This Week in America

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 44)

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 the House

Former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R/OH) was an old-fashioned politician, a trade perhaps best exemplified by the time he was seen handing checks from tobacco lobbyists to his fellow congressmen on the floor of the House. He was a deal-maker, a vote counter, a guy who liked to get things done. That made him a pariah to modern Republicans, who serve explicitly to prevent things from being done. And that, in turn, made his tenure as speaker one of the shortest ever.

Boehner explained the shift in a press conference on the last day of his 24-year House of Representatives career:

"Let’s just go back 20 years. You have the first Republican majority in 40 years. We have one radio talk-show host that no one had ever heard of. We had one 24-hour news channel that just did news. We had an Internet that only a couple of geeks in Palo Alto were using.

"Today, we have hundreds of radio talk-show hosts each trying to out-right the others in terms of gaining an audience. You’ve got all these cable news networks, and all they do is politics. You have got the Internet. You have got Facebook, Twitter, every blog known to man and these giant email lists.

"So what is happening is the American people are getting thousands of times more information than they ever got about their government. Secondly, the speed at which they get it is instantaneous.

"What is happening is pushing or pulling people into one of two camps, leaving almost nobody in the middle. The ability of a small group of members or some small outside organizations to stir up angst or to mislead people has been amplified. So it is not hard to see why we’re where we are."

That partisan divide made his job miserable, to the point that he had nightmares about trying to escape it but being unable to get away. He knows that compromise is necessary, that making deals requires each side giving some to get some, but every time he did that, he faced revolt from his own team. It's unfortunate that he ends his long years of service to the country with a reputation as one of the weakest Speakers in history, and that one of the most powerful and influential positions in government turned into little more than a piñata to be batted around. We rarely agreed with his policy prescriptions, but we honor his service. 

The new speaker, Paul Ryan (R/WI), was elected Thursday morning with 236 votes (Nancy Pelosi was second, with 184 votes). Ryan once had dreams of the presidency, and failing that, he hoped to keep his position as chair of the powerful Ways and Means committee. Nobody goes from the speaker's seat to the White House, except as a visitor. Given the nature of his party, we don't expect Ryan to be a long-serving speaker, either; the job is simply too frustrating, too impossible, given the fractious nature of the Republican conference. He's the youngest speaker since 1869, so he might still be able to serve for a few years, then quit and come back into politics as a presidential candidate. It's a long shot, though, and he'll have to be a surprisingly effective speaker to swing it. We don't have much faith in his policy judgment--anyone who credits the morally bankrupt fictions of Ayn Rand for inspiring his political career has already demonstrated a serious lack of common sense. But we hope, for the country's sake, that he can leave his far-right beliefs behind and do well in his new role. Good luck to him in what has become, in many ways, the worst job in government.

But the gig comes with the best balcony in Washington, so there's that.

Below the fold: Scandals, totalitarianism, debates, novels, bears, and more. Keep reading!

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 43)

TWiA explores the intersection of policy and politics, and most importantly, how that intersection affects real people. It's dedicated to the proposition that good government is possible, it matters, and taxpayers deserve nothing less. Its starting point is that facts are facts, science is real, data are real, and we can and must learn from history. Below you'll find facts and opinions that derive from fact, informed by a close and careful study of these issues that began in 1968 and has never stopped. Note, when we discuss generic "Democrats" and "Republicans" or "conservatives" and "liberals," etc., we're generally talking about elected officials, unless otherwise noted. Also, bonus bear news and other awesomeness. We appreciate comments and arguments, so please chime in, and if you like it, spread the word.

 

This Week in the October Surprise

Unfortunately for First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, this week came in 2015 and not 2016. If the presidential election were held today, pitting Clinton against any (or all) of the Republican candidates, she would win in a landslide. Not only is she the best qualified in either party, but she's the only one in either party who has come through the campaign/debate season thus far looking remotely presidential. And she just had her best week yet, thanks in no small part to House Republicans who look increasingly like the Not Ready for Prime Time Players of D.C.

Clinton had the upper hand even before she walked into the room. For months, she has been saying that she wanted to testify before the committee, but only if the entire process were televised. Republicans on this committee, as on the previous one chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R/CA), have a nasty habit of leaking cherry-picked bits of testimony that, out of context, might reflect poorly on Clinton and her staff. The only way to avoid that was to do the whole thing on the record and in front of the cameras. Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R/SC) finally relented, and the event was scheduled.

