Far too much media coverage of politics focuses on the horserace angle--who's ahead, who's behind, who's up or down. It relies on false equivalency: if Politician A says X, then the reporter goes to Politician B, who's sure to say Y. That's lazy journalism, and it doesn't actually inform the public about which position (if any) is actually true, or adheres to the facts as we know them. At TWiA, our mission is to discuss politics through the prism of policy--to look, in other words, at the real-world implications of the things that politicians say and do, to make connections others might miss, and to explain it all in language a lay person can understand. Also to offer suggestions of how you can help somebody in need, to report on what's awesome, and to keep tabs on bears. If you like TWiA, share or repost or tell a friend, and be sure to leave comments, even if they're arguments. Especially if they're arguments.
This Week in the House
Former Speaker of the House John Boehner (R/OH) was an old-fashioned politician, a trade perhaps best exemplified by the time he was seen handing checks from tobacco lobbyists to his fellow congressmen on the floor of the House. He was a deal-maker, a vote counter, a guy who liked to get things done. That made him a pariah to modern Republicans, who serve explicitly to prevent things from being done. And that, in turn, made his tenure as speaker one of the shortest ever.
Boehner explained the shift in a press conference on the last day of his 24-year House of Representatives career:
"Let’s just go back 20 years. You have the first Republican majority in 40 years. We have one radio talk-show host that no one had ever heard of. We had one 24-hour news channel that just did news. We had an Internet that only a couple of geeks in Palo Alto were using.
"Today, we have hundreds of radio talk-show hosts each trying to out-right the others in terms of gaining an audience. You’ve got all these cable news networks, and all they do is politics. You have got the Internet. You have got Facebook, Twitter, every blog known to man and these giant email lists.
"So what is happening is the American people are getting thousands of times more information than they ever got about their government. Secondly, the speed at which they get it is instantaneous.
"What is happening is pushing or pulling people into one of two camps, leaving almost nobody in the middle. The ability of a small group of members or some small outside organizations to stir up angst or to mislead people has been amplified. So it is not hard to see why we’re where we are."
That partisan divide made his job miserable, to the point that he had nightmares about trying to escape it but being unable to get away. He knows that compromise is necessary, that making deals requires each side giving some to get some, but every time he did that, he faced revolt from his own team. It's unfortunate that he ends his long years of service to the country with a reputation as one of the weakest Speakers in history, and that one of the most powerful and influential positions in government turned into little more than a piñata to be batted around. We rarely agreed with his policy prescriptions, but we honor his service.
The new speaker, Paul Ryan (R/WI), was elected Thursday morning with 236 votes (Nancy Pelosi was second, with 184 votes). Ryan once had dreams of the presidency, and failing that, he hoped to keep his position as chair of the powerful Ways and Means committee. Nobody goes from the speaker's seat to the White House, except as a visitor. Given the nature of his party, we don't expect Ryan to be a long-serving speaker, either; the job is simply too frustrating, too impossible, given the fractious nature of the Republican conference. He's the youngest speaker since 1869, so he might still be able to serve for a few years, then quit and come back into politics as a presidential candidate. It's a long shot, though, and he'll have to be a surprisingly effective speaker to swing it. We don't have much faith in his policy judgment--anyone who credits the morally bankrupt fictions of Ayn Rand for inspiring his political career has already demonstrated a serious lack of common sense. But we hope, for the country's sake, that he can leave his far-right beliefs behind and do well in his new role. Good luck to him in what has become, in many ways, the worst job in government.
But the gig comes with the best balcony in Washington, so there's that.
Below the fold: Scandals, totalitarianism, debates, novels, bears, and more. Keep reading!
This Week in "Scandal"
Ever since the facts about the "IRS Scandal" came out, we've been saying that there was no scandal. The whole thing revolved around claims that the IRS was inappropriately targeting right-wing, tea party groups for investigation. The facts were that the division of the IRS charged with making sure organizations claiming tax-exempt status weren't really participating in political efforts (which would make them liable for paying taxes) was investigating organizations of every stripe, as was their duty. No right-wing groups were found to be noncompliant, though some progressive groups were, and they lost their tax-exempt status.
So where's the scandal? There wasn't any, except that conservative politicians and pundits--aided and abetted by the mainstream press--wanted to have something to pin on President Obama. They harped nonstop on the scandal, always neglecting to mention the part about the IRS looking into the tax-exempt status of all kinds of organizations, and that it was never a witch-hunt or a partisan effort. They stirred up their base, caused a lot of fuss, and to this day there are right-wing politicians and candidates seeking support by promising to abolish the IRS.
