SCANDOOOOOOOOL!

It's been quite a week.

The Keystone Cops of politics, the Republican Party, outdid itself with its yawping hysteria, shouting Impeach! Impeach! INPEACH! and threatening more Congressional hearings into why President Obama ordered a marine to hold his umbrella during a rainy press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey.  INPEACH!

We found out that Republican operatives  deliberately and with malice altered White House emails in order to make the Benghazi response look like a cover-up.  Benghazi, the GOP's leaden egg from a  demented goose, is seen by the wingers as more terribly awful, and sinister than Watergate!  Abu Ghraibgate!  Plamegate! Enrongate!  and Munching Babiesgate! (I made that last one up.)

We heard from the Department of Fainting Couches and Pearl Clutchers' chairwoman, "Peggums" Noonan, that Benghazi is "worse than Watergate!"  A statement so bizarre, so utterly outside the realm of sanity that we truly fear for the little lady's mental stability and suggest that the cause of her "colorful" ramblings  may be the result of conversations she's had with the pink elephants and purple unicorns.

Big Dick Cheney (R-War Criminal) sneeringly hissed on FAUX NOOZ that l'affaire Benghazi is the worst he's seen in his career! 

His interview with a FAUX NOOZ interview person went something like this:

"Ahh, but the Benghazis that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the Benghazi DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled my arse out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect the evul Obummer..." 


Unhappy with the non-scandal that Benghazi has become, our foaming-at-the-mouth opposition party has sunk its very long canines into another SCANDOOL!: l'affaire IRS.  As they cackle with delight, rubbing their sharp little claws together while vision of INPEACHES! dance in their heads, we wait for more information to emerge--first from the Bush appointee who ran the agency until November of 2012.  What did he know and when did it know it!  And then we'll sort out all the political skullduggery, (which is part of every scandal-sniffer's job), from the facts.  

So far all we know is that the GOP's biggest embarrassment, and the country's leading idiot Representative, Michele Bachmann) (R-Monkey Donuts) is claiming that Obummer will come after you, drag you from your homes and churches and rip out your tongues unless you give up your guns, your children, your kittehs and a whole shyte-list of other horrors that the squirrels in her very special head are telling her.

Meanwhile, over at the clown-car cable news outlet, FAUX NOOZ, we have their gazillionth outrage over, wait for it... 





UMBRELLAS!  








Keep those SCANDOOLS coming, FAUX and FIENDS, the country lives to hear you call out the Kenyan Socialist on his Commie plans to turn America into his private empire so that he can take YOUR MONEY and send his wife and daughters to Mexico, steal all their chihuahas, plant them in Mrs. Obama's White House vegetable garden, and take away our guns!

Little Tweeting Sarah:

Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Scandalous Hat Trick Mr. President, when it rains it pours, but most Americans hold their own umbrellas. Today in... http://fb.me/zAZryzjj 8:26 PM - 16 May 2013

Dear Sarah,  FAIL!  

CBS IS REPORTING THAT GOP ALTERED WHITE HOUSE EMAILS

CONFIRMED: 

GOP Sources Altered Benghazi E-Mails To Suggest A Cover-Up, Reporter Confirms

One day after The White House released 100 pages of Benghazi emails, a report has surfaced alleging that Republicans released a set with altered text. 

 CBS News reported Thursday that leaked versions sent out by the GOP last Friday had visible differences than Wednesday's official batch. Two correspondences that were singled out in the report came from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. 

 The GOP version of Rhodes' comment, according to CBS News: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation." 

 The White House email: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation." 

 The GOP version of Nuland's comment, according to CBS News: The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda." 

 The White House email: "The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings." 

The news parallels a Tuesday CNN report which initially introduced the contradiction between what was revealed in a White House Benghazi email version, versus what was reported in media outlets. 

On Monday, Mother Jones noted that the Republicans' interim report included the correct version of the emails, signaling that more malice and less incompetence may have been at play with the alleged alterations. 

 In that April interim report on Benghazi (which Buck noted), the House Republicans cited these emails (in footnotes 56 and 57) to note an important point: 

"State Department emails reveal senior officials had 'serious concerns' about the talking points, because Members of Congress might attack the State Department for 'not paying attention to Agency warnings' about the growing threat in Benghazi." 

Despite the White House's Wednesday move to release emails, Republicans continued to call for more information on Thursday. 

 "While these hundred are good and they shed light on what happened, we have nearly 25,000 that they haven't released," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Fox News on Thursday.

