The following article by Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan, Senior Adviser, Correct The Record and Senior Research Fellow, UC Berkeley’s Energy and Climate Institute is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Surprise! If you’ve been paying federal taxes for the past few years, then you’ve been funding a Republican hit job against Hillary Clinton. The House Select Committee on Benghazi’s investigations have bilked — in total — around $4.7 million in taxpayer dollars for their relentless, shameless, fact-free pursuit of damaging the Clinton campaign. When the Republicans take aim at “waste, fraud and abuse” they should set their sights on their own Benghazi Committee, shoot it, and put it out of our misery.
Today, Hillary Clinton will finally testify before the committee and its right-wing chair, Trey Gowdy. Still don’t believe that the committee is nothing more than a partisan smear campaign? Try these top ten facts on for size.
10. Ten is the number of congressional committees that have participated in Benghazi investigations over the years–contributing to 9 of the 11 different published reports on those tragic events. None of the investigations have found any evidence of wrongdoing by the administration.
9. Nine is the number of months since Chairman Trey Gowdy’s partisan committee has held its last public hearing. Gowdy has preferred to shroud his investigations in secrecy–so he and his staff can selectively leak information to the press and gin up damaging stories.
8. Eight is the number of current or former close Clinton confidants interviewed by Gowdy’s committee–as opposed to only 4 interviews with representatives from the Department of Defense. I wonder why Gowdy thinks Hillary Clinton’s personal assistant knows more about the incidents at Benghazi than DoD?
7. Seven is for seventy thousand–roughly the number of documents that the State Department has handed over to the Benghazi Committee for review. Remember that the cost to taxpayers isn’t just what the Committee itself spends–it’s what other agencies have to spend to meet their absurd, partisan demands. Estimates suggest the State Department has had to spend upwards of $14 million responding to congressional investigations into Benghazi.
6. Six is for the six thousand dollars in donations that Trey Gowdy just had to return to organizations linked to a shadowy anti-Hillary Clinton PAC – whose treasurer used to serve as the treasurer for Gowdy’s own political committee. What a coincidence!
5. Five is for the number of permanent House committees (including the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs!) that have spent less taxpayer money in 2015 than Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi Committee.
4. Four is for the four years that Hillary Clinton served this country as Secretary of State–a tenure of accomplishment that has been praised by Democratic and Republican officials alike. Four is also for the four seconds it took after Hillary Clinton announced her presidential campaign for the Republican National Committee to begin to try to take her down.
3. Three is the number of Benghazi Select Committee press releases between March 4th and October 8th that don’t specifically mention Hillary Clinton. Twenty-six press releases DO mention these things. Remember when Trey Gowdy told us his committee wasn’t focused on Hillary?
2. Two is for the two Republicans in the House of Representatives – Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Richard Hanna — who admitted that the Benghazi Committee was set up intentionally to bring down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.
1. One is for the one man who is behind this whole witch hunt–Trey Gowdy– funded and supported by the Koch Brothers. Over the course of his shameful, multi-year smear campaign, Gowdy has gone from a mere two-term Congressman from South Carolina to a right-wing darling. He’s been discussed as a future Majority Leader, Speaker of the House, Supreme Court Justice, Vice President, even President of the United States. Ain’t politics grand?

This over-the-top title, “Jeb Bush is completely toast: Donald Trump and Jake Tapper just ended all White House dreams” is actually supported by a fairly persuasive argument by Salon.com’s Amanda Marcotte. An excerpt:

…The blunt fact of the matter is that Clinton was Secretary of State when Osama Bin Laden was killed, and George Bush was president when Osama Bin Laden killed 3,000 Americans. Is Jeb Bush betting that Clinton is somehow too good to run campaign ads contrasting the picture of her in the situation room while American troops killed Bin Laden with pictures of his brother reading My Pet Goat while 3,000 Americans lost their lives to Bin Laden? She might be. Outside groups that are supporting her might not be. Either way, that’s not a bet I’d take, especially if Republicans keep flinging the word “Benghazi” around to express their belief that Democrats–and women–are incapable of keeping us safe.
Bush has clearly come up with his talking point to evade this issue, which he trotted out on CNN. “Does anybody actually blame my brother for the attacks on 9/11?” he asked, clearly hoping you’d think anyone who brings this up is basically a 9/11 Truther. The problem, for him, is there is a huge gulf between blaming George Bush for what happened and pointing out, accurately, that he didn’t keep us safe. The problem is that Jeb Bush keeps conflating the two.
…Bush’s answer to this problem, to try to make 9/11 about the aftermath, isn’t going to help him much. That’s because the aftermath was the failed Iraq War, which had nothing to do with 9/11. Imagine what Clinton could do with that. If Bush runs, expect her to repeatedly remind people that George Bush was too busy starting irrelevant wars to deal with Bin Laden, but that the Obama administration, with her as Secretary of State, actually got the guy who did this.

