This Week in America

This Week in America on Hiatus, Week 2

 

This Week in Wildlife

Law enforcement authorities finally took action against the far-right, antigovernment terrorists holding hostage an Oregon wildlife refuge that belongs to all Americans. Eight people were arrested and one was killed during a traffic stop on Tuesday, away from the refuge. Among the arrested were the occupation's leader, Ammon Bundy, and his brother Ryan Bundy, both sons of deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy (who still owes all Americans a million bucks in back grazing fees). Last year's standoff on Bundy's Nevada ranch, in which militants were allowed to point loaded weapons at American law enforcement officers with no penalties, led directly to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation. Separately, Arizona's own hate-mongering militant Jon Eric Ritzheimer surrendered to authorities in Arizona, after issuing yet another plea for donations. Everyone involved will face federal charges of "conspiracy to impede officers of the United States from discharging their official duties through the use of force, intimidation, or threats, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 372." We hope they face more than that, given their massive destruction of public property at the refuge.

The dead man, Robert LaVoy Finicum, told NBC News a few weeks ago that he would rather die than go to prison. Given that he was engaged in patently illegal actions, it's perhaps not surprising that he reportedly "charged" police rather than surrender. Some said he had surrendered before he was shot, but the video refutes that claim. Finicum has already attained martyr status in the anti-American fringe, but he was no hero. Although he called himself a "rancher," he admitted that most of his income came from fees paid to him by the state of Arizona for fostering children. In addition to having 11 of his own, he and his wife are reported to have fostered around 50 kids over the years. Fostering children who need a home is great, and we here at TWiA applaud those who do it well. In this case, though, it sounds like a revolving door in which raking in the government fees were more important than creating long-term connections with the children. What's also unknown at this point is how much free ranch labor all those foster children provided.

This hypocrisy is typical of the entire Malheur occupation. The occupiers constantly claimed that they were standing up for constitutional rights and freedom, with apparently no idea of what either of those things mean. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is not an illegal seizure of private lands by the federal government. It, and large swaths of Oregon and other Western states, were federally owned land before there was an Oregon. Those lands have never been in private hands (unless you count the local Paiutes, who lived on the land but didn't believe the earth could be "owned." The constitution says that the federal government can administer federal land, so there is no genuine constitutional argument favoring the occupiers' position.

The occupiers said they wanted to "give the land back" to the people, but the people they're talking about--they specifically said the Native population had given up their claim--are business interests. They want the land to be ranched and mined and logged--in other words, taking away land we all own jointly, as Americans, and turning it over to be exploited and destroyed for the private profits of a few. They called on other ranchers to follow Cliven Bundy's example and refuse to pay grazing fees for federal lands--not to take their cattle off federal lands, but to continue to use them without paying for them.

The "principle" these people said they were willing to "kill or be killed" for was  the right to take even greater government handouts (the fees they pay are already a huge discount over fees paid for grazing on private lands). More realistically, they're people whose hatred for the elected government of the United States is so strong that they'll look for any excuse to take up arms against it. At least one of them was quoted as being a fan of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who still holds a record for most Americans killed in a single domestic terrorism incident. The fact that they consider themselves "patriotic Americans" is mind-boggling.

As of Wednesday morning, there were still an unknown number of occupiers inside the refuge buildings (where they've done considerable damage--not just to the buildings but to archaeological sites and collections of Native artifacts). The children are all out, but many of those remaining inside say they're staying put. On Wednesday, Ammon Bundy called on them to go home, and three more turned themselves in to authorities. Federal authorities have surrounded the refuge and established checkpoints to keep out other militants with the ill-conceived notion of joining the occupation. Journalists have been leaving the refuge, heeding warnings from the FBI that their safety can no longer be guaranteed. Members of an organization called Operation Mutual Defense have put out a semiliterate call for armed volunteers to rush to the refuge, which will obviously put them in conflict with the federal officers staffing the checkpoints. One of the occupiers offered this helpful suggestion: "If they stop you from getting here, kill them." The FBI and other law enforcement agencies, it should be said, have demonstrated remarkable restraint and patience through all this.

There are concerns that this occupation--and the martyrdom of the man who lived off government largesse--will spur even more such actions on the anti-government right. A spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center described these fears to the Washington Post (full disclosure: TWiA has been a long-time financial supporter of the SPLC):

“The fact that they took over this federal building is a new thing,” said Heidi Beirich, who tracks militias and paramilitary organizations for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “In the past, obviously we’ve had standoffs, but they’ve been standoffs that involved feds sieging properties that are owned by the militants.”

Beirich said that the standoff at the Bundy ranch in 2014, during which the federal government walked away from confrontation, may have given the occupiers a sense that they could have success in their latest effort.

“Up to that point, I don’t think people — even as crazy as some of the people in the militia movement are — thought that you could put a gun to a federal officer and not get arrested and actually get what you wanted,” Beirich said.

What is also new, Beirich said, is that militia groups are reaching out to people, ranchers and others, who may not share their fervent ideological views but do feel resentment toward some federal policies.

Beirich said that the biggest expansion of anti-government groups came after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, when 168 people were killed by militia movement sympathizers Timothy Mc­Veigh and Terry Nichols.

“For a little while, the bombing gave a boost to the movement,” Beirich said. “But then the federal government . . . started cracking down really hard on violators in the anti-government movement. And the movement started collapsing.”

“Where we sit right now,” she said, “the question is, ‘Does this further embolden these people? Or do cooler heads prevail and decide to quietly slink away?’ ”

This long piece in Harper's Magazine, focusing on Cliven Bundy, explains the details of his protest and the decades-long attack on Western lands by some (but far from all) ranchers and their Republican allies. As the article explains, "The wholesale transfer of public lands to state control may never be achieved. But the goal might be more subtle: to attack the value of public lands, to reduce their worth in the public eye, to diminish and defund the institutions that protect the land, and to neuter enforcement. Bernard DeVoto observed in the 1940s that no rancher in his right mind wanted to own the public lands himself. That would entail responsibility and stewardship. Worse, it would mean paying property taxes. What ranchers have always wanted, and what extractive industries in general want, is private exploitation with costs paid by the public."

