So which measures to reduce income inequality attract the most support? Suzy Khimm reports at The New Republic: “A recent study conducted by economists from Princeton, Harvard, and University of California, Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez–one of the most prominent researchers on inequality–put the political challenges of the issue in sharper relief. Based on a survey of 10,000 Americans, the study found that those who received more information about inequality were more likely to believe that economic disparity was a problem. At the same time, “they show no more appetite for many government interventions to reduce inequality”–such as an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps–“with the notable exceptions of increasing the estate tax and the minimum wage…The study hypothesizes that Americans are more comfortable with government solutions when they’re narrowly targeted or otherwise limit government involvement. That suggests that any kind of broad government intervention will be a hard sell to the broader public, even if the public believes the scales are unfairly tipped because of government policies.”
At The Monkey Cage Kyle Dropp’s “This new tool puts 50,000 poll questions and 100 demographics at your fingertips” reports on an early Xmas present for political opinion wonks: “This year, we at Morning Consult have addressed that problem by building out a platform called Morning Consult Intelligence. This free platform allows anyone to search and analyze over 50,000 current and historical survey questions from top polling organizations.”
Bill Cotterell, correspondent for the Tallahassee Democrat has an insightful update on Democratic electoral prospects in Florida. Among Cotterell’s observations: “Democrats figure to pick up two, maybe three, seats in the Florida congressional delegation under the redistricting plan approved last month by the state Supreme Court…When a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans in registration has 17 Republican and 10 Democratic members of the U.S. House, that’s no accident. Not coincidentally, Republicans are the controlling party of both chambers of the Legislature – the same people who fought the “Fair Districts” amendments all the way…All things being equal – which they’re not – Democrats would probably deserve a 14-13 majority in the state’s congressional delegation and Florida’s two U.S. Senate seats would be equally divided – which they are – by the parties.”
As for the sleazier tactics Republicans use to suppress pro-Democratic votes in the Sunshine State, check out Spencer Woodman’s excellent post at The Intercept, “Thanks to Republicans, Nearly a Quarter of Florida’s Black Citizens Can’t Vote.” Woodman explains, “No other state has a larger number of disenfranchised citizens than Florida, where more than 1.5 million people have lost the right to cast a ballot on Election Day, according to the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit prison reform group. Nationwide, nearly 6 million Americans are barred from voting due to felony convictions. Although most states restrict the voting rights of imprisoned felons, Iowa currently is the only one that joins Florida in imposing a lifelong disenfranchisement on ex-felons.”
Tony Monkovic reviews the pros, cons and realities of strategic voting at The Upshot, and notes “Research shows that the rate of so-called party-crasher voting in primaries is generally low. Voters in open primaries, in which you can vote in the primary of either party, are more likely to pick a candidate they like. He notes one failed example: “…Radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” to help Hillary Clinton defeat Barack Obama did not prevent an Obama presidency.”
Hard to wrap your head around it now, but there was a time when the GOP hoped to benefit from the Muslim vote in the U.S. David A. Graham has the story at The Atlantic.
A new AP/GFK poll indicates Trump’s xenophobic take on immigration is shared by too many, even though the poll was conducted before his latest call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S.: “…54 percent of Americans, including about three-quarters of Republicans, about half of independents and over a third of Democrats, said the United States takes in too many immigrants from the Middle East…By contrast, 46 percent of Americans, including 6 in 10 Republicans, slightly under half of independents and 3 in 10 Democrats, said the U.S. takes too many immigrants from Latin America…Just 28 percent of Americans said the same of immigrants from Europe, with little variation by party identification.”
If Trump wins the GOP nomination, what would his Republican rivals do? The New York Times editorial board offers this clue: “After his remarks on Muslims, how many of Mr. Trump’s rivals have said they would reject his candidacy if he won the nomination? As of Wednesday, none.”
You probably can guess who says “I. Will. Never. Leave. This. Race.”

