The Commentariat -- Nov. 12, 2014
Internal links, political maps removed.
Mark Landler of the AP: "China and the United States made common cause on Wednesday against the threat of climate change, staking out an ambitious joint plan to curb carbon emissions as a way to spur nations around the world to make their own cuts in greenhouse gases. The landmark agreement, jointly announced here by President Obama and President Xi Jinping, includes new targets for carbon emissions reductions by the United States and a first-ever commitment by China to stop its emissions from growing by 2030." The Washington Post story, by David Nakamura & Steven Mufson, is here. ...
... In a New York Times op-ed, Secretary of State John Kerry discusses the agreement. ...
... CW: Somebody should write an opera about this; instead, I suppose there will be claims that Obama's co-operation with Xi, against a fake environmental threat, proves he is a Communist. Climate denier Jim Inhofe, incoming chair of the Senate environment committee, should be able to get a couple of years' worth of "investigations" out of it. ...
... Let's see if Mitch McConnell is impressed with this remarkable breakthrough. Timothy Cama of the Hill: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wasted little time Tuesday night in blasting President Obama's climate agreement with China as another costly, unpopular environmental move. 'Our economy can't take the president's ideological war on coal that will increase the squeeze on middle-class families and struggling miners,' McConnell said in a statement minutes after the White House announced the bilateral deal." ...
... James West of Mother Jones: "The shock announcement of an ambitious and wide-ranging climate deal between the United States and China is leaving one vociferous group of politicians red-faced: those that have always used China as an excuse for delaying climate action. Here's West's mashup of Republican excuse-making:
... CW: Don't worry, people. As noted above, Mitch McConnell already has a new line of attack: jobs! ...
... Besides, Science Is Just a Bunch of Wobbly Theories. Steve Benen: "For supporters of modern science, the prevailing political winds have to be discouraging. For example, congressional Republicans not only reject climate science en masse, but each of the incoming GOP senators are climate deniers." ...
... Here's the Michael Hilzig column, which Benen cites. Hilzig asks, in conclusion, "Do you want your scientific research conducted and supervised by scientists, or by ideologues for whom the search for truth is the least desirable thing on Earth?"
... Mark Landler: "President Obama and President Xi Jinping promoted the virtues of cooperation between China and the United States on Wednesday, drawing an unusually productive state visit to a close with a news conference that nevertheless laid bare stubborn differences over issues like the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrations and press freedom."
Reuters: "Burma's transition from military rule has not been as fast as hoped and the government is 'backsliding' on some reforms, Barack Obama said in an interview published on Wednesday, hours before he was due to visit the country.... 'Even as there has been some progress on the political and economic fronts, in other areas there has been a slowdown and backsliding in reforms,' Obama told the Irrawaddy, a website and magazine that was published in neighbouring Thailand while the generals ran Burma."
Stephen Collinson of CNN: "Republicans poised to take control of Congress are already threatening to kill what could turn out to be President Barack Obama's most significant second-term achievement: a nuclear deal with Iran. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are quickly approaching a Nov. 24 deadline to reach an agreement that would freeze Iran's nuclear program in return for lifting international sanctions on the Islamic Republic." Via Greg Sargent. CW: Anything that smacks of a "peaceful solution" or "diplomacy" is anathema to the Party of War. ...
... Michael Crowley & Burgess Everett of Politico have more on the Republican (with the help of many Senate Democrats) efforts to undermine a nuclear deal with Iran. ...
... Gee, I wonder how Hillary Clinton will come down on a pact with Iran. Oh, heres a clue. Over to you, Bernie.
Katrina vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post: "... Republicans have no mandate because they offered no agenda. Republicans reaped the rewards of McConnell's scorched-earth strategy, obstructing President Obama relentlessly, helping to create the failure that voters would pin on the party in power. But the collateral damage is that the 'party of "no"' has no agreement on what is yes.... McConnell leads into a power a party truly unfit and unready to govern." ...