What effect do thoughtless ranchers like Bundy have on the land? "Grazing is the chief cause of desertification in North America, and it has irrevocably altered the surviving ecosystems not yet reduced to dust. Cattle have been implicated in the eradication of native plants, the pollution of springs and streams, the denuding of cover for birds and mammals, the deforestation of hardwoods, and the monoculturing of grasslands. When the Department of the Interior completed its most recent analysis of the ecology of the public lands under BLM management, in 1994, the overall assessment was dire. The riparian areas in particular were found to be in their worst shape in recorded history. The report produced such a storm of outrage from the public-lands ranching lobby that when the BLM was given $40 million to conduct a similar study, in 2010, it exempted the impact of livestock to placate the ranchers."

Ranching does not have to be destructive to the land. But people like Bundy, who have survived for so long by taking advantage of an overly generous federal government, don't worry about conservation--they just want there to always be more land they can use at little or no cost, for when their cattle have trampled what they had. And they support their position by deliberate misreading of the Constitution. It's long past time to put a stop to these antics before more people are hurt or killed, and more of the land that belongs to us all is handed off to states that won't protect it or private interests out only to exploit it.

This article in Pacific Standard explains the legislative angle, and how big-money interests in the extractive industries are pushing for change. "Oil and gas trade groups, far-right activists, Republican Congressmen. This is the clique, more or less, that has turned its back on America's great conservation tradition. What's to gain? Power and money. One of the militants, Ryan Payne, put it succinctly: 'Land is power.' The goal, ultimately, is a huge re-distribution of wealth that will take your land, the people's land, more than 600 million acres of it, and put the majority into state or private hands. With environmental laws weakened, and federal holdings dissolved, mining interests, oil companies, real-estate developers and more will have easy access to the landscape's vast riches. As transfer activist Ken Ivory told NPR recently: 'There's more than 150 trillion dollars in minerals locked up in the Western states.' That says it all."

Conservatives talk about redistribution of wealth like it's a bad thing--unless they're the ones calling the shots. It's worth remembering that conservation used to be a Republican ideal--Teddy Roosevelt supported the National Park system, Richard Nixon established the EPA and passed the Clean Air Act. When it comes to the American landscape--particularly the Western landscapes that we all own, and from which we all benefit in ways obvious and obscure, even if we never set foot in them, we'll side with the conservationists over the conservatives every time.

 

TWiA's longstanding interest in Western ranching and land issues, familiarity with local ranchers, and concern about armed anti-government forces prompted this brief interruption of our hiatus, which will otherwise continue.

This Week in History Lessons

First, Republican presidential candidates are fond of comparing themselves to Ronald Reagan, who, the mythology says, so scared the Iranian regime that they released their hostages on the day that Jimmy Carter left office and Reagan took over. The truth is a bit more complicated--the hostages were released because of protracted negotiations between the Carter administration and the Iranians, and relief from sanctions that had frozen millions of dollars of Iranian assets. In other words, diplomacy. They waited until Carter had left office to free the hostages because Carter had been so hard on Iran that average Iranians considered him the personification of the "Great Satan." Reagan's role in all this? His campaign had reportedly pleaded with the Iranians not to release the hostages until after Reagan took office--which, you know, some people would consider absolutely despicable behavior--but the Iranians hated Carter so much that they had no intention of allowing the release while he was in office. The whole story is here.

 * * *

Investigative journalist Jane Mayer looks at 1980 from a different perspective in her new book Dark Money. Her focus is not on Reagan's ascendance, but on the determination made that year that American conservatism needed a financial shot in the arm--that media and interest groups and candidates and politicians could all be coordinated, given enough monetary investment, to reverse the long trend toward Democratic control of Congress and most of the nation's statehouses. Leading the effort: the now-infamous Charles and David Koch, spending some of the fortune they had inherited from, among other things, their father's work building oil refineries for the Stalin and Hitler regimes.

This review of Dark Money describes their success: "Thirty years later, the midterm elections of 2010 ushered in the political system that the Kochs had spent so many years plotting to bring about. After the voting that year, Republicans dominated state legislatures; they controlled a clear majority of the governorships; they had taken one chamber of Congress and were on their way to winning the other. Perhaps most important, a good many of the Republicans who had won these offices were not middle-of-the-road pragmatists. They were antigovernment libertarians of the Kochs’ own political stripe. The brothers had spent or raised hundreds of millions of dollars to create majorities in their image. They had succeeded. And not merely at the polls: They had helped to finance and organize an interlocking network of think tanks, academic programs and news media outlets that far exceeded anything the liberal opposition could put together."

Conveniently, Mayer reveals, the "free-market" ideology espoused by the Kochs and their allies has the side effect of making the rich richer. Things that work against pure free-market capitalism include labor unions, which give the workers power in negotiating with their corporate overlords; and government regulations, which can require things like minimum wages and paid sick leave and environmental constraints.  The review says (emphasis ours), "As ferocious as they have been in defense of free-market ideas, the Koch brothers are also acting out of tangible self-interest, Mayer argues. The Kochs made their money in the carbon business; they have diversified far beyond it over the years, but a stiff tax on carbon could have a significant impact on their bottom line. Mayer reports that an E.P.A. database identified Koch Industries in 2012 as the single biggest producer of toxic waste in the United States. The company has been in and out of federal court over the years as defendants in cases alleging careless and sometimes lethal flouting of clean-air and clear-water requirements. Several have paid tens of millions in fines to settle these cases. It is plausible that the Kochs and some members of their network are participating in politics largely to keep their fortunes intact. 'They said they were driven by principle,' Mayer writes of the Koch-led network, 'but their positions dovetailed seamlessly with their personal financial interests.'"

Los Bros Koch, your friendly neighborhood purveyors of toxic waste. No wonder they don't like those darned government regulations.

Mayer's book should help expose the lie that contemporary American conservatism is concerned with individual rights and freedom. It's about protecting the wealth of the wealthy, and it always has been. Groups like the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity were never grassroots organizations, but were created and financed by billionaires with the express intent of appearing to be grassroots, in order to sway voters to advocate against their own interests and in favor of the already powerful. Their wealth doesn't "trickle down," it consolidates. And their economic ideas have never been good for the middle class or the poor. But generations of dishonesty have convinced too many Americans--including all those running now for the Republican presidential nomination--that they are.