Which, of course, raises the question of who's going to take care of taxes after the IRS is gone. Presumably they'd have to create some new agency, with the exact same powers as the IRS, or disband the entire federal government. We'd see a lot of unemployed former soldiers and airmen looking for jobs, then (just ask Iraq how that went after we disbanded their army). And forget about border security.
Nonetheless, at the instigation of those politicians and the media, the Department of Justice spent $20 million of our tax dollars performing an exhaustive investigation of the matter. The FBI dug through more than a million pages of documents, interviewed scores of people, and eventually determined that there was no scandal. Nothing.
In a report to Congress, the Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs wrote, "Our investigation uncovered substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia, leading to the belief by many tax-exempt applicants that the IRS targeted them based on their political viewpoints. But poor management is not a crime. We found no evidence that any IRS official acted on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution."
Could the IRS use some shaking up? Of course. So could any bureaucracy, public or private.
Was there a scandal? Not at all.
Did conservatives cause $20 million of your money (and ours) to be flushed down the toilet? Pretty much. How does that fit into the category of fiscal responsibility? Again, not at all.
Had they only read TWiA, they could have saved a lot of our money.
Instead, we have no doubt that their response will be to claim that the DOJ, like the IRS, is under the iron thumb of the socialist dictator Obama, so its findings can't be trusted.
Side Note: What's the lesson of the above? There was no scandal. What haven't House Republicans learned? That's right. So this week, after the DOJ investigation revealed that no crimes had been committed, House Republicans initiated impeachment proceedings against IRS head John Koskinen, As with Benghazi, the real scandal is that we pay these clowns to govern, and instead they waste their time and our money on foolish partisan attacks. Koskinen, we should note, was not even at the IRS when those right- (and left)-wing groups were investigated.
The impeachment resolution was filed by the Republican chairman and members of the House Oversight committee. The top Democrat on that committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (MD) was on the nose when he wrote, "This ridiculous resolution will demonstrate nothing but the Republican obsession with diving into investigative rabbit holes that waste tens of millions of taxpayer dollars while having absolutely no positive impact on a single American. Calling this resolution a ‘stunt’ or a ‘joke’ would be insulting to stunts and jokes."
This Week in Totalitarianism
Presidential candidate Ben Carson loves to compare things he doesn't like to slavery and Nazis. Previously he said that extending health insurance benefits to more Americans was the worst thing that had happened to this country since slavery. Last weekend, he made a convoluted attempt to compare abortion to slavery, saying, "During slavery — and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do."
Whatever one's personal feelings regarding abortion are, we think that if you take his argument at face value, it leads to a very different conclusion. Slavery was an economic system defined and regulated by the government, which established a power structure that took away the ability of a certain class of people to make decisions for themselves. Carson's call for a total ban on abortions would mean allowing the government--not women and their doctors--to control women's reproductive systems. We wouldn't compare anything to slavery, which was a unique kind of horror we're well rid of. But we don't think Carson has really thought this one through.
But we knew Carson was opposed to abortion, so that's hardly news. What is news is that he's in favor of imposing totalitarianism on college campuses. Remember, Carson has been on a book tour, promoting a book in which he describes and interprets the Constitution, point by point. He claims to value the Constitution (which makes his argument that it would be cool with him to ban Muslims from being president). And yet, last week he told Glenn Beck what he would do with the Department of Education:
BECK: Shut down the Department of Education?
CARSON: I actually have something I would use the Department of Education to do.
BECK: Would it be ... pack boxes for the State Department? [LAUGHTER] IRS?
CARSON: No, it would be to monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists.
He went into more detail with conservative talk show host Dana Loesch:
LOESCH: There are some who would say that it’s kind of like monitoring political speech. Do you agree with their assessment of that?
CARSON: No, I don’t, I think it’s a very big difference. But, of course, that would be the first thing that the left would claim because they want to be able to continue to do this. And it’s not appropriate for public funding to be used to indoctrinate students in one direction.
LOESCH: I just worry whether or not the pendulum would swing the other way and we would see sort of like monitoring of political speech for conservatives.
CARSON: I think we would have to put in very strict guidelines for the way that that was done. And that’s why I used the word "extreme." I didn’t just say "political bias," I said "extreme political biases."