Then House Speaker John Boehner (R/OH) did Clinton a favor by announcing his resignation. His intended successor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R/CA), thrust into the national spotlight for the first time, immediately shot himself in both feet and probably ended his political career once and for all.

"Her [Clinton's] poll numbers are down," McCarthy crowed on national TV.

Not any more, Rep. McCarthy. We're sure Clinton will send you a nice thank-you note, once she's all settled in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Once he broke the truth dam, other Republicans came forward to confirm what he had said. The committee was formed to placate far-right House members after one of Boehner's necessary compromises to keep the government running, and the reason those members wanted it was to damage Clinton politically.  

But Clinton went into it with the wind at her back from a successful debate performance, the knowledge that Joe Biden wouldn't challenge her for the nomination, and with the whole country knowing why the committee existed in the first place. And she went into it prepared, while the Republicans grilling her looked like school kids faking their way through a pop quiz, having failed to do their homework.

Political observers and pundits on every side of the aisle agree that she came out on top, and the committee's Republicans had made themselves look petty, hapless, and angry. Throughout the 11-hour ordeal, she came off as smart, seasoned, and articulate, and she knew her foreign policy inside and out. Her interrogators, not so much.

She'll face other challenges on her way to the nomination, and to the White House if she wins that. But she has shown that it's best not to underestimate her--a mistake Republicans have consistently made with President Obama.

This Week in Chaos

Also in the House, Rep. Paul Ryan (R/WI), having long made it public knowledge that he had no interest in the Speaker's chair--his dream job was Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, possibly a more powerful job than Speaker even though it's not third in line for the presidency, and he already had it--bowed to pressure from his colleagues and agreed to run for the job.

Before he agreed to it, he made some demands--concessions, mostly from the far right "Freedom Caucus," that would make it easier to do his job (and, legitimately, to spend time with his family). He may or may not get family time, but after consideration, the right-wing crowd decided that no, they wouldn't accept his demands. Most of them would vote for him, but with the understanding that the concessions he sought would be taken up after the fact. Maybe. If they feel like it somewhere down the road.

Ryan decided that was good enough.

In other words, having watched the example of a Speaker who couldn't handle his own caucus, who was constantly thwarted by members who were sent to Washington expressly to wreck government rather than to govern, Ryan has given in to them before even running for the job. If anybody thought Ryan would be a stronger Speaker, able to wrangle his caucus and restore some sort of functionality to government, they should disabuse themselves of that notion right now. Ryan was badgered into running and he's handed off power before being handed the gavel. Not an auspicious beginning.

* * *

It's commendable that Ryan insists on having family time, and as Speaker he'll set the House schedule. House members already work far fewer days than most working-class Americans, so he'll have plenty of opportunity to get back to Janesville. He has, however, held up or refused to support legislation that would provide for paid family leave for those who don't get to decide what days they will or won't work (and be paid by the taxpayers, regardless). Of course, in his Ayn Randian worldview, anyone who has to ask for time off probably doesn't deserve it.

This Week in 2016

The Democratic presidential field saw a potential shakeup materialize into no shakeup at all. This week, VP Joe Biden announced that he won't run for president, giving up on a lifelong goal for him and causing sorrow for hordes of journalists who wanted the horse race to be even closer than it is now.

While Biden was busy not entering the race, former Senator and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb exited the race, causing millions of Americans to say, "Who?" Webb entered the race via a Facebook video (and spent most of his time on the debate stage complaining about how little time he got) so the press conference announcing that he was quitting was literally the first press conference of his "campaign." He said he'll explore the idea of running as a third party candidate. It's entirely possible that he is already running, but that he hasn't told anybody and no one has noticed.

By week's end, recognizing the huge publicity boost Webb got from leaving the race, former mayor, senator, and governor Lincoln Chafee followed suit and announced that he's out, too. Pretty soon there will be enough Democrats not running to start a club.

* * *

We've written at length about Joe Biden before. He is one of the most universally loved people in politics today, in any party. We've heard Sen. Lindsey Graham (R/SC) praise him as "the best man I've ever known," or words to that effect. Campaign rivals and partisan enemies extol his honesty, his work ethic, his devotion to family and friends, and his genuine love for government and the ways in which it can help make people's lives better. We don't imagine that Biden will be disappearing from the public square, and we'd miss him if he did. Here's a thoughtful piece about the possibilities in store for him after January 20, 2017.
(Thanks to TWIA special Naval Observatory reporter Marcy Rockwell for the tip.)