‘Never say never,’ as the saying goes, and there are no guarantees that crazy can’t happen in any election. But if Bush can somehow win the presidency after all of this, it will likely require the least attentive electoral majority in U.S. history.

House Select Committee on Benghazi
Democratic Staff Report: Results of Interviews Conducted by the House Select Committee on Benghazi:
No Evidence to Support Top Republican Allegations About Secretary Hillary Clinton
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report has been prepared on behalf of the Democratic Members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi to summarize the results of 54 transcribed interviews and depositions conducted by the Select Committee. The report concludes that none of the witnesses substantiated repeated claims that Republican Members of Congress and presidential candidates have been making about former Secretary.
Politicization of Benghazi Select Committee
When Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted on national television that Republicans have been using millions of taxpayer dollars to damage Secretary Clinton’s campaign for president, he crystallized in one moment the ground truth of this investigation. One week later, a self-described “conservative Republican” investigator publicly revealed that he had been fired from the Select Committee’s staff in part because he wanted to conduct an objective investigation and refused to go along with Republican leadership plans to use the Select Committee to “hyper focus on Hillary Clinton.” Then, last week Republican House Member Richard Hanna admitted during a radio interview: “This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.”
Chairman Gowdy has denied these criticisms, stating: “I cannot say it any plainer than stating the facts, the Benghazi Committee is not focused on Secretary Clinton.” He has also argued that, “instead of listening to someone else’s words, why don’t you look at our actions?”
In fact, these remarkable and repeated Republican admissions are consistent with the actions of the Select Committee to aggressively target Secretary Clinton, while abandoning plans to conduct a more thorough, fact-based investigation of the attacks….
…Many of the Republican accusations [against Secretary Clinton] share common features: they claim Secretary Clinton took personal and knowing action to endanger the lives of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, they are based on no evidence or evidence that is unsubstantiated or distorted, they use extreme rhetoric that has no basis in fact, and they often make a direct link to Secretary Clinton’s bid for president.
For example, Carly Fiorina stated that Secretary Clinton “has blood on her hands,” Mike Huckabee accused her of “ignoring the warning calls from dying Americans in Benghazi,” Senator Rand Paul stated that “Benghazi was a 3:00 a.m. phone call that she never picked up,” and Senator Lindsay Graham tweeted, “Where the hell were you on the night of the Benghazi attack?”
In stark contrast to these baseless political attacks, the 54 individuals who have now been interviewed by the Select Committee have identified:
• no evidence that Secretary Clinton ordered the military to stand down on the night of the attacks;
• no evidence that Secretary Clinton personally approved or ordered a reduction of security in Benghazi prior to the attacks;
• no evidence that Secretary Clinton pressed the United States into supporting the United Nations campaign in Libya under false pretenses;
• no evidence that Secretary Clinton or her aides oversaw an operation at the State Department to destroy or scrub embarrassing documents; and
• no evidence that Secretary Clinton or any other U.S. official directed or authorized the U.S. Mission in Benghazi to transfer weapons from Libya to another country.
The evidence obtained by the Select Committee also corroborates previous testimony to Congress indicating that Secretary Clinton was deeply engaged during and after the attacks and took action to ensure the safety and security of U.S. personnel, even as intelligence assessments of the attacks changed more than once during this period.
Read the report HERE

At WaPo’s The Daily 202 James Hohman and Elise Vlebeck present a persuasive round-up arguing that Clinton won the first Democratic Debate. An Excerpt:

..This morning’s clips are, by far, the best Clinton has enjoyed all year. From nonpartisan reporters to thought leaders across the spectrum, there was a near consensus that Hillary won.
The Post’s Karen Tumulty, in an A1 analysis, says that Hillary’s self-assured performance “showed that she remains the person to beat.”
…Liberal activist Van Jones on CNN: “Hillary Clinton was Beyoncé. She was flawless.”
Conservative Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on Fox News: “She was competent. She wasn’t afraid. She was aggressive.”
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni: “I never doubted that Hillary Clinton had many talents. I just didn’t know that seamstress was among them. There were moments … when she threaded the needle as delicately and perfectly as a politician could.”
New Republic senior editor Brian Beutler: “Clinton staked out the sweet spot between aspirational and pragmatic politics, when she dubbed herself ‘a progressive, but … a progressive who likes to get things done.'”
Vox.com editor-in-chief Ezra Klein: “Clinton reminded a lot of Democrats that they want her debating the GOP nominee next year.”
Mother Jones Washington editor David Corn: “HRC folks should hope for a Clinton-Bush general. Compare her performance to his.”
The Atlantic’s James Fallows: “HRC had her best two hours of the past two years.”
The Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey highlights Clinton’s disarming sense of humor: “During a commercial break, it took her longer to return to the stage from the bathroom, a fact she attributed to her gender. ‘It takes me longer,’ she said. When asked late in the debate what would distinguish a Clinton presidency from the current administration, she answered simply: She’s a woman.”
Post columnist Dana Milbank: “Clinton was a head shorter than her rivals when they lined up on stage for Sheryl Crow’s version of the National Anthem. … But after that moment, she towered over them.”
The Fix’s Chris Cillizza: “Clinton was confident, relaxed and good-natured. … She also smartly turned at least three questions into broad-scale attacks on Republicans, effectively playing the uniter role for the party — and winning a ton of applause in the process.”
New York Times political correspondent Jonathan Martin: “Strong night for Hillary – will calm Dem nerves & tamp down Biden buzz. She helped herself a good deal, was elevated by comparison.”
“Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd: “Clinton was easily the most polished and prepped candidate on stage. Wasn’t even close. But Sanders isn’t going anywhere.”

Hohman and Vlebeck did an impressive amount of work in putting together their case for a big Clinton win and show why the post still rules the MSM when it comes to political coverage. They have other insights to share in their Daily 202 post, which is likely to be the most widely-read take on the first Democratic presidential debate.

The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner has an insightful take on “What to Watch for in Tuesday’s Debate” in terms of Clinton’s strategy:

Clinton needs to get out of a self-infecting cycle of bad publicity, in which everything she does is dismissed as calculating and contrived, even when it represents creative movement on issues. Sanders merely needs to take care to come across as fighting for the forgotten American on the issues, as he nearly always does, but not too radical in his personal style.
In the past few weeks, Clinton has made several dramatic moves in Sanders’s direction. She has broken with the administration on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, on the Keystone Pipeline, and on the so-called Cadillac Tax on high quality health plans (she is for repeal; the White House is not). She is out-flanking Sanders to the left on gun control, and she is at least as comfortable talking about race.
…In the inside game, Clinton needs to persuade the activists associated with the Democratic Party, especially the labor movement, that she can be as much their champion as Sanders can. She needs to reassure her own core supporters (who might be tempted to defect to Biden) that her candidacy is not fatally damaged by recent missteps.
..Clinton, in short, is necessarily playing a much more complex game than Sanders. Much of her posture is directed at a potential candidate who will not be on stage–Joe Biden. A great deal of her positioning is aimed not just at Sanders, but at dissuading Biden from getting into the race.

Clinton will have to provide clear answers — and good soundbites — in response to the badgering she will receive about her emails, discrediting the accusations as baseless, politicized complaints, without seeming arrogantly dismissive. A challenge for her, and for all of the candidates, is not to bristle when under attack.
As for Sanders, Joan Walsh notes at The Nation:

…Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
On guns, Sanders has riled activists with a handful of votes against gun regulation. He voted against the 1993 Brady Bill, to allow weapons in national parks and checked baggage on Amtrak, and to offer gun manufacturers immunity against suits by gun victims. In condolence remarks after the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina last summer, Sanders didn’t mention the issue of guns.
But Sanders has improved his rhetoric and his outreach since those early clashes. He hired Symone Sanders, a young African-American activist on issues of mass incarceration and racial justice, away from Public Citizen to be his communications director. And where he once sounded as though he believed the achievement of genuine economic justice would lead automatically to racial justice, he now routinely talks about dismantling the incarceration state and other measures specifically designed to reverse black disadvantage.
…The big question for Sanders is whether he can put together an electoral coalition to get the nomination, and win next November. On that score, the debate can’t help but help him. Sanders still polls dismally among African-Americans; in a recent YouGov poll he got 8 percent of their votes; in a South Carolina poll released Monday (that’s the first primary state in which the black vote will be significant), he was at 4 percent. But a lot of that has to do with his being much less known to black voters than Clinton or Vice President Joe Biden. The first debate gives him a chance to bring his appeal to a mass audience.

Many political observers have expressed skepticism about Biden’s chances, should he eventually decide to run. A new Reuters poll indicates, however, that a Biden candidacy would have substantial support, even though he won’t be in the first Democratic debate:

Biden will not be there, but 48 percent of Democrats surveyed in the Reuters poll wish he were a candidate, compared with 30 percent who said he should stay out. Independents were split on the question, with 36 percent saying Biden should stay in and an equal share believing otherwise.
But support for Biden’s entry into the race does not translate into equal passion for his candidacy. Just 17 percent of those surveyed said Biden would be their first choice, while 46 percent would back Clinton. Biden would also run behind Sanders, who remains the favorite of one fourth of Democrats surveyed.

Lawrence Lessig, the crowd-funded academic who is focused on one issue — campaign finance reform, also will not be at the debate, since he has been polling below one percent.
Regarding the longer-shot candidates, who will all be looking for a possible “Fiorini moment,” Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas of the AP quote former MD Governor Martin O’Malley on the challenge he faces tonight:

“This will really be the first time that nationally voters see that there’s more than one alternative to this year’s inevitable front-runner, Secretary Clinton,” O’Malley said.
“It’s a very, very important opportunity for me to not only present my vision for where the country should head, but also 15 years of executive experience, actually accomplishing the progressive things some of the other candidates can only talk about,” he said.

Ed Kilgore adds at The Washington Monthly, “If there’s any justice, though, Martin O’Malley probably deserves a post-debate bump. The guy did things the way you’re supposed to, spending many obscure days and weeks in Iowa before anyone was even thinking about the presidential race.”
Rachel Weiner writes at the Washington Post that “If there’s a chance for a wild card on the stage at Tuesday’s lead-off Democratic debate, the smart money’s on former senator Jim Webb of Virginia.” Weiner quotes Webb campaign spokesman , who provides a clue as to the persona Webb will try to project: “We have the best candidate to deliver economic fairness, social justice and common sense foreign policy, unbought and unbossed by anyone.”
With respect to Lincoln Chafee, Lucey and Thomas write, “Expect Chafee, the former senator and governor from Rhode Island, to go after Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the war in Iraq. Chafee, at the time a Republican, opposed the invasion and he’s said Clinton’s support for the war, which she has more recently called a “mistake,” is at the center of his decision to run.”
Much to the relief of many Democrats, regardless of their candidate preferences, there will certainly be a vigorous debate, instead of a ‘coronation,’ which would surely be frowned upon by swing voters. The hope is that tonight’s forum will generate light, as well as heat — a big distinction from what has been going on in the GOP debates.

Democratic strategist Mike Lux, in his role as president of American Family Voices, has a HuffPo post reporting on his organization’s recent summit of “forward-thinking business leaders and top leaders of the progressive movement in America.”
Lux begins with the observation that “for most businesses in America today, their best prospect at competing with huge corporations who cut insider deals to rig the rules in their favor is to have progressive economic policies win the day.” Conversely, “the progressive movement will not win substantive change in this country without strong and successful business leaders being on our side.”
The common ground between progressives and forward-thinking business leaders has not been adequately-explored, argues Lux. Despite being involved in numerous campaigns against corporations which abuse their workers and consumers, Lux sees a significant potential for coalition building based on common interest. “What I became more and more focused on,” notes Lux, “was a fundamental idea: that the economic policies supported by the progressive movement I was a part of are the exact same policies that would help most businesses in this country.” For example,