Asked on Meet the Press last weekend for further elucidation, this exchange ensued:
CARSON: The way that works is you invite students at the universities to send in their complaints, and then you investigate. For instance, there was a university – I’m sure you’ve heard of the situation – where, you know, the professor told everybody, “Take out a piece of paper and write the name ‘Jesus’ on it. Put in on the floor and stomp on it.” And one student refused to do that and was disciplined severely. You know, he subsequently was able to be reinstated–
TODD: We’re not violating the First Amendment? How is what you’re advocating not a violation of the First Amendment?
CARSON: It’s not a violation of the First Amendment, because all I’m saying is taxpayer funding should not be used for propaganda. It shouldn’t be.
The way we recall the First Amendment, it doesn't mention taxpayer funding at all. It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
But under his plan, students who felt for whatever reason that they were hearing "extreme political bias" would inform on their professors, so agents of the federal government could be sent in to investigate, and to punish the "offending" institutions for what individual professors said.
And who would define "extreme political bias?" Apparently, President Carson would. He's opposed to indoctrinating students "in one direction," unless it's in the direction he prefers, and "very strict guidelines" would be in place to ensure that conservative indoctrination was protected speech.
Perhaps not coincidentally, it's Carson who's constantly complaining about "political correctness" inhibiting free speech. What he means is that liberals shouldn't get to say what they believe, but conservatives should.
In an ordinary political season, we wouldn't devote this much time or attention to an obvious crackpot like Ben Carson, whose appeal would be confined to people wearing aluminum foil hats to block alien radio signals. But Carson is a unique case--having risen to political prominence by insulting the President of the United States to his face at what was supposed to be a National Prayer Breakfast, he's now running first in Iowa polling and is gaining ground elsewhere. This week we saw the first national poll, from the New York Times and CBS, that puts Carson ahead nationally. That makes his lunacy a little harder to overlook.
Side Note 1: The real story behind the "stomping on Jesus" thing is very different than Carson intimated. Apparently he's only heard the Fox "News" version.
Side Note 2: Donald Trump thinks the polls showing Carson ahead in Iowa are simply wrong. Trump could be right; a new AP poll finds that 70% of Republican voters nationwide think Trump is their "strongest general election candidate."
Side Note 3: Ben Carson has absolutely no understanding of what the debt ceiling is or how it works.
This Week in Random Debate Notes
The Republican candidates had a problem in this week's debate. The debate's focus was announced up front as being economics, and to a person, they advocate economic plans that overwhelmingly favor the rich at the expense of everyone else. That's not unexpected--after all, for more than half a century, Democrats have traditionally fought for a strong middle class, believing (correctly) that the way to grow the economy is from the middle out, while Republicans have tried (and largely succeeded) to push ever more of the nation's wealth toward the already wealthy. History shows that's a great way to make the rich richer, but it hollows out the middle class and leaves the poor worse off than ever.
So they needed to try to finesse their plans, to sell the claim somehow that what they're proposing would benefit all Americans. It's a hard sell, because it's blatantly false. They all say they want to "shrink government to grow the economy," or words to that effect. Their problem is that they're implying a cause-effect relationship that doesn't exist. Making government smarter, reducing waste and inefficiency in government? Those are good things, and could result in some economic growth. But simply firing people and cutting government spending? Those things shrink the economy. If you want to grow the economy, you have to start with a realistic perspective, not a delusional one.
We don't envy the moderators of any Republican debate this cycle. The candidates are offering imaginary solutions and ignoring real issues. Asking a serious question about a ridiculous proposal just opens a moderator up to charges of bias, even though that is theoretically the job of a moderator. If a candidate claims he'll give every voter a live unicorn, it would behoove a moderator to ask how he intends to do that, since unicorns don't exist. Asking how a 10% flat tax would not balloon the deficit or require an impossible cut in spending, or asking how it would be possible to deport 11 million people (not to mention how to do it without crashing the economy) is the same thing. Those are not serious proposals, they're laughable fictions. And the difference between the Republicans running isn't whether their plans are real or imaginary, it's how far off the spectrum of reality they are.
(To be fair, the CNBC moderators weren't the most skilled bunch. CNBC is specifically geared toward Wall Street, not Main Street, and it showed.)