* * *

Where has the Donald Trump we knew and loved gone? Once upon a time, Trump could tell any lie, and if called on it, he would simply repeat it louder. This week, he sorta-kinda walked back his lie that President Obama is considering an executive order that would take away people's guns. Now, he says he has heard that the president is considering such an order, not that the president is actually considering it. Small difference, but in Trump terms, that's a huge retraction. It's still a lie, though.

Trump also did a complete 180 on the war in Afghanistan within the last two weeks, going from calling it "a terrible mistake" to saying "Afghanistan is where we should have gone."

* * *

In somewhat more substantive Trump news, he's keeping up his attack on Jeb Bush's line that brother George W. "kept us safe" during his administration. The difference here is that, for a change, Trump is right on the facts. Jeb's filial loyalty is touching, but it's also not true. Even if one discounts the fact that the 9/11 attacks happened on George W. Bush's watch (which is a huge discount), Jeb's argument has to ignore the anthrax attacks, the fatally mismanaged response to Hurricane Katrina, all the Americans killed in Bush's war of choice in Iraq, and the deepest, longest recession since the Great Depression (which not only put the economy in peril but had genuine health effects for many Americans). And if ISIS is indeed a threat to the country, that's on President Bush, too, since ISIS grew out of al Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't exist until Bush created a power vacuum there. That power vacuum also destabilized the rest of the Middle East and strengthened Iran, so to the extent that those forces are a threat, also on Bush.

Kept us safe? Not hardly, Jeb.

At The Atlantic, Peter Beinart looks closely at the question of whether the Bush administration deserves blame for 9/11, and concludes that it does. The Clinton administration was focused on al Qaeda and Bin Laden. People within the White House national security apparatus and the CIA grew so frustrated with their efforts to convince the Bush administration that al Qaeda, not Iraq, was the imminent threat that they threatened to leave their jobs.

"But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke’s warnings pushed back against the CIA’s. According to Eichenwald’s sources, 'the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.'

"The CIA fought back. 'The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,' declared the Daily Brief on June 29, noting that the al-Qaeda leader had recently told a Middle Eastern journalist to expect an attack. The following day, the CIA included in its Daily Brief an article entitled 'Bin Laden Threats Are Real.' On July 1, the Brief predicted that an attack 'will occur soon.'"

Contrast this with the Clinton administration's efforts: "Clarke makes the same argument. When the Clinton administration received word of a potential attack in December 1999, he notes, President Clinton ordered his national-security adviser to 'hold daily meetings with the attorney-general, the CIA, FBI.' As a result, the leaders of those agencies instructed their 'field offices to find out everything they can find. It becomes the number one priority of those agencies.' This vigilance, Clarke suggests, contributed to the arrest on December 14 of an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam, who was arriving from Canada with the aim of detonating a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport."

The CIA kept trying to convince the Bush administration:

"The warnings continued. On July 11, the CIA sent word to the White House that a Chechen with links to al-Qaeda had warned that something big was coming. On July 24, the Daily Brief said the expected al-Qaeda attack had been postponed but was still being planned. Finally, on August 6, the CIA titled its Daily Brief: 'Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US.' The briefing didn’t mention a specific date or target, but it did mention the possibility of attack in New York and mentioned that the terrorists might hijack airplanes. In Angler, Barton Gellman notes that it was the 36th time the CIA had raised al-Qaeda with President Bush since he took office.

"On September 4, the Cabinet met and despite Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s insistence that Iraq represented the greater terrorism threat, it approved Clarke’s plan to fight al-Qaeda. On September 9, the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended taking $600 million from the proposed missile defense budget and devoting it to counter-terrorism. According to Gellman, Rumsfeld recommended that Bush veto such a move.

"On the morning of September 11, 2001, Clarke’s anti-al-Qaeda plan was sitting on Bush’s desk, awaiting his signature. It was the ninth National Security Presidential Directive of his presidency."

This is not to say that President Bush was responsible for the attacks. Bin Laden and his cronies were (with some help from Saudi Arabia--a country we still pretend is our friend--and the Taliban). But Bush surrounded himself with neocons who, like Bush himself, wanted to "finish" what they considered to be George H.W. Bush's unfinished war against Saddam Hussein. (There's a father-son dynamic at work here that has as much to do with the success of the 9/11 attacks and the disastrous invasion of Iraq as any other single factor on the US side, and it's never, to our knowledge, been thoroughly explored.) Because of the administration's singular focus on Iraq, the people who had Bush's ear on national security issues completely ignored the many, many warnings about al Qaeda. They ignored the antiterrorism recommendations Vice President Al Gore had put together during the previous administration (recommendations that included, among many others, hardened cockpit doors in commercial places to foil hijackers, and more extensive security measures to stop weapons and bombs from being carried onto planes).

