IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?
But Palin's response was downright chilling:
PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
In other words, she announced that she not only intends to keep all those expanded powers that Dick Cheney extraconstitutionally granted himself, she intends to find ways to expand them further.
I'm sure it will all be done in the interests of the American people, though.
One important factor that emerged from last night's vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden was the way Palin clearly cast herself -- and by inference, the McCain/Palin ticket -- as essentially populist in their appeal. But it's specifically a right-wing kind of populism.
This wasn't terribly surprising to me. I spent the earlier part of this week in the Wasilla area, and I frequently heard from people on all sides of Alaska's various political aisles that Palin, above all, is in fact a populist. I heard this from a former Republican legislator I met at a roadside stop and from a progressive Alaskan activist -- as well as from various locals I met about town. Even among the less articulate bar patrons, the refrain was consistent: "She's for the people, that's what she's about."
At the same time, it was indisputable that she has always practiced a specifically right-wing kind of populism: socially and fiscally conservative, business-friendly, and hostile to progressive causes.
Now, one of the many conceits of Jonah Goldberg's incoherent screed, Liberal Fascism, was that populism by nature was an inherently a left-wing phenomenon. As I explained at the time, populism in fact historically has seen both left- and right-wing permutations in America. Some of the more notable cases of right-wing populism range from Bacon's Rebellion to the Ku Klux Klan to the modern-day Posse Comitatus and militia/Patriot movements.
Not that Palin's populism is necessarily swimming in those same cesspools, but it is clearly the same kind of creature. It's still in the early phases of its popularity, so it's hard to tell what kind of shape it will mature into; but given the traditional, ah, flexibility with which right-wing populists apply the term "the people" (especially when it comes to economic classes), just about anything is possible.
Here, from last night's debate, are her various attempts to cast herself and McCain as essentially populist (the main giveaway being her references to "the people"):
Now, Barack Obama, of course, he's pretty much only voted along his party lines. In fact, 96 percent of his votes have been solely along party line, not having that proof for the American people to know that his commitment, too, is, you know, put the partisanship, put the special interests aside, and get down to getting business done for the people of America.
We're tired of the old politics as usual. And that's why, with all due respect, I do respect your years in the U.S. Senate, but I think Americans are craving something new and different and that new energy and that new commitment that's going to come with reform.
... One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt. Let's do what our parents told us before we probably even got that first credit card. Don't live outside of our means. We need to make sure that as individuals we're taking personal responsibility through all of this. It's not the American peoples fault that the economy is hurting like it is, but we have an opportunity to learn a heck of a lot of good lessons through this and say never again will we be taken advantage of.
... Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people's side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times.
... I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again. And I want to let you know what I did as a mayor and as a governor. And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.
... And that's why Tillerson at Exxon and Mulva at ConocoPhillips, bless their hearts, they're doing what they need to do, as corporate CEOs, but they're not my biggest fans, because what I had to do up there in Alaska was to break up a monopoly up there and say, you know, the people are going to come first and we're going to make sure that we have value given to the people of Alaska with those resources.
... So there hasn't been a whole lot that I've promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street.
... Positive change is coming, though. Reform of government is coming. We'll learn from the past mistakes in this administration and other administrations.
And we're going to forge ahead with putting government back on the side of the people and making sure that our country comes first, putting obsessive partisanship aside.
... What I would do also, if that were to ever happen, though, is to continue the good work he is so committed to of putting government back on the side of the people and get rid of the greed and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington.
I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there, brought to Washington, D.C.
So that people there can understand how the average working class family is viewing bureaucracy in the federal government and Congress and inaction of Congress.
Just everyday working class Americans saying, you know, government, just get out of my way. If you're going to do any harm and mandate more things on me and take more of my money and income tax and business taxes, you're going to have a choice in just a few weeks here on either supporting a ticket that wants to create jobs and bolster our economy and win the war or you're going to be supporting a ticket that wants to increase taxes, which ultimately kills jobs, and is going to hurt our economy.
... People aren't looking for more of the same. They are looking for change. And John McCain has been the consummate maverick in the Senate over all these years.