* * *
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R/SC) started shoveling manure early in the undercard debate (a.k.a., the candidates who still haven't polled well enough to be invited to the real debate--expect Sen. Rand Paul (KY) and Gov. Chris Christie (NJ), if they stay in, to join this group next time, as their poll numbers keep falling). Graham said, "We are on track to have the smallest army since 1940, the smallest Navy since 1915." President Obama's retort when Mitt Romney made the same claim in a 2012 debate should have settled this nonsense once and for all. We're paraphrasing here, since we don't remember Obama's exact words, but they were something like, "We also have fewer horses and bayonets now." Point being, you don't count the strength of a navy by number of ships, you count it by capability, and by that measure, one of today's carrier groups could sink the entire 1915 US Navy in about 20 minutes. As for the size of the Army, the smallest it's been since 1940 was in 2006, and it was smaller during most of the George W. Bush years than during the Obama administration. Again, though, determining the Army's strength by counting soldiers demonstrates a lack of realistic understanding of military capability--today's Army has tools that the US Army of WWII couldn't have dreamed of. Graham, a reserve colonel in the Air Force, surely must know better.
* * *
Gov. Bobby Jindal (LA) and former Gov. George Pataki argued in the undercard debate about who had fired the most people. Jindal claimed 30,000 and Pataki 25,000. They called it "cutting the government workforce," or words to that effect, but neither acknowledged that those tens of thousands were human beings, people supporting families. If there's an intrinsic value to work, a nobility to doing a job, there is no greater or lesser value to a government job versus a private sector one, and from an economic perspective there's no difference at all--employed people buy goods and services, pay rent or mortgages, and rely less on the social safety net, all of which contributes to the overall economy. For a governor to be proud of how many jobs he destroyed is foolish and short-sighted.
* * *
On the big stage, Sens. Marco Rubio (FL) and Ted Cruz (TX) seem to have been acknowledged as the winners. We can see it with Rubio, who was prepared and confident and who's clearly a talented politician, if not much of a deep thinker. His scripted attack lines were well-delivered, but when caught off guard by questions, he was weak and uncertain.
Cruz dodged a question about a substantive policy matter by attacking the moderators--a strategy he's probably been holding in his pocket since it gave Newt Gingrich his one debate "win" of 2012. But while his attack drew huge applause from the audience, it made no actual sense on the merits, and when it was over, his whining about why he wouldn't be allowed to answer the question asked (because he'd used his time on the attack) sounded pathetic to our ears.
Both scored biggest by attacking the mainstream media, which is popular on the right but not very useful to the country at large. Presumably the people who respond to that would rather there be more right-wing disinformation machines like Fox "News," but realistically, the conservative bubble is already too large for the good of the nation, A free press is most valuable in an adversarial relationship to government and politicians, not as a partisan propaganda tool.
Side Note: Republican distrust of a free and fair press is not a new thing. A 1979 study, conducted after the release of the Alan J. Pakula Watergate movie All the President's Men, showed that viewing the movie made Democrats want to ease restrictions on the press, while it made Republicans want "laws that control some of the things reporters write and talk about."
* * *
We thought Christie did fairly well, delivering his lines with force and conviction, but it's probably unlikely that he impressed enough to overcome weak poll numbers and remain on the main stage in the next debate. Gov. John Kasich (OH)--who really has the best resume of the bunch, is genuinely popular in his state, and can deliver conservative nostrums with what sounds like crossover appeal--sounded almost sane and reasonable, which is probably enough to ensure that he doesn't get near the nomination. We thought from the beginning that he was really running for vice-president, and that could still be true. Anyone who gets the nomination will need Ohio to win, and Kasich might be able to deliver it.
* * *
Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee barely registered. Fiorina continues to have an uneasy relationship with the truth, but she lies with conviction. Donald Trump was almost a nonentity, too, but the time he left himself open to the most bruising attack, nobody took advantage of it. He came out swinging against SuperPACs and claimed that he was 100% self-financing. Any candidate wanting to knock him down a notch or two could have responded, because he's not entirely self-financed and he has had PACs and SuperPACs working on his behalf. The fact that no one raised an objection could be a sign that he's flaming out on his own.
* * *
Jeb! Bush (FL) had the worst night, after a string of bad weeks and the news that he was cutting staff salaries, reducing travel expenses, and trying to conserve a large but dwindling war chest for the long haul. He needed to impress, and he didn't. He sounded weak, and his long-rehearsed attack on Rubio's Senate voting record fell flat. He has the money to stick around for a while if he wants to, but it's hard to see the point. It's ever less likely that he'll be the nominee. If we had to predict at this point, we'd bet on a Rubio/Kasich ticket.
