In the past, whenever I have used that title phrase, it has always been tongue-in-cheek -- as a hyperbolic metaphor, in other words. Other close cousins to it would be: "A GOP circular firing squad," or "Republicans eating their own." Neither of those was ever meant literally either, obviously. They were all merely used to dramatize intraparty GOP power struggles, or one Republican getting ostracized or worse by his or her own fellow party members. Such as Madison Cawthorn getting successfully primaried, or what the party has done and is doing (both in the House of Representatives and back home in Wyoming) to Liz Cheney.

Read Complete Article »

Republicans have come up with all sorts of attempts to deflect the public's attention from the enormous number and easy availability of guns in this country, some of them far wackier than others. But the more-reasonable response they've largely gathered behind is to say that all mass shootings happen because of "crazy people," and therefore we should put lots of effort into weeding those crazy people out before they can cause atrocities. That's what they say they're for, at any rate. As a way of deflecting attention, it's a lot better than what the fringe of the GOP is saying, after all.

Read Complete Article »

There is a debate currently taking place within the editorial departments of some of the nation's biggest newspapers, on the subject of what their own professional ethics and standards should be when it comes to showing the aftermath of violent mass shootings. What it boils down to is this: "Does the country need another 'Emmett Till moment' -- a photo of a child's badly-mangled body who was killed by gunfire in a mass shooting?" Which is an interesting editorial question, seeing as how the American media has gotten more and more timid over time when it comes to showing the results of any violence, really.

Read Complete Article »

Last night, President Joe Biden gave only the second evening address (not counting speeches to joint sessions of Congress) of his presidency. The last time he did so was over a year ago. The subject of his speech this time was a grim one: the recent massacres of innocents in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas. And all of the others which didn't receive quite as prominent media coverage, as well. He urged Congress to act, in the strongest possible terms. He pointed out that Republicans are the ones obstructing any progress whatsoever, and pleaded for some bipartisanship in the Senate.

Read Complete Article »

President Joe Biden is about to give an evening speech on national television. This shouldn't be all that rare an event, but with Biden it sadly has been. Last March, he gave such a speech on the COVID-19 pandemic response. Last March. Biden himself has reportedly been frustrated by his inability to get his message out, but he really bears a goodly portion of the blame for this himself. Where was the speech to the nation on the Russian invasion of Ukraine? How about a primetime address on inflation? Or the infant formula bottleneck? Or gas prices? Maybe he shouldn't have given a speech on each and every one of these important issues, but it would have been nice to see at least one or two of them addressed by the president, or perhaps a few within just one speech.

Read Complete Article »

In the political debate over possible restrictions on gun ownership that has followed the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, one idea has popped up which seems pretty reasonable on the face of it: don't let 18-year-olds buy assault rifles -- make them wait until they are 21 instead. But this opens up a much wider debate, one that few are talking about or even considering. Because the trend, over time, seems to be to slowly and incrementally raise the age of being considered an adult from 18 to 21 years old. If you are 18, 19, or 20, you are a sort of second-class adult, allowed to do certain things which could have life-altering consequences, but barred from doing others for another three years. Sooner or later two questions are going to have to be dealt with in a fundamental way, and so far they aren't on a lot of people's radars: "Is this even constitutional?" and: "Should we just raise the age of being considered an adult to 21 for everything?" Doing so would be a lot more legally consistent, but it would also be an enormous change for tens of millions of Americans and would probably not be very politically feasible (to say the least).

Read Complete Article »

Last week, America experienced a racist extremist shooting up a grocery store, in an effort to kill as many Black people as he could. This week, America had to once again watch as innocent schoolchildren age 10 or under were massacred for no reason whatsoever. This is who we are, and it is shameful.

It is not, however, who we want to be. The public wants more and tighter gun safety laws, by an overwhelming margin. But even in the wake of the horrors of yet another slaughter of innocents, most people who follow politics don't expect much of anything to change. No new laws will pass the Senate, or if something does manage to be worked out, it will be weak and watered-down and likely ineffective at stopping such outrages from regularly happening.

Read Complete Article »

Here we are again. That, as you'll see below, is how I started an article written five years ago, after the Las Vegas slaughter. Because I find I cannot write yet another one of these articles, when nothing has changed and nothing is likely to change any time soon.

Politico just put out some new poll numbers, from an insta-poll taken after the Uvalde, Texas school massacre. They show pretty much where the American public has stood for quite some time now: gun control measures are either popular or overwhelmingly popular. By the numbers:

Read Complete Article »

If Republicans do take control of both chambers of Congress, the margin of control in each will be the most important variable. In the Senate, the margin will likely be fairly close, but nobody really knows what it might be like in the House. If Republicans have a blowout House election season and pick up dozens and dozens of seats, this will almost certainly make Kevin McCarthy's job a lot easier; but if the margin is tight (maybe not quite as tight as the one Nancy Pelosi has been dealing with, but perhaps within 10 or 15 votes) then any faction bigger than the margin will be able to dictate its own terms -- as the Tea Partiers proved, the last time this happened.

Read Complete Article »

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

It's been a rather bizarre week, which is even more odd since Congress is still off lollygagging, rather than doing the people's business as they are handsomely paid to do. Perhaps all these vacations have a cost? That's what we were thinking, at any rate, when we heard the news today that the House Select Committee on January 6th has punted the ball yet again, and will not even be scheduling public hearings until June, rather than next month. Seriously, guys? You're going to break the biggest political scandal story of the year right at the start of summer?!?

Read Complete Article »