... Ron Fournier of the National Journal: "Two-thirds of voters in last week's elections are dissatisfied or angry with Republican Party leaders in Congress, according to exit polls, and nearly six in 10 disapprove of the GOP altogether. While it's undeniable which party won the most campaigns this year, the Republican Party didn't win the overall election -- not with numbers like that. The winners were disgust, apathy, and a gnawing desire for a better choice -- an alternative to what the two major parties are currently offering." CW: For once, Fournier gets something right. Tune in next year; it could happen again. ...
... Manu Raju & Burgess Everett of Politico: "Republicans are about to take over the Senate, but another group is on the rise, too: red-state Democrats. Red staters and other moderates could determine whether Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid prevails on any given cliff-hanger vote, making these Democrats the new power centers in the Senate." ...
... Charles Pierce takes exception of Raju & Everett's report. Something about guzzling Prestone. ...
... Sahil Kapur of TPM: "... Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ... [will] need six Democrats to break filibusters and achieve the magic 60-vote threshold required to pass controversial legislation through the Senate, such as hacking away at Obamacare or approving the Keystone pipeline." Kapur names Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Angus King (I-Maine), & Jon Tester (Mont.). ...
... Republican Voters Overwhelmingly Favor Gridlock. Pew Research Center: "Within the Republican Party, only about a third of Republicans and Republican leaners (32%) want to see the GOP leadership work with Obama if it disappoints some groups of Republican supporters. About twice as many (66%) say GOP leaders should stand up to Obama even if less gets done."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Nearly half of Americans will now live in states under total GOP control.... The GOP ... will now control more than two-thirds of state legislative chambers across the country -- as in nearly seven in 10. And given Republicans also won at least 31 governorships, they are basically in control of the state government in 24 states. That could soon hit 25 if they win the still-undetermined governor's race in Alaska." ...
... Paul Waldman: "If Democrats now evaluating the meaning of their loss don’t take a very hard look at their state legislative problem, they'll be ignoring one key factor that could keep them in the minority in the House -- and frustrate the prospects for attaining Democratic governing majorities -- for a long time." ...
... David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "As the 2016 presidential campaign begins to stir, the central question will be how both parties respond to the great wage slowdown. Neither has offered a persuasive answer so far -- let alone a solution -- which is why the public mood is so sour and American politics has been so tumultuous lately.... The challenge for the next election will be coming up with a version of the minimum-wage increase that applies to the middle class as well." ...
... CW: Leonhardt's suggestion is a middle-class tax cut & a rich people's tax hike. Unless he's envisioning a dramatic re-ordering of the tax code back to 1959 levels, this is just a band-aid with minimal effects that voters won't even notice. What is really needed is a rehaul of the tax code & other laws that force companies to reduce profits & raise wages for all workers, except top management. The notion that stockholders & CEOs should make millions while workers struggle along on pittances must be legislated out of existence. Yeah, capitalism is awesome. Over to you, Bernie.
Alexander Bolton of the Hill: "President Obama will have to get his nominee for attorney general past a Republican-controlled Senate, Democratic and Republican aides say. A packed schedule after the election is almost certain to push the vetting process for Loretta Lynch into January, when Republicans are set to take power in the upper chamber.... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not yet made a decision on whether to move Lynch's nomination in the lame-duck session, according to spokesman Adam Jentleson."
The Oatmeal explains net neutrality to Ted Cruz: 'It's about freedom." Do yourself a favor & read it. With apologies ot Dr. Seuss, next time Ted filibusters ObamaCare or whatever, he can read the Oatmeal to his daughters & show them the pictures. Via Paul Waldman.
Donna Brazile of CNN is sick of the sexist hits on Valerie Jarrett: "Women in Washington -- and in positions of power anywhere -- should be subjected to the same criticisms and held to the same standards as men. That does not include the assumption that any successful woman has attained her position through flattery, feminine wiles or her ability to provide maternal comfort to a more powerful man. We can criticize a person's performance without demeaning her based on gender." ...
... Dana Milbank says Obama suffers from an "administration of affirmation," much as Jimmy Carter did. "Much of the blame for the yes-men culture around Obama has been placed on a woman.... The issue is not Jarrett per se (it's good for a president to have friends nearby) but the lack of others to offset her power."
