Even the most far-fetched myths usually start from a kernel of fact. So we set out to find the origin of the idea, now commonly accepted in far right circles, that there is a move afoot among Muslims to supplant the Anglo-American legal system with Islamic Sharia law.
Rachel Slajda did the sleuthing and what she found is that disparate facts — a piece of documentary evidence in a trial of a Muslim charity, a highly questionable court ruling in New Jersey, and Muslim cabbies in the Twin Cities refusing to carry passengers with alcohol — were used by some of the hardest-core neocons to plant the seed for this “stealth jihad.” That myth is now in full bloom and is readily accepted within the conservative mainstream. Interesting read.
50 year old Army vet Roman Otto Conaway was arrested yesterday in Fairview Heights, Illinois after threatening to kill President Obama, start a holy war between Christians and Muslims and falsely claiming to be wearing a suicide explosives belt. Conaway apparently believed that President Obama had threatened Pastor Terry Jones into canceling his planned Koran burning.
Justin Elliott has a good piece up on GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller’s support from among Alaska militia types. “It’s safe to say that Joe Miller is a friend of patriots,” Norm Olson, commander of the Alaska Citizens Militia, tells Justin. “His beliefs and platform favor Second Amendment rights as well as the power of nullification when the federal government intrudes into the private lives of Alaskans.” Good stuff.
During his appearance on the The O’Reilly Factor last night, Jon Stewart told Bill O’Reilly that Fox News has “been overtaken by a more extreme version of you.” Watch.
Call it a new corollary to Godwin’s Law. If Rand Paul is talking about the economic decline of America, he will invariably raise the specter of an American Hitler. The number of times it’s happened is rather remarkable, as our search through the Paul archives demonstrates.
This time it’s by Penn Schoen and Berland Associates. And again, a 2 point margin for the GOP. Notably, the poll was taken back on the 16th, but just released today. This one is an Internet poll. So it’s in our dataset but by default is not included in our average or trendline. See the chart itself after the jump. Read More
The story of the last two weeks has been a ‘settling’ in a number of Senate contests around the country. Patty Murray’s race in Washington, which seemed really tight, suddenly isn’t. While Russ Feingold, who looked like he had a challenging race, now looks like he’s seriously behind. This is not surprising since it’s only post-Labor Day when the bulk of the electorate really tunes into the campaigns. So it’s only then that you have a true picture of where each race really stands.
The picture isn’t that stark in California. Barbara Boxer looks like she’s regaining her lead, albeit by a still fairly narrow margin. But the trend is clear. And in response, Carly Fiorina has just released this positively slashing new ad.
Sen. Chambliss’s office has determined that yep, it was one of his staffers who posted the “All Fa–ots Must Die” comment on the Joe.My.God website just after Senate Republicans prevented a vote on repealing DADT.
TPM got a hold of a draft of the new and improved Contract With America that the House GOP is scheduled to unveil tomorrow.