This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 23, "America is not some fragile thing" edition)

Far too much media coverage of politics focuses on the horserace angle--who's ahead, who's behind, who's up or down. It relies on false equivalency: if Politician A says X, then the reporter goes to Politician B, who's sure to say Y. That's lazy journalism, and it doesn't actually inform the public about which position (if any) is actually true, or adheres to the facts as we know them. At TWiA, our mission is to discuss politics through the prism of policy--to look, in other words, at the real-world implications of the things that politicians say and do, to make connections others might miss, and to explain it all in language a lay person can understand. Also to offer suggestions of how you can help somebody in need, to report on what's awesome, and to keep tabs on bears. If you like TWiA, share or repost or tell a friend, and be sure to leave comments, even if they're arguments. Especially if they're arguments.

This Week in Delaware

At the beginning of Joe Biden's (D/DE) Washington career--between the time he was elected to the Senate and the time he began to serve as senator--his wife and three children were in a car accident. His wife and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed; two sons, Beau and Hunter, survived.

Biden had just won an unexpected Senate victory against a popular, powerful Republican incumbent. J. Caleb Boggs had the money, the name recognition, and the full force of the Republican Party machine behind him. Biden had youthful energy, an attractive family, and a gift for connecting with regular people. Because Delaware is a small state, he was able to travel through most of it, exercising that gift, and he eked out a win.

Then his wife's car was hit by a tractor-trailer rig while she and the children were Christmas shopping. Biden considered resigning his seat before ever serving, so he could stay home with the boys. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D/MT) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D/MA) persuaded him to keep the seat and commute. For 36 years, Biden did just that, taking the train to DC in the morning, serving in the Senate, and going home at night to be with his family. His staff had standing orders--no matter what was going on in the Senate, if one of the boys called, Biden was to be interrupted so he could take the call. At a recent Yale University commencement address--delivered while he knew Beau was dying of brain cancer--Biden said, "I came to realize that a child can hold an important thought, something they want to say to their mom and dad, maybe 12 or 14 hours, and then it’s gone. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Biden's deep Catholic faith was shaken, and previously unknown anger filled him. But that passed, his faith returned, and he became one of the most consequential senators of our time. 1994's Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (a.k.a. the "Biden Crime Act," after its principal author) included the federal assault weapons ban and the Violence Against Women Act, the first major federal legislation aimed at combatting domestic violence. He backed that up with federal assistance to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Known as a moderate who worked easily with Republicans as well as fellow Democrats, Biden also had a profound impact on foreign policy. In 1993, during a trip to the troubled Balkans, he told Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic--to his face--"I think you're a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one." He pushed for engagement in the Balkans, and that engagement ultimately brought peace to the region. Milosevic--in fact a war criminal--was tried as one, but died in prison before the trial's completion. In 2002, Biden and Republican Senator Richard Lugar (IN) passed a resolution that authorized military action in Iraq only after diplomatic efforts had been exhausted, but President George W. Bush vetoed it so he could begin his war. In 2006, Biden advocated for a division of Iraq into a federation of three separate ethnic states--a division that might still come to pass, and that could have saved tens of thousands of lives if it had happened before renewed sectarian violence gripped that country.

In the Senate, Biden maintained a reputation as a regular guy who commuted by train and was one of the least wealthy senators (the "second poorest," in his words), which kept him in touch with his mostly working-class constituency and the needs of ordinary Americans.

And now, as Biden's second term as Vice President of the United States enters its closing months, he has lost another son.

Speaking to the TAPS Military Survivor Seminar in 2012, Biden said, "Just when you think you're going to make it, you're driving down the road and you pass a field and you see a flower, and it reminds you. Or you hear a tune on the radio. Or you just look up into the night and, you know, you think, 'Maybe I'm not going to make it, man.' Because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news."

But he also reminded his audience that there was hope for the future. "There will come a day, I promise you and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I’m telling you it will come.”

Here is his statement on the loss of his son Beau:

"It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life.