Also this from Polk Award winning journalist, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo:

"WOW, THIS IS PRETTY EPIC."

More on ABC's erroneous report on emails:


"...on Tuesday of this week, CNN’s Jake Tapper published the entirety of the White House email, which showed ABC’s take on the story to be completely false."


From the Department of Moronic GOP pundits comes this piece of gobshite from "Our Lady of the Magic Dolphins," Peggy Noonan.  She really ought to keep away from the gin:

"We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate."


Andrew Sullivan asks:


"Can she actually believe this? Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes? 

Has he traded arms for hostages with Iran? 

Has he knowingly sent his cabinet out to tell lies about his sex life? 

Has he sat by idly as an American city was destroyed by a hurricane? 

Has he started a war with no planning for an occupation? 

Has he started a war based on a lie, and destroyed the US’ credibility and moral standing while he was at it, leaving nothing but a smoldering and now rekindled civil sectarian war? 

 So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong." 


So in the face of all this hanky-panky and dishonesty by the GOP in trying to alter the substance of the WH emails--a terrible scandal in itself--what did the House do yesterday?  It voted for the 38th time to repeal the ACA.  A total and complete waste of taxpayers' money and nothing more than another sop to throw at their base.  Another scandal.  But IOKIYAR.

It's become apparent to the American people that the GOP has overreached on these issues and are more interested in hanging a scandal around this president's neck than in getting to the truth.

No wonder people are turned off by politics and government.

This is for those poop-flinging conservatives who were so eager to call Mr. Obama "Nixonian."  Congratulations on revealing your inner chimpanzee:

The Washington Post editorial board chimes in with probably the best description of the modern GOP - "small-minded, hyperpartisan and foolish": "This is one of those Washington dust-ups where the actual facts don’t seem to matter much to the scandal mongers. [...] By focusing on the phony issue of the talking points, Republicans are missing the opportunity to press for needed reforms at State and a more active U.S. policy in the Middle East. They should also be spurring a sluggish FBI investigation to determine who really organized and led the attacks in Benghazi; it has yet to be established whether they were ordered by local jihadists, terrorists linked to al-Qaeda or someone else, and whether they were planned because of the Sept. 11 anniversary or inspired by the events in Cairo. Instead, with their bigger-than-Watergate rhetoric, the GOP’s scandal-pushers are making themselves look small-minded, hyperpartisan and foolish." 

The Los Angeles Times editorial board:  "On Monday, an exasperated Obama, referring to the emails, said: "There's no 'there' there." The same is true of the allegation of a broader Benghazi coverup. And now that we know, let's move on." 


Scot Lehigh at The Boston Globe:

Watergate? Nixonian? Impeachment?

Please. Someone get the smelling salts. [...]

[C]harges of a Benghazi coverup don’t pass the evidence test. Comparisons to Nixon are idiotic. And it’s the height of partisan absurdity to suggest that anything we’ve seen in these so-called scandals could justify impeachment.

Come One! Come All! To The GOP Big Top! They Gotcha SCANDALS! Right Here!

Get your tickets, friends and neighbors!

The Summer of Scandal Circus is coming to town, brought to you by the Rightwingling Brothers, Boehner, and Baleful .

Come one! Come all!

Watch the Republican-led House of Representatives tumble out of their clown-car, trip and fall all over their very indignant and outraged selves to investigate  BENGHAZI!  And then BENGHAZI!  And after that---BENGHAZI!

Watch the Republican-led House of Representatives ride their enormous elephants into the BIG TOP to investigate, and investigate, and then investigate again.



"Republicans were leaping joyfully through the capital like overcaffeinated gazelles. There is not a committee chairman in the House of Representatives who isn’t planning hearings of outrage about something — except maybe the poor woman John Boehner appointed to run the committee in charge of housekeeping. 

 Heads must roll! 

Senator James Inhofe announced that “people may be starting to use the i-word before too long,” having apparently missed all the prior calls for the president’s impeachment for everything from failure to balance the budget to gun control."

Senator Inhofe thrilled the crowd as he cracked his whip in the faces of ferocious kittehs!


"Senator Marco Rubio demanded “the I.R.S. commissioner’s resignation,” possibly unaware that the nation had not had an I.R.S. commissioner since last November."



BUT HEADS MUST ROLL! Shouts Senator Rubio to the crowd as he balances on the high wire! And the crowd moans Ooooooh! As he falls and hits the net! 

 Ooops!

Ladies and gentlemen under the Big Top watch as our brave and audacious GOP DEMANDS the head of Attorney General Eric Holder after he performed what they asked for!