For a sharply observed analysis of GOP candidate Donald Trump’s failed effort to secure endorsements from African American pastors, read Goldie Taylor’s Daily Beast post, “Black Pastors Confront Trump Over ‘Slurs.'” As Taylor observes,

As The Daily Beast reported over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the GOP frontrunner was set to meet Monday with dozens of high profile black pastors and hold a subsequent press conference to tout an unprecedented group endorsement. As the sun set Sunday night–and several prominent preachers backed out–many questioned whether the event would even happen.
Pressed by their congregations and by a not-so-holy war that broke out on social media, some of the invited ministers issued flat denials, saying they agreed only to discuss key issues with the candidate and that endorsements were never a part of the bargain. Two of the biggest names on the nightclub-esque promotional flier, Los Angeles-based Bishop Clarence McClendon and Brooklyn-based Bishop Hezekiah Walker, announced Sunday they would not attend. Both issued statements on social media.
…Early Monday, Trump blamed the controversy on young black activists, saying in an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “Probably some of the Black Lives Matter folks called them up and said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be meeting with Trump because he believes all lives matter.'”
With expectations dampened, a small but resilient group of mostly black pastors stepped into a media scrum Monday afternoon to talk about the much publicized, now private meeting with Trump. There was no promised live-stream and no radio broadcast.

In other words, it was a messy little circus. Worse for Trump, it provided Taylor with an opportunity to review Trump’s record on issues of concern to African Americans:

The Republican brand is toxic in most quarters of the black community. That said, the media avail felt more like a gambit to change the optics rather than an earnest effort to bring new hope to distressed communities. Trump, who has been busy alienating black voters with his nationalistic, almost barbaric approach to the campaign trail, is clearly in need of a healing…The numbers, however, are clear. Since the late 1960s, after the passage of the civil rights acts, Republican support from black voters has wallowed in the single digits.
…Responding to an open letter from 150 faith and academic leaders published Friday by Ebony challenging the group to rethink endorsing Trump, Bishop Scott directly questioned the ethics of the magazine’s management…”By siding with a presidential candidate whose rhetoric pathologizes Black people, what message are you sending to the world about the Black lives in and outside of your congregations?” the letter read. “Which Black lives do you claim to be liberating?”
Embracing a roomful of black pastors and persuading a few to endorse him certainly aren’t enough to erase what has been–arguably–Trump’s history of racial animus and outright bigotry…Despite his claims, one could argue that Trump has been in a position to create jobs in predominantly African American communities and simply has not done so in any meaningful way. His office towers, residential units, and golf resorts are built almost exclusively in wealthy white enclaves.

“As I sat cross-legged holding a recorder in front of the bank of microphones Monday,” Taylor continues, “I wondered why Trump’s decades-long career as a real estate developer has yielded almost no investments in the black community. A review of financial records revealed that few, if any, charitable contributions have been given to programs that directly benefit African American children. Then, too, according to the company website, there is not a single black executive or key senior leader at The Trump Organization.”
As you might expect, there are accounts of Trump unleashing torrents of bigotry toward African Americans. Taylor cites one example: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” he famously told a colleague. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”
“Long before he recklessly retweeted false statistics that painted black people as criminally pathological,” Taylor adds. “Trump was sued for housing discrimination. And there are reports that black employees at an Atlantic City property were kept out of view whenever Trump visited.”
Not a record that is likely to inspire significant numbers of America’s most reliably progressive constituency to suddenly embrace a Republican candidate for president. Thing is, Trump may not be the worst of his GOP colleagues, when it comes to racial injustice, just the loudest. Every other GOP candidate has provided tacit, if not aggressively overt support for suppression of African American votes, and Trump has said or done nothing to stand up against it.