"The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us—especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter.

"Beau's life was defined by service to others. As a young lawyer, he worked to establish the rule of law in war-torn Kosovo. A major in the Delaware National Guard, he was an Iraq War veteran and was awarded the Bronze Star. As Delaware’s Attorney General, he fought for the powerless and made it his mission to protect children from abuse.

"More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother. His absolute honor made him a role model for our family. Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did.

"In the words of the Biden family: Beau Biden was, quite simply, the finest man any of us have ever known."

We here at TWiA World Headquarters appreciate and honor the Biden family's decades of service to our nation, and we mourn the loss of Beau Biden.

Below the fold: 2016, right vs. left, Selma revisited, how you can help, and bears.

This Week in 2016

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R/SC) joined the kids in the already-crowded hot tub of Republican presidential candidates. Graham has no shot at the nomination, much less the White House. But his buddy Sen. John McCain (R/AZ) did it, and Graham hates to be left out of anything McCain does. Regardless of his chances (or lack thereof), we look forward to the moment he and Sen. Rand Paul (R/KY) debate drones.

Paul held a 13-hour faux-libuster purportedly* to ask the question "Will drones be used to kill US citizens on American soil?"--which anyone with a basic understanding of the criminal justice system could have answered in one word: "No." (Or slightly more comprehensively, "Drones are a tool. If law enforcement uses them as a weapon, the same standards that already apply to using deadly force will apply--except it'll be virtually impossible for a pilot flying a drone from a secure facility someplace to be in immediate danger. So, No.").

Graham, who despite being a military lawyer seems to have no basic understanding of the criminal justice system, has said, "If I'm president of the United States and you’re thinking about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL, I'm not gonna call a judge. I'm gonna call a drone and we will kill you."

So the answer to Paul's question then becomes, "Yes, if Lindsey Graham is president (unlikely) and can read your mind (even more unlikely, though not by much)."

* We say "purportedly," because the real reason for these publicity stunts is to raise money and add names to his mailing list.

* * *

Not to be outdone, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is running again. Perry is an extremist who holds some radical views he doesn't talk about much, and who claimed to be considering the idea of Texas seceding from the US a few years ago. Surely he remembers a war fought over that a while back, and how that war came out for the seceders. He ought to know that Texas gets more money back from the federal government than it sends in, so as its own independent nation-state, it would be facing perilous economic realities.

Perry will likely have the best hair of any candidate in the pack, but that's not going to save him. He's also the first presidential candidate we know of--maybe the first ever--to launch his bid for a major party nomination while under indictment on felony charges.

* * *

Republican presidential candidates have already started trying to terrify us, and they're going to keep it up until election day, 2016. They'll say the world is an incredibly dangerous place, and we're all at risk here at home. They might not be wrong about that last part, but we're at risk from guns, automobiles, cigarettes, trans-fats, and so on--not so much from foreign enemies. The things they're warning us about are just not real, and here's why.

* * *

It didn't take long for Republican presidential candidates to start saying stupid things about rape and gender. This week, defending a proposed 20-week abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, Gov. Scott Walker (WI) said this about pregnancies resulting from rape: "I mean, I think for most people who are concerned about that, it’s in the initial months where they’re most concerned about it.”

And former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who's opposed to the acceptance of transgendered people, said (earlier this year, but only widely disseminated this week), "Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I’m pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, ‘Coach, I think I’d rather shower with the girls today.'"

He added, "For those who do not think that we are under threat, simply recognize that the fact that we are now in city after city watching ordinances say that your 7-year-old daughter, if she goes into the restroom cannot be offended and you can’t be offended if she’s greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man."

We're not sure why you think that's grounds to be offended, Mike. Would you be offended if that mythical 7-year-old walked in and found an African-American person there? An indigenous person? A gay woman? A disabled woman? Josh Duggar? Oh, never mind, you like him.* Where, pray tell, Governor, do we draw the line of bigotry? Who is it okay to fear and hate, in your world view?

