Saturday Open Thread [1.2.2016]

“President Obama will press ahead with a set of executive actions on guns next week despite growing concerns in the U.S. over terrorism that have dampened some Americans’ enthusiasm for tighter firearms restrictions, according to several individuals briefed on the matter,” the Washington Post reports.

“One of the main proposals Obama is poised to adopt–expanding new background-check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume gun dealers -enjoys overwhelming public support: a Quinnipiac University poll in December found 89 percent supported background checks at gun shows and for online sales.”

Wall Street Journal: “But even as he gets set to act, Mr. Obama has only limited levers he can pull without Congress, and any unilateral action will face hurdles similar to those it has encountered during earlier attempts to tighten access to guns.”

“Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Friday reported a tremendous fourth-quarter fundraising haul, saying it pulled in $37 million in funds supporting her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination,” The Hill reports.

“That brings her total funds from 2015 to $112 million, smashing through the goal her campaign set of raising $100 million.”

Erica Grieder:

Some Republican operatives, [Jeff} Greenfield reports, are considering a particularly dramatic response. Trump himself has indicated, at several points, that he might run as a third-party candidate if the Republican Party denies him the nomination. Those threats have some resonance, because an independent Trump wouldn’t have to skim off many Republican voters to effectively doom the GOP nominee in the general. But the same would be true if Trump himself is the nominee. The only difference between the two scenarios is that Trump is self-obsessed, prone to snits and grudges, and has never shown the slightest concern for how his histrionics might affect other people. By contrast, someone like Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney would pause to consider the potential consequences of their actions. A third-party run would likely guarantee Clinton’s election, and a coordinated defection among party insiders might lead to the end of the Republican Party as we know it.

But if Trump somehow becomes the Republican nominee, I think Republicans need to take the risk. By doing so they might destroy their party, but Trump might destroy the country. Any party that would seriously nominate such a person for president is a party that should be put out to pasture, if not sent straight to the glue factory. Since June, Trump has caused more harm than most politicians manage in a lifetime. And if he had the power of the presidency? A few sweet nothings from Vladimir Putin and Trump would be tripping all over himself to give Alaska back to Russia.

Trump’s sheer awfulness has already made it virtually impossible for me to make fun of Obama. It surely casts the relative risks of a Clinton presidency in a different light. She likely wouldn’t repeal Obamacare, but she can hardly make it worse.

New York Times: “Al Qaeda’s branch in Somalia released a recruitment video on Friday that criticized racism and anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and contained footage of the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump announcing his proposal to bar Muslims from entering the country. The video, released by the militant group Shabab, appeared to be the first time that Mr. Trump was featured in jihadist recruitment material.”

Zach Kopplin sees similarities in the behavior of Donald Trump supporters and people who are committed to anti-science beliefs.

“In a 2014 study, Brendan Nyhan and several other researchers found that when parents with negative feelings about vaccines were presented with evidence that vaccines do not cause autism, they actually reported being less likely to vaccinate their children. The corrective information had a negative effect.”

Said Nyhan: “For highly controversial issues and political figures, there’s a risk that correct information is not only ineffective, but can make misconceptions worse. People who are exposed to correct information in the context of a debate over a controversial issue can end up believing more strongly in the misperception than people who never saw the correct information.”