Brian Beutler: "Here are eight reasons for the ACA's supporters to stop freaking out -- at least for now. 1. The Legal Case Is Extremely Weak.... 2. The Roberts Court Is a Business Friendly Court.... 3. The Ruling Would Be Embarrassingly Hypocritical.... 4. An Adverse Ruling Could Be Self Correcting.... 5. Executive Discretion Is at Stake.... 6. An Adverse Ruling Would Be Immoral.... 7. An Adverse Ruling Would Be Politically Damaging to Republicans.... 8. An Adverse Ruling Would Define Roberts's Legacy, for the Worse." ...
... AND contributor James S. suggests if the Court strikes down ObummerCare, it could have unintended consequences:
... Here Beutler suggests a convoluted, if plausible, way that John Roberts could have his cake & eat it, too. ...
... Steve M. isn't buying much of Beutler's argument: "There's one reason I think the Court might save the law: because it's a motivator for Republican voters going into 2016. But that didn't work in 2012 -- I'm convinced that that's the principal reason Roberts saved it the first time -- so I'm not optimistic now. But we'll see." ...
... Ditto Ed Kilgore: "... color me skeptical. The one thing we know for sure is that there would be an explosion of joy, and quite literally dancing in the streets, in conservative precincts if the news breaks in June that 'the Supreme Court has dealt a fatal blow to Obamacare.'... The idea that Obamacare subsidies are a 'bribe' to encourage people to go along with their enslavement is deeply rooted on the Right. I have a hard time imagining conservatives agreeing to save them." ...
... CW: I suppose the Worst Supreme Court Since the 19th Century will Do the Wrong Thing, although it's always possible that Nino will side with the government to show how pissed-off he is with frivolous lawsuits. Tort reform!
Annals of "Justice," Ctd.
Rick Hasen in Slate: "Did Alabama legislators redraw district lines to hurt Democrats or to disenfranchise black voters?" The Supreme Court will have to decide, & it represents a difference between unlawful racism & Constitutional, politically-motivated gerrymandering.
Erik Loomis of LG&M: "With civil asset forfeiture, the real organized crime in this country these days is not the Mafia, it's the police. Or certain police departments anyway that self-fund by stealing your stuff whether or not you have actually committed a drug crime.... And if you are found not guilty of these crimes, do you get your stuff back? Ha ha ha. Of course not."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Fire Luke Russert. CW: While I was ironing yesterday, I turned on MSNBC for the first time since the election. I guess the show I caught was "The Cycle," which apparently features frat-boy Luke Russert as a regular panelist. If you want to know why MSNBC's ratings are in the tank, Luke Russert. What a cipher. He did not say one thing that a somewhat dimwitted junior-high-school student would not have said. He used the word "incredible" a lot. Other times, he dipped into adverbial territory, employing the word "incredibly." Here he is in a segment that aired Monday, discussing the base-energizing "silver lining" for Democrats that could result from the Supremes' gutting ObamaCare. Incredibly incredible.
AND MIT professor Jonathan Gruber, apparently recovering from his most recent foot-in-mouth flare-up, regrets he called us all stupid. Glad you're feeling better, professor. Health insurance is great isn't, it? ...
... Update. Dave Weigel introduces us to the "mild-mannered investment banker" who keeps outing Gruber's gaffes. CW: Personally, I'm not convinced that anybody who listens to Rush is properly characterized as "mild-mannered."
November Elections
Christopher Cadelago of the Sacramento Bee: "Democratic Rep. Ami Bera has pulled to within 530 votes of Republican challenger Doug Ose in the race for suburban Sacramento's 7th Congressional District. Ose, who finished election night with a 3,011-vote advantage over the freshman lawmaker, has seen his lead contract again nearly a week after polls closed Tuesday. The margin stood at about 2,000 votes since the last counting Thursday, when nearly 80,000 ballots were left across the county."
AND they're just getting around to counting votes in Alaska. ...