(*Thanks to TWiA special reality-TV correspondent Marcy Rockwell for the tip.)

* * *

Bridgegate might not be done with NJ Gov. Chris Christie. And when will candidates learn to stop dressing in costumes that make them look stupid? Yes, Christie can play softball. John Kerry could windsurf, too, but did he win his presidential race?

* * *

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones wants to know why so many people who clearly have no chance at the nomination, let alone the presidency, are running this year. His take is that only Jeb Bush and Scott Walker can possibly be nominated, which is probably true.

Our guesses? Running for president elevates a politician's national profile. Marco Rubio is kind of an idiot, as Drum says, but he's also young, and in another 8 or 12 years, he could conceivably acquire a certain gravitas that would allow him a better shot. That national profile increases their speaking fees and book advances, as Ben Carson demonstrates. For still others, it opens a path to a gig on Fox "News." And you can't discount the hubris that blinds people to their own faults--particularly politicians, who if they didn't have a pretty high opinion of themselves, wouldn't have gone into that field in the first place. These people probably think they know how to fix everything, and they can't believe that the rest of the country can't see that.

* * *

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne offers a rationale for the candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I/VT): the Two Santa Claus Theory. "What’s valuable for progressives in the Two Santa Claus Theory is that it reminds voters that the point of tax increases is not to drag down the rich but to finance initiatives on behalf of citizens who can use some help in lifting themselves up. It also fights against a gloomy resignation that things can’t get better."

* * *

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) also joined the race over the weekend, though his tub is not nearly so crowded. O'Malley has progressive credentials, but he also has the unfortunate history of having been the Baltimore mayor who introduced a statistics-oriented policing philosophy to the city that focused on numbers rather than people, with unfortunate results that are still playing out today. He's also up against the formidable Hillary Clinton*, and Bernie Sanders has already claimed the open territory to Clinton's left, leaving O'Malley little space. Sanders is running to raise issues, not to be president. O'Malley, though, could be running for vice president.

* * *

O'Malley was joined midweek by Lincoln Chaffee (D/RI) who has been a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat (since 2013), as well as a mayor, a senator, and a governor. That's a pretty impressive, middle-of-the-road resume that should translate into votes, except it won't, because there are only about 20 people in the country who know who Lincoln Chaffee is, and 9 of them live in Rhode Island. In his home state, he's so unpopular that he didn't even run as an incumbent governor last time around, because he knew he couldn't win.

* Did we say "formidable?" Although the press doesn't much care for Hillary Clinton, actual people like her. A lot. As Matthew Yglesias points out at Vox.com, Gallup polls have ranked her as the most admired woman in the world for 17 out of the past 18 years. Here at home, she's the most popular politician in the country (admittedly not a very high bar). That said, her "honest and trustworthy" numbers have been taking a beating.

This week, Clinton gave a major speech on voting rights. "Speaking at Texas Southern University in Houston, Clinton called for every American to be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 unless they choose not to be. She backed a nationwide standard of at least 20 days of early voting. She urged Congress to pass legislation strengthening the Voting Rights Act, which was gravely weakened by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. And she slammed restrictive voting laws imposed by the GOP in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, which she said affect minorities and students in particular."

We say, good for her. For a political party to act to suppress voting rights around the country, seeking electoral advantage, is a heinous attack on democracy and it ought not be tolerated. As she said this week, "What part of democracy are they afraid of?"

Paul Waldman wants to know how Republicans are going to attack her proposals, since every justification they've offered so far is pure fiction. He writes, "Let's cut through the baloney and be honest for a moment: Republicans don't like early voting or universal voter registration for the same reason they want voter ID laws. They know that the easier voting is, the more Democrats will turn out. Republican voters, on the other hand, are more likely to be older, wealthier, and whiter — the people for whom the kind of restrictions Republicans have sought to impose are less of a hassle. You could argue that Democrats are just as motivated by their partisan interest in taking the position they do, but that doesn't change the simple fact that Democrats want to make voting easier and Republicans want to make it harder."