A brutal truth about political messaging from NY Times frequent commenter Mathew Carnicelli: “I think the Democrats are hideous at shaping message,” he said. “They try something for about 10 minutes and when it doesn’t poll well immediately, they drop it. With Republicans, they keep repeating the same message until people believe them.”
Alternet’s Kali Holloway explains “How Delusional Nostalgia Is Killing the White Working Class.” Holloway rounds up data from several public opinion surveys, including The 2015 American Values Survey, and notes “On “reverse racism,” half of white Americans overall agree “discrimination against whites is as big a problem today as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.” But the socioeconomic divide on this opinion is fairly vast. Among working-class whites, a solid majority, 60 percent, believe the tables have turned and anti-white discrimination equals that faced by other historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups. But just 36 percent of college-educated white Americans cosigned this idea. Blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly reject the notion, by 75 and 71 percent, respectively.”
Just a few weeks before he leaves office, outgoing Democratic Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky has issued an executive order that immediately granted the right to vote to about 140,000 nonviolent felons who have completed their sentences. As Erik Eckholm reports at the NYT, “Kentucky had been one of just three states imposing a lifetime voting ban on felons unless they received a special exemption from the governor. Florida and Iowa still carry the lifetime ban…Convicted criminals in Maine and Vermont do not lose their franchise in the first place and can cast ballots from prison….Despite the policy changes in many states, almost six million Americans are prohibited from voting because of felony offenses, according to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group. The racial disparity is acute: Nationwide, the organization estimates, one in 13 black men cannot vote, a far higher rate than for other groups.”
At The Nation Juan Cole weighs in on the terminology dust-up regarding terrorists-who-claim-to-be-Muslims: “For Baghdadi to call his band of human traffickers, rapists, drug smugglers, and looters the “Islamic State” is rather like a Mexican drug cartel adopting the moniker “the Vatican,” and our adopting that term thereafter (“The Vatican kidnapped 30 people today”) when reporting on its violence. Journalists would resist such linguistic coercion in the case of Catholics; they should resist it in the case of Muslims as well.” Further, adds Cole, “The language of war elevates terrorists to the very status to which they aspire: that of legitimate combatants…The young men recruited by the late petty thief Abdelhamid Abaaoud were, it should go without saying, not soldiers; they were delinquents outfitted with bombs and machine guns instead of stilettos…Abaaoud and his partners in crime deserve no military stripes.”
Arit John of Bloomberg explains “How Snapchat fits into Bernie Sanders’s strategy,” and provides insight into how the platform can be used in political campaigns. “…There is some data to indicate that, while 2016 might not be the Snapchat election, it is, at least, a natural fit for a candidate such as Sanders. Thirty-seven percent of the app’s 100 million daily users are 18- to 24-year-olds, according to the company. After the Aug. 6 Republican debate, Snapchat said 18- to 24-year-olds were more likely to watch the platform’s five-minute “live story” of the debate than watch the debate live on television. Two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-old Snapchat users are likely voters and about a third of all 18- to 34-year-old likely voters use the app, according to an online poll commissioned by Snapchat and conducted by Global Strategy Group and Public Opinion Strategies from Oct. 15-25.”
AP News Wire’s “Democrats planning multi-year strategy to recapture seats” reports on the DNC’s 19-page comeback plan. “Across the nation, Democrats hold 3,172 of the 7,383 seats in state legislatures, or 43 percent. Of the 99 legislative chambers, Democrats only have a majority in 30…The report says the party needs to develop and deploy a “clear, values-based message,” strengthen state parties, protect the right to vote, prepare for redistricting after the 2020 elections and recruit a new generation of leaders.”
Ezra Klein and Alan Abramowitz engage in dialogue at Vox about Nate Silver’s contention that Trump most likely won’t win his party’s nomination. Abramowitz is not so sure, and cites indicators of Trump’s strength: “What I think is different is Republicans are tuned in to a much greater degree than they were at this point in previous nomination contests. You can see that in polling when you ask whether voters are paying attention, and you can see that in ratings for the debates. The idea that voters aren’t tuned in yet and won’t make up their minds till January or later may not prove as true as it has in the past…Because of the higher level of interest and attention this year, these early polls may be more predictive of what’s likely to happen…Trump isn’t only leading in national polling. He’s leading in every state poll I’ve seen. He seems to be ahead in Iowa, in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, Nevada.”
At Salon.com Heather Digby Parton addresses concerns about the term “fascism” being used too loosely in describing Donald Trump, and offers plenty of examples indicating he merits the term. Parton quotes CNN’s M.J. Lee: “”Trump is a fascist. And that’s not a term I use loosely or often. But he’s earned it,” tweeted Max Boot, a conservative fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who is advising Marco Rubio…”Forced federal registration of US citizens, based on religious identity, is fascism. Period. Nothing else to call it,” Jeb Bush national security adviser John Noonan wrote on Twitter…Conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace, who has endorsed Ted Cruz, also used the “F” word last week: “If Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump every conservative in the country would call it what it is — creeping fascism. Parton adds,”…In his book, “Rush, Newspeak and Fascism” David Neiwert explained that the dictionary definition of the word often leaves out the most important characteristics of the philosophy, which are “its claims to represent the “true character” of the respective national identities among which it arises; and its mythic core of national rebirth — not to mention its corporatist component, its anti-liberalism, its glorification of violence and its contempt for weakness.” If that’s not Donald Trump I don’t know what is.”
One shudders to think who will show for this.