Having decided from the start that Iraq was the enemy, the Bush administration was blind to the threat from al Qaeda. And once the war in Afghanistan seemed to be going okay, the administration again decided that Iraq was a more important conflict. We know how that turned out--we're still in Afghanistan, and we may well be going back to Iraq.

Jeb and his fellow Republicans can deny the facts all they want, but when it comes to accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration, keeping us safe cannot be legitimately added to the list.

* * *

In the two most recent polls, at this writing, Ben Carson has pulled ahead of Trump in Iowa. Iowa isn't a particularly important primary state--it has the first contest, but that's in the form of caucuses, where having a ground game and plenty of snacks to feed caucus-goers matters a lot more than policy or personality--and lots of people win it without winning the nomination, or lose it and win the nomination anyway. But it's still significant that the more insane Carson sounds, the more popular he becomes on the right.

To a sane electorate, this exchange with TV host George Stephanopolous would be disqualifying all by itself, even without Carson's ridiculous claims that a couple hundred thousand armed Jews could have stopped Hitler when most of Europe's armies couldn't, and that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing since slavery, and... well, don't get us started.

As recounted in The Guardian:

“I think [moderate Arab states] would have been concerned, and if we were serious about it ... I think that [the US threatening to become energy independent] would have trumped any loyalty they had to Osama bin Laden,” Carson said.

Stephanopoulos said: “But they didn’t have any loyalty to him. The Saudis kicked him out. He was their enemy.”

Carson responded: “Well, you may not think they had any loyalty to him. But I believe otherwise.”

Asked how the Saudis or allies would have located Bin Laden in his remote refuge in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Carson said: “I think they would have known where he was.

“There were indications, for example, during the Clinton administration that we knew where he was … If we could tell where he was, I’m certain they knew where he was.

“My point is, we have other ways that we could have done things. I personally don’t believe that invading Iraq was an existential threat to us. I don’t believe that Saddam Hussein was an existential threat to us. It’s a very different situation right now.”

Stephanopoulos said: “But sir, I wasn’t asking about invading Iraq. I was asking about invading Afghanistan, which had been harboring Osama bin Laden.”

“Well, I was primarily talking about Iraq,” said Carson. “I wasn’t particularly interested in going into Afghanistan, but I do think that we should have taken aggressive action.”

To which one can only say, WTF? 

This Week in Bears

RIP Klondike. The nation's oldest polar bear, Klondike, died in her home at the Philadelphia Zoo on Friday. She had been born in 1980. The average lifespan for polar bears is 24 years.

In the happier category of bears having fun, here's one playing in the hay he found in somebody's backyard.

This Week in America (Vol. 4, Week 42)

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 Debates

The first Democratic debate has come and gone (transcript here). Most journalists, pundits, and political experts (including TWiA) thought Hillary Clinton won, hands down, but to much of the general public, Bernie Sanders came out ahead. We thought Bernie was out of his element--he came across as old, sometimes confused and/or hard of hearing, and generally cranky. When talking about issues of inequality and economic opportunity, he's good (though he's on the... let's say, "optimistic" side about how he'd pay for all his ideas. But those appear to be the only topics he's interested in discussing, and when other things come up--especially around foreign policy--they're way over his head.

Clinton, on the other hand, was smart and substantive, sometimes funny, sometimes charming. Of the five on stage, she was the only one who looked or acted presidential. She was never at a loss for words. Her remarks were pointed when they needed to be. She showed what a good debater she'd be in the general election, especially up against somebody like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio. (Nobody can effectively debate Trump, because he just speaks gibberish, and that 25% or so of the Republican base rewards him for it--but the general election audience won't.)

So yeah, we give it to Hillary on substance. We know others disagree (but not everybody).

* * *

Here's a Venn diagram showing what topics were discussed at the Democratic debate compared to those that came up in the first two Republican debates. Republicans are fighting about building border walls, birthright citizenship, whether vaccines cause autism, the deficit*, and why the IRS should be abolished, while Democrats talk about racism, college debt, veterans care, and financial reform. And the diagram doesn't even factor in how much time the Republicans spent talking about Carly Fiorina's face and who's stupider than whom.