He's taken shots left and right from the other party and from within his own party, because he's had to take on his own party when the time was right, when he recognized it was time to put partisanship aside and just do what was right for the American people.
Of course, Barack Obama's campaign indulges a certain amount of left-wing populism as well, but it's largely framed within a traditionalist context. However, the clear reshaping of the Republican Party under the McCain/Palin ticket as essentially a right-wing populist entity is well worth noting.
And if I had to guess -- especially judging by the way right-wingers are swooning over her winking at them -- Sarah Palin's career as a populist is just getting started, even if she and McCain lose in November. Considering that one of the chief reasons right-wing populism in America has not succeeded in recent decades is that it has lacked a charismatic figurehead, well, she certainly bears close watching.
OK, I know everyone has a question they'd like to see Sarah Palin asked in tonight's debate. Some of them are very good questions indeed.
Here's mine:
Sarah, what constitutional role do you see the vice presidency as playing? Is it, as we've traditionally thought of it, part of the executive branch? Or is it, per Dick Cheney, part of the legislative branch? Or is it its own unique branch, also per Cheney?
Follow-up question:
Do you think you'll need a man-size safe like Dick Cheney?
I tried getting some interviews while I was in Wasilla this week on my new Flip phone, but unfortunately my batteries kept dying on me in mid-interview (I've since figured out what I was doing wrong). These are videos I took at the Mug Shot Saloon on the main highway through town, where there's a big banner outside hailing Sarah Palin.
Nearly everyone inside was wearing Palin buttons and T-shirts. There was also a big cardboard cutout of Palin.
On Tuesday night, a crew from The Daily Show (though not Jon Stewart himself; I was mistaken about that) showed up and filmed interviews with Mug Shot patrons. As you can see, I talked to a couple they didn't interview.
The most striking interview was with the woman who made the Sarah Palin doll. Unfortunately, the camera's battery died just as she began to tell me why she made the doll.
What she said was this: That she had provided day care for Palin's children, in particular the second-youngest, Piper -- who had signed the doll along with Palin herself (she showed me the signatures on the doll's tummy).
She said that Piper always wanted to know: "Where's my mommy?" So she made a doll that looked like mommy to make her happy.
My friend Dan Junas, who travels in Mexico quite a bit, sends me this:
When traveling in Mexico, I've had occasion to discuss corruption in the United States, in comparison to Mexico. "Is there corruption in the United States," I've been asked. "Of course," I've replied. "There's corruption everywhere. But is there corruption like in Mexico? Where a governor will simply take the state treasury with him when he leaves office? No, we don't have corruption like that."
After looking at the Bush Administration's proposed bailout, I'm going to have to revise my answer.
I've always thought that Karl Rove's goal was to turn the Republican Party into a U.S. version of the PRI. Now we're seeing the fulfillment of that plan.
“Witchcraft is a sad reality in many parts of Africa, resulting in scores of deaths in Kenya over the past two decades. Bishop Muthee’s blessing, then, was simply a reflection of his cultural understanding of evil. While others are not obliged to accept his interpretation, all can be expected to respect it. More than that—Muthee should be hailed for asking God to shield Palin from harmful forces, however they may be manifested. And for this he is mocked and Palin ridiculed?
“We know that many cultural elites have a hard time embracing religion, but is it too much to ask that they at least show some manners when discussing subjects which most Americans hold dear?”
That would be all well and good if the "witchcraft" that Pastor Muthee became famous for pursuing were truly some kind of Dark Art from the Dark Continent, bent on the persecution of Christians (though it would be good of him to present some actual examples of said "witches" too).
But Muthee's pursuit of "witchcraft" had a more familial resemblance to Salem. From the Times of London:
According to the Christian Science Monitor, six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic.
Her alleged involvement in fortune-telling and the fact that she lived near the site of a number of fatal car accidents led Pastor Muthee to publicly declare her a witch responsible for the town’s ills, and order her to offer her up her soul for salvation or leave Kiambu.
Says the Monitor, “Muthee held a crusade that “brought about 200 people to Christ”.” They set up round-the-clock prayer intercession in the basement of a grocery store and eventually, says the pastor “the demonic influence – the ‘principality’ over Kiambu –was broken”, and Mama Jane fled the town.