... Update. Becky Bohrer of the AP: "Republican Dan Sullivan won Alaska's U.S. Senate race, defeating first-term incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. Sullivan led Begich by about 8,100 votes on Election Night last week and held a comparable edge after election workers had counted about 20,000 absentee, early-voted and questioned ballots late Tuesday. Thousands more ballots remained to be counted, but the results indicated that Begich could not overcome Sullivan's lead."
Jack Healy of the New York Times: Voters ousted two Republican Colorado state legislators who were prominent gun-rights advocates. "Analysts said the whipsawing results were a lesson in how turnout can vastly change the landscape.... The dynamic seems to have empowered conservatives in the low-turnout recall vote last year, but rewarded Democrats this month in a midterm election in which mail-in ballots and a contested Senate race helped Colorado defy a nationwide pattern of sagging voter participation." Thanks to MAG for the lead.
Presidential Election
Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has spent months fishing for a strategist to guide his potential 2016 presidential campaign. On Monday, he hooked a big one: Tad Devine, one of the Democratic Party's leading consultants and a former high-level campaign aide to Al Gore, John Kerry, and Michael Dukakis. 'If he runs, I'm going to help him,' Devine said in an interview." ...
... Paul Waldman: "That could mean a genuinely interesting debate about the problems America confronts and how the Democratic party should address them. Sanders says he'll center his campaign on economic inequality and the struggles of the middle class, and this is what Clinton needs to address as well.... Of course, he&'d say he isn't running to do Hillary Clinton any favors. But the reality is that he would. By critiquing her from the left, he could pull her in his direction in order to satisfy primary voters, which on many issues would wind up being to her advantage."
Maggie Haberman & Glenn Thrush, in Politico Magazine, assess Hillary Clinton's presidential prospects. Among other matters, they run down Clinton's missteps in 2008: "It all coalesced into a single devastating paragraph Obama delivered with brutal force at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, in November 2007. Hillary Clinton, he told the party activists that night, was too cautious, too calculating, too caught up in the politics of the past. Even today, two full campaign cycles later, that broadside is a kind of Rosetta Stone for anyone crafting an anti-Clinton message":
Beyond the Beltway
Congratulations, Kansas, for Re-electing Sam & His Band. Brad Cooper of the Kansas City Star: "Kansas will collect $1 billion less in revenue in 2015 and 2016 than its projected expenses following massive income tax cuts signed into law by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian of Foreign Policy: Vladimir Putin gives his coat to China's first lady Peng Liyuan; Chinese censors take down videos of Putin placing his coat around Peng's shoulders. Too "friendly," apparently.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Tanks and other military vehicles pouring over the border from Russia into eastern Ukraine. Nightly artillery battles in the region's biggest city, Donetsk, and reports of fighting around another regional capital. And now, sightings of the 'green men,' professional soldiers in green uniforms without insignia, the same type of forces that carried out the invasion of Crimea last spring."
Los Angeles Times: "U.S., British and Swiss regulators on Wednesday fined JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup and three other global banks a total of about $3.3 billion to settle investigations into attempted manipulation of foreign exchange rates. The fines, including the largest ever issued by Britain's Financial Conduct Authority, are the latest multibillion-dollar hit to the industry in the wake of alleged misconduct in the 2008 financial crisis and attempts to rig major international markets." ...
... The Guardian story is here.
Share Article
Reader Comments (25)
Congratulations America, you broke a record! The lowest voter turnout since the middle of WW II!
Does anyone have a concept of what the word 'citizen' means.
Another election--yes, it's still on my mind--post-mortem in the form of a letter to the editor of our local paper, containing numbers gleaned for a variety of sources, RC--memory fails me--possibly among them :
"So what did the recent midterm elections tell us?
In some quarters, it seems not very much.
"Obama's policies repudiated," the headlines scream. "Republicans in firm control of Senate!"
It’s true that next term the Republicans will control the United States Senate for the first time since 2006, but which of the President's policies were repudiated?
The Affordable Care Act, which provides health insurance to millions, many for the first time. His withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of American troops from the failed foreign adventure of Iraq and now from Afghanistan? His administration’s efforts to slow the degradation of our environment and ensure clean air for future generations? His repeated warnings about the poisonous effects of growing economic inequality on our democracy?