Writing in The Nation, Eric Alterman has a blistering critique of the Republican Party presidential candidates and their operatives in his article, “The Crazier the Republican Candidates Sound, the More Popular They Become.” In one take-no-prisoners excerpt Alterman observes:

… The party is being led by a group of people with politics so extreme and explanations so silly–and often transparently dishonest–that one cannot help but question their sanity. Can Donald Trump really believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that virtually all undocumented immigrants are potential rapists and murderers? Can Ben Carson truly consider Obamacare on a par with slavery? And which answer would be more comforting: shameless liar or lunatic fantasist?
… this same disease has infected the entire Republican field. In the hopes of appealing to angry, ill-informed, and xenophobic primary voters, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Carly Fiorina are all adopting positions that are not only beyond the boundaries of the beliefs of the vast majority of Americans, but also contrary to the laws of physics, economics, and, of course, common sense.

Among the causes of the GOP’s domination of the House of Reps, state legislatures and governorships, Alterman cites the Citizens United decision and gerrymandering. But Alterman doesn’t let Democrats off the hook, either:

The Democrats are also at fault. By failing to present a class-based appeal to Americans besieged by a pitiless global capitalism, they’ve allowed themselves to be defined as elitist snobs who view the everyday struggles of working-class Americans–especially white males–with contempt. At the same time, they have failed to protect vulnerable minorities from the consequences of the rage and fear felt by this class–manifested most obviously in oppressive patterns of policing that victimize people of color, impoverishing their families, weakening their communities, and ensuring their lifelong alienation from mainstream society.

Yet few objective observers would deny that the policies of individual Democratic leaders that affect both white working class and African American voters are substantially more progressive than anything the Republicans propose. In fact, everything Alterman says about Democrats is far more true of Republicans. Yet the image he describes persists.
It may have to do, in part, with expectations — many African Americans and white workers want a stronger voice for reforms that can benefit their lives, and they are not getting it. So the more progressive, but not progressive enough party gets stigmatized as betraying its ideals. For some voters, that is worse than open opposition.
Most Democratic elected officials are far more progressive than their party’s image, which is sort of a tribute to the GOP’s superior message discipline. Even when the message is rooted in lies and distortion, their echo chamber functions efficiently. Democrats are all over the place.
One possible remedy: more Democratic ad campaigns directed at defining the difference between the two parties, instead of just the usual yada-yada from different candidates. Republicans understand “brand identification” a lot better than their opponents. We almost never see that. It’s time Dems got a clue.
Alterman provides an equally-blistering take-down of the false equivalence default position of much of the mainstream media:

Liberals like yours truly spend a lot of time obsessing over Fox News and talk-radio. But no less a significant factor in the success of the irredentists has been the willingness of so many members of the mainstream media to run interference for–and therefore legitimize–the same dangerous nonsense in the guise of allegedly objective reporting. The mainstream media’s coverage of every Republican debate so far has had the effect of subordinating reality to fantasy. Jonathan Martin’s front-page New York Times report on the most recent debate deemed that fib-fest to be a “robust seminar on the issues.” In an article devoted to the lies dominating the election cycle, the Times’s Michael Barbaro could not bring himself to go further than to say that Carson “harshly turned the questions” about inconsistencies in his life story “back on the reporters who asked them,” and that Fiorina “refused” to back down from a story about Planned Parenthood that was “roundly disputed.” And in what read like a parody of the idiotic “both sides do it” meme, Barbaro equated all this with the fact that Hillary Clinton once described herself as being the granddaughter of four immigrants when, in fact, one was born shortly after her family arrived in the United States–something she quickly corrected. Beyond that, he found a few (largely personal) fibs from Democrats who ran for president in the late 1980s and ’90s, as if these were somehow equivalent to the lies that Republican candidates are telling today. (Barbaro also appeared unimpressed with Clinton’s explanations about her e-mail accounts, as though these might qualify as lies.)

A great deal of the reporting Alterman describes is very deliberate. But I get the feeling that a lot of it is simply lazy reporting by writers who fall back on “on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand” formulas to cover their asses. It might help if J-schools did more to stress critical thinking. Other than that, calling them out more energetically will have to do.
Dems can hope with some reason that the GOP is headed for disaster in 2016. But counting on it would be foolish and dangerous. What Democrats must do over the next year is shore up their GOTV, because it sure looks like Republicans have done so, and hone a compelling message that distinguishes their party as the best option for voters who are paying attention.

Black Lives Matter is increasing its involvement in electoral politics, reports John Eligon in The New York Times: “Two groups have started political action committees to back candidates who support ideas espoused by Black Lives Matter activists. One, Black Lives Matter Political Action Committee, started by a St. Louis radio host, plans to raise money for voter education in races for law enforcement-related offices, including for district attorney and judgeships. The second, Black Lives Matter Super PAC, was started by New York activists who hope to raise large donations from celebrities to influence campaigns for a variety of offices…”At this point, marching and protesting, it’s not going anywhere,” said Tarik Mohamed, treasurer and a founder of the super PAC. “So we’re trying to find new avenues of engaging people for change.””
At The Upshot Brendan Nyhan explains why “It’s Easy to Overestimate Effect of Paris Attacks on 2016 Race.”
It appears that the Administration has a tough sell ahead regarding bringing more Syrian refugees tot he U.S. At NBCNews.com Allison Kopicki, John Lapinski and Hannah Hartiga report that a “Majority of Americans Oppose Accepting Syrian Refugees.” The authors write, “The latest NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll shows that 56% of Americans disapprove of allowing more migrants fleeing violence in Syria and other nations into the country, while 41% approve and the issue divides sharply across party lines…About 8 in 10 Republicans disapprove of accepting more Syrian refugees – including 64% who strongly disapprove. Nearly two thirds of Democrats support the president’s policy, while more independents disapprove (59%) than approve (40%).
The New York Times editorial board nonetheless makes a case against the House GOP’s “the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015” as “election-year pandering to the xenophobia that rears up when threats from abroad arise.”
William Saletan provides a Slate.com take on the political ramifications of the GOP’s Muslim-bashing.
Unless this poll is an outlier, Democrats have work to do in this swing state.
At Huffiest Pollster Political scientists Keith Gaddie and Kirby Godel chart “The Donkey’s Narrow Path” to victory in the Louisiana governor’s race, which will be decided this Saturday, November 21st. “Analyses of early voting in Louisiana indicate that turnout will likely be higher than in the primary, increasing from 39 percent to 44 percent. And the electorate will be more Democratic and more African-American, according to early voting data, These are ominous signs for David Vitter. Runoff turnout surges are more common in Louisiana, and usually result from increased black voter participation in the second round. The Louisiana Troopers Association endorsement of John Bel Edwards likely solidified the frontrunner’s level of support among whites — which has run between 34 percent and 38 percent across public polls and in private tracking polls…For Democrats in running deep red states, there is a lesson here. Republican divisions may create opportunities for victories, but the path is narrow requiring both a flawed Republican nominee and a divided GOP.” The authors also credit Edwards messaging, citing his “military experience, pro-life identity, and moderate politics out in stark contrast to Vitter’s known associations.”
Karen Bruggeman provides additional analysis in National Journal’s “Democrats Stunned They Could Win Louisiana Governor’s Race.”
Democrats interested in media outlets to reach the white working-class with ads should check out Ken Tucker’s Yahoo post, “‘The Middle’ Is TV’s Top Working-Class Comedy.”