"In the lead up to the 2012 elections, Republicans were upset that the Obama administration was getting such great press on national security issues, so they pretended to be upset about the national security implications of the leaks to the AP. In the spring of 2012, 31 Republicans called for AG Eric Holder to investigate the leaks after they accused the Obama administration of leaking stories about his toughness on terrorism to the press in order to win an election. The Hill reported on the Republicans’ letter:"

“The numerous national-security leaks reportedly originating out of the executive branch in recent months have been stunning,” they (Republicans) wrote to Holder. “If true, they reveal details of some of our nation’s most highly classified and sensitive military and intelligence matters, thereby risking our national security, as well as the lives of American citizens and our allies. If there were ever a case requiring an outside special counsel with bipartisan acceptance and widespread public trust, this is it,” they wrote.

"Republicans had really hoped the AP scandal would stick, especially with Benghazi Gate backfiring on them in numerous ways, not the least of which was the revelation on Tuesday that ABC had not actually read the emails the Republicans were using to indict the White House, and in fact the actual email said something quite different than was reported. It turned out that the email had been edited in the way it was reported so as to deliberately make Obama/Clinton look bad."

 Who doesn't love a circus?!  

The "lamestream" media (Sarah, you're so clevah!) will be sure to bring us all the latest in acrobatic wonders, high-wire feats, and daring-do that the House GOP will so eagerly  and hilariously perform.

Don't miss it.  Coming to your location via the intertoobz, the teevee, and all your pretty little tin-foil hats!

(And don't let that little bit of news about the deficit reduction get in the way of your little circus, GOPers, you wouldn't want the American people to, y'know, have anything good to say about President Obummer!)

Well, well, well.

CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks 


CNN's Jake Tapper reports: 

 CNN has obtained an e-mail sent by a top aide to President Barack Obama about White House reaction to the deadly attack last September 11 on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that apparently differs from how sources characterized it to two different media organizations. 

The actual e-mail from then-Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes appears to show that whomever leaked it did so in a way that made it appear that the White House was primarily concerned with the State Department's desire to remove references and warnings about specific terrorist groups so as to not bring criticism to the department. 

Rhodes, White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri, and White House press secretary Jay Carney, could not be reached for comment. 

In the e-mail sent on Friday, September 14, 2012, at 9:34 p.m., obtained by CNN from a U.S. government source, Rhodes wrote: 

 “All – “Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation. 

 “There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression. “We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.”

The email is HERE.

"Just an early, failing attempt to smear Hillary for 2016. Because the GOP has no relevant policies for our times, just politics." 


The GOP in its hysterical reaction to the Benghazi attacks and its maniacal desire to make the whole tragedy into an impeachable offense and a career-ender for Secretary Clinton, has made themselves into a carload of clowns.  Their unrelenting pursuit of vengeance in this whole affair is emblematic of everything the GOP has done, and still tries to do, since Mr. Obama won the presidency in November 2008.

The whole sordid mess on the GOP side has been nothing more than a campaign to slander Secretary Clinton and bring down Mr. Obama's presidency.  There was no interest in finding out where the security failed and how to prevent such failures in volatile Middle East countries so that we never have to endure more tragedy.  This was never a goal of the GOP.  What they wanted was SCANDAL!  SCANDAL!  SCANDAL!  And even if it meant looking for fire where there was only smoke and misrepresenting what actually happened, so what!  The ends justify the means for a party that is so marinated in hatred for this president that they've lost all reason.

"So whoever leaked the inaccurate information earlier this month did so in a way that made it appear that the White House – specifically Rhodes – was more interested in the State Department’s concerns, and more focused on the talking points, than the e-mail actually stated."




Charlie Pierce gets it---perfectly:


"Since it appears that we are going to have ourselves an entire summer of this kind of nonsense, I think it's important to identify which journalists now have the right to complain about it. 

If you ever took Jim McDougal or David Hale or any of the other Arkansas travelers seriously in the 1990's, you don't get to complain about Darrell Issa now. 

If you ever spread any of the mendacious twaddle about Al Gore during the 2000 election — this includes the offal about Love Story, and Love Canal, and inventing the Internet, and where he lived as a boy, and anything at all to do with a Buddhist temple — you don't get to complain about the "culture of scandal" that is paralyzing the government. 

If you ever returned a phone call from David Bossie, shut up. 

If you ever said anything positive about Matt Drudge, leave the room. 

