I had a doctor’s appointment this afternoon, so I missed the twilight session of the Benghazi hearing. When I got home, it was 8 pm on the East Coast….and the hearing was still going on. Yikes. I assume I didn’t miss anything, did I?

Anyway, while I was in the waiting room I was browsing The Corner and came across the graphic on the right. It struck me as peculiar. The bottom income quintile in America gets 43 percent of its wealth from inheritance? Even granting that these households don’t have much wealth to begin with, that really didn’t seem right.

There was a link to a piece by Kevin Williamson that turned out to be two years old—which is something like two decades in blog years. Still, I was curious, and I had nothing else to do while I waited. So I clicked the link. Here’s what Williamson says:

For the top income quintile, gifts and inheritances amount to 13 percent of household wealth, according to research published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics….Meanwhile, inherited money makes up 43 percent of the wealth of the lowest income group and 31 percent for the second-lowest. In case our would-be class warriors are having trouble running the numbers here, that means that inherited money on net reduces wealth inequality in the United States.

This is pretty misleading. I tracked down the BLS report, and it turns out this 43 percent figure is only for those households that inherit anything in the first place. But as you might expect, a mere 17 percent of low-income households report any inheritance at all. If you average this wealth across all low-income households, inheritance accounts for about 7.4 percent of the wealth of the entire group. If you do the same thing for the top earners, inheritance accounts for about 4.9 percent of the wealth of the entire group.

So….7.4 percent vs. 4.9 percent. When you compare entire groups, which is the right way to do this, there’s not very much difference between the two. And in a practical sense, the difference is even more negligible. If you run out the numbers, the wealth of the bottom group increased from $56,000 to $63,000 per household. Big whoop. Conversely, the wealth of the top group increased from $7.2 million to $7.6 million. That’s a nice chunk of change. In a technical sense, the low-income group got a bigger percentage increase, and income inequality has been reduced. But in any normal human sense, $7,000 is such a tiny amount that it doesn’t matter. In a nutshell, rich people inherit a lot of money and poor people don’t.

I’m not really sure what the point of being misleading about this is, since Williamson’s main themes in the linked piece are (a) rich people don’t get most of their money from inheritance, and (b) rich people are mostly married and work a lot of hours. Those things are both true, and there’s no real reason to toss in the other stuff. All it does is provide grist for other people to make misleading graphics later on.

It’s time for a break to cast votes, but before that let’s hear some final words from Illinois Rep. Peter Roskam:

Let me tell you what I think the Clinton Doctrine is. [Reads from prepared card.] I think it’s where an opportunity is seized to turn progress in Libya into a political win for Hillary Rodham Clinton. And at the precise moment when things look good, take a victory lap, like on all the Sunday shows three times that year before Qaddafi was killed, and then turn your attention to other things.

See? This hearing is nothing more than a disinterested investigation into the events surrounding the Benghazi attacks of 9/11/2012. You partisan naysayers who think it’s just about attacking Hillary Clinton on national TV should be ashamed of yourselves.

Here’s a brief summary of the points that Republicans apparently wanted to make during this morning’s grilling of Hillary Clinton:

• Clinton is the chief architect of our disastrous Libya policy.
• Clinton didn’t send or receive much email about Libya in 2012.
• Did Clinton even know we had a mission in Benghazi in 2012?
• If she did, she sure didn’t care about security there.
• And here’s a chart that proves it.
• What’s the deal with THE VIDEO?
• Sidney Blumenthal!

Nope, nothing about Hillary Clinton here. Just a search for the truth about what happened. Josh Marshall comments:

The lines of questions are disjointed and they’re pressing points she either freely concedes (yes, it was terrible and she’s ultimately responsible) or the point of which isn’t even clear (why did Sid Blumenthal send you so many emails?). It’s not going well for the committee at all. And what’s most revealing about the testimony so far is that they definitely get that: they know it’s going badly for them. And that’s led to a rather churlish and defensive tone to the whole proceeding that’s further deflated any sense that this is more than a clown show where the clowns are struggling.

….Republican committee members just seemed pissed because this was supposed to be awesome — after all, a committee designed to bring down Hillary and circulate all those numskull conspiracy theories about Chris Stevens wearing a chest cam and how President Obama was watching everything happening live on his iPhone. Hillary’s yet to get at all flustered and has even had the opportunity to gently explain to Republican members how the State Department works. She looks poised; they’re radiating spittle.

Yep. And this afternoon’s session started off with more Sid. Sigh.

I’ve been trying to dredge up something interesting from the Benghazi hearing today, but it’s tough sledding. Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo went the Ross Perot route, putting up a chart showing (he said) that there had been tons of requests for more security in Libya and none of them were approved. Why? WHY? Clinton patiently explained that security professionals made decisions about security requests, but this cut no ice with Pompeo. He was apparently outraged that we hadn’t shipped in a couple of brigades of Marines the moment someone reported that things in Libya were getting dicey.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan then went on a strange rant about the video. You know: THE VIDEO. In very loud tones, Jordan tried to accuse Clinton of lying to the American public because the State Department released a statement on the night of the attacks that said this:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.