So whatever you think is happening to support levels for Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, there’s not much doubt Dr. Ben Carson is enjoying a significant boom in support. At TPMCafe today, I examined the varying sources of his support, and warned Democrats not to dismiss his campaign too readily:

The conventional wisdom is that Carson is beloved for being a genial, soft-spoken figure and a non-politician with a distinguished biography. That may be true, though this does not necessarily distinguish him from many thousands of his fellow Americans. An equally obvious factor is that he is African American, and Republicans frustrated with being accused of white identity politics if not outright racism love being able to support a black candidate who is as conservative as they are.
Less obvious — and finally being recognized by political reporters spending time in Iowa — is that Carson is a familiar, beloved figure to conservative evangelicals, who have been reading his books for years.
Another factor, and one that I emphasized in my own take here two months ago, is that Carson is a devoted believer in a number of surprisingly resonant right-wing conspiracy theories, which he articulates via dog whistles that excite fellow devotees (particularly fans of Glenn Beck, who shares much of Carson’s world-view) without alarming regular GOP voters or alerting the MSM.
As David Corn of Mother Jones has patiently explained, the real key for understanding Carson (like Beck) is via the works of Cold War-era John Birch Society member and prolific pseudo-historian W. Cleon Skousen, who stipulated that America was under siege from the secret domestic agents of global Marxism who masqueraded as liberals. Carson has also clearly bought into the idea that these crypto-commies are systematically applying the deceptive tactics of Saul Alinsky in order to destroy the country from within–a theme to which he alluded in the famous National Prayer Breakfast speech that launched his political career and in the first Republican presidential candidates’ debate.
It’s not clear how many Carson supporters hear the dog whistles and understand what his constant references to “political correctness” connote (it’s his all-purpose term for the efforts of America’s secret enemies to mock or silence cognoscenti like himself, Beck and Skousen), but added with his other advantages, it fills out his coalition with depth as well as breadth.
And that is why the broadly held assumption that Carson will, like 2012 candidate Herman Cain, quickly fade from contention as voting nears is worth rethinking. For one thing, Carson’s race is just one source of his appeal, so identifying him with the last black conservative to run for president is highly questionable.
Cain was not a revered figure before running in 2012, beyond those who listened when he sat in for an Atlanta-based radio host. He also was not exactly a non-politician, having run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. But the most important reason to stop identifying Carson with Cain is simple: Cain’s loss of his once-high poll ratings were not caused by a voters getting tired with a “flavor of the month” or realizing his slim qualifications; he was brought down by a series of sexual allegations that escalated from multiple claims of sexual harassment to a long-term extramarital affair. Cain never admitted any wrong-doing, but he also never convincingly rebutted the allegations, and all the smoke convinced many observers there might be fire. He left the race on his own terms, but after losing most of his altitude.
There’s zero reason to think Carson has any such skeletons in his closet. The one thing we know about his background that is politically dangerous is his testimonial work for a subsequently fined nutritional supplement company. But unless it turns out he was paid a lot more than seems to be the case, he’s only in hot water if he cannot soon keep his story straight. Being a straight shooter is extremely important to his image.
He seems to have successfully back-pedaled on his one easy-to-understand policy heresy, a proposal to replace Medicare and Medicaid with heavily subsidized health savings accounts, which he now describes as an “option” for beneficiaries (that, too, is problematic, but not as much as his original “idea”).
So there remains what should actually disqualify Carson: his extremist, paranoid “world-view” which treats regular boring old center-left liberals as conscious and systematically deceitful would-be destroyers of this country bent on imposing a Marxist tyranny via “politically correct” suppression of free speech and confiscation of guns.
There’s unquestionably a constituency for this point of view, but we may never know whether it would outnumber the Republicans baffled or horrified by it until such time as one of his rivals or the heretofore clueless media start talking about it. If they don’t pretty soon, then one theory of the 2016 GOP nominating process could come true: conservatives want to rerun the 1964 elections, and they’ve finally found their Barry Goldwater.