Do a majority of citizens truly desire more economic inequality, more war, more dirty air and water and less access to health insurance? Is that really the election’s message?
Some revealing numbers tell a more accurate story.
The 2014 Senate elections occurred in 34 states representing only 53 percent of the population. In the recent Senate election nearly half of Americans had no voice.
Half of the Democratic Senate seats were lost by ten percent of the Democratic caucus, seats held by blue dog Democrats, that is those Democrats least progressive, least distinguishable from Republicans.
The 2014 midterms were the most expensive ever, with nearly four billion dollars, much of it from unidentified sources, spent to dumb down complicated issues into simple shapes of black and white.
Between Republican voter suppression laws and voter apathy, only about half of the nation’s eligible voters voted this November.
Whatever they do say about our messy and self-destructive politics, those numbers certainly don’t mean Americans really want less health insurance and breathable air, and more war and inequality."
@Ken "...last week’s midterm elections — the lowest in more than seven decades — was bad for Democrats, but it was even worse for democracy." http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html
I was startled to see in the graph included with the article that among the Tuesday turnouts that Maine ranked highest with the most voters at the polling booths. Just eye-balling the activity around the area that day—I felt impressed. Wow! Amazing participation!
Until...
Enlightenment came two days later at my dentist appt. Totally p.o.'d that LePage was 'given' a second term, I held my tongue until the dental assistant said, "...so, whadda you think of the election?" My feelings & thoughts were made very clear, upon which she veered off in another direction and proceeded in lengthy and passionate detail on the 'importance of the bear vote." OMG! Was that the hot button issue which apparently drove many voters here! Bear baiting, donuts, dogs and traps. Yes or No? Evidently, this was of greater significance than the governorship. Yep, now that I reconsider what others cared about, I got it all wrong.
Guess it's part of dumb(ing) down complicated (important) issues into simple shapes of black and white, which you wrote above.
This morning's NYT headline: "Colorado Ousts Pro-Gun Republicans, Showing Effect of Turnout" offers some comfort about the difference voters make. "...mail-in ballots and a contested Senate race helped Colorado defy a nationwide pattern of sagging voter participation."
On Morning Joe today, I heard that Randy "the Rug" Paul has been drawing attention to Hillary's age: 67. (67? ewww, that's OLD).
I have 2 questions for him:
1. Doesn't "Rug" realize that the 18-29 year old demographic has grandparents - or even parents - who demonstrate to them every day that "old" people remain vigorous and smart well into their 70's and up?
2. Is "Rug" sure that his own rug will last through the brutality of a presidential campaign?
Journalism on Fox!
Neil Cavuto brought up the subject of Ron Paul's age in response to Rand's comment regarding Hillary's age. He also called Rand's comment "condescending" and told Rand to stop “pull[ing] this nonsense.”
Ron Paul's age (currently 79) was the first question that came to my mind. The Buzzfeed blurb didn't mention it so I googled to see if it appeared anywhere else. Steve Benen, of course, but the Fox thing surprised me.
Is Murdoch interested in a different candidate?
Edsall is not finished with the election either:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/thomas-edsall-the-demise-of-the-white-democratic-voter.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0
As usual he has some interesting things to say...and has elicited some interesting comments.
Have to admit, I read what he had to say twice (and skimmed the comments) but still don't get the "white" thinking he's trying to describe...maybe because I still naively believe political decisions should follow a moral compass....
@Victoria (great song) Much as I like to read your comments here's one old guy's opinion that for the most part young folk want old folk to get the folk out of the way. Respect your elders' wisdom is on the sidelines with manners and understanding. Of course, lots of exceptions because we all know we are exceptional.
@Ken Winkes. Guess I'll have to go all Gruber here. What Edsall is saying is that many white voters aren't virulently racist, but they're too damned dumb to realize that Republican policies are not in their best interests. (Not all Democratic policies are, either.) On ObamaCare, they perceive that it helps poor people more than middle-class people, although that is arguable, given the reductions in Medicare costs associated with the ACA.