According to accounts of the witchhunt circulated on evangelical websites such as Prayer Links Ministries, after Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon.
After Mama Jane was questioned by police – and released – she decided it was time to leave town, the account says.
So when Pastor Muthee prays for Sarah Palin's protection from "the power of witchcraft," it is with a, shall we say, expansive view of what constitutes "witchcraft." And when he demands we "crush the python spirit" and "step on its neck," you have to wonder whose necks they're talking about. Democrats? Lyda Green? Anyone who opposes Sarah Palin and her "infiltration" of the "political realm"?
And when Bill Donohue defends a "witchhunt" of the kind Muthee purused in Kenya ... well, it's not very persuasive. After all, this is the same guy who insisted that Mel Gibson wasn't really anti-Semitic.
By the end of the second day of Muthee’s sermons, the church had been tipped off about me, the liberal media member in its midst. An associate pastor told me he had received an email from an anonymous source warning him about me. When I tried to interview members of the congregation in the church parking lot, my questions were either met with silence or open hostility. I strongly suspect the McCain campaign has mobilized the Wasilla Assembly of God against perceived threats from the media.
But they hardly needed encouragement. On the first night of services, Muthee implored his audience to wage “spiritual warfare” against “the enemy.” As I filmed, a nervous church staffer approached from behind and told me to put my camera away. I acceded to his demand, but as Muthee urged the church to crush “the python spirit” of the unbeliever enemies by stomping on their necks, I pulled out a smaller camera and filmed from a more discreet position. Now, church members were in deep prayer, speaking in tongues and raising their hands. Muthee exclaimed, “We come against the spirit of witchcraft! We come against the python spirits!” Then, a local pastor took the mic from Muthee and added, “We stomp on the heads of the enemy!”
The video of Pastor Muthee has to be seen to be believed. Especially as he prays over Palin.
There's an ugly below-the-radar campaign involving naked racial appeals being waged against Barack Obama in various locales around the country. In at least one case -- in Roxbury, N.J. -- white supremacists have been involved:
A flier left on driveways in a neatly packaged plastic envelope and distributed by a group named the League of American Patriots, with a Butler mailing address, questioned, "Do You Want A Black President?" and stated "Black Ruled Nations most unstable and violent in the world."
... Roxbury resident Elizabeth Corsetto said she and her husband came home from doing errands Saturday and found the flier at the end of their driveway. She picked it up, expecting a mailer from a retailer but instead found a one-page, black and white sheet featuring unflattering photos of Obama, including a doctored one portraying him with a long beard and turban.
"Why should we seal our fate by allowing a black ruler to destroy us?" asked the flier, which also detailed what it contended to be a series of facts on black unemployment, poverty, HIV and crime rates, while pointing out the woes of a couple of predominantly black-populated countries.
My investigative piece on the Minutemen and their finances is now available in this month's edition of The American Prospect.
It's essentially a portrait of a right-wing movement in decline, largely under the weight of financial mismanagement and the paranoid style right-wing populists specialize in.
And as I make clear in the piece, the trajectory of Minutemen almost precisely traces that of previous right-wing populist movements -- particularly the money-grubbing aspects of it. The Minutemen, really, have been a right-wing moneymaking scam from the get-go, and this piece explores that.
The money grafs, as it were, examine the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps' fence-building project and where all that money went:
Certainly there was a significant gap between Simcox’s public claims of having raised $1.6 million for the fence, and what his financial disclosure forms show his organization actually spent on it. No one can say for sure because the MCDC won’t let anyone touch its books. But a look at the organization’s 2006 public filings indicates that, of all the money raised for the border fence, only a small amount (if any at all) went toward its construction. The forms for the Declaration Alliance—through whom all the border-fence donations were directed—show that it brought in nearly $5 million that year for all its programs. What percentage of that $5 million consisted of border-fence donations is unclear, but considering that the fence appeals began in May 2006 and have remained the MCDC’s (and Declaration Alliance’s) chief fundraising focus in the months since, it is likely that they provided at least a majority of that money. It also shows that $3.19 million went to the MCDC. But for what?
