ appeal among younger voters also means he is more dependent on potentially less reliable caucus-goers. (Among those surveyed by the Register who said they had never before attended a Democratic caucus, Sanders led Clinton, 49 percent to 40 percent.)
Barack Obama defeated Clinton (and former Sen. John Edwards) in the 2008 caucuses in large part because of a surge of first-time caucus-goers backing him. According to entrance polls, 57 percent of caucus-goers were participating for the first time, and those voters backed Obama, 41 percent to 29 percent for Clinton and 18 percent for Edwards.
But while Sanders might be trying to replicate that Obama surge, he is starting in a weaker position. A month out from the 2008 caucuses, Clinton and Obama were already running neck and neck in public polls, compared with Clinton’s solid lead this cycle.
David Redlawsk, a Rutgers University professor who is in Iowa as a fellow at Drake University’s Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement, noted that Sanders is strong in some of the cities and college towns across the state, such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Des Moines.
But he questioned whether Sanders is really building a statewide movement to win delegates across the entire state.
“For Sanders, much of his visible support appears to really be focused around the urban areas,” Redlawsk said.
“Does he have the organization and support outside of those areas? Does he have people ready to caucus for him in Keokuk County?” Redlawsk added, naming one of the most sparsely populated of Iowa’s 99 counties.
Drake University professor Art Sanders suggested another possible analogue: 2000, when former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley tried to galvanize college students in Iowa to support his uphill bid for the Democratic nomination.
“Bill Bradley tried the same thing when ran against Al Gore,” Sanders said. “They didn’t turn out for him, though.”
Still, Clinton’s overall lead in the polls worries some supporters, including Heather Johnson, a Clinton precinct captain in Davenport, who remembered how the air of inevitability dogged Clinton’s campaign eight years ago.
“I do think there’s a perception that’s there, people say they don’t need to caucus because she’s got it locked up anyway,” Johnson said.
But that’s through no fault of Clinton’s, she said, replying, “Oh, yes,” when asked if Clinton is spending enough time in the state. “I don’t feel at all that she’s taking Iowa for granted this time,” Johnson said.
At an event in Davenport on Monday, Clinton implied that a victory in Iowa, combined with winning New Hampshire eight days later, would essentially deliver her the nomination and allow her to shift her focus to the general election. Losing both early states, on the other hand, would give Sanders — who trails Clinton by wider margins nationally than in early states — valuable momentum moving into the rest of the calendar.
“I know if I get off to a good start in Iowa, we’re halfway home,” Clinton said.
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