Back in 2004, Howard Dean said Democrats would fail if they couldn't get the white-men-in-pickup-trucks vote (or something to that effect). He was right then & it's still right. Democrats have done a terrible job at messaging. President Obama isn't very good at it (I've done my best to get him to refer to Republicans as Republicans rather than as "some people in Washington"), but he's a lot better than the scared-to-offend candidates down-ticket. Democrats need to come up with some kind of consistent "Republicans voted against you" message, & harp, harp, harp on it. You can't explain the intricacies of the ACA to people, but you can reduce many GOP policies to creepy sound-bites & bumper-sticker slogans. Republicans are great at it ("death panels," "death tax"), & instead of scoffing, Democrats need to pay Republicans in kind. And, no, it appears that "Koch brothers" is not working as creepy shorthand for the Party of the Rich.
Marie
Just beginning to climb out of my post-election hole, and I have a few comments about the Wisconsin experience:
With all the complaints about low voter turnout nationally, in Wisconsin we had the highest midterm turnout in decades-54%, although lower than the 57-58% turnout in the gubernatorial recall in 2012. Scott Walker still won, and he thinks "convincingly" with 52%. I don't really know how to square this with the prevailing narrative.
Walker is already running for president. That this small minded pol can get national traction is dismaying . He's as crooked as they come, but nothing sticks to him. He's not teflon, like his hero Reagan, he's slimy.
In the post election blogworld, I am seeing a shift from the support and encouragement of Wisconsin progressives from other states to a disturbing onslaught of hateful comments from other states describing Wisconsin voters as lazy and stupid.
I'm also seeing more comments from in-state about moving somewhere else. But after looking at the electoral maps, and seeing the govenorships in two of the blue states where my kids have fled to (due to lack of opportunity for young smart people in WI), I have to ask "Where ya gonna go?"
I'm taking a break from most political websites during this period of anguish and blame. Reality Chex is a keeper. Thank you, Marie, for continuing to do what you do so well.
Marie. Is that Jonathan Gruber you're referring to? The supposedly brilliant architect of the ACA who stupidly called Americans dumb and said it on tape? As I said the other day, no dearth of irony here.. With friends like these....
I do understand what Edsall said and wholly agree with your prescription to counter the Right's success with white voters. My failure to "get" those same white voters lies, as I said, in the way I look at political decisions. I try to operate from a "should be" perspective, a perspective admittedly energized by perhaps naive idealism. Clearly most white, maybe all, voters are not.
I also see the essence of Clintonesque triangulation, the most recent manifestation of defining politics as the art of the possible, as part of the Democrats' problem. The trouble with that approach is that it easily and often degenerates into a cynical pursuit of power, unanchored to any democratic ideals. And when it is seen that way by voters, it loses all its force. People want compromise, but they don't want to see compromise at any cost, all progressive ideals scrubbed away in the process.
I believe that a Democratic Party willing to hearken to and trumpet some of those lost ideals, particularly on the economic front, might regain some lost traction. BUT that would require at least rhetorical movement away from the big money people who fund all elections, and such movement would take more courage than I've recently seen from most Democrats.
Obama and especially the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have shown some of that courage but there's little enough of it. Too little, I fear.
@Ken Winkes: We're in sync.
Marie
On Nov. 12, 1970, the Oregon highway patrol blew up a dead whale on an Oregon beach. It had unintended consequences. It’s an apt lesson for the five dwarfs to consider when ruling on the ACA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vmnq5dBF7Y
@Nadd2: Thank you. One of the things I try to do in these hard times is bring a little dark humor into the light; ergo, James Singer's exploding whale & the Oatmeal's explanation of net neutrality. Sometimes laughter is the only defense.
Another thing I always keep in mind -- just as there were millions of Americans who voted for really horrible Republicans, there were millions of others who voted for less-horrible Democrats. Yeah, the majority of your neighbors are jerks, but they aren't all jerks. That hasn't changed much in the history of humankind. I remain grateful to those, as Ken Winkes expressed above, who follow a "moral compass." There are a helluva a lot of good people out there.