This Week in Naming Legislation

A law that should be uncontroversial (but probably won't be) was proposed in Congress this week, and it has the best name of any law ever: the "Flamethrowers? Really? Act." It would regulate flamethrowers like machine guns. Flamethowers are currently unregulated in all but two states. We wouldn't be surprised to learn there was a spike in sales after people in the Mid-Atlantic region realized how much snow they'd have to shovel after winter storm Jonas passed through.

 

This Week in America on Hiatus

This Week in America is taking a little break from posting. If you need someone to blame, consider Sarah Palin's endorsement speech for Donald Trump, which might have broken that thing in our heads which make sentences.

If you read only one article this week, make it this piece in Defense One, describing the truth about how Iraq was lost.

While you're waiting for us to recover, you can help name the oh-so-cute polar bear cub at the Columbus Zoo. You can pick from the names Desna, Nora, Kaya, and Sakari.

This Week in America (Vol. 4, Week 2)

 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. 

Follow us on Twitter: @ThisWeekAmerica

 

This  Week in SOTU

President Obama delivered his last State of the Union address on Tuesday, and what may be his last major speech on a national stage until his speech at this year's Democratic Convention, which will be his swan song. We admit that it makes us sad, because this country has had few orators who can match his skill as a speaker or as a writer, and none of the candidates running to succeed him come close. The full video is here and a transcript--with annotations--is here (along with an annotated transcript of Gov. Nikki Haley's (R/SC) solid GOP response speech, of which the video is here. What both speeches had in common was a plea for the nation to reject the politics of anger and divisiveness represented by the rise of Donald Trump--a fact that upset far-right critics of Haley's speech. Less extremist Republicans think the speech made her an even stronger contender than she already was for a vice-presidential nomination. It's certain that she'll be on any candidate's shortlist (except maybe Trump's, unless he's smart enough to realize that for the general election, he'll have to soften his message), although we're still thinking Gov. John Kasich (R/OH) is a likelier choice. Republicans will take South Carolina regardless, but they can't win without Ohio, and Kasich goes a long way toward delivering it.

The speech is worth reading or watching--especially for the last section, in which he appealed to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature."

So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, whether you supported my agenda or fought as hard as you could against it -- our collective futures depends on your willingness to uphold your duties as a citizen. To vote. To speak out. To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us. We need every American to stay active in our public life -- and not just during election time -- so that our public life reflects the goodness and the decency that I see in the American people every single day.

It is not easy. Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a little over a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I will be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that helped America travel so far. Voices that help us see ourselves not, first and foremost, as black or white, or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born, not as Democrat or Republican, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word -- voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love.

And they’re out there, those voices. They don’t get a lot of attention; they don't seek a lot of fanfare; but they’re busy doing the work this country needs doing. I see them everywhere I travel in this incredible country of ours. I see you, the American people. And in your daily acts of citizenship, I see our future unfolding. .

I see it in the worker on the assembly line who clocked extra shifts to keep his company open, and the boss who pays him higher wages instead of laying him off.

I see it in the Dreamer who stays up late at night to finish her science project, and the teacher who comes in early, and maybe with some extra supplies that she bought because she knows that that young girl might someday cure a disease.

I see it in the American who served his time, and bad mistakes as a child but now is dreaming of starting over -- and I see it in the business owner who gives him that second chance. The protester determined to prove that justice matters -- and the young cop walking the beat, treating everybody with respect, doing the brave, quiet work of keeping us safe.

I see it in the soldier who gives almost everything to save his brothers, the nurse who tends to him till he can run a marathon, the community that lines up to cheer him on.

It’s the son who finds the courage to come out as who he is, and the father whose love for that son overrides everything he’s been taught.

I see it in the elderly woman who will wait in line to cast her vote as long as she has to; the new citizen who casts his vote for the first time; the volunteers at the polls who believe every vote should count -- because each of them in different ways know how much that precious right is worth.

That's the America I know. That’s the country we love. Clear-eyed. Big-hearted. Undaunted by challenge. Optimistic that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word. That’s what makes me so hopeful about our future. I believe in change because I believe in you, the American people.

And that’s why I stand here confident as I have ever been that the State of our Union is strong.

Thank you, God bless you. God bless the United States of America.

Below the fold: Flint, Guns, Debates, Bowie, and Bears.

 

This Week in America (Vol. 4, Week 1.5)

This is Part 2 of this week's overly long TWiA. The first part is here.

Don't forget to follow TWiA on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ThisWeekAmerica, and if you feel like tossing fifteen or twenty cents into the hat, you can do it here: paypal.me/ThisWeekinAmerica. 

 

This Week in Hope and Change

Michael Grunwald, formerly of Time and now at Politico, is one of the sharper policy reporters in the business. This week, he's written a lengthy piece summarizing much of what President Obama has and hasn't accomplished during his 7 years in office so far. Grunwald writes:

As a candidate, Obama was often dismissed as a talker, a silver-tongued political savant with no real record of achievement. But ever since he took office during a raging economic crisis, he’s turned out to be much more of a doer, an action-oriented policy grind who has often failed to communicate what he’s done.

What he’s done is changing the way we produce and consume energy, the way doctors and hospitals treat us, the academic standards in our schools and the long-term fiscal trajectory of the nation. Gays can now serve openly in the military, insurers can no longer deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, credit card companies can no longer impose hidden fees and markets no longer believe the biggest banks are too big to fail. Solar energy installations are up nearly 2,000 percent, and carbon emissions have dropped even though the economy is growing. Even Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who hope to succeed Obama and undo his achievements, have been complaining on the campaign trail that he’s accomplished most of his agenda.

He continues:

The economy was bleeding 800,000 jobs a month when Obama took office; it has now enjoyed a record 69 straight months of private-sector job growth, though economists disagree about how much credit Obama deserves for the recovery, and in any case wage growth has been tepid. The deficit has shrunk by nearly $1 trillion, and Medicare’s long-term solvency has been extended by 13 years. The resuscitated auto industry produced 11 million vehicles in 2014. Federal contractors can no longer discriminate against gays, women can now serve in combat and the rich are paying higher taxes. A new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is policing unscrupulous mortgage brokers, payday lenders and other rip-off artists, and the financial system has much less risky leverage.