If you ever laundered oppo research from Roger Stone, or Lucianne Goldberg, or Enron Ed Gillespie, or Ed Rollins, or any of the other well-compensated ratfkers of the Right, shut up, leave the room, and throw yourselves into the river. This also goes for any cable booker who ever booked Ann Coulter, or called Andrew Breitbart an 'activist' or, worse, a 'journalist.'

Ratfking has a long history in American politics, and I'd be loath to preside over its disappearance. Politics would become remarkably boring. However, we used to know what it was, and what to do with the people when they got caught practicing it. We used to be able to distinguish ratfking from actual reporting. That all fell apart during the Clinton years, when we had some genuine ratfking going on under the color of an independent counsel's office in the Department Of Justice, and also in the offices of several congresscritters, and when it all culminated in the single greatest ratfk of them all — the second impeachment of a sitting president in the country's history. If you were part of enabling all that, you have no right to complain about the circus now. You were the ones who trained the elephants in the first place."

DAVID BROOKS:


"Let’s review the actual events. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012. For this there is plenty of blame to go around. We now know, thanks to reporting by Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper and Michael Schmidt in The Times, that Benghazi was primarily a C.I.A. operation. 

Furthermore, intelligence officers underestimated how dangerous the situation was. They erred in vetting the Libyan militia that was supposed to provide security. The next day, Nuland held a background press briefing, a transcript of which is available on the State Department’s Web site. She had two main points. There’s a lot we don’t know. The attack was conducted by Libyan extremists. She made no claim that it was set off by an anti-Muslim video or arose spontaneously from demonstrations. 

On Friday, Sept. 14, David Petraeus, then the director of the C.I.A., gave a classified briefing to lawmakers in Congress. The lawmakers asked him to provide talking points so they could discuss the event in the news media. C.I.A. analysts began work on the talking points. Early drafts, available on Jonathan Karl’s ABC News Web site, reflect the confused and fragmented state of knowledge. 

The first draft, like every subsequent one, said the Benghazi attacks were spontaneously inspired by protests in Cairo. It also said that extremists with ties to Al Qaeda participated. The C.I.A. analysts quickly scrubbed references to Al Qaeda from the key part of the draft, investigators on Capitol Hill now tell me. On Friday evening of Sept. 14, the updated talking points were e-mailed to the relevant officials in various departments, including Nuland. She wondered why the C.I.A. was giving members of Congress talking points that were far more assertive than anything she could say or defend herself. 

She also noted that the talking points left the impression that the C.I.A. had issued all sorts of warnings before the attack. Remember, this was at a moment when the State Department was taking heat for what was mostly a C.I.A. operation, while doing verbal gymnastics to hide the C.I.A.’s role. Intentionally or not, the C.I.A. seemed to be repaying the favor by trying to shift blame to the State Department for ignoring intelligence. 

 Nuland didn’t seek to rewrite the talking points. In fact, if you look at the drafts that were written while she was sending e-mails, the drafts don’t change much from one to the next. She was just kicking the process up to the policy-maker level. At this point, Nuland’s participation in the whole affair ends." 

THE REST IS HERE.

Now let's sit back and watch the GOP and the media turn themselves into splenetic gargoyles over the next batch of reasons to INPEACH! President Obama.

I have a very strong feeling they'll end up looking like the scandal mongering elephants that they are.

But they know it's a SCANDAL!!!!!!!1111!!!!!!

"From a new PPP poll: Of the 41 percent of Republicans who consider Benghazi to be the worst political scandal in American history, 39 percent are unaware that Benghazi is located in Libya. 10 percent said it’s in Egypt, 9 percent in Iran, 6 percent in Cuba, 5 percent in Syria, 4 percent in Iraq, and 1 percent each in North Korea and Liberia, with 4 percent unwilling to venture a guess." 


Meanwhile, to the eternal disappointment of the GOP:

2013 Deficit To Shrink To $642 Billion: Congressional Budget Office

WHO CAN TAKE REPUBLICANS SERIOUSLY?

Wondering why the country is stuck in the "never-doing-anything-muck-and-mire" of  D.C. politics?

Is it just our imagination, or is GOP obstruction real? Here's a list, from today's New York Times, of how the GOP continues to undermine any progress this administration has proposed and set forth that will help the country to do better and to prosper.

IMO, the GOP destests President Obama more than it loves its fellow Americans. 