Marie
A couple of years ago, I posted a comment here on RC about the strikingly awful state of affairs in the run up to a presidential election in which just about every single Republican candidate denied the importance, accuracy, and even validity of science.
One might think they were similar in their ignorance to church officials of the middle ages, those working nearly 1000 years before who labored in darkness and cold or stifling heat, hundreds of years before the scientific revolutions to come. But one would be wrong.
Serious scientific research was conducted in those centuries, mostly by churchmen like Robert Grossteste and Roger Bacon, supported in their efforts by thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, whose philosophical work attempted to inject a healthy dose of reason and logic into debates surrounding science and religion. Aquinas, one of the great minds of any age, wouldn't even be able to register as a Republican today. Not that he'd want to.
And things have not gotten any better. At the time, I mentioned that "...Grossteste, an English bishop and master of theology, wrote extensively on optics, mathematics, astronomy, and even composed a treatise explaining the scientific basis for tidal activity" and noted, sadly, that the biggest mouth in conservative media, Bill (Who can explain the tides?) O'Reilly, had yet to approach the intellectual level of a guy who wrote on parchment by candlelight 700 years earlier.
And still we can't look to the media for much help in the attacks on science and reason. Just yesterday Politico published a breathless piece about intellectual fraud and mumbo-jumbo purveyor, the idiot, Paul Ryan, declaring that Ryan probably could never be elected president because--are you sitting down?--he's TOO SMART!
So now, after the recent rigged election, we have even more science haters running things. This isn't just a case of ideology trumping scientific fact in areas that conservatives find uncomfortable. The fall out of having science haters and climate change deniers running things can mean disaster and death for many people.
Even though many churchmen during the middle ages engaged in a healthy debate between the requirements of religion and the results of scientific observation, official church policy was not nearly so enlightened. Any mention of a vacuum was grounds, in most cases, for excommunication and/or imprisonment. Why? Teleology, that's why. The definition of a vacuum was a space where nothing could exist, not even air, and according to church dogma, god was everywhere, ergo, there could be no such thing as a vacuum.
This is textbook teleology. You have your pre-approved end state, so anything, no matter how much factual evidence attends it, that seems to suggest something else is automatically discounted and considered demonic. It's a "logic" based in fear, the fearful reluctance of church officials to engage with empirical observations of the real world to see what happens. Maybe what they find makes their sense of god and nature even more amazing, but they never tried.
Similarly, Republicans today cannot even say "climate change" without snapping a vertebra. In fact, they have killed funding to the Pentagon for even asking a question about climate change. They've killed funding to the NOAA for anything with the word "climate" attached to it. So things like weather satellites used to monitor climate are denied. As the older satellites are retired, there are fewer to monitor things like extreme weather. As our ability to give early warnings about dangerous events is degraded, so is our chance of warning people to get to safety. But hey, if people have to die so that RRepublicans can keep their ideological duds unsullied by facts, so be it.
And the funny thing is that they use the fruits of scientific and technological advances everyday to spread their disinformation, cell phones, landlines, printers, television, video, the internet, even cars.
I guess some science is okay as long as it lets you run down all the other science.
Still worse than the Dark Ages. And not improving any time soon.
Marie,
"You can't explain the intricacies of the ACA to people, but you can reduce many GOP policies to creepy sound-bites & bumper-sticker slogans."
Very true.
Years ago I had to go before a governing body to explain my request for a certain bit of technology. This wasn't some blue sky idea of mine, this was a necessary piece of a puzzle I was working on at the time. They asked what it did. So I told them.
Bad idea.
I made the rookie mistake of explaining the technical operations and observable technological improvement in quality and efficiency of various operations. They killed my request without even a debate.
The next year I went back, chastened but wiser. By this time we were desperate for this technology. I went up to the governing body--nearly all the same people--and they asked me what this technical thingy would do. I said "It will make you look good". They approved three of them. True story.
It wasn't a lie, it just wasn't boring nitty-gritty tech talk. "Some people in Washington" don't just have a different opinion on how things should work, "Republicans" are out to fuck you and your family. Full stop. Tell people this, and and they'll approve three new Democrats for every Republican they throw out.