Before Obama, Americans were using more energy every year; now we use less energy overall, and more of that energy is clean. Oil imports are down 60 percent from 2008 levels, more than a third of America’s coal plants are shutting down and sales of LED bulbs have increased 50-fold. Health care inflation and the uninsured rate have fallen to their lowest levels in half a century, and doctors now use iPads instead of clipboards. Student borrowers can now ratchet down their monthly payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income and get their loans forgiven after 20 years, rules that are gradually and almost silently easing the student debt crisis. Nine of 13 federal appeals courts now have a majority of Democratic-appointed judges; in 2009, it was one of 13.

Often, Grunwald says, we Americans haven't even noticed what's been done for us. "A stark example from the stimulus was Making Work Pay, an $800 tax cut for most workers. His economists wanted to dribble out the cash to recipients a few dollars a week in their paychecks, because studies showed they would be less likely to spend the windfall if they realized they were getting it. His political advisers argued that it would be insanity to conceal middle-class tax cuts rather than send Americans fat envelopes with Obama’s name on them. But Obama sided with his policy team, and later surveys showed that less than 10 percent of the public had any clue he had cut their taxes."

He goes on to detail many other changes, brought about through both legislation and executive action. To people interested in positive change--in a cleaner, more equitable, more fiscally secure, healthier, safer country, vs. people interested only in corporate profits or theocracy, most of these changes are for the better. If a Republican succeeds Obama in the White House, of course, attempts will be made to roll back much of this progress, and with a Republican Congress, some of those attempts will likely succeed. All the more reason to elect a Democrat, because the longer these new policies are in effect, the harder they'll be to kill.

 

While we're on the subject of what's actually a very strong record of accomplishments, we should mention the December job numbers: "Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 292,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains occurred in several industries, led by professional and business services, construction, health care, and food services and drinking places. Mining employment continued to decline."

The White House has more information on its website, including this summary statement: "The economy added 292,000 jobs in December, marking the strongest two years of job creation since 1998-2000."

Quick, what's the main thing 1998-2000 have in common with 2014-2015? That's right, Democratic presidents. The WH report goes on to say, "The robust pace of job growth continued in December as the unemployment rate held at its lowest level since April 2008 and labor force participation ticked up. Our economy has now added more jobs over the past two years than in any two-year period since 1998-2000. In fact, the annual average unemployment rate has seen its fastest two-year decline in thirty years. Most importantly, wages have risen faster over the past year than at any time since the recovery began. Nevertheless, we still have more work to do to drive further job creation and faster wage growth. That’s why the President will continue to push for policies including approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership to open our exports to new markets, investing further in infrastructure, and raising the minimum wage."

All the Republican presidential candidates have their own economic plans and agendas. Trouble is, they all revolve around tax cuts for the rich and reduced government spending--which have been tried time and again, and never work to grow the economy. Voters who care about the economy should make decisions based on historical fact, not magical thinking.

This Week in Terrorists

Dana Milbank wrote at the Washington Post this week about a press conference held by a panel of House Republicans on the first legislative day of 2016. Unsurprisingly, the Oregon terrorists were a major topic of conversation, leading to one of 2016's first major congressional lies.

Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador said (emphasis ours), "You have just a frustration that they feel the federal government is not listening to them anymore, and that’s what leads to what so far has been a peaceful takeover — of an abandoned building, by the way — and the media, I think, is so quick to sort of cast aspersions on that group of people. These people, what they have done so far and hopefully they will continue to do in a peaceful way, they’re trying to express their frustrations. And I think civil disobedience has been something for the most part that the liberal media used to stand up for, but apparently there’s some exceptions to that when us conservatives and pro-Second Amendment people are trying to exercise that same right of civil disobedience. So it’s pretty frustrating.”

Yeah, no.

The headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is not an abandoned building. It was an empty building, closed for the New Year's holiday, as most federal buildings were. We wonder if Labrador would be so cavalier if armed men had taken over his office, which was presumably also empty that weekend.

And as Milbank rightly observes, "No, Congressman. Civil disobedience is when people break laws they think unjust and then peacefully face the legal consequences. The takeover of a federal wildlife facility in Oregon by armed men is sedition."

Milbank sums up this way:

But it’s hard to govern when your caucus is so hostile to government that it has sympathy for seditionists. Asked about the Oregon situation, Ryan deferred to Rep. Greg Walden, a member of GOP leadership who represents the area — and, as The Post’s Mike DeBonis noted, Ryan nodded agreement as Walden spoke.

Walden made clear that “an armed takeover is not the way to go about it,” but he had sympathy for the rebels. “These people just want to take care of the environment — they really do,” he said. “And it is the government that all too often ignores the law.”

Such as: when lawmakers sworn to uphold the Constitution applaud those who take up arms against the government.

* * *

The armed thugs at Malheur claim that the government is overstepping its constitutional authority by owning federal land. They're wrong:

The U.S. Constitution addresses the relationship of the federal government to lands. Article IV, § 3, Clause 2 — the Property Clause — gives Congress authority over federal property generally, and the Supreme Court has described Congress’s power to legislate under this Clause as “without limitation.” The equal footing doctrine (based on language within Article IV, § 3, Clause 1), and found in state enabling acts, provides new states with equality to the original states in terms of constitutional rights, but has not been used successfully to force the divestment of federal lands. The policy question of whether to acquire more, or to dispose of any or all, federal lands is left to Congress to decide.

The initial federal policy generally was to transfer ownership of many federal lands to private and state ownership. Congress enacted many laws granting lands and authorizing or directing sales or transfers, ultimately disposing of 1.275 billion acres. However, from the earliest times, Congress also provided for reserving lands for federal purposes, and over time has reserved or withdrawn areas for such entities as national parks, national forests, and wildlife refuges.

The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 was enacted to remedy the deterioration of the range on the remaining public lands. This was the first direct authority for federal management of these lands, and implicitly began the shift toward ending disposals and retaining lands in federal ownership. In 1976, Congress formally declared that national policy was generally to retain the remaining lands in federal ownership in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

 The US Supreme Court has twice ruled that the land on which Malheur sits is federally owned, and has been since before Oregon became a state.