*We've yet to hear any of the Republican candidates admit that the deficit has shrunk by $1 trillion during the Obama administration. When Obama took office, the deficit as a percentage of the overall economy was 9.8%; now it's only 2.5%. It's important that voters know this, because if they believe the right-wing blather about the huge deficit that's growing all the time, they might choose to elect the people--Republicans--who are actually the ones who grow deficits.

* * *

Former MD Governor Martin O'Malley's best moment came in his closing statement, when he contrasted this debate with those of the Republican candidates: "On this stage -- on this stage, you didn't hear anyone denigrate women, you didn't hear anyone make racist comments about new American immigrants, you didn't hear anyone speak ill of another American because of their religious belief. What you heard instead on this stage tonight was an honest search for the answers that will move our country forward, to move us to a 100-percent clean electric energy grid by 2050, to take the actions that we have always taken as Americans so that we can actually attack injustice in our country, employ more of our people, rebuild our cities and towns, educate our children at higher and better levels, and include more of our people in the economic, social, and political life of our country. "

That moment wasn't enough to make him a contender, though. Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb were also there, more or less. For Chafee, it seems to be because he needs a hobby. Webb spent most of his time complaining that he didn't get enough time. Neither will stay in for long.

This Weekend in Carson City

Donald Trump is an egotistical blowhard and a racist, all hair and bluster and without any real ideas. Everybody knows that. Which doesn't stop his candidacy from being popular with a significant chunk of the Republican base.

But Dr. Ben Carson is running a close second (statistically tied in the latest Fox "News" poll), and polling shows that his "favorable" numbers, among the base, are higher than Trump's. People just plain like him.

Which would be fine if he were running for Chief of Surgery somewhere. But running for the presidency, his bizarre, extreme, and just plain weirdo views should disqualify him. Somehow, a vast swath of the American electorate seems unwilling to understand that.

On Monday, the New York Times reported on how Carson's small-donor contributions have increased, the more bizarre his statements have become. His comment that he wouldn't want a Muslim for president, only partially walked back, generated a flood of new contributions. Presumably his blaming the Oregon college shooting victims for their own deaths will do the same.

More offensive by far was his related blaming of Europe's Jewish population for letting Hitler and the Nazis try to exterminate them. Following up on Carson's original comment, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Carson this: "But just clarify, if there had been no gun control laws in Europe at that time, would 6 million Jews have been slaughtered?" 

Carson's response: "I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed... I’m telling you that there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first."

The facts are not on Carson's side. First, Germany had stricter gun control laws before Hitler came into power than after. Hitler relaxed them, making guns more available to the populace, not less. Hitler did ban gun ownership among Germany's Jews, but as the national director of the Anti-Defamation League wrote, "It is mind-bending to suggest that personal firearms in the hands of the small number of Germany’s Jews (about 214,000 remaining in Germany in 1938) could have stopped the totalitarian onslaught of Nazi Germany when the armies of Poland, France, Belgium and numerous other countries were overwhelmed by the Third Reich.”

Maddowblog highlights an even more recent bit of Carson inanity: "The pledge of allegiance to our flag says we are one nation under God. Many courtrooms in the land on the wall it says ‘In God We Trust.’ Every coin in our pocket, every bill in our wallet says ‘In God We Trust.’ So if it’s in our founding documents, it’s in our pledges, in our courts and it’s on our money, but we’re not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? In medicine it’s called schizophrenia. And I, for one, am simply not willing to kick God to the curb."

What's wrong with that statement? Factually, everything.

When criticized, Carson blames "political correctness." It's okay to say anything at all, regardless of how imaginary or absurd, because to do otherwise means surrendering to political correctness.

No, Dr. Carson, it means accepting correctness. There are things that happened, and things that didn't. Some are real and some exist only in your head. It would be good for you to learn the difference.

* * *

Do a party's leaders influence the base, or does the base influence the leaders? Or do the media talking heads influence everybody? Longtime conservative NYT columnist David Brooks wrote a piece this week bemoaning what the Republican Party has become (the phrase "jaw-dropping incompetence" is employed).