Mr. Obama hasn’t given up inviting the Republicans to join him in making the hard choices of governing, but he has been rebuffed each time. This year, in hopes of getting some support for modest tax increases on the rich, he even proposed a reduction in the cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. The events of the last few weeks should make it clear to him why that offer should be pulled from the table immediately. Consider:

 ¶Shortly after Mr. Obama presented this idea to Republicans, more than a half-dozen of them began trashing it as too “draconian” and a “shocking attack on seniors.” For years, the party has demanded entitlement cuts, but the moment the president actually offered one, he was attacked. Then last Tuesday, Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, said that no grand bargain is possible because Democrats aren’t willing to make significant cuts to spending and entitlement programs. The Social Security cost-of-living change, he said, did not go far enough. 

 ¶Senate and House Republicans are refusing to meet with Democrats to negotiate over the budgets passed by each chamber. Four times in the last two weeks, Senate leaders have proposed beginning a conference committee to hash out a federal budget; four times they have been blocked by Republicans. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said they were afraid the committee might reach an agreement to raise both taxes on the rich and the debt ceiling, which are, of course, the Democrats’ stated goals. Knowing that their positions would be deeply unpopular among the public if their stubbornness were exposed in an open committee, Republicans would simply prefer not to talk at all.

¶Instead of negotiation, Republicans cling to their strategy of extorting budget demands by threatening not to raise the debt ceiling. On Thursday, the House passed a stunningly dangerous bill that would allow foreign and domestic bondholders to be paid if Republicans forced a government default, while cutting off all other government payments except Social Security benefits. 

The bill has no possibility of becoming law, but its passage was a deliberate thumb in the eye to Mr. Obama, business leaders and those who say the debt ceiling should not be used for political leverage. 

Republican lawmakers have become reflexive in rejecting every extended hand from the administration, even if the ideas were ones that they themselves once welcomed. Under the circumstances, Mr. Obama would be best advised to stop making peace offerings. Only when the Republican Party feels public pressure to become a serious partner can the real work of governing begin.




Republican obstructionism, its obsession with the Benghazi attack, and now its newest bright shiny object, the IRS debacle, is what the GOP considers "governing."  While the GOP wallows in its "All Benghazi All The Time" circus, important matters are not being addressed, and the American people are not happy.  But that's the GOP's game plan.  Screw the country as often and hard as they can, then blame the administration for doing nothing about it.

The GOP's greatest hope is to find something, anything, to bring down this administration.  Never forget that the leading pols of the Republican Party got together on the night of Mr. Obama's inauguration in 2008 and made a promise to one another to obstruct, obstruct, obstruct.  That plan was hatched and sworn to in the midst of this country's terrible financial collapse, and while we were still at war.

"On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, a group of top GOP luminaries quietly gathered in a Washington steakhouse to lick their wounds and ultimately create the outline of a plan for how to deal with the incoming administration. “The room was filled. It was a who’s who of ranking members who had at one point been committee chairmen, or in the majority, who now wondered out loud whether they were in the permanent minority,” Frank Luntz, who organized the event, told FRONTLINE. Among them were Senate power brokers Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl and Tom Coburn, and conservative congressmen Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Paul Ryan. After three hours of strategizing, they decided they needed to fight Obama on everything. The new president had no idea what the Republicans were planning." 

That is a bigger scandal than anything that's happened in the Obama administration.


But!  LOOK!  Over there!

BENGHAZI!

Remembering Her Today and Every Day

ANTHROPOLOGY

The photos arrive in the mail.
Each sister sends one newly found
so I can see our mother when
she was young, then matronly,
standing on the hospital's lawn.
They do it to give me history,
to impress in my memory her
Kodachrome vitality. Arranging
a chronology of missed years.
They dig for bones in cartons
drawers and cardboard albums.
I reconstruct in black and white,
in color. She is almost solid, fleshed
with each new fragment: the infant
in her arms, the sisters holding
her arms as she leaves the hospital.
Here her smile is less generous, more
tentative, her brows narrowed.
This must have been just after
the tumor blossomed, before
she lived from bottles and in charts.
Hair by muscle, I build the body
under which my girlhood lies,
below the carved stone. From beneath
red clay, anthropologists lift femur
and fibula, gently dust, arrange the ribs
of what lived, moved and was buried.

                                              --S.K.

Anti-Science GOP Still in Denial Over Climate Change

The GOP cannot continue to ignore this.  

Please see below:


Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations Surpass 400 PPM Milestone


Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide surpassed a notable milestone this week.

They reached a daily average above 400 parts per million, reported NOAA, for the first time in human history.

The milestone, hit on May 9, may be symbolic, notes Climate Central, but manmade CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels continue to rise, bringing greater atmospheric warming and exacerbating the effects of climate change.