* * *

Arizona rancher LaVoy Finicum may be regretting his decision to join the occupation.

"I need to get home," one militiaman and rancher LaVoy Finicum told NBC News Tuesday. "I got cows that are scattered and lost."

According to NBC News, Finicum is an Arizona rancher with 11 kids at home who also told the news outlet that he would rather die than face jail time.

"I have no intention of spending any of my days in a concrete box," Finicum told NBC. "There are things more important than your life and freedom is one of them."

If he doesn't want to spend time in jail, he probably shouldn't have participated in the illegal armed takeover of a federal building.

This Week in Health Care

Another choice moment from the above-mentioned press event was Rep. Mo Brooks (AL) admitting that the Republicans have no plan--7 years later--for replacing the Affordable Care Act. They still want to repeal it, though, as Wednesday's vote showed. “If we repeal Obamacare, the very first thing that happens is we go back to the best health-care system in the world. We had health care six years ago, and it was the best, and that’s where I want to go as a starter.”

If by "the best" you mean we were spending more money on health care per capita than any other country in the world but were way down the list in terms of health results, health care costs were constantly increasing (both as a measure of people's individual pocketbooks and as a nation) to the point that health care costs were the biggest economic landmine in our path, that people were stuck in jobs they wanted out of but couldn't leave because health insurance wasn't portable, that being a woman was considered a preexisting condition allowing insurance companies to charge women more than men, that tens of millions of Americans didn't have health insurance at all, that health care costs were the single biggest driver of personal bankruptcies, that lifetime caps prevented people from serious health conditions from getting insurance... well, it's a long, long list. And that's what Brooks considers the best in the world?

* * *

In the Washington Post, Catherine Rampell gives Obamacare a checkup, and finds it overwhelmingly healthy.

* * *

A study released in December by the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at the effects of Medicaid expansion under the ACA on health insurance and the labor supply. Its conclusion? "We found that the Medicaid expansions increased Medicaid coverage by approximately 4 percentage points, decreased the proportion uninsured by approximately 3 percentage points, and decreased private health insurance coverage by 1 percentage point. The Medicaid expansions had little effect on labor supply as measured by employment, usual hours worked per week and the probability of working 30 or more hours per week. Most estimates suggested that the expansions increased employment slightly, although not significantly." Other recent studies show the same thing--the law hasn't led to a widespread increase in employers moving workers from full-time to part-time, it hasn't prevented small businesses from staffing up as needed, and the Medicaid expansion hasn't caused people to limit their earnings so they can stay on Medicaid. Yet more nails in the coffin of the "job-killing Obamacare" lie.

* * *

A look at the health insurance situation in Arkansas and Kentucky--two states that took different approaches to Medicaid expansion--shows similar (and significant) results: "In Arkansas, the number of uninsured for the group dropped to 19.4 percent from 41.8 percent; Kentucky’s rate dropped to 12.4 percent from 40.2 percent. The finding is consistent with recent surveys that put Arkansas and Kentucky among the states with the largest overall declines in people without insurance since the health law expanded coverage in January 2014. The study also looked at Texas, whose Republican leaders have refused to expand Medicaid under the law, and found far more modest gains in coverage and access to care among low-income people." Those are huge gains for the people of those states. Too bad for working-class Texans, though.

This Week in 2016

Sen. Marco Rubio has been taking heat from his fellow Republican presidential contenders for a new pair of boots that showed up in a recent tweet. As far as we here at TWiA World Headquarters are concerned, those boots are the best thing about the New Rubio^TM (aka Trump-Lite). Bloomberg reports that "Marco Rubio has adopted a darker tone in the first week of 2016, deploying increasingly apocalyptic rhetoric and fiercer attacks on Republican rivals that provide a stark contrast with the relatively non-confrontational brand of sunny optimism that had characterized his presidential campaign through 2015." The WaPo says, "The 44-year-old’s stump speech has been undeniably influenced by the populist anger that Donald Trump has tapped into. 'We are going to be a great country again,' Rubio said as he closed the town hall. 'America’s going to be greater than it’s ever been, if you give me the chance to be your president.'”

We still like the boots, if not the message, Marco. If you (or Florsheim) want to send a pair to TWiA, size 9, please.

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At the New Republic, Brian Beutler argues a point we've made several times this cycle: a Ted Cruz nomination might be the only thing that can restore sanity to the Republican Party. Beutler writes: "Where someone like Marco Rubio hopes to run a campaign that conceals a right-wing agenda behind a compelling personal narrative and small-bore heterodoxies, Cruz’s platform is more right-wing still and uncloaked in the language of compassion Republicans discover every four years when the presidency is on the line. Where Rubio touts the fact that he wounded Obamacare, and proposes to transform it into a less generous coverage scheme, Cruz insists on repealing the law with barely a trifle to replace it. Where Rubio proposes to conceal a historically massive tax cut for the affluent behind promises to direct modest tax benefits to working-class families, Cruz pledges to throw out the entire tax code and replace it with an unapologetically regressive combination of value-added and flat income taxes."

Cruz is a pure conservative--as Beutler says, he would be the most conservative nominee since Barry Goldwater. And unlike most conservatives, he doesn't try to hide it. He pretends his extremist ideas would be good for America--he might even believe that. But he doesn't deny what he wants to do. Since the losses of McCain and Romney, conservatives have insisted that Republicans will only win the White House by nominating a true conservative--that the attempt to disguise conservative ideas in centrist language doesn't work. Majorities in Congress and statehouses have convinced them that they're right. Cruz presents the best chance to test that theory.

We're convinced that the theory is wrong. Far-right ideas aren't generally popular nationwide. Most Americans want to go forward, not back, and Cruz's ideas would be disastrous for the country. But until the theory is truly tested, the Republican Civil War will continue. We'd like to see a conservative party that is also a sane party, one with serious policy proposals, willing to work with the opposition to advance America. A party ripping itself apart from the inside can't do that. They should nominate Cruz--and then he should lose spectacularly--so we can once again have two semi-functional political parties.

