I’m not watching the Republican debate, but I’m betting it’s a bomb fest.

I’m learning that the New York Public schools received a bomb threat very similar to the one that closed Los Angeles schools today.  But the NY schools did not close, mostly because nobody saw the email until it was too late to get the word out. By 9 o’clock or so, the NYPD had determined the threat was a hoax. I don’t know if that’s reassuring.

Ran into wi-fi issues today, which slowed me down. I will write something tomorrow, I promise!

I’m back, really tired. This article by Ryan Lizza about the Freedom Caucus is getting a lot of buzz and is worth reading.  See also All Politicians Lie.

Few of the people waxing indignant because The Donald proposed banning Muslims from the U.S. seem not to have noticed that Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to allow only Christian refugees from Syria into the country. And many state governors have gone out of their way to be as ugly and nativist as possible, barring Syrian refugees of any sort.

In other words, it appears the Muslim ban thing is only bad because The Donald said it. Is it the bad hair?

Seriously, the only difference between the snake oil Trump is peddling and the snake oil being marketed by the rest of the Republican candidates is that some are using more upscale advertising.

I don’t entirely buy Charles Blow’s argument that Trump the Candidate is a monster created by craven mass media, but I agree with this:

Speaker Paul Ryan said at the House Republican leadership’s weekly news conference, “This is not conservatism.” Maybe it’s not traditional conservatism, but it is modern Republicanism, or at least a large enough portion of it to make the most inflammatory Republican candidate the most liked Republican candidate.

Ryan continued: “What was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for and, more importantly, it’s not what this country stands for.”

I’m not sure which party Ryan has been paying attention to for the last decade, but to my eye and ear, extreme rhetoric is increasingly becoming intrinsic to the Republican Party. The front-runner is simply saying out loud what many conservatives are feeling — he’s not Svengali; he’s a crowd reader.

The truth is that even candidates with more graceful language and elegant delivery than the current front-runner express views that sound eerily similar to his.

People who self-identify as journalists in mass media just about never point out how absurd a politician’s positions are, even when they are, but now for The Donald all bets are off. It’s now okay for them to admit his ideas are nuts and he’s beginning to resemble a cross between a low-rent Mussolini and Pennywise the Clown. But they won’t say the same thing about the other GOP candidates, even though they are all pretty much on the same page in substance, if not in packaging. Although it’s okay to repeat every unsubstantiated rumor about Hillary Clinton.

The GOP is still hoping The Donald will flame out that that a “serious” candidate, i.e. someone with a conventional working relationship with the GOP establishment and its corporate donors, will step up. The longer Trump stays on top of the polls, the harder it’s going to be for that to happen. Heh.

See also Gail Collins, Republicans, Guns and Abortion.

Not enough attention is being paid to this: Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas, of course), who is chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is using his committee chairmanship to intimidate the government’s own climate scientists.

In October, Mr. Smith issued a subpoena to Kathryn D. Sullivan, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, demanding all internal notes, emails and correspondence concerning a study its scientists published in the journal Science. The study found that the “rate of global warming during the last 15 years has been as fast as or faster than what was seen during the latter half of the 20th century.”

This conclusion disputed the claim, seized upon by climate-change deniers like Mr. Smith, that there has been a slowdown in the rate of global warming in recent years. In fact, 2014 was the warmest year on record, and this year is likely to end up even warmer.

Fortunately, NOAA did not acquiesce to Mr. Smith’s outrageous demands. The agency pointed out that it had provided Mr. Smith’s committee with the scientific briefings, data and studies behind the Science article, as well as two thorough briefings by NOAA scientists. But Mr. Smith was not satisfied. He repeated his demand for all subpoenaed documents and warned of “civil and/or criminal enforcement mechanisms” if the agency did not comply.

Do read the whole article.

Righties are apoplectic about this Daily News article, which presents a hypothesis about the San Bernadino mass shooting.  Apparently one of Tashfeen Malik’s c0-workers was a five-alarm loudmouth wingnut bagger who wanted Ann Coulter to be named head of Homeland Security. The Daily News writer called him  “a radical Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew.” Might explain why the shooters went after the workplace, which otherwise made no sense as a terrorism target.

The author also made the point that the shooters and this victim were mirror images of each other, and the Usual Wingnuts are over-the-top indignant. But the only difference I see is that few of  our whackjobs are desperate enough to go beyond the bloviating stage. They’re capable of it, though.

Yesterday Senate Republicans killed a couple of gun control proposals:

The first gun control measure proposed by Democrats was legislation from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would deny people on a federal terrorism watch list the ability to purchase guns. The measure failed, 45-54. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) voted with Republicans to reject the measure, and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) crossed over to vote in favor of the gun restrictions.

The second vote revived legislation from April 2013, written in the aftermath of the shooting deaths of 20 elementary school children in Newtown, Conn., with bipartisan backing that would enact universal background checks. The four Republicans who backed the bill then — Kirk and Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who co-authored the measure with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — also voted in favor of the Democrats’ plan on Thursday. Heitkamp also opposed the second gun-control measure, which was blocked on a 48-50 tally. …

… The vote carried little drama: No one changed their position from April 2013, and other than Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) attempting to vote “aye” twice, there was little drama as senators scrolled on their phones during the first major gun vote in two and a half years.

So, Republicans make sure we can’t do anything about our most common form of terrorism — mass shootings. The New York Times editorial board:

In the hours after the attack in San Bernardino on Wednesday, President Obama specifically mentioned that legislation as an important security measure. “Those same people who we don’t allow to fly can go into a store in the United States and buy a firearm, and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them. That’s a law that needs to be changed,” he said on CBS News. The George W. Bush administration backed the terrorist-list bill in 2007.

No matter. The House speaker, Paul Ryan, issued his party’s weak defense of arming potential terrorism suspects on Thursday morning: “I think it’s very important to remember people have due process rights in this country, and we can’t have some government official just arbitrarily put them on a list.” Mr. Ryan’s Senate colleagues demonstrated that they are more worried about the possibility that someone might be turned away from a gun shop than shielding the public against violent criminals.

Short on action, big on talk:

At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s conference on Thursday, the Republican presidential candidates offered little but political attacks. Senator Cruz immediately blamed Mr. Obama: “Coming on the wake of the terror attack in Paris, this horrific murder underscores that we are at a time of war, whether or not the current administration realizes it or is willing to acknowledge it, our enemies are at war with us and I believe this nation needs a wartime president to defend it.”

Gov. Chris Christie injected more fear: “The president continues to wring his hands and say ‘we’ll see,’ but those folks dressed in tactical gear with semiautomatic weapons came there to do something. We need to come to grips with the idea that we are in the midst of the next world war.”

From Jeb Bush, a bizarre slam: “The brutal savagery of Islamic terrorism exists, and this president and his former secretary of state cannot call it for what it is.”

And Donald Trump, true to his birther views, insinuated that Mr. Obama was hiding something: “Radical Islamic terrorism. We have a president that refuses to use the term. He refuses to say it. There’s something going on with him that we don’t know about.”

One, the Planned Parenthood shooter was not an “Islamic terrorist.” The Charleston shooter was not an “Islamic terrorist.” Of course, to Republicans, terrorism is defined by who does it. If a Muslim shoots somebody, it’s terrorism; if a white supremacist or anti-abortion whackjob does exactly the same thing, it isn’t.

Two, the President wants to be clear the United States is not at war with Islam. But, you know, those shrieking magical adjectives could keep us safe …