* * *
We've been saying for a while that this cycle, we're watching the Republican Party falling apart at the seams. It may survive the 2016 elections, but it may not. On Friday, the campaigns all agreed to meet on Sunday to discuss debates going forward. If they bail from the official RNC campaigns and organize their own, it'll be one more nail in the party's coffin.
* * *
The best way to watch any of the debates is to wait until Bad Lip Reading has put together their version of it. Here's the just-released video of highlights from the Democratic debates. "Go fight Chewbacca!"
This Week in Novels
We are, unsurprisingly, big fans of novel reading. We think everyone should read novels. Lots of them. And we think part of the reason it's a good idea is that one can often learn more from novels--more about being a human being--than from nonfiction. Fiction can address difficult truths, can highlight different paths, can help readers try on different lives.
Or, as this guy says, "When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels. It has to do with empathy. It has to do with being comfortable with the notion that the world is complicated and full of grays, but there’s still truth there to be found, and that you have to strive for that and work for that. And the notion that it’s possible to connect with some[one] else even though they’re very different from you."
Read the rest of the conversation between President Obama and author Marilynne Robinson here. It's fascinating stuff.
This Week in Incarceration
One in 9 black children in the US has had a parent who has been imprisoned. Of the overall American population, the number is 1 in 14. That's a serious problem. The FCC helped last week by limiting the expense of phone calls in prison--which had been a big source of income for prisons, but a hardship for the incarcerated and their families.
This Week in Gun Safety
Federal law prohibits domestic abusers from possessing guns, and for good reason. Domestic violence involving firearms is 12 times more likely to result in death than without them. And when domestic abusers use weapons, those weapons are usually guns.
But in far too many cases, even when they're prevented from acquiring new guns (which doesn't always happen), domestic abusers are allowed to keep the ones they already have. The Trace explains why.
* * *
American mayors are watching residents of their cities being shot to death far too frequently, and they've had enough, Politico reports:
"The mayors of America’s cities are deeply concerned about rising crime and homicide rates—and deeply frustrated with the Congress’ continued inaction on gun control amid a spate of mass shootings. Stronger gun regulation is needed right now, mayors say, and Congress has hung them out to dry. Senators and representatives 'will not be able to escape responsibility for the deaths of innocent Americans,' said Mayor Stephanie Miner of Syracuse, New York.
“'Failure to address an issue that amounts to slow-motion mass murder of American citizens, many of whom are black and brown, is political cowardice. Stand up! Do the right thing,' said Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Missouri.
"Chula Vista Mayor Mary Salas said she had a simple message for Congress: 'Get a backbone—do your job.'"
Police chiefs across the country agree. But so far, Congress seems content to side with the NRA and other pro-gun death groups over those who are actually on the streets of American cities, trying to preserve life and property.
* * *
If you name your dog Trigger, you just might live to regret it. The Washington Post takes a deep dive and discovers that six Americans (at least) have been shot by dogs in the last five years. But only one person is known to have been shot by a cat, and that was way back in 2005. There are, incidentally, no records of Americans having been shot by bears.
This Week in the Middle East
It's a little outside the purview of This Week in America, but nobody can argue that we're not affected by what goes on in the Middle East. And what's been going on in the Middle East is likely to continue going on for a long time to come.
Part of the problem dates back to colonialism. Wherever there's a straight line on a map of the region, that's a border drawn by the British or the French in colonial times. They manufactured nations for their own convenience, not through any natural partitions. That's why Iraq, which should be three separate nations, was one for so long--and why it continues to be wracked by strife today. Saddam Hussein held it together, as strongmen and dictators have done throughout the region. But remove the strongman and chaos ensues. Syria remains a problem--and will--because if Assad were deposed, nobody knows what would come next. There are no good outcomes there, only bad and badder.
Of course, removing Saddam Hussein not only tore apart Iraq, but it removed the only regional check on Iran's power. So we have an Iran increasingly able to meddle in the affairs of its neighbors, and what it considers to be in its interests often conflict with ours. Add a violent strain of religious fundamentalism to the mix, without strong secular governments to keep that under control, and you have a region simmering with tension and capable of boiling over at any of a thousand points.