Higher wages mean more disposable income for customers. Paid sick leave and decent health care benefits mean more stability in the workforce for most companies. Breaking up the biggest banks and fair rules for the financial industry would mean far more investment and better terms on loans for most small businesses. Better schools mean more productive workers.
Converting to a green economy and making adequate investments in infrastructure and R&D would mean the creation of thousands of new businesses and millions of new jobs, a lot of them high wage. Vigorous enforcement of anti-trust laws and prosecuting businesses that manipulate markets mean that honest businesses can better compete with big corporations who have an unfair advantage.
The federal and state tax, budget, regulatory, enforcement, and contracting policies that benefit a near-monopolistic company like Wal-Mart do not generally benefit local retailers; policies that help the financial speculators and manipulators on Wall Street benefit neither community banks nor the small businesses looking for start-up loans and lines of credit; and the lack of anti-trust enforcement that helps huge corporate conglomerates continue to gobble up smaller companies is the exact opposite of the policies new entrepreneurs need to compete with those corporations seeking to wipe out their competition.

Then there is the thorny matter of how progressives and business leaders too often alienate each other with bad communication:

Activists are used to pushing hard, and that sometimes comes off as purist to businesses with bottom lines. These businesses want to be given opportunities to address and correct perceived problems before being targeted by activist campaigns. Further, business owners want to be engaged in the entire process of activism, not asked to be the face of an issue campaign after the fact: they want to have their perspectives and priorities on the issues involved valued from the very beginning.”
There are some businesses that those of us in the progressive movement oppose on big issues — such as Koch Industries and the other big fossil fuel companies, the biggest financial speculators on Wall Street, Wal-Mart, the big food and agriculture giants…But for the vast majority of small business people and up and coming entrepreneurs, on a great many issues, we are in fact on the same side — or at least should be.

Progressive are quick to target reactionary corporations, but it’s important that progressives commit to supporting those businesses which strive to treat their employees and customers with respect and a genuine concern, says Lux. “Without these businesses speaking out against corporate malfeasance and offering a progressive alternative in the market, we all lose, plain and simple.”
While most progressive activists have no trouble rattling off a list of corporations which deserve to be boycotted, for example, fewer could name those companies, large and small, which are striving to be good corporate citizens and worthy of support. Many more companies have a mix of progressive and reactionary policies requiring a more nuanced analysis.
“We can’t lessen income inequality, and we can’t change the top 1 percent orientation of our politics,” concludes Lux, “without having a vital and growing high road business sector.”
This is a good dialogue for Democrats. The common ground between progressives and socially-concerned business leaders and small business men and women includes a lot of swing voters, perhaps enough to make a transformative difference on election day.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. calls out Republicans for their shameless pandering to the gun industry and commends President Obama for “politicizing” the latest mass shootings:

President Obama spoke some of the most important words of his tenure last week in response to the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. “This is something we should politicize,” the president said. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
This is something we should politicize. His statement was remarkable for violating the etiquette as to what a leader should say after another slaughter by a deranged gunman and the conventional wisdom about how politicians have to pretend that they are not engaged in politics.
But Obama was forcing us to face reality. It’s politics that has rendered our nation powerless in the face of butchery. There have been at least 142 school shootings since the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, and Congress has done nothing. It’s politics, as Obama said, that makes the U.S. “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” and politics that leads our learned legislators to pass laws barring the government from “even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths.”
…”Politicize” is the right word for another reason: We will not act until politicians start losing elections for opposing even the most modest gun safety measure. We will not act unless political parties that block action lose their majorities. Yes, I am talking about a Republican Party that has completely aligned itself with the interests of gun manufacturers and gun fanatics.

Dionne cites “the conclusion of a study released in August by National Journal: “The states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths, while states with fewer regulations typically have a much higher death rate from guns.” Dionne adds, “State laws could be even more effective if they were matched by federal laws that made it harder for guns to get into the wrong hands.”
Dionne notes the example of Australia’s former conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who provided courageous leadership for sensible gun control measures, including a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons and a major gun buy-back project, after a massacre of 35 Australians in Tasmania. Dionne concludes with a question that demands an honest answer: “Is a dangerous and harebrained absolutism about weaponry really the issue on which American conservatives want to practice exceptionalism?