 Scientists argue we've loaded the "climate dice" in favor of more weather anomalies and extreme heat waves.

Carbon dioxide levels highest in recorded human history

Most scientists believe the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is helping cause the rapid rise in carbon dioxide levels. 

This greenhouse gas traps heat, changes weather patterns, and raises sea levels. Ralph Keeling runs the CO2 monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 

He believes efforts to curb emissions have failed and some impacts of climate change are irreversible. 

"We're moving into dangerous territory," he said. "So there are lots of threats to human beings in these changes. We don't know exactly how big but it's very unlikely that we're going to get through this without major turmoil."



The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change 

Thursday, May 9, 2013
By Coral Davenport

Kerry Emanuel registered as a Republican as soon he turned 18, in 1973. The aspiring scientist was turned off by what he saw as the Left’s blind ideology. “I had friends who denied Pol Pot was killing people in Cambodia,” he says. “I reacted very badly to the triumph of ideology over reason.” 

Back then, Emanuel saw the Republican Party as the political fit for a data-driven scientist. Today, the professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is considered one of the United States’ foremost authorities on climate change—particularly on how rising carbon pollution will increase the intensity of hurricanes. 

In January 2012, just before South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, the Charleston-based Christian Coalition of America, one of the most influential advocacy groups in conservative politics, flew Emanuel down to meet with the GOP presidential candidates. Perhaps an unlikely prophet of doom where global warming is concerned, the coalition has begun to push Republicans to take action on climate change, out of worry that coming catastrophes could hit the next generation hard, especially the world’s poor. 

The meetings didn’t take. “[Newt] Gingrich and [Mitt] Romney understood, … and I think they even believed the evidence and understood the risk,” Emanuel says. “But they were so terrified by the extremists in their party that in the primaries they felt compelled to deny it. Which is not good leadership, good integrity. I got a low impression of them as leaders.” 

Throughout the Republican presidential primaries, every candidate but one—former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was knocked out of the race at the start—questioned, denied, or outright mocked the science of climate change. 

Soon after his experience in South Carolina, Emanuel changed his lifelong Republican Party registration to independent. 

“The idea that you could look a huge amount of evidence straight in the face and, for purely ideological reasons, deny it, is anathema to me,” he says.

Emanuel predicts that many more voters like him, people who think of themselves as conservative or independent but are turned off by what they see as a willful denial of science and facts, will also abandon the GOP, unless the party comes to an honest reckoning about global warming." 

MORE HERE.


But that's where we are:  Ideology trumping science.  And the greatest amount of ideological denial is within the GOP.  As long as they control the House and its legislative role in dealing with climate change, nothing will be done.


Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), the new chairman of a critical House subcommittee on the environment, is doubling down on his climate change denial.In an op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune this past weekend. 

Stewart repeated a litany of climate change denial tropes before insisting that the reason Congress has been unable to pass comprehensive climate legislation is because even Democrats don't believe the science behind anthropogenic global warming:

 In 2009, despite having control of the entire elected government, President Obama and the Democrats in Washington chose not to pass climate change legislation. And why not? Because even the majority of Democrats recognize that the science regarding climate change is uncertain, the suggested remedies would likely not work, and would be devastating to working families. 

The claim is demonstrably false. A Gallup poll released last week found that 78 percent of Democrats think human activities contribute directly to global warming. Only 39 percent of Republicans said the same.


MORE ANT-SCIENCE DENIAL FROM THE GOP: 

APRIL 2011:  House Republicans rejected several measures Tuesday that called on Congress to adopt the scientific consensus that climate change is real, that it is caused by human activity and that it is a threat to human health. 

 We’ve known since before the 2010 election that most of the new House Republicans openly deny the science behind climate change. But now it’s officially on the record. So here, for that record, is a list of things Republicans now say they officially don’t believe: 

 * that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has skyrocketed by about 100 parts per million since 1950. 

* that carbon dioxide disrupts the transfer of thermal energy through the atmosphere, trapping it and redirecting it back to Earth (otherwise known as the “greenhouse effect”). 

* that the absorption of this heat has caused the Earth’s oceans to get warmer by about .302 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. When water gets warmer, it expands, resulting in rising sea levels. 

* that the warming of the Earth has also has caused glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets to melt. 

* that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are each losing mass at an accelerating rate. Together, they’ve lost a combined average of 475 gigatonnes a year. And that rate of loss is accelerating by about 36.3 gigatonnes every year. That water ends up in the Earth’s oceans. 