"This was not just the work of the Freedom Caucus or Ted Cruz or one month’s activity. The Republican Party’s capacity for effective self-governance degraded slowly, over the course of a long chain of rhetorical excesses, mental corruptions and philosophical betrayals. Basically, the party abandoned traditional conservatism for right-wing radicalism. Republicans came to see themselves as insurgents and revolutionaries, and every revolution tends toward anarchy and ends up devouring its own."

Brooks continues, "By traditional definitions, conservatism stands for intellectual humility, a belief in steady, incremental change, a preference for reform rather than revolution, a respect for hierarchy, precedence, balance and order, and a tone of voice that is prudent, measured and responsible. Conservatives of this disposition can be dull, but they know how to nurture and run institutions. They also see the nation as one organic whole. Citizens may fall into different classes and political factions, but they are still joined by chains of affection that command ultimate loyalty and love."

If you think that doesn't sound much like 21st century Republicans, you're right. Brooks is a holdover from times past (which once was implicit in the "conservative" tag), ideological kin to the William F. Buckley who banished the racists and John Birchers from the conservative movement, rather than embracing and pandering to them like today's movement does.

"Politics," Brooks writes, "is the process of making decisions amid diverse opinions. It involves conversation, calm deliberation, self-discipline, the capacity to listen to other points of view and balance valid but competing ideas and interests.

"But this new Republican faction regards the messy business of politics as soiled and impure. Compromise is corruption. Inconvenient facts are ignored. Countrymen with different views are regarded as aliens. Political identity became a sort of ethnic identity, and any compromise was regarded as a blood betrayal."

He concludes, "These insurgents are incompetent at governing and unwilling to be governed. But they are not a spontaneous growth. It took a thousand small betrayals of conservatism to get to the dysfunction we see all around."

Looked at in this context, it's no wonder the base has fallen in love with Trump, Carson, and Cruz. They're not thoughtful, reasonable conservatives. They're bomb-throwers more interesting in proving government can't work than in helping it work better. They're allergic to compromise, and people who can't compromise can't function within America's tripartite system of government.

Then again, as the Washington Post reports, "Fewer than a third of citizens can name all three branches of the federal government. Just as many can't even identify one of them, according to polling by the Annenberg Public Policy Center." Given that sad fact, it's perhaps not surprising that the Know-Nothing candidates are picking up plenty of followers.

This Week in Benghazi

We've long said that the only scandal surrounding the Benghazi incident was the way Republicans used the deaths of four brave Americans for partisan political advantage. Multiple congressional committees have investigated the incident and come up with no damning information about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department, or anything else (except, perhaps, the unwillingness of House Republicans to increase funding for diplomatic security). Other comprehensive investigations have shown the same thing. Clinton acted appropriately, as did her department and the US military.

It was obvious from the start that the current House Select Committee on Clinton Attacks--we mean, on Benghazi--had no intention of looking for the truth of the situation. Chairman Trey Gowdy (R/SC), like Chairman Darrell Issa (R/CA) of the previous committee, has a habit of leaking bits and pieces of testimony that cast Clinton in a bad light, causing Democrats on the committees to demand that full transcripts, not misleading excerpts, be released. When called upon to testify, Clinton insisted that she do so in an open session, so the public could see what she actually said instead of just reading cherry-picked nuggets. The committee refused for months, pushing back her planned appearance until next week.

Now, one shoe after another is dropping. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R/CA) killed his own shot at the Speaker's chair in part by telling the truth about the committee's purpose: "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable. But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping."

The next, according to the Associated Press, was this: "A former investigator for the House Select Committee on Benghazi says he was unlawfully fired in part because he sought to conduct a comprehensive probe into deadly attacks on the U.S. compound instead of focusing on Hillary Rodham Clinton and the State Department.”

That was followed by this, in the New York Times: "Senior Republican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential conversations, said that Mr. Boehner had long been suspicious of the administration’s handling of the attacks and that Mrs. Clinton’s emails gave him a way to keep the issue alive and to cause political problems for her campaign."

Jamelle Bouie runs through the whole sordid story in Slate. The takeaway is this: the House Select Committee on Benghazi was established and kept alive longer than any similar committee on anything (including JFK's assassination and 9/11) in order to damage Clinton's reputation ahead of the 2016 presidential election. It's a taxpayer-funded sham, and any House Republican participating in it should be deeply ashamed.

This Week in Gun Safety

There's so much gun news coming out daily that it's hard to keep up. Here's a rundown of some of the latest.