It didn't take long for Chris Christie to demonstrate how right Waldman is about the difficulty of attacking her proposals. Christie's response was, “Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey or in the other states that she attacked. My sense is that she just wants an opportunity to commit greater acts of voter fraud around the country.”

There are multiple offensive things about that statement. First, voter fraud is next to nonexistent. As Waldman points out, when he was attorney general, Texas governor Greg Abbott spent 13 years trying to find voter fraud cases, and came up with exactly two. Other efforts have netted similar results. The widespread fraud Republicans claim just isn't there--if it were, we'd have heard all about it in the headlines from coast to coast. And Christie's implication is that Hillary Clinton herself has committed acts of voter fraud--now she just wants to commit greater ones. We can't be sure exactly what he means by that. Does he really think that she, personally, has committed voter fraud? If so, how? Did she vote in two different states in the same election? Vote twice in the same state, under different names? That's a pretty serious accusation, so we'd like to see him back it up.

He won't, of course, because he can't. He wants to come out in favor of preventing Americans from exercising their right to vote, but he doesn't want to tell us what he's doing. For a guy who likes to pretend to toughness, he's sure acting like a coward.

There's a long time between now and November 2016, and anything could happen (except for a Lindsey Graham or Lincoln Chaffee surge). But if the election were held today, she would walk away with it. Expect the right-wing media to hammer on her as never before (causing the mainstream media, which takes a lot of its cues from the right-wing media, to follow suit), and expect a lot of ugly attack ads.

This Week in Extremism

We here at TWiA haven't been alone in observing the disappearance of the endangered species known as moderate Congressional Republicans. A couple of charts show that near-extinction in vivid detail. According to the most recent data, about 90% of Democrats in the House are moderates, while the reverse is true for Republicans--10% moderates, 90% extremists.

There are various reasons for this shift, including the emergence of a powerful right-wing media machine and the echo chamber effect of living within the right-wing bubble, and gerrymandering, which creates "safe" districts where voters can push candidates as far right as they want without worrying about losing to more moderate opponents.

* * *

Here's an insightful piece about how the anti-government ideas of Timothy McVeigh and far-right militias have gained acceptance--even among current presidential candidates--in today's Republican Party. These ideas were once, not that long ago, considered beyond the pale. Now they're part of the official party platform. It's frightening to think of how extreme the conservative movement has become.

* * *

Part of why Republicans and Democrats seem so divided is because they don't even agree about which topics are important enough to argue about, as this piece shows. The top issue for Republicans? The deficit. For Democrats. energy.

Which really demonstrates why Republicans should be Democrats, assuming their concern about the deficit is that it needs to be reduced. Republican administrations have a history of increasing the deficit. Under President Obama, the deficit has been cut faster than at any time since WWII. The last president who significantly reduced the deficit was Bill Clinton. Do those Republicans know these simple facts, or are they trapped in a right-wing bubble that facts can't penetrate?

The second most important topic for Republicans is national security. Which causes one to wonder why they won't push Republicans in Congress to have a debate about the fight against ISIS, and to come up with an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which is their constitutional duty. Would they rather just attack the president's strategy while contributing nothing of their own? Never mind, the answer is self-evident.

Second for Democrats is income inequality. In another poll, 62% of Americans think the government should pursue policies that would reduce inequality. It's a popular idea among Democrats and Independents. Among Republicans, though, it gets worse numbers: 55-38% against; among self-identified conservative Republicans, 66-27% against.

The differences are even more pronounced when you break things down to liberals vs. conservatives, as opposed to Democrats vs. Republicans. As the article says, "Because conservatives are more dominant in the Republican Party than are liberals in the Democratic Party, the differences between liberals and Democrats as a whole are more pronounced than between conservatives and Republicans generally."

Given these facts, it's hard to see how we can even have a national debate on an issue, when the two sides don't even see the same things as important enough to talk about.