* that glaciers are also retreating across Asia, threatening the water supply there and resulting in massive water runoffs and extreme flooding. In Bhutan, 66 glaciers have decreased by 8.1 percent over the last 30 years. The Himalayan glacier Chhota Shigri Glacier, in India, has lost 12 percent of its mass in just the last 13 years. 

* that the addition of this water to the oceans has caused the rate of global sea rise to double in the last decade, to about 3.4 millimeters per year (as opposed to about 1.8 millimeters for the last century). 

* that the warming of the planet increases the likelihood and frequency of extreme weather events — including hurricanes and intense rainfall — by raising ocean temperatures and adding energy to the Earth’s atmosphere. Since 1975, the destructive power of tropical cyclones — their duration and maximum wind speed — has increased by 70 percent. that the atmosphere is getting much, much warmer. 

2010 is now tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record — ever. The 20 warmest years on record have occurred since 1981. The 10 warmest years on record have occurred in the past 12 years. 

The denial of these and other facts supporting the scientific consensus that climate change is real is not merely ideological; it’s political. 

Republicans are trying to block new regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency that would limit greenhouse gas emissions, on the grounds that those rules would hurt the GOP’s corporate patrons.

BENGHAZI: Krokodil for Conservatives.

BENGHAZI is krokodil for many conservatives and especially FAUX NOOZ.  But they can't and won't give it up.  And if you link to what krokodil is, you'll see why they cling to it so desperately and what it will do to them.




"The co-chair of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board on the Benghazi terror attacks last year said on Wednesday criticized those claiming the Obama administration’s response to the attacks has the elements of some kind of Watergate-style cover-up. 

“I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it,” former Ambassador Thomas Pickering said on MSNBC. He also rebutted claims that the review board tried to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from scrutiny: 

PICKERING: I saw no evidence of it. She did publicly take responsibility for what happened below her and indeed one of the things the Congress did in preparing the legislation that established the Accountability Review Board was to say we don’t want a situation where heads of agencies take responsibility and then nobody who made the decision in the chain has to suffer any consequences for failure for performance. I believe in fact the Accountability Review Board did it’s work well. I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it.

PICKERING: The aircraft at Aviano were 2 to 3 hours away but there were no refueling aircraft available. I think that speaks for itself. It has all along. I don’t see any contradiction. … There should be no controversy over that. Aircraft were there but they were not available in a time span that could have made any serious difference in connection with the issue."

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Benghazi Hearings:  What's New and What's Not

Seen on Boylston Street

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Go HERE to see some excellent photography.

CONGRATULATIONS DELAWARE!

DOVER, Del. (AP) — A divided Delaware state Senate voted Tuesday to make their state the 11th in the nation to allow same-sex marriage, after hearing hours of passionate testimony from supporters and opponents. 

The Senate’s 12-9 vote sends the bill to Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who supports the measure and planned to sign it later in the day. It would go into effect July 1. 

 “I think this is the right thing for Delaware,” the governor said after the vote, while posing for pictures with supporters outside his legislative office. 

“It took an incredible team effort.” Gay rights activists and their supporters in the chamber erupted in cheers and applause following the Senate vote.




Another state recognizes equal protection under the law!  And Delaware joins the inexorable march toward equality for all.  Good going Delaware!  We're proud of you.

Next up, we're watching Minnesota and Illinois:

Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage
 
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage, as the Democratic speaker of the state House said Tuesday that a gay marriage bill endorsed by the governor and likely to pass in the state Senate also now has enough backing in his chamber. The House will vote on the measure Thursday, and if it passes, the Democratic-led Senate could vote on it as soon as Saturday.

Pat Brady Resigns: Illinois GOP Chair Steps Down Amid Gay Marriage Support Controversy 

"Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady has stepped down from his post amid controversy over his public support for same-sex marriage. 

 Brady is citing personal reasons for his resignation, announced Tuesday in a letter sent to the state party's central committee. According to the Associated Press, his wife is battling "serious cancer" and he wants to spend more time with her and their family. 

 Social conservatives within the state party had targeted Brady and called for his resignation after he announced that he personally supported same-sex marriage equality early this year. 

One member of the party's central committee previously described him as "a total disgrace" in supporting marriage equality and other issues that were contrary to both the national and state GOP's policy platforms."



Ah, yes.  The "Central Committee" calls a man who supports equality under the Constitution of the United States of America a "total disgrace." 

Your modern Republican Party.  Equality = Disgrace

"FREEDOMS" LOVING N.R.A.ers!