Grinning, callow little creep Lukie Russert is proof positive of the ill advised stupidity of nepotistic sinecures.
He's not talking about the political impact of the bridge to nowhere, he's talking about people's lives, but he can't keep from laughing at his own casual indifference to vital healthcare issues for all those regular, boring people who probably don't get how cool he really is and have no appreciation of the toll all those A-list Georgetown parties take on his superior personality. Fighting the vague ennui, are we Lukie? Well get a real job or do it while you're burning ants on the sidewalk with a magnifying glass.
Let us know how it all goes.
On second thought, don't.
Getting beyond gnashing one's teeth and throwing things, these recent elections (countrywide) continue to bug me. Even Charlie Pierce's finds it so.
"...the re-election of Sam Brownback to be the governor of Kansas, in the face of his public record in that job, is a profound abdication of the responsibilities of self-government on the part of the citizens of that state. Or they're asking for more misery. There's no third alternative."
(...and then he gives Gruber a break!)
"Right now, Jon Gruber of MIT is getting roasted on the Intertoobz by the right because he called American voters stupid. Go to Kansas, and tell me how wrong he is."
I'm thinking we could do a fill-in-the-state blank and it would cover a lot of territory!
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Kansas_Gets_What_Kansas_Deserves
Americans are 'stupid' for a variety of reasons. For some it is what they are capable of. For some it comes from making sure they don't know anything (George Bush 43 was a perfect example). In some cases they hide their hate for others by only looking at what they want and lastly there are the many who absolutely don't want to hear a fact produced by those same people who created evolution and then climate change. After all, if they got the climate crap right doesn't that mean they got the evolution story right? It's called science but it requires dealing with reality when it is so much easier to deal with FOX news and your local church.
Here is my favorite story of how religion plays into the denial world.
A while back there was an earthquake in Italy that destroyed a girls school. Twenty children died. One survived and her dad thanked God.
And speaking of the delusional value of religion, lets see, some guy comes up with an excuse to have sex with 40 women and next thing you know we have a new religion.
@James Singer: some years back a gray whale washed up on our beach. I called every agency and private outfit I could think of and no one wanted the honor of disposing of the whale. Thanks to the video you linked,I have a better understanding of why! (Lucky for us, the whale eventually washed out and off our beach.)
On another note, won't it be special if the state of Kansas has to come crawling to the Federal government for a bailout? It will be hilarious to see the crap they come up with to differentiate themselves from the "undeserving " poor including those that just need a little help to obtain health insurance.
@Victoria: Since the Koch brothers are based out of Wichita I suspect their plan is to just buy Kansas in toto, at a fire-sale price of 10ths of pennies on the dollar, when it goes belly up.
@Unwashed: Just talked to Dorothy and she says Toto isn't for sale
at any price that the Kochs can come up with, even if they do own
the rest of the state and part of the country (Kentucky?).
And speaking of Kentucky, wouldn't it be great if that pipe line
could be re-routed thru Ky, right past all of those ten million $
houses outside of Lexington?
Loved the whale video––a metaphor, I think, for how the Republicans think they can blow up the Obama administration. All those nasty pieces of blubber landing on various and sundry, leaving a pungent smell in the air that smacks of brackish back water.
This whole discussion of how inept the Democrats were in this election is proper and instructive. I am more angry at them than I am at the Republicans. Come on people––we have lots and lots of positives--learn how to communicate for Pete's sake!
@MARIE: YOU IRON?
Careful read of the Gruber comment: He did not call the voters stupid - he used it as a virtual "quote" clause into the problem of transparency. He needn't have apologized.
@Whyte Owen. Gruber shouldn't have apologized for any reason. US voters are stupid. Full stop.
To apologize is to excuse the morons who voted to reelect Brownback and similar clones who have trashed their respective states. The don't deserve excuses; they deserve ridicule.
@Re:Kochs. AK caused me to think of a frightening possibillity. AK mentioned that Scott Walker is in the bag for the Kochs. David Corn of "Mother Jones" predicted that Walker will be the 2016 Republican nominee for President. Were he to get elected, the Kochs will have all three branches sewed up.