This is simply not a good year to assume anything conventional from Republican voters.

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

On this 50th anniversary year of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Democrats are remembering that epic development and the protests and sacrifices that produced it, even as they intensify efforts to defend and restore voting rights under attack today. But we sometimes forget battlefronts in this fight that occurred between then and now.
In honor of Jimmy Carter’s current condition at death’s door, journalist and historian Rick Perlstein wrote a powerful column at the Washington Spectator reminding us that the 39th president launched a major push for expanded voting rights back in 1977. Carter aimed at goals we have yet to achieve, thanks to a conservative counter-revolution–still underway today–against what had been a bipartisan effort to vindicate everyone’s right to vote.

Everyone loved to talk about voter apathy, but the real problem, Carter said, was that “millions of Americans are prevented or discouraged from voting in every election by antiquated and overly restricted voter registration laws”–a fact proven, he pointed out, by record rates of participation in 1976 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, where voters were allowed to register on election day. So he proposed that election-day registration be adopted universally, tempering concerns that such measures might increase opportunities for fraud by also proposing five years in prison and a $10,000 fine as penalties for electoral fraud.
He asked Congress to allot up to $25 million in aid to states to help them comply, and for the current system of federal matching funds for presidential candidates to be expanded to congressional elections. He suggested reforming a loophole in the matching-fund law that disadvantaged candidates competing with rich opponents who funded their campaigns themselves, and revising the Hatch Act to allow federal employees “not in sensitive positions,” and when not on the job, the same rights of political participation as everyone else.
Finally, and most radically, he recommended that Congress adopt a constitutional amendment to do away with the Electoral College–under which, three times in our history (four times if you count George W. Bush 23 years later), a candidate who received fewer votes than his opponent went on to become president–in favor of popular election of presidents. It was one of the broadest political reform packages ever proposed.
It was immediately embraced. Legislators from both parties stood together at a news briefing to endorse all or part of it. Two Republican senators and two Republican representatives stepped forward to cosponsor the universal registration bill; William Brock, chairman of the Republican National Committee, called it “a Republican concept.” Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker announced his support, and suggested going even further: making election day a national holiday and keeping polls open 24 hours. House Minority Leader John Rhodes, a conservative disciple of Barry Goldwater, predicted it would pass “in substantially the same form with a lot of Republican support, including my own.”

But then the conservative movement, led by Carter’s eventual successor, Ronald Reagan, struck back with every weapon at its disposal, including the Senate filibuster, and stopped the initiative, after polarizing Republicans against it. And under the lash of the conservative movement, Republicans have been at the very best fair-weather friends of voting rights ever since, before becoming outright enemies during the Obama administration.
As Perstein notes, Carter is more concerned about voting rights than ever:

This spring, when only those closest to him knew of his illness, Jimmy Carter made news on Thom Hartmann’s radio program when he returned to the question of democracy reform. In 1977, he had pledged “to work toward an electoral process which is open to the participation of all our citizens, which meets high ethical standards, and operates in an efficient and responsive manner.” In 2015, he was still at it.
He declared our electoral system a violation of “the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president.”

It’s no time to give up the fight.