Guns were a significant topic of this week's Democratic debate, where the candidates spent nine minutes talking about them. Finally, Democratic presidential candidates signal a willingness to stare down the NRA (which has had only lackluster results in recent elections--where they've put serious money behind candidates, it's usually been those already considered very likely to win; they haven't been the biggest contributor even to those, and they've lost a lot of important races). Republicans say they're glad to see Democrats taking on the issue, because it will energize pro-gun voters. The fact is, though, the most hardcore pro-gun voters already vote, and usually for Republicans. It's been a major issue on that side for years. But Democrats have rarely gone head-to-head with the NRA; doing so can draw out those anti-gun death people who haven't bothered to vote because they didn't think anybody would stand up for them.

* * *

Randy Pullen, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, thinks he has the answer to the whole problem: "take guns away from blacks as they are the main killers."

* * *

This is week 42 of 2015 (unless we've missed one). In 2015, at least 43 toddlers have shot somebody. 13 toddlers have killed themselves or been killed by another toddler (this count doesn't include those killed by adults). And these are just the cases reported in the media; there could be more.

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Regular TWiA readers know that the number of Americans killed by guns every year is somewhere north of 30,000. Many of those unfortunates who aren't regular readers, though, are unaware of that. In a recent poll, 48% of people said, "I don't know." Of the people who did guess, the median number picked was 5,000.

5,000 American lives lost every year is still too many. But from a policy perspective, if you're weighing what you've been told are "Second Amendment rights" against 5,000 lives, you might think that's not enough corpses to justify stricter gun laws. 30,000+, year in and year out, makes the issue sound much more urgent--but somehow, Americans aren't getting the real number.

Side Note: Americans are generally clueless about a lot of numbers. Most Americans think that the pay ratio between CEOs and their employees is about 30:1, making inequality in that respect seem like not such a big deal. The true ratio is closer to 300:1. That's a big difference.

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A pro-gun death advocate named John Lott wrote a book several years ago in which he argued that "more guns equals less crime." Lott is to guns what climate change deniers are to climate--a handy reference for those who want to pretend that the math is on their side, when it's clearly not. Numerous researchers have demonstrated that Lott's methodology was bad and his conclusions wrong. Nevertheless, Lott was in Michigan this week, pushing his debunked theories in support of a bill that would allow guns in churches, schools, and bars.

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This week Maine joined the states (including TWiA's home state of Arizona) that allow concealed carry without a license. Law enforcement officials are already warning that the law will put their officers and the public at greater risk.

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This article is a little more than a year old, but pertinent to the fuss that the Democratic debate will cause in some pro-gun death circles. When Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the first Supreme Court decision ever to interpret the Second Amendment as being primarily about individual gun rights (and ignoring, as the NRA does, the part about the "well-regulated militia"), he claimed to be operating from "originalism." But to do so he ignored all the history about what the Constitution's framers really intended. They accepted individual gun ownership--with certain restrictions, as is the case with Heller--but their focus was on militias. Individual gun ownership was important not only for self-defense in a dangerous time, but because white men were expected to comprise the militias, so needed to have guns. Scalia skipped the militia part of the amendment almost completely.

Yes, SCOTUS has ruled in favor of individual gun rights, but not without restrictions. And having been the first Supreme Court to interpret the amendment that way, they could well be overturned in the future. No Democratic candidate is advocating seizing all guns, or outlawing guns, or anything of the kind. They're advocating sensible gun safety measures that would prevent some of the many, many needless gun deaths we see every day, and we'd all do well to remember that.

This Week in Terrorism

In April 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report on the threat posed by right-wing extremist groups. The right went berserk, calling it "political bias" and "propaganda," among other, less polite terms. Under the barrage of criticism, the report's author quit his job, and the report was quietly shelved.

Since then, domestic terrorism has killed many more Americans than international terrorism. Now, finally, the Department of Justice is making domestic terrorism (virtually all of which comes from the extreme right--a priority, and has created a special position to coordinate investigations into the threat.

One hopes the right will let it do its job, which is to protect American lives. Since it's impossible to prove a negative, we'll never know how many people have died because DHS was blocked from focusing on the issue six years ago, but the number isn't zero.

This Week in Bears

We've often reported on bears seeking to better themselves through education. Here's another example. (Thanks to TWiA special ursine-life correspondent Marcy Rockwell for the tip.)

If you leave your doors unlocked, you might be lucky enough to have company.