The Declaration Alliance largely spent the money on printing, consulting, and similar activities. The only indication on the form that any actual money went back to the MCDC in the field is $143,000 listed as “operational expenses,” though this money reportedly was for MCDC border watches, not the fence project. If any of those millions of dollars actually went toward building a border fence, it’s difficult to ascertain where they are and how much was disbursed—though a look at the disclosure form for the Minuteman Foundation, the MCDC entity set up specifically to handle the fence project, shows a mere $87,500 in total revenues from donations for 2006. If that’s the actual revenue coming from that $3.19 million the Declaration Alliance says it spent on the MCDC—and you estimate that at least half of that is fence-related—then we’re talking about less than 6 percent coming back to build the fence.
In other words, the best rough estimate is that about 94 cents of every dollar Jim Campbell spent on the fence went toward printing, mailing, consulting, and the like. It’s no wonder members at the field level were seeing so little of the money that Simcox claimed to be rolling in.
Be sure to pick up a copy if you're not a subscriber. I'll make sure you all know when the full piece is finally available online.
Yesterday morning I interviewed John Stein, the former Wasilla mayor who was defeated by Palin in 1996 by using "a quiet campaign by some Palin supporters raising emotional issues like abortion and gun control, which had no apparent tie to municipal politics" -- and as Phil Munger notes, a whisper campaign that Stein was secretly Jewish (Stein is a Lutheran).
According to Stein, Palin's main base of support in that election (and subsequent Wasilla campaigns) was derived from her fellow congregants at Wasilla Bible Church and the larger evangelical Christian community. But it also included some of the Mat-Su Valley's biggest far-right nutcases -- to the extent that she even attempted to reciprocate by appointing one of them to the city's planning commission.
The connection revolves mostly around three men known to have far-right leanings in the community: a builder named Steven Stoll, a computer repairman named Mark Chryson, and a third man named Mike Christ. All three subscribed to a bellicose, "Patriot" movement brand of politics -- far-right libertarianism with a John Birch streak.
According to Stein, Steven Stoll -- whose local nickname, according to Phil Munger, is "Black Helicopter Steve" -- was involved in militia organizing in Wasilla the 1990s, and subscribed to most of the movement's paranoid conspiracy theories: "The rumor was that he had wrapped his guns in plastic and buried them in his yard so he could get them after the New World Order took over."
Here’s how 538 lists the top 6 states in terms of return on investment:
Colorado
Nevada
New Hampshire
Virginia
Ohio
New Mexico
Three of those states (Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico) have Latino voting blocs more than large enough to decide the outcome. For both campaigns, this race is coming down to the ability to inspire Latino voters.
It's true that Obama has done a fine job recently of attacking McCain for his two-facedness on immigration. But at the same time, as Roberto Lovato has adroitly observed, immigration has been put on the backburner as an issue for Democrats. This was especially the case at the Democratic National Convention, where the only discussion of immigration came early in the final day, in the form of speeches by Rep. Luis Guiterrez and Bill Richardson (as well as a brief mention in Obama's acceptance speech).
It's not enough to point out that McCain has been trying to play both ends against the middle on immigration. To win these voters, Obama needs to enunciate a vision of immigration reform built on common sense and the wisdom enough to see the big picture. It's an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership.
As it turns out, the election could depend on it. The economy will be this campaign's landmark issue, no doubt -- but making the right play on immigration could prove decisive in a neck-and-neck contest.
John McCain's campaign-long attempt to play it both ways on immigration -- pandering to his party's nativist wingnuts while attempting to tell Latinos he's their pal (just don't tell anyone) -- is finally starting to catch up with him.
America's Voice has an ad calling him out on it. As you can see from watching it, it's very effective in making clear his hypocrisy in falsely blaming Obama for the failure of comprehensive immigration reform in 2006 -- when in fact the fault lay with the raving xenophobic wing of the Republican Party.
The ad substantiates the thrust of Obama's own Spanish-language attack ad nailing McCain along similar lines. And the best part of all this has been watching the right wing howl in protest. (Score!)
Rush Limbaugh (whose constant use of demeaning stereotypes when he talks about Latinos played a substantial role) in particular has been whining that "Obama is stoking racial antagonism" by supposedly taking his quotes out of context. But when Limbaugh offers the actual context, it's clear that, indeed, he was indulging demeaning stereotypes as usual. Epic fail, dude.