That’s just a flat-out statement that the video caused the attack! Why would she say that? She knew that terrorists were responsible! Of course, the whole paragraph says this:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

Jeebus. Haven’t we been through all this before? The wording of the State Department statement is obvious: not that we blame the video, but that others have “sought” to blame the video. This is so obvious that it’s genuinely unclear what Jordan thought he was accomplishing with this weird line of questioning.

Right now, chairman Trey Gowdy is engaging in a long Sidney Blumenthal fest. It goes without saying that this has nothing to do with the Benghazi attacks or our response to it. It will not help us understand security at the Benghazi mission or why we didn’t know an attack was imminent. It’s just an attempt to undermine Clinton’s reputation by linking her with Blumenthal. I think everyone watching this show understands that.

But there’s more! If Republicans are so fascinated with Blumenthal, Democrats want the transcript of his testimony released. Gowdy, of course, refuses. But he does say this: “I’ll tell you what, if you think you’ve heard about Sidney Blumenthal so far, wait until the next round.”

I can’t wait. And that’s a wrap on the first round of questioning.

Exciting news from Iowa today! A new Quinnipiac poll shows Ben Carson has surged into the lead over Donald Trump:

“It’s Ben Carson’s turn in the spotlight,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

….”Today’s results show his appeal is especially strong among the state’s sizeable white, evangelical Christian community, among whom Carson is receiving 36 percent, twice Trump’s 17 percent,” Brown added.

“Those who know Carson seem to like him. He has an almost unheard of 84 – 10 percent favorability rating among likely Republican Caucus-goers, compared to Trump’s 53 – 43 percent rating. To borrow the line from Madison Avenue, ‘Almost no one doesn’t like Ben Carson.'”

Ben Carson has discovered Donald Trump’s weakness: he’s not quite crazy enough for Iowa Republicans. They want a real lunatic, not someone who might just be putting on an act. Ben Carson is that man.

We have a minor technical problem here at Command Central. My cable company recently switched to all-digital signals, and warned me that this meant I needed a mini-cable box for every TV in the house. I got one for the bedroom TV, but never bothered getting one for the teensy little TV I keep next to my desk.

So instead of getting CNN, I just get some soothing guitar music and a message telling me that my TV doesn’t work. Still, I have Twitter. And online feeds. And transcripts. For example, here’s a piece of Trey Gowdy’s endless opening statement:

Madam Secretary, I understand there are people frankly in both parties who have suggested that this investigation is about you. Let me assure you it is not.

Um, OK. Please continue:

Your e-mails are no less or no more important than the e-mails of anyone else. It just took us a little bit longer to get them and it garnered a little more attention in the process….Our country is strong enough to handle the truth and our fellow citizens expect us to pursue the truth wherever the facts take us….They deserve the truth. They deserve the whole truth. They deserve nothing but the truth. The people we work for deserve the truth. The friends and family of the four who lost their lives deserve the truth. We’re going to find the truth because there is no statute of limitations on the truth.

Roger that. Just the facts, ma’am. The thought of making this committee a political witch hunt has never crossed anyone’s mind.

Anyway, so far there appears to be nothing new to come out of the hearing—though a few joke memes have been spawned by the news that Hillary Clinton didn’t have a computer in her office and claims to have transacted very little business via email. And that actually seems to be true. She sent and received about 20 emails a day, which is pretty minuscule for a secretary of state. I’m a B-list blogger and I get considerably more than that.

Also, I gather that Rep. Susan Brooks tried to imply that Hillary erased incriminating emails from around the time of the Benghazi attacks. Needless to say, she had zero evidence for this, so she didn’t really land any blows.

If anything interesting happens, I’ll try to keep you updated.

The Washington Post reports today on Rear Adm. Brian Losey, the guy in charge of SEAL teams, who apparently went completely nuts when someone filed an anonymous complaint against him for a minor travel-policy infraction:

The turmoil began in July 2011….Enraged by what he saw as an act of disloyalty, the admiral became determined to find out who had reported him, according to the inspector general reports.

Several staff members testified that Losey drew up a list of suspects and made it known there would be consequences….One witness testified that Losey told his staff to send a message to any malcontents: “If you continue to undermine my authority as a commander, I’m going to bury each one of them. I’m going to come after them, and I’m going to [make] it very unpleasant.”

About the same time, Losey began cracking down on people whom he saw as potentially disloyal, according to the inspector general. He fired an officer who had been on his list of suspects, alleging that he had committed a handful of minor transgressions, such as using the admiral’s auto­pen without permission to sign routine paperwork. He got rid of Jones, his chief of staff, who was stripped of his title and moved into a basement office, and then moved again to an even more remote outpost at a military airfield.