Side Note: Late this week, a bipartisan group of representatives introduced legislation that would force their fellow members of Congress to act on an AUMF. We hope they succeed.

* * *

On issues of red vs. blue division, here's some interesting research on some of the most liberal vs. conservative jobs in America.

* * *

Why liberals love Ron Swanson.

This Week in the Senate

One of the jobs of the US Senate is to confirm or defeat presidential nominees for all sorts of positions. We've had overburdened courts for years, because the Senate has been slow to confirm judicial nominees. Now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R/KY) promises it'll get worse. We can only suppose he's seen how effective Speaker of the House John Boehner (R/OH) is at doing almost nothing and still keeping the perks of his job, and has decided Boehner should be his role model.

This Week in Deadly Force

There have been at least 385 fatal police shootings so far in 2015. Here are some of the stories, and statistics. Two cheerful notes:

1) Fatal shootings tend to go along with the size of a state's population, with the exceptions of Arizona (TWiA's home state) and Oklahoma, which have rates double that found in most other states.

2) One in 13 people killed by guns is killed by police.

* * *

Senators Barbara Boxer (D/CA) and Cory Booker (D/NJ) have proposed legislation that would make mandatory the reporting of all incidents in which police shoot, injure, or kill anyone. Currently there's only voluntary reporting to the FBI, with the result that we don't really know who or how many people are victims of police use of force (which we're not saying is never justified--we just think it would be good to keep track).

This Week in Transparency

The USA Freedom Act passed and was signed into law this week. Some say it doesn't go far enough, others say it goes too far. The fact remains that it's the first significant rethinking of the Patriot Act, passed by a Congress in a state of panic over having been attacked on 9/11, and it restores a certain amount of freedom that had been infringed by the Patriot Act. Overall, we think that's a good thing.

* * *

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) looks at the Obama administration's record on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and finds it lacking. "FOIA request backlogs have more than doubled since President Obama took office. The feds received 714,231 FOIA requests in fiscal 2014, and nearly 160,000 weren’t processed within the legal time limit, up 67% from fiscal 2013."

This Week in Health Care

Nine in 10 Americans now have health insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Of course, a Supreme Court decision sometime this month could destroy the ACA. Will the justices be that stupid? We can only hope not.

This Week in the Death Penalty

The man Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has always pointed to as justification for the death penalty was pardoned this week, because he was innocent. He's intellectually disabled, he was coerced into confessing, and he spent 30 years in prison. But--no thanks to Scalia--he's still alive today.

This Week in American Exceptionalism

It's tiring to hear the Republican 2016 candidates denigrate President Obama's patriotism and his commitment to the idea of American exceptionalism. Everything about his personal story speaks to that idea--it's an "only in America" story of a person not born into power and wealth, overcoming all sorts of obstacles and lifting himself up through sheer will and intelligence to become a scholar, a leader, and president of the United States. "No American president has talked about American exceptionalism more often and in more varied ways than Obama," according to the Washington Post.

When Rudy Giuliani said "I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. . . . He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country,” he was not speaking out of patriotism, but out of something much more base and contemptuous. He was also plain wrong.

This excellent Washington Post article discusses Obama's view of America through the lens of the speech he made in Selma at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. The piece shows how closely the president (a fine writer himself) works with his speechwriter, bringing in literary references, revising, adding his own material, and shaping the final product to be what he wants it to be. Obama is one of the best orators of our time, and he's not simply reading someone else's words, but delivering something he has been involved in crafting from the start.

We've quoted from that speech before, and now we're doing so again. It is, we believe, one of those speeches that will last, that will be studied by generations to come, that will be remembered as long as there is an America. In that speech, he said:

"The Americans who crossed this bridge, they were not physically imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had endured hundreds of years of brutal violence, countless daily indignities –- but they didn’t seek special treatment, just the equal treatment promised to them almost a century before.

"What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible, that love and hope can conquer hate."