This week, another ingredient was stirred into that pot--the release of a scientific study showing that climate change could make broad swaths of the Middle East uninhabitable before the end of this century. The refugee crisis we're seeing now could be small potatoes compared to what happens then. Climate scientists expect that the rich could remain in air-conditioned comfort, as long as they rarely have to go outside. But the poor are a different story.
We need to stop thinking of the Middle East as a problem that can be fixed with more bombs and bullets. It's going to keep being torn by factional struggles, by economics, and by nature, for a long time to come. It's in our best interests to help ease it into the wider world, to encourage peace, stability, democracy, and economic opportunity and fairness, while supporting secular leadership that will tamp down religious extremism. That's a tall order, and not something that can be done by a single president, however well-intentioned. And it can't be done at the point of a gun.
This Week in More Climate News
Have we mentioned lately how anti-science today's elected Republicans are? And how foolish it is to put people who simply don't understand or accept science in charge of congressional committees overseeing scientific issues? Legislation, in an ideal world--in a functional world--should be written by people who are dealing with fact, not fantasy. And yet, as Vox reports:
"In June, a scientist named Thomas Karl, along with colleagues, published a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Science called 'Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus.' It cast doubt on the global warming "pause" that has become the latest cause célèbre for climate change, er, doubters.
"That did not sit well with Smith, who is a doubter himself, like many of the Republicans on his committee and more than half of all House Republicans. And it was the subject of much heated attack in the denial-o-sphere.
"So Smith has gone after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where Karl works as the director of the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). For a play-by-play, I recommend this scorching letter to Smith from committee ranking member Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX).
"In it, she notes that Smith made three written requests for information about Karl's study, all of which NOAA responded to in writing and in personal briefings. 'Moreover,' she writes, 'NOAA attempted to explain certain aspects of the methodology about which the Majority was apparently confused.' (Imagine how that meeting went.)
"Among Smith's repeated demands: access to the data and methods behind NOAA's work on climate. Except, as NOAA and Democratic members of the committee kept trying to explain, those data and methods are posted on the internet. Anyone can access them. Yet Republicans kept demanding them.
"Unsatisfied with the total cooperation and untrammeled access his committee received, Smith issued a subpoena."
We wish we were joking. Sadly, it's all true. The piece concludes with this:
"Republican radicalization has already laid waste to many of the written and unwritten rules that once governed American politics. The use of congressional committees as tools of partisan intimidation is only a chapter in that grim story.
"But the science committee is going after individual scientists, who rarely have the resources on hand to defend themselves from unexpected political attack. It is doing so without any rationale related to the constitutional exercise of its oversight powers — not with a false rationale, but without any stated rationale, no allegations of waste, fraud, or abuse — in service of an effort to suppress inconvenient scientific results and score partisan political points against the executive branch.
"The federal government is an enormous supporter of scientific research, to the country's great and enduring benefit, though that support is now under sustained attack. If such funding comes with strings, with the threat that the wrong inquiry or results could bring down a congressional inquisition, researchers are likely to shy away from controversial subjects. The effects on the US scientific community, and on America's reputation as a leader in science, could be dire, lingering on well past the 2016 election."
* * *
Despite the misguided delusions of so many congressional Republicans, climate change is a problem everywhere, not just in the Middle East. We can't fix it ourselves, but many countries are working together on the problem now, and more will join in. The new EPA Clean Power Plan, the Brookings Institute's Bob Sussman argues, is a big step in the right direction. It's unfortunate that it had to be pushed through as an agency regulation instead of federal law, and that so many on the right insist on demonizing it.
* * *
The Paris talks referenced above are important. Very important--they're perhaps our best hope to slow the pace of climate change enough to possibly forestall some of the worst effects and prepare for others. The scientific community is as united on this consensus as they are on gravity. In other countries, even conservatives recognize reality. But not here.
The Republican presidential candidates are almost unanimous in their desire to take no action against climate change. Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie are considered almost treasonous, because they admit that it's real. But Sen. James Inhofe (R/OK), the genius who thinks carrying snowball onto the Senate floor disproves climate change, has threatened to go to Paris and warn foreign powers that the Obama administration intends to lie to them.
That should be stunning. In today's United States, when elected Republicans call their president a socialist and a secret Kenyan, it almost seems normal, but it's not. For a US senator to go overseas and call the president a liar would have been beyond the pale during any previous administration. Foreign policy, as we've said before, is supposed to be spoken with one voice, and that voice is supposed to come from the executive branch. Yes, the legislative branch has a certain amount of oversight, but in the end, foreign powers are supposed to know who to listen to and negotiate with. That can't happen when rogue legislators are on international soil contradicting or badmouthing the administration.