Later, Losey ordered an investigation into whether civilian staff members on his enemies list had committed time­keeping and ­attendance-sheet errors that affected their pay, according to the inspector general reports. At least three staff members faced discipline as a result, although their punishment for the time­keeping irregularities was ultimately overturned. Some staffers also received poor performance reviews, which affected their compensation and careers.

….In the end, it turned out that Losey had the wrong people on his list of suspects. Investigators determined that none of the people he retaliated against had filed the original complaint about his daughter’s plane ticket.

I’m not going to be the first (or even the hundredth) to make this comparison, but this is fiction come to life. It sounds eerily like Captain Queeg’s famous shipwide search for the pantry key in The Caine Mutiny. But Losey is making out better than Queeg did: after a long investigation, he’s being “counseled,” but nothing more. His promotion to two-star admiral is now on the way.

Medicaid funding is shared by the states and the federal government. Between 2000 and 2013—the most recent year reported by the CMS actuaries—the share of Medicaid spending shouldered by the states increased by an average of 6.1 percent per year. This is not total spending. It’s just the portion the states themselves paid for.

In 2015, according to a survey by the Kaiser Foundation, spending by states that refused to expand Medicaid grew by 6.9 percent. That’s pretty close to the historical average. However, spending by states that accepted Medicaid expansion grew by only 3.4 percent. Obamacare may have increased total Medicaid enrollment and spending, but the feds picked up most of the tab. At the state level, it actually reined in the rate of growth.

In other words, the states that have refused the expansion are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They’re actually willing to shell out money just to demonstrate their implacable hatred of Obamacare. How much money? Well, the expansion-refusing states spent $61 billion of their own money on Medicaid in 2014. If that had grown at 3.4 percent instead of 6.9 percent, they would have saved about $2 billion this year.

Here’s what this means: the states that refuse to expand Medicaid are denying health care to the needy and paying about $2 billion for the privilege. Try to comprehend the kind of people who do this.

POSTSCRIPT: Actually, there’s more. The residents of every state pay taxes to fund Obamacare, whether they like it or not. Residents of the states that refuse to expand Medicaid are paying about $50 billion in Obamacare taxes each year, and about $20 billion of that is for Medicaid expansion. Instead of flowing back into their states, this money is going straight to Washington DC, never to be seen again.

So they’re willing to let $20 billion go down a black hole and pay $2 billion extra in order to prevent Obamacare from helping the needy. It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it?

This cracks me up. A few minutes ago Wolf Blitzer brought on Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security committee, and asked him a question about WikiLeaks getting hold of CIA Director John Brennan’s private email account. McCaul nattered on for a bit about the OPM breach a few months ago, and then said this:

McCaul: I wouldn’t be surprised if China was behind this one.

Blitzer: Behind this one? Because it seems like this hacker claims to be under 22 [McCaul starts to appear a bit puzzled and deep in thought] a young kid who’s stoned all the time. You think that—

McCaul: Oh yeah yeah yeah, I apologize, you’re correct about that. This was a young, sort of anonymous type figure, that did claim to be stoned at the time he did that, which is remarkable given what he accomplished.

Two things. First, do you notice how McCaul just sort of defaults to hacker —> China? This should give us something of a clue about how Republicans process this stuff.

Second, this 22-year-old stoner hacked an AOL account. That’s not especially remarkable. Apparently McCaul also defaults to hacker —> supergenius. Quite a guy to have in charge of homeland security.

For years, the more dimwitted of the climate denialists have been yammering on about a pause in global warming. This is not based on the measurements and models that even some climate scientists are puzzled about. It’s based on using a chart that begins in 1998, which was an unusually warm El Niño year. By using a very warm starting point and a more ordinary ending point, they make it look like nothing much has been going on for over a decade.

It’s all nonsense. But two can play at that game. Last year was quite warm, and this year is warmer still. From the New York Times: “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the American agency that tracks worldwide temperatures, announced Wednesday that last month had been the hottest September on record, and that the January-to-September period had also been the hottest since 1880. Scientists say it is now all but certain that the full year will be the hottest on record, too.”

Hmmm. 2008 was a bit of an outlier on the cool side. So I think I’ll start there and end in 2015. Handily for me, NOAA now has a nice interactive tool that allows me to chart any period I want and even calculates the trend line for me. This generated the chart on the right. Naturally, I changed the y-axis to Fahrenheit in order to produce bigger, more dramatic numbers. Oh, and I started the y-axis at 0.8 °F instead of zero, because that produces a steeper, more apocalyptic trend line.

So there you have it. Proof positive that global temperatures are skyrocketing at a pace of 0.58 degrees per decade. This is the news that climate “scientists” in the pay of Big Fossil have been hiding from us. If you can’t trust a chart based directly on NOAA data, what can you trust?