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And everybody should just stop with the Ted Cruz birther nonsense, including Donald Trump, John McCain, and Nancy Pelosi. Cruz was born in Canada, but his mother was an American, therefore he's an American.

This Week in Gun Safety

Friday marks five years to the day since friend of TWiA Gabby Giffords was shot in the head while doing a "Congress on Your Corner" event in Tucson. She penned an op-ed in the Washington Post on Friday, admonishing supporters of gun safety efforts to never give up.

President Obama had an op-ed of his own in the New York Times this week. In it, he wrote, "Even as I continue to take every action possible as president, I will also take every action I can as a citizen. I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform."

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In the wake of President Obama's announcement about some relatively mild executive actions intended to help reduce gun violence in America, Rep. Steven Palazzo (R/MS) introduced a resolution to "censure and condemn" the president. Palazzo wrote a statement for his website, saying, "For seven years, the President has gradually expanded his powers through executive overreach. His actions this week to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens is just the latest, if not most egregious, violation of the separation of powers found in the United States Constitution."

We're not sure where Palazzo gets his information, but it's wrong. The president's actions did nothing to "take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens." Before, law-abiding citizens could legally buy guns from licensed gun dealers after passing a quick and painless background check. The president's actions would expand the network of licensed gun dealers, while at the same time employing more people to perform those background checks, so they can run 24/7. No law-abiding person wanting to buy a gun legally would be prevented from doing so by those actions. Further, the Constitution gives the president the authority--and the responsibility--to interpret existing law, which is what he did. The only thing under discussion here that violates the constitutional separation of powers is the idea of the House censuring the president. Talking Points Memo describes the problem:

The legal problem with one co-equal branch of government censuring another is that the Constitution prohibits Congress from punishing anyone outside its ranks without a trial — termed a "bill of attainder."

"[A] censure resolution is obviously punitive both in purpose and in effect and would thus appear to constitute a kind of 'trial by legislature” outside the ambit of impeachment and accordingly might be deemed a 'Bill of Attainder' forbidden by Article I, §9, Clause 3," [Harvard Law professor Lawrence] Tribe said in an email.

If Congress wants to discipline the president, they have to do it through impeachment. There's no other option.

We recognize that Palazzo is a relative newcomer to Congress, having been elected during the Tea Party wave of 2010 that brought so many uninformed, unhelpful ideologues to Washington. But isn't there anybody on his staff who can read the Constitution to him slowly, and explain the big words?

 * * *

Speaking of people who don't know what they're talking about, House Speaker Paul Ryan also released a statement indicating he slept through the president's announcement. Ryan wrote: "From day one, the president has never respected the right to safe and legal gun ownership that our nation has valued since its founding. He knows full well that the law already says that people who make their living selling firearms must be licensed, regardless of venue. Still, rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens. His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty."

There's so much wrong with this statement that we'll have to take it a paragraph at a time. From day one, the president has done nothing to interfere with safe and legal gun ownership. He still hasn't. Clearly, President Obama understands what the law says about licensed gun sellers--he just wants to require more gun sellers to be licensed, if they're in the business of selling guns (vs., for instance, a guy selling his gun to his neighbor). Requiring those unlicensed gun dealers to be licensed is specifically an attempt to "focus on criminals and terrorists"--to crack down on straw buyers, and on people who take advantage of existing law to sell crime guns without background checks. Finally, how is this more a "form of intimidation that undermines liberty" than the inability to go see a movie or go to school or church or the mall without potentially getting shot? Ryan has a strange concept of "liberty," and of "intimidation."

Ryan's next paragraph: "No matter what President Obama says, his word does not trump the Second Amendment. We will conduct vigilant oversight. His executive order will no doubt be challenged in the courts. Ultimately, everything the president has done can be overturned by a Republican president, which is another reason we must win in November."

These words aren't even that big, Speaker. What President Obama announced on Tuesday were executive actions, not executive orders. You'd understand the difference if you read TWiA. Or a civics textbook. But yes, Ryan is partly correct; some things the president has done can be overturned, which is a reason a Democrat must win in November.

Ryan's last paragraph: "We know that the president wants to spend this year offering distractions from his failed record. We will not allow this strategy to take us off course from giving the American people a clear choice with a bold policy agenda."

"His failed record?" We draw the Speaker's attention to the Michael Grunwald piece excerpted above. Whether one agrees with what the president has done or not, it can't be argued that he hasn't been one of our most consequential presidents of modern times. Since FDR, it's likely that only Johnson and Reagan have accomplished as much. Republicans can't decide whether they want to call Obama a do-nothing or a tyrannical dictator, but he can't be both (and in fact, he's neither).

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According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 67% of Americans support the president's actions, and 32% oppose them. Support is bipartisan, with 51% of Republicans, 65% of Independents, and 85% of Democrats in favor.

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On Thursday, President Obama took part in a town hall event organized by CNN, where he discussed the gun issue and took questions from people on every side of it. At one point, host Anderson Cooper seemed surprised that Obama considered the idea that he wanted to take away everybody's guns a conspiracy theory. He shouldn't have been, because it is--and it's been going around for a lot longer than Obama's presidency, because when Bill Clinton was president, people said the same thing. He never did, and neither has Obama.

In the current issue of The Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center* describes the 10 most prominent conspiracy theories of the day, detailing the truth and debunking the lies. Worried about Agenda 21, Common Core, Shariah Law, the Gun Grab, FEMA Concentration Camps, and the like? Read the article, and be ready with the facts the next time your wacky right-wing friends spout off about the conspiracy du jour. (Here's a hint--if you heard about it from Alex Jones of Glenn Beck, it's almost certainly a lie.)

*Full disclosure--because we think the work the SPLC does is so important, we've been monthly contributors for years.

This Week in Political Correctness

In an interview after the above-mentioned Paul Ryan statement was released, Ryan complained about the tears President Obama shed during his speech, when talking about the dead first-graders at Sandy Hook. “I was affected by it, but I thought we should’ve had the same kind of reaction when James Foley was beheaded, when San Bernardino and Paris occurred. That’s the kind of reaction I had when those occurred.”

So Ryan is saying it's politically incorrect to cry about children gunned down at school, whose parents Obama met a couple of days after the shootings, whose pictures he's seen, whose families he's come to know. But only if you also cry at all the other occasions that Ryan thinks are appropriate. Otherwise, it's grounds for criticism.