...

“What could be more American than what happened in this place? What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people — the unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course?

“That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing.”

. . .

"Because Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word 'We.' 'We The People.' 'We Shall Overcome.' 'Yes We Can.' That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.

"Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished, but we’re getting closer. Two hundred and thirty-nine years after this nation’s founding our union is not yet perfect, but we are getting closer. Our job’s easier because somebody already got us through that first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge. When it feels the road is too hard, when the torch we’ve been passed feels too heavy, we will remember these early travelers, and draw strength from their example, and hold firmly the words of the prophet Isaiah: 'Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on [the] wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.'

"We honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar. And we will not grow weary. For we believe in the power of an awesome God, and we believe in this country’s sacred promise."

Read the whole speech here. Better yet, watch it and listen to a great speaker deliver a great speech.

This Week in History

Conservative writer Orin Kerr discusses the sad case of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R/IL), the longest-serving Republican Speaker in history, about whom we reported last week. Kerr writes, "If I understand the history correctly, in the late 1990s, the President was impeached for lying about a sexual affair by a House of Representatives led by a man who was also then hiding a sexual affair, who was supposed to be replaced by another Congressman who stepped down when forced to reveal that he too was having a sexual affair, which led to the election of a new Speaker of the House who now has been indicted for lying about payments covering up his sexual contact with a boy."

That almost sums it up, but Steve Benen at Maddowblog adds a couple more choice details. Bob Livingston (R/LA), the one who "stepped down," was replaced in Congress by David Vitter, who despite admitting to having frequented prostitutes while serving in the US Senate, still serves in the US Senate and may run for governor next year. And when President Clinton's impeachment moved to the Senate, one of the "impeachment managers" who came in from the House to run it was Rep. Henry Hyde (R/IL), who also had to admit to an extramarital affair of his own. Sure glad all those folks lined up to protect our family values.

This Week in Gun Safety

If you've been thinking about sending a kid to college in Texas, you might want to reconsider.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) may or may not be a smart guy. We don't know; we've never met him or listened to him say more than a few sentences. One thing we can say for certain: he doesn't know the first thing about active shooter situations. Neither do the majority of state legislators. The legislature passed a bill, which the governor has said he'll sign, allowing the carrying of concealed handguns on Texas college campuses.

Abbott displayed his ignorance with this comment: “Shooters will understand next time that they cross a Texas campus, somebody is going to be watching them and have the ability to do something about it to stop them.”

Can Abbott name a single instance in which a civilian with a gun stopped a mass murder in progress? Of course not. Does he know about the statistics, from all over the country, that show that places with more guns have more gun violence? Apparently not. Does he imagine that all those people carrying concealed weapons will have had any training in how to spot a would-be mass shooter? Doubtful.

He and those legislators are willfully making Texas campuses less safe, to satisfy an ideological imperative. Campus officials don't want guns on their campuses, but under this law, they'll be prevented from banning them except in certain places.

If Abbott and the legislators are unaware of the pertinent facts, that's shameful--they should have educated themselves before making such a sweeping decision. If they're aware and acted anyway, that's downright malicious. They're going to have blood on their hands, and nobody to blame but themselves.

This Week in Privilege

What do we mean when we talk about the privileged classes? Here's a short comic that explains it in succinct and concrete terms.
(Thanks to TWiA special wealth correspondent Marcy Rockwell for the tip.)

This Week in How You Can Help

Givewell.org has done lots of research on charities, and has identified some that are not only important but underfunded. If you have a few extra bucks you want to put to good use, you could do worse than tossing it their way.

A domestic charity raising funds for a fight that's close to our hearts is curepc.org, dedicated to the battle against pancreatic cancer. Give something if you can.

This Week in Bears

We wrote about Cinder the bear cub last year, when she was severely burned in a wildfire. Now, after healing, rehabilitation, and training in how to be a wild bear. she and a companion bear have been released back into the wild. We wish them both the best of luck.