Side Note: This is among the many reasons we need a Democrat to follow President Obama into the White House. Until the opposition party regains sanity, decency, and some measure of dignity, the job is simply too important to entrust them with.
This Week in Research
Presidential candidate Sen. Rand "Crybaby" Paul (R/KY)--who, if we're lucky, will soon lose both his races--has a well-deserved reputation as a plagiarist who has no regard whatsoever for the intellectual property of others, and stamps his feet like a petulant child when he's called on it.
This week, he released a new book (note: we don't say he wrote a new book, just that it has his name on the cover). When Buzzfeed reporters tried valiantly to read it, they found that Paul (or his "co-author") has repeated another bad habit from previous books and speeches--attributing words to the Founding Fathers that those people never said. In an open letter to Paul, they write:
"If you Google the language of the 'National Prayer of Peace,' which you attribute to Thomas Jefferson, the first result is a page from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation debunking the quotation.
"When we called Harold Holzer — who’s written 50 books on Abraham Lincoln and is the one of country’s foremost Lincoln scholars — to ask about a Lincoln quotation in your book, he replied, 'Oh, not this again.'
"You wrote that Lincoln said, 'I know there is a God, and that He hates the injustice of slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that His hand is in it. If He has a place and a work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything. I know I am right, because I know that liberty is right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God.' Holzer was clear. 'I hope Sen. Paul can find another Lincoln prayer to console him because Lincoln never uttered anything like this,' Holzer said. 'It’s totally apocryphal. "Do unto others" was more in Lincoln’s line. Not this.'"
It goes on in that vein. There would no doubt be more, but the Buzzfeed writers have lives of their own, so couldn't devote countless hours to fact-checking the senator. Last time around, the people of Kentucky who elected Paul seemed not to care much about honesty or intellectual rigor--or they just didn't know who they were marking their ballots for. We hope that changes in 2016.
Reached for comment by the Washington Post's Dave Weigel, Paul's response was his usual foot-stamping denial. Weigel tweeted: "Talked to Rand Paul about @BuzzFeedAndrew's fact-checking of founders quotes; Paul called him an idiot and a partisan hack."
Then, we assume, he sniffled and stamped his feet.
Side Note: Paul told the debate audience Wednesday night--and had threatened for days before that--that he would filibuster the budget deal passed by the House on Wednesday when it came before the full Senate on Thursday. The last time he "filibustered," remember, he turned it into a big fundraising/list-building opportunity, his eye even then on a presidential run. Now that his presidential run is sputtering out, maybe he didn't feel as inspired as he once did, because his "filibuster" (once again, not a real filibuster, because he never had the power to block the bill, only to talk until the time the vote was going to happen anyway) lasted less than 19 minutes. He did break out the old hashtag and encouraged supporters to send him $20.16, "to send a message to the Washington machine." It was unclear what that message would be, except perhaps, "We're suckers who are easily taken in by absurd stunts." In the end, the bill passed around 1 am Friday morning, which was when everybody knew it would.
This Week in Clarity
Last week, Rep. Mo Brooks (R/AL) made himself a national laughingstock by suggesting that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she would become the first president to be impeached on her first day in office. Perhaps sensing that the laughter had died down, he tried again this week. Arguing against comprehensive immigration reform, Brooks admitted why Republicans are opposed to it. "Immigration is far and away the most important problem facing America because it changes the voter pool, thereby controlling the outcome of every single public policy challenge America faces," he said.
Economic history shows us that immigration is good for growth, particularly in societies with aging populations, because it increases the pool of available workers without having to wait for babies to grow up. Instead of accepting the benefits, Brooks sees brown faces who might want to vote, and it scares him. We're glad he made clear what his real issue is.
This Week in Bears
Mars is even farther away than the Middle East, but some stories need to be told. There's now definitive photograph evidence of bears on Mars!
Apparently bears aren't very fond of Indiana--but Indianans are fond of bears. Scruffy, a black bear from Michigan, has been visiting Indiana, and getting a warm Midwestern welcome from the locals. He's the first bear known to have visited Indiana in 144 years, but when the guys back home see his Twitter feed, there will no doubt be more on the way.
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