Speaker, Ryan is a pretty personal thing. You don't get to pick and choose when it happens--sometimes it just happens, and other times it doesn't. When the president cries is not your decision to make.

This Week in Climate Change

Why is America so divided on what should be the noncontroversial topic of climate change? Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science, lays it out in plain English:

Instead, in 1989, a group of fossil fuel corporations, utilities and automobile manufacturers banded together to form the Global Climate Coalition. This group worked to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, was not adopted by the United States. In public statements, the Global Climate Coalition continued to deny that global warming was occurring and emphasized the uncertainty of climate science.

The spreading of misinformation continued. In 1998, API, Exxon, Chevron, Southern Co. and various conservative think tanks initiated a public relations campaign, the goal of which was to ensure that the “recognition of uncertainties (of climate science) becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.'” 

While that coalition disbanded in 2001, ExxonMobil reportedly continued to quietly funnel climate misinformation through “skeptic” think tanks, such as the Heartland Institute, until 2006, when its funding was exposed. The company — the nation’s largest and wealthiest — continues to work with the American Legislative Exchange Council, a so-called public-private partnership of corporations and conservative legislators, to block climate change policies.

Companies whose continued incredible profits might have been marginally threatened by earlier action have devoted considerable effort to ensuring such action wasn't taken. The entire planet has suffered, and will continue to suffer, because these business interests were watching out for their immediate bottom lines instead of exploring how they might become more profitable by serving humanity instead of attacking it. Conservative politicians supported those efforts, and they still do.

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Incidentally, 2015 was the second warmest year ever recorded (2012 is still the warmest). The Huffington Post reports: "There were 10 extreme climate and weather events in 2015 including storms, floods and a wildfire that each caused more than $1 billion in damages, NOAA said. These events resulted in the deaths of 155 people."

This Week in Bears and Not-bears

Kansas's loss is North Carolina's gain; the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro has a handsome new polar bear named Nikita. The hope is that Nikita and the zoo's female, Anana, will breed. Nikita came from Kansas this week.

And sorry, bear lovers, but this is a Pomeranian-mix dog. Pretty cute, just the same.

This Week in America (Vol. 4, Week 1)

It's only Wednesday, but we've already written more than enough about the week's top domestic stories, so we're going live today. We'll be back on Friday if there are significant updates on these stories or anything else that piques our interest. 

This Week in Guns

President Obama spoke about guns on Tuesday, in front of a crowd of gun safety advocates that including friend and former Congresswoman of TWiA Gabby Giffords, her husband, and her mother (and on stage behind the president, with other survivors and family members of victims, Daniel Hernandez, the former Giffords staffer who sat and held Gabby's skull together until medical help arrived). The transcript is here.

Before he acknowledged Gabby's presence, Obama said, " Five years ago this week, a sitting member of Congress and 18 others were shot at, at a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona.  It wasn’t the first time I had to talk to the nation in response to a mass shooting, nor would it be the last.  Fort Hood.  Binghamton.  Aurora.  Oak Creek.  Newtown.  The Navy Yard.  Santa Barbara.  Charleston.  San Bernardino.  Too many."

He felt compelled to qualify his statement, to address what he knew would be an obvious criticism. Obama said:

Now, I want to be absolutely clear at the start -- and I’ve said this over and over again, this also becomes routine, there is a ritual about this whole thing that I have to do -- I believe in the Second Amendment.  It’s there written on the paper.  It guarantees a right to bear arms.  No matter how many times people try to twist my words around -- I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this -- (applause) -- I get it.  But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment. 

I mean, think about it.  We all believe in the First Amendment, the guarantee of free speech, but we accept that you can’t yell “fire” in a theater.  We understand there are some constraints on our freedom in order to protect innocent people.  We cherish our right to privacy, but we accept that you have to go through metal detectors before being allowed to board a plane. It’s not because people like doing that, but we understand that that’s part of the price of living in a civilized society. 

And what’s often ignored in this debate is that a majority of gun owners actually agree.  A majority of gun owners agree that we can respect the Second Amendment while keeping an irresponsible, law-breaking few from inflicting harm on a massive scale. 

Today, background checks are required at gun stores.  If a father wants to teach his daughter how to hunt, he can walk into a gun store, get a background check, purchase his weapon safely and responsibly.  This is not seen as an infringement on the Second Amendment.  Contrary to the claims of what some gun rights proponents have suggested, this hasn’t been the first step in some slippery slope to mass confiscation.  Contrary to claims of some presidential candidates, apparently, before this meeting, this is not a plot to take away everybody’s guns.  You pass a background check; you purchase a firearm. 

The problem is some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules.  A violent felon can buy the exact same weapon over the Internet with no background check, no questions asked.  A recent study found that about one in 30 people looking to buy guns on one website had criminal records -- one out of 30 had a criminal record.  We’re talking about individuals convicted of serious crimes -- aggravated assault, domestic violence, robbery, illegal gun possession.  People with lengthy criminal histories buying deadly weapons all too easily.  And this was just one website within the span of a few months. 

So we’ve created a system in which dangerous people are allowed to play by a different set of rules than a responsible gun owner who buys his or her gun the right way and subjects themselves to a background check.  That doesn’t make sense.  Everybody should have to abide by the same rules.  Most Americans and gun owners agree. 

He discussed the effort to pass gun safety laws after Sandy Hook, saying:

Two United States Senators -– Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania, both gun owners, both strong defenders of our Second Amendment rights, both with “A” grades from the NRA –- that’s hard to get  -- worked together in good faith, consulting with folks like our Vice President, who has been a champion on this for a long time, to write a common-sense compromise bill that would have required virtually everyone who buys a gun to get a background check.  That was it.  Pretty common-sense stuff.  Ninety percent of Americans supported that idea.  Ninety percent of Democrats in the Senate voted for that idea.  But it failed because 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate voted against that idea.  

How did this become such a partisan issue?  Republican President George W. Bush once said, “I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don’t get into the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.”  Senator John McCain introduced a bipartisan measure to address the gun show loophole, saying, “We need this amendment because criminals and terrorists have exploited and are exploiting this very obvious loophole in our gun safety laws.”  Even the NRA used to support expanded background checks.  And by the way, most of its members still do.  Most Republican voters still do. 