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 41)

We're going to stop promising when we'll be back to full-length TWiA posts. This week it's not travel, but novel revisions getting in the way. We hope to return to a normal schedule next week, but there are no guarantees.

This Week in the Republican Party

Remember the Whig Party? If you do, it's only from the history books. Here's what Wikipedia says about that party's end: "The party self-destructed because of the internal tension over the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the nomination for a full-term of its own incumbent, President Fillmore, in the 1852 presidential election; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott. Most Whig Party leaders eventually quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The northern voter-base mostly gravitated to the new Republican Party. By the 1856 presidential election, the Whig Party had become defunct."

This week in Washington, we're watching the self-destruction happen all over again.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R/OH) wants to get out of the sweet Speaker's office, because it's a thankless, impossible job. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R/CA) was his presumptive replacement for a little while, but after accidentally telling the truth about the House Select Committee on Benghazi--and realizing that although he could win the vote this week to officially declare him the party's nominee, there was a good chance he would lose the ultimate vote to put him in office. Rather than embarrass himself further, he withdrew his name.

Now nobody knows who will be Speaker. Establishment figures want Paul Ryan (R/WI) to run. Ryan doesn't want the job (see thankless and impossible, above), because he knows that, while he might be Speaker for a year or two, maybe even for a few years, that's where his political career would end. And the years that he served as Speaker would be painful ones, fighting his own party members to accomplish even the most basic requirements of governing.

In the meantime, in the presidential race, outsiders Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina are the leaders in the polls. None of them have ever held office--which is why the Republican base likes them. None of them are fit to hold office, much less to be President of the United States. Sen. Ted Cruz (R/TX)--spiritual kin to Joe McCarthy--thinks he's in the best position to take the supporters of those candidates when they inevitably fade. If Cruz, who is despised by the Republican establishment, becomes the nominee, then the Republican party loses the White House and probably the Senate. If Cruz leads the party to defeat and the far-right caucus in the House won't let their Speaker govern, then ultimately the party fractures. Separate far-right and  establishment Republican parties won't have the votes to win a school board race, much less a statehouse or a national contest.

We might be living through political history, as it happens.

This Week at College

On Friday--the days we're writing this, there were fatal shootings at American colleges in Arizona and Texas. That follows the tragic mass murder in Oregon last week (and happened on the very day President Obama went to Roseburg, OR, to meet with the families of the victims). Students are being killed with guns, and pro-gun death enthusiasts are demanding more guns on campuses (despite the fact that there were students on campus in Oregon, carrying guns, and they wisely chose not to intercede).

None of the Republican presidential candidates want to do anything about the incredible numbers of Americans who die from gunfire every year. Their primary argument is that "criminals don't obey gun laws, so what's the point of making laws?" Which raises the obvious follow-up question: Murderers don't obey murder laws, so why not repeal them all? Bank robbers and robbery laws, likewise. Why not throw out all criminal laws, since criminals, by definition, don't obey them? In other words, Republican presidential candidates use the most ridiculous, childish tactic possible to avoid talking about the real issues.

The aforementioned Ben Carson thinks those who are killed in mass shootings have only themselves to blame. Then he tried to support his incredibly ignorant, offensive position by bringing up the long-discredited theory that the Holocaust happened because Hitler practiced gun control. Ben Carson is a reprehensible fool.

Side Note: He doesn't know what the debt ceiling is, either. Did we mention "ignorant?"

This Week in America (Vol. 3, Week 40)

Once again, travel and general life have teamed up to prevent a TWiA this week. Next week, back to normal. If we were posting this week, we would discuss the tragedy in Roseburg, OR.

President Obama, as angry and frustrated as we've ever seen him, spoke that evening.

"Somebody somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.

"America will wrap everyone who's grieving with our prayers and our love. But as I said, just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America.

"When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we work to make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix them. To reduce auto fatalities, we have seat belt laws because we know it saves lives.

"So the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations. Doesn't make sense."

He's right. This keeps happening because we let it. We don't feel that 30,000 gun deaths a year are enough to matter. President Obama asked the press to put up charts comparing the number of Americans killed by terrorism each year (which we spend billions of dollars to prevent) and those killed by domestic gun violence, which Congress not only refuses to address, but blocks the government from even amassing helpful data on. Vox.com obliged.

Vox also looked at our gun violence problem as compared to the other countries in the developed world.

We would also write about the most blatantly racist action taken by a state in decades--Alabama's deliberate effort to make it harder for blacks to vote.

Next week, we're back.