Indeed, it is to laugh: Obama is stoking "racial antagonism"? This, from the guy whose unending defense of "white culture" and constant attacks on multiculturalism are staples of his massively popular radio show? This, from the guy who told his audience that Obama should just "renounce his race" and "become white"? The guy who informed us that Donovan McNabb got ahead in the NFL because he was black? The guy who calls illegal immigrants an "invasive species"?
Oddly enough, McCain's prevarications on immigration haven't been tallied among the naked falsehoods he's been peddling lately. But really, they are among the clearest examples of his two-faced approach to politics.
"The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors," he said. "African-Americans came here as slaves.
"Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won't vote for a black president."
If I were Republicans, I wouldn't be counting on this view being particularly widespread among Latinos. Especially if Latino Republicans -- and John McCain supporters at that -- go around spreading the word that the party is wedded to old racial divisions.
Right now, the GOP has to be rueing the day they ever brought up Jeremiah Wright.
And, you know, they can't blame anybody but themselves. They started it. There used to be a gentleman's agreement -- at least among white Protestant politicans, which was almost all of them -- that you didn't drag people's private religious beliefs into the campaign arena, any more than you'd drag in the sordid details of their family lives (including health issues, mistresses, addicted wives, pregnant daughters, and gay sons). Even public people were assumed to be entitled to some level of a private life, and that protection definitely covered their religious views, affiliations, and activities.
That custom, if it still existed, would have made the above clip a political non-issue. If a vice-presidential candidate wanted to credit her governorship to a faith-healing witch hunter from another country far away -- well, the press was well-trained to ignore such aberrations, and look the other way.
But, of course, the religious right went ahead and broke that agreement, and then spent the next 30 years making the Godliness of its candidates a centerpiece of their politics. And now, finally, that strategy has come all the way back around and bit them squarely on their wide, rosy butts.
Six months ago, they couldn't stop talking about Jeremiah Wright, and what his "radical" (code for: angry black ghetto thug) theology said about the presidential potential of his parisioner, Barack Obama. Now, of course, they have no interest at all in talking about Thomas Muthee and what his truly bizarre brand of neo-Pentecostalism might say about Sarah Palin's intentions for the country. Double standard? Of course.
But we shouldn't let them off that hook. Since they brought up the subject, let's go ahead and have that conversation. All of it.
For example, while we're at it, we should be taking stock of this new SPLC report examining the strength and numbers of the "Joel's Army" movement. While this group has been a concern of right-wing watchers for the past few years, I got my first public sighting of them last summer -- at the Northwest Washington County Fair, of all places. The military mothers' group had put together a big scrapbook showing all the county's service men and women, with a page for each one with personal histories (high school attended, parents' names, deployment dates, etc.) and photos. It was a very popular and moving exhibit. My husband and I went through it twice.
What struck me was that better than half of the troops from this rural ag county were either homeschooled or had attended Christian schools. Some families had two and three sons serving. A few photos showed them in battle dress, Bibles in hand; or in other religious contexts. Being aware of Joel's Amry, I couldn't shake the impression that some of these families had bred these kids for military service the way most middle-class families groom their kids for college. I was looking at at least a few of the faces of this new army of Christian warriors, young men (and a few women) who joined the military not just out of patriotism or job experience, but also to gain the skills they expected to need someday to take the country for Jesus -- by force.
The SPLC report expresses deep concern over the size and intensity of the Joel's Army movement:
LAKELAND, Fla. — Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.
Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.
"An end-time army has one common purpose — to aggressively take ground for the kingdom of God under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Dread Champion," Bentley declares on the website for his ministry school in British Columbia, Canada. "The trumpet is sounding, calling on-fire, revolutionary believers to enlist in Joel's Army. … Many are now ready to be mobilized to establish and advance God's kingdom on earth."
Joel's Army followers, many of them teenagers and young adults who believe they're members of the final generation to come of age before the end of the world, are breaking away in droves from mainline Pentecostal churches. Numbering in the tens of thousands, they base their beliefs on an esoteric reading of the second chapter of the Old Testament Book of Joel, in which an avenging swarm of locusts attacks Israel. In their view, the locusts are a metaphor for Joel's Army.