How did we get here?  How did we get to the place where people think requiring a comprehensive background check means taking away people’s guns?

Each time this comes up, we are fed the excuse that common-sense reforms like background checks might not have stopped the last massacre, or the one before that, or the one before that, so why bother trying.  I reject that thinking.  (Applause.)  We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world.  But maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence. 

He outlined the steps he's taking through executive actions (more about those here, from the White House website).

The part that made all the news broadcasts was when he openly wept while talking about the child victims at Sandy Hook elementary. No president has been pressed into service so often as consoler-in-chief, and this one is plainly fed up with the obstruction that makes it necessary.

All of us should be able to work together to find a balance that declares the rest of our rights are also important -- Second Amendment rights are important, but there are other rights that we care about as well. And we have to be able to balance them.  Because our right to worship freely and safely –- that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina.  (Applause.)  And that was denied Jews in Kansas City.  And that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek.  (Applause.)  They had rights, too.  (Applause.) 

Our right to peaceful assembly -– that right was robbed from moviegoers in Aurora and Lafayette.  Our unalienable right to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -– those rights were stripped from college students in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine, and from first-graders in Newtown.  First-graders.  And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. 

Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad.  And by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day. 

He closed by talking about Zaevion Dobson, the 15-year-old we wrote about the other week, who shielded his friends from gunfire with his own body, giving his life to save theirs.

We are not asked to do what Zaevion Dobson did.  We’re not asked to have shoulders that big; a heart that strong; reactions that quick.  I’m not asking people to have that same level of courage, or sacrifice, or love.  But if we love our kids and care about their prospects, and if we love this country and care about its future, then we can find the courage to vote.  We can find the courage to get mobilized and organized.  We can find the courage to cut through all the noise and do what a sensible country would do.

That’s what we’re doing today.  And tomorrow, we should do more.  And we should do more the day after that.  And if we do, we’ll leave behind a nation that’s stronger than the one we inherited and worthy of the sacrifice of a young man like Zaevion. 

This was not an occasion of high oratory, but a simple, frank, detailed statement about what the problem is, why it's hard to solve, and why we should solve it anyway.

The whole video is below, but it includes talks from before President Obama took the podium. To just watch that part, view the one that James Fallows cued up for us.

 

Note: executive actions are not the same as executive orders, which have the binding force of law. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order, but these are not. Contrary to what many pro-gun death apologists are saying, the president is not making law in this case. He's interpreting existing law, which he's legally entitled to do (the executive branch is, by definition, the executor of the law).  The Trace explains what Obama's executive actions do:

It includes a plan for the FBI to increase the number of federal gun background check examiners and staff by 50 percent; a proposal to hire an additional 200 federal agents and investigators to focus on gun offenses and regulations; and a directive to the Departments of Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security to develop research agendas for firearms safety and possible procurement strategies for smart guns.

The centerpiece, however, is an action destined to draw pushback from the gun lobby, as well as questions from those new to the gun debate: a push to ensure that persons “engaged in the business” of selling firearms register as licensed dealers.

The idea is to narrow the gun-show loophole, to make it harder for people to avoid background checks by buying from "private sellers" rather than as licensed dealers, even though in many cases those private sellers move just as many guns as licensed dealers, and in some cases numerous crime guns have been linked to individual private sellers.

* * *

Ted Cruz, never one to exercise good taste or good judgment, responded with a website that comes perilously close to portraying the president as a Nazi--a website that is, in itself, a gigantic lie. None of the critics, Cruz included, offered any alternative approaches to limiting gun violence, or any evidence as to how the president was acting "illegally," though they all claimed (erroneously) that he was. To them, it's just a reflex action to oppose anything the president suggests, and to raise money off that opposition without even pretending they care about the underlying problems.

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Here are the 12 reasons Americans fail background checks.

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Weirdly, Fox "News" host Bill O'Reilly agrees with the president: "The FBI should background check anyone buying a firearm in America. That just makes sense. If you are paranoid and believe the government is stockpiling information so they can come to your house and take your guns, that's your problem."

* * *

Yet another brand-new study shows that the states with more gun ownership and weaker gun laws have higher rates of gun death.

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"Dozens of people," the WaPo reports, were shot on Tuesday, the day of President Obama's announcement. As they are every day in America.

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The pro-gun death forces like to argue that gun safety laws don't work. Here's a piece from last year explaining why they're wrong. Gun safety laws, including background checks, do work. We'd have a worse gun violence problem if we didn't have the laws we have. The trouble is that we have weak laws that often go unenforced, and it's a patchwork of state laws, so lax laws in one state (Indiana, for instance) lead to major gun violence issues in other places (like Chicago).  And of course there's our old standby argument, which is that you can't not have laws just because criminals, by definition, don't always follow them. We don't eliminate laws against robbing banks simply because every bank robber breaks those laws. We shouldn't eliminate gun laws simply because some criminals break them. Instead, we should toughen them and enforce them where they exist.

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Jeb! Bush has been going around saying he received a "Statesman of the Year" award from the NRA. This week, his campaign admitted that such an award doesn't exist. Nor was he presented with an honorary rifle by Charlton Heston, as he's claimed many times. Presumably Jeb! couldn't pry Heston's cold, dead hands off the weapon.

A couple of New York state representatives, Sen. Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, introduced legislation this week intended to place limits on ammunition purchases. The pro-gun death NRA responded by tweeting out pictures of those reps with bullets on and around them. You stay classy, NRA.

Side Note: The same day President Obama made his speech on guns, Sen. Bernie Sanders made one on Wall Street, too-big-to-fail banks, and financial regulation. He's passionate about the issue, and he's right about a lot of the problems and some of the fixes. That said, the timing suggests that he wanted to turn the conversation away from guns--at least, where he was concerned. His record on gun legislation is not as strong as Hillary Clinton's or Martin O'Malley's, and it's a point of contention within the Democratic primaries. We wish he had saved this speech for another day--even another week--rather than trying to derail the topic of the moment.

More below the fold: terrorism, the Constitution, and Fire-eaters.