National

In the multiple threads we've had here in the Ferguson incidents and the operation and obligations of the police, we had a request to talk about the long-standing poor relationship of African Americans with the police. Frankly, I think that the long history of this poor relationship pretty well mirrors the status of African Americans in the American community. When you are subject to slavery and apartheid for most of your history here, you aren't going to see the country's police forces as allies and friends. On the other hand, throughout our history, newly immigrant populations have documented problems with over-policing as well. Irish and Italian immigrants in particular lived with the kind of policing that African Americans have always been subject to and that's reflective of the wishes and prejudices of the majority population that the politicians who direct the police are responsive to. Bu rather than rehash history, I'm going to post the Storify record of a series of Tweets from Gene Denby, the editor of NPR's Code Switch blog. In about 25 tweets, Denby breaks down why different demographics may view Ferguson and other incidents like it through very different lenses. I admire what he did here -- it is focused and too the point without fingerpointing that inspires defensive postures rather than conversation.

GOP columnist and consultant David Frum is down but not yet out on his Republican Party.

Three big trends have decisively changed the Republican Party over the past decade, weakening its ability to win presidential elections and gravely inhibiting its ability to govern effectively if it nevertheless somehow were to win. First, Republicans have come to rely more and more on the votes of the elderly, the most government-dependent segment of the population — a serious complication for a party committed to reducing government. Second, the Republican donor class has grown more ideologically extreme, encouraging congressional Republicans to embrace ever more radical tactics. Third, the party’s internal processes have rigidified, in ways that dangerously inhibit its ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The GOP can overcome the negative consequences of these changes and, in time, surely will. The ominous question for Republicans is, How much time will the overcoming take?

And yet... he still delusionally believes that a multiethnic, socially tolerant conservatism is ready to take over in the cyclic response to the Liberal Obama years, just as the alleged Compassionate Conservative Bush years followed the Liberal Clinton years, just as the law and order conservative Nixon years (a contradiction in terms) following the chaos of the liberal 1960's. Just as, more generally, small government Reaganism was in response to New Deal Rooseveltism.

On August 7th I wondered aloud what kind of chaos a GOP controlled Senate would unleash on the nation. There is no longer any need to wonder. Senate Minority Leader and soon to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is very candid about the mayhem he is going to sow.

Interviewed by Politico aboard his campaign bus, the Senate minority leader offered his vision for the Senate should he be promoted to majority leader: confrontation, manufactured crises, and the ever-present threat of a government shutdown: In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress. “Move to the center” is a clever euphemism for “pay ransom in exchange for hostages.” And I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth here – back in 2011, McConnell was asked what lessons he learned from threatening to put the government in default in order to extract concessions from the White House, and he said the debt limit was “a hostage that’s worth ransoming.”

Some on the left expect President Obama to wade into the Ferguson protests and demonstrations and condemn the police, to excuse the violence as justified and righteous, and take sides. Some expect a new Race Speech, like what he gave in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign during the height of the Jeremiah Wright mess. I call bullshit on that. For a couple of reasons. First, he is the President, and as such he, as the head of the Federal Government, cannot bias any coming federal investigation or intervention with his own one sided views. Second, there is every indication that the election of President Obama was made race relations far worse in this country. It is not his fault, it is the fault of the racists. But far from isolating existing racists into further obscurity, the election of a black man as President was a Batman signal for all of the racists to let their freak flag fly. Racists, once embarrassed by admitting their racism, are now proud to. Because it is a sign of opposition to Obama, and because a legitimate political party embraced racism as an acceptable form of opposition to the President early on, even before his inauguration. So, knowing that, what can the President say that will not make the situation worse?