Despite their overt militancy, there's no evidence Joel's Army followers have committed any acts of violence. But critics warn that actual bloodletting may only be a matter of time for a movement that casts itself as God's avenging army.
Those sounding the alarm about Joel's Army are not secular foes of the Christian Right, few of whom are even aware of the movement or how widespread it's become in the past decade. Instead, Joel's Army critics are mostly conservative Christians, either neo-Pentecostals who left the movement in disgust or evangelical Christians who fear that Joel's Army preachers are stealing their flocks, even sending spies to infiltrate their own congregations and sway their young people to heresy. And they say the movement is becoming frightening.
As Bruce Wilson at Talk2Action has recently pointed out, three of the four churches Sarah Palin has attended share affiliations with the New Apostolic Movement, of which Joel's Army (as well as the now-defunct "Jesus Camp") are a part. It's a tenuous link of circumstantial evidence -- but it's no more tenuous or circumstantial than the arguments the right has been using all along to tie Obama to various radicals. Palin has spent her life in these churches, and (unlike Obama) has publicly admitted her political debt to a "witch-hunter" whose beliefs are much farther from the Amerian mainstream than Wright's ever were.
By their own standards and rules of evidence, Sarah Palin's association with New Apostolic churches and her admitted personal associations are serious issues that cast a long shadow on her intentions for this country. If the GOP ticket wins, there's a one-third chance that the world's most powerful country -- including the biggest army the world has ever seen -- will end up in the hands of a woman who believes that God put her where she is; and subscribes to a religion that is overtly and unapologetically raising its children to destroy American democracy.
The odds of their success are small. Two-thirds to three-quarters of all fundamentalist-raised kids leave the faith before the age of 40, most in the first decade after they leave home. Odds are good most of these young warriors will find more peaceful lives on other paths.
But they are already leaving their mark on our military (as both Mikey Weinstein and Andrew Bacevich have reported); and we'd best not understimate the fresh appeal extremist movements can have in the wake of economic collapse or military defeat. With the prospect of both looming in our future, it's probably just as well that that old gentleman's agreement is no longer in place to protect the likes of Sarah Palin.
"This photo from the early to mid 90s
shows the Governor having her photo taken in front of a three ring
binder of information from local citizens presented regularly to Wasilla
council members by the town clerk," said Palin spokesman Michael
Goldfarb. "These binders featured material given by members of the
public to all council members."
Really? Well, you can see the first page of the story at left. Here’s a PDF file of the entire piece [minus a page we'll insert soon]. The text is also available here. And here’s a shot of the cover.
As you can see from reading it, it’s largely a long-winded exercise
in needless paranoia: The author seemed to believe that a relatively
benign gathering of governors to hash over states rights was part of a
covert conspiracy to remake the Constitution.
Why exactly would this article be part of "material given to the
council by members of the public"? It has nothing to do with Wasilla, or
even city governance. Nor, for that matter, is the piece bound in with
the rest of the material in the binder; Palin has set it out separately.
Smith notes that the then-editor of New American at the time
reported (quite accurately) that the publication distributed copies of
the piece widely with the intent of flooding state and local civic
offices. And indeed, this piece looks not quite like the original (the
piece on Palin’s desk has printed material below the second black bar),
suggesting that what we’re looking at is one of those reprints.
So it’s a perfectly reasonable explanation that some citizen, at a
bare minimum, dropped it by for distribution to the council and that
just happened to be the page that Palin had opened to when time to pose
for her photo.
However, that doesn’t explain everything.
Rather than being randomly selected, it appears that Palin has chosen
this piece carefully — it appears to be, after all, an official City
Hall portrait (at least, it’s not just a snapshot). The Birch flier has
been pulled out and neatly arranged. Nor is it hole-punched for the
three-ring binder; rather, it seems to have been placed on top of the
briefing materials separately.
Why choose as an illustration of one’s work on the Wasilla City
Council an article dealing with an international conspiracy to destroy
the Constitution under the guise of a states’ convention? Phil Munger has some ideas.
So do we. We’ll report back on this when we know more.
In
the meantime, it’s worth getting some context for this. As we
explained, the Birch Society in the 1990s was also heavily involved with
promoting the idea of "citizen militias." Here’s a copy of the cover of
The New American two issues before the "Con Con Call" edition — specifically, from Feb. 6, 1995.
Here’s the text of the cover story
from that edition. As you can see, this was an entirely sympathetic
piece about the militias (one that actually devoted most of its space to
attacking the SPLC and the ADL), which concluded:
While the legal standing of many of the
militia organizations may be uncertain, there should be no uncertainty
about this: Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, and their federal
minions can be counted on to fully exploit any and all incidents
involving militias, and to be monitoring the actions and rhetoric of
militia members. Together with the media, they will attempt to
construct the spectre of a terrible armed threat amongst us.
Unfortunately, there appear to be many in the ranks of the militia
movement who will play right into their hands. And if that doesn’t
happen on its own, the militias provide the perfect medium for federal
agents provocateurs to instigate outrageous offenses that can be used
to justify even more draconian gun control laws and police-state
repression.
This was published two months before militiaman Tim McVeigh blew up
168 people in Oklahoma City. Sure enough, the JBS shortly afterward
began flogging the theory that McVeigh was actually working for the FBI — and still does.
One has wonder whether this reading material crossed Councilwoman Palin’s desk approvingly as well.
Michael Shaw at BAGNewsNotes found this 1995 image of Sarah Palin at her Wasilla City Council desk. It appears to be her official portrait, and a mundane one at that.
What's striking, as Michael points out, is the article in front of her: It's a piece about the "Con Con Call" -- one of those hysterical non-issues that conspiracy theorists of the far right in 1995 were shrieking about, involving an attempt by a handful of governors to organize a convention aimed at fighting what they saw as states' subordinate status. (Yes, the shrieking shut it down.)
One of the organizers of that particular torch-bearing mob was the John Birch Society. And sure enough, the article that Palin is proudly displaying in this portrait is a copy of the March 1995 edition of New American, the house organ of the Birch Society.
The article in question was written by Don Fotheringham. (It's no longer in the NA's archives, but you can read the text of it at this site.)
The Birchers are best known for their ardent McCarthyism and their long career in promoting cockamamie conspiracy theories about supposed Communist infiltration of government -- not just in the '50s and '60s, but well into the late '80s, until the fall of the Soviet Union. At that point, they simply picked up the same act and transferred it to promoting similar theories about the "New World Order" under Bill Clinton in the 1990s. (Chip Berlet has one of the best disquisitions on the Birch Society's long career.)
These same theories were the raison d'etre of the militia movement -- and indeed, the Birch Society ardently promoted the militias and related "Patriot" activity. I used to see their material on sale at militia gatherings regularly.
So it's probably not a coincidence that Sarah Palin was proudly reading Bircher magazines at the same time she and her husband were attending Alaskan Independence Party gatherings and making friends with its leaders, and the same year her husband signed up as a member. Because the AIP, as we've detailed, has a long history of being part of this same "Patriot" movement contingent.
It might be no wonder that an AIP follower like Todd Palin doesn't believe he has respond to official subpoenas. After all, "sovereign citizenship" -- fancy words for "I'm exempt from your laws" (based on the notion that the government was "illegitimate") -- was a staple of the Patriots, too.
That's quite the VP nominee John McCain picked there.
Johnson later told a federal agent that the men talked about assassinating Obama only because he was black, according to a federal arrest affidavit. Johnson said he also heard Adolf say that he wanted to kill Obama "on the day of his inauguration" and that he would "find high ground to set up and shoot Obama," the affidavit said.
And yet in his press conference announcing there wasn't "enough evidence" to pursue conspiracy charges against the men, Eid said:
"You know, they didn't, they didn't reveal a plan. I think what you can see in the affidavit was, uh, a lot of racist rantings and a lot of dislike for the idea of Senator Obama as an African-American person of color being able to pursue that office."
Not only did these men have a plan, they had the material for carrying it out and appeared to be in the early stages of doing so. Investigators found high-powered rifles, ammunition, disguises, walkie-talkies, and maps, all indicative of a coordinated plan to assassinate Obama.
As Brad Jacobson at Media Bloodhound notes, you couple all this with the admission by one of the participants, and it's clear that Eid's office had before them (as the FBI made clear in recommending charges be filed) evidence of motive, intent, and plan -- as well as both the means and the capability of carrying it out. Moreover, as is always critical in conspiracy cases, they evidently took steps to do so.
-- How often has Troy Eid ignored the FBI's recommendations in the past when it comes to filing charges in cases of this nature? (We know when it came to a black man inside a prison threatening John McCain -- despite a clear lack of capability of actually carrying out the threat -- Eid was eager and willing.)
-- Is this administration -- and particularly this Justice Department, as deeply compromised as it has become by the Bush White House's crass politicization -- capable of ensuring that true threats against Democratic figures like Obama are taken seriously and dealt with appropriately?
Long before respected mainstream news organizations, including The Denver Post, got so many of their story leads from anonymous Internet scribblers whose veracity and competency cannot by definition be verified.
Eid goes on to contend that "faceless bloggers" are destroying journalistic standards by publishing "wild internet rumors" that journalists then feel compelled to run. And that, you see, is why there were questions about his handling of the tweakers case. Not, you know, because they demonstrated a clear and bizarre double standard in his enforcement of the law.
Well, for what it's worth, this "faceless blogger" was one of the first bloggerstackling this case. I don't know to what extent we drove the subsequent reportage, but I do know that these posts generated a great deal of traffic.
And I have never blogged under anything but my own name. As you can see, my mug shot adorns my posts here. I am not faceless or nameless.
I also happen to have the credentials to be raising these questions: I've written books on the far right, have covered numerous federal court cases involving the far right, have covered FBI standoffs and have gotten to know a number of both FBI agents and federal prosecutors, and I know how these cases operate. In 2000, my reportage on domestic terrorism for MSNBC won a National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism.
And yes, I'm a blogger and a journalist, and proud of it.
Troy Eid is going to have to come up with a better excuse than this. Particularly as it becomes clear how badly he's botched this case. More on that later.
The McCain campaign has started airing a new Spanish-language television commercial in the battleground states of Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico that lays the failure of comprehensive immigration reform at the feet of Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues -- despite the fact that Obama supported the bipartisan John McCain-Edward Kennedy efforts to enact such reforms and voted for their final proposal last year.
… "Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants," the ad's announcer says in Spanish in the spot, released Friday. "But are they? The press reports that their efforts were 'poison pills' that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his Congressional allies: Ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead."
This is a complete reversal of the real picture: Republicans, not Democrats, killed immigration reform, and it had nothing to do with “poison pill” amendments. It had to do with right-wing Republicans who hated the “amnesty” portions of the bill that McCain himself supported.
As you can see in the above video, the nativist nutcases actually claim credit (with good reason) for killing immigration reform. And they will continue to be the largest obstacle.
Even the Washington Times is calling bullshit on McCain's ad (with its own right-wing take, of course):
It's McCain's second attempt to try to tie Obama to unpopular congressional Democrats, and this one's a stretch. The immigration bill didn't die because of poison pill amendments; it died because it was unworkable from the start — a mishmash of ideas and policies that never quite worked together, that was always skewed too far toward amnesty to truly win much conservative support, and that never quite got the buy-in such a deal needed from both sides.
Remember, this is a bill that was so unpopular it was blocked by a bipartisan majority filibuster — usually the tool of the minority.
The McCain campaign, in its backup literature for the ad, points to "poison pill amendments" that Obama backed. But even there, their read on the situation is off. They argue Obama voted for the amendment to sunset the guest-worker program after five years. That amendment passed 49-48.
But the entire agreement was so fragile that without that amendment, sought by labor unions, even more Democrats would have voted against the final bill. In fact, the amendment was voted on twice — it failed the first time, but in order to keep Democrats from abandoning the bill they negotiated a second vote, which passed.
So it's arguable that amendment actually kept the bill alive longer than it otherwise would have lasted.
This is only the latest lie coming from these people, as we all know, and it has permanently changed the campaign narrative. McCain’s campaign has officially become the Fast Talk Express.