National Rifle Association Bans Bleeding “Obama” Target, Others RemainBeyond the pale at the NRA convention. “They thought it looked too much like President Obama,” says a worker.






"They THOUGHT it looked too much like President Obama?  No, Mr. "A Worker," the whole point of the display at the N.R.A. show is to have the zombie look EXACTLY like Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, and for the idiots who aimed at it to take pleasure in pretending to assassinate the President of the United States of America.

Now I perfectly understand that not all N.R.A. members are demented gun-happy goons who take pleasure in fantasizing about murdering the President of the United States of America.  And I understand that those who engage in this sickening exercise are no better than the jihadists who plan murderous attacks on Americans, but I don't understand the fools who thought this display and use of President Obama's image was something a "freedoms" loving American would be proud of.  

Afterall, the meaning is quite clear:  Those who took part in shooting at the image were acting out some sort of treasonous fanatasy.  Freedoms lovers!

But I suppose having them engage in something as unAmerican, treasonous, hateful, and dimwitted as this is better than having them work out their frustrations by sticking forks in their eyes.

Or is it?

Here's the target after our 2nd Amendment-loving fellow Americans had their little bit of "fun."

Here's a loving father teaching his little boy how to aim at and draw blood from "Barry," the President of the United States of America--Oops! No.  It's a "zombie!"  Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. 

Isn't that a beautiful American value?








Can anyone imagine how these mentally-deficient 2nd Amendment supporters would have reacted had some liberal group done this to images of Presidents Reagan or Bush?  Would they have thought it was all in harmless, good American fun?

I ask; you reply.

SUNDAY NIGHT POETRY

IN THE BEDROOM OF GEARS AND TIMING


Just before 5 am, glass trinkets 
and silver frames on a polished shelf
begin in small sequences 
to gather light.  Buttons and worry dolls 
in a box represent someone's still life, 
who hasn't the courage to pretend, 
who hears the ride of the blood, 
the gun of the clock. 


And the clock makes a tick
whirl fly.  Like a bird
meeting the glass, something
in here collides with the eye,
the immovable wall.


I admit this for no one, really, 
trying to reach things I expect 
one day will come, like a dainty fog 
settling over the coverlet in blue 
so uncorrupted, you would
just die of it. 

                                                 --S.K.

If We Could See Inside Others' Hearts

A video from the Cleveland Clinic:

An Unconscionable Crime

Not what the teenager did, but how the adults responded. If the law demands her expulsion and that she be charged with felonies, then "the law is a ass!":



BARSTOW, Fla. — A Florida teenager with an “exemplary record” was arrested and expelled from her high school for conducting a science experiment which had the wrong results. Kiera Wilmot, a student at Bartow High School, is facing two felony charges for the incident, which includes making or attempting to make a destructive device. She had mixed toilet bowl cleaner and pieces of aluminum foil in a tiny water bottle. 

Wilmot told police she thought the concoction would result in a little smoke. Instead, the bottle exploded, according to the Barstow Police Department report, A spokesperson for the Florida State Attorney’s office said the case is currently under investigation and would not be commenting further. 

The 16-year-old was in the school yard working on the experiment, according to the police report. The project was not part of a class assignment and no one was injured in the incident. Bartow High School Principal Ron Pritchard told television station WTSP that Wilmot had an exemplary record and she is known around campus as a good student. 

“She’s is a good kid,” the principal said. “she has never been in trouble before. Ever.” 

According to the police report, Wilmot told police she was in no way trying to hurt anyone or create a disruption of school. The principal agreed and said she simply made a bad decision. 

“Honestly, I don’t think she meant to ever hurt anyone,” he told the television station. “She wanted to see what would happen when the chemicals mixed and was shocked by what it did. Her mother is shocked, too.” 

The principal said the young lady was completely up front and honest about what happened.

“She didn’t run or try to hide the truth,” he said. Nevertheless, the school district called the police, had her arrested and expelled her from school.

From Change.org (sign the petition):

Kiera Wilmot has been described as an exemplary student and a wonderful young woman. 

Why is it then that an experiment gone wrong is being dealt with by the police and school as a felony offense? 

According to the Miami Times: "7 a.m. on Monday, the 16 year-old mixed some common household chemicals in a small 8 oz water bottle on the grounds of Bartow High School in Bartow, Florida. The reaction caused a small explosion that caused the top to pop up and produced some smoke. No one was hurt and no damage was caused." 

The principal has said that that he doesn't believe she had any malicious intentions. Yet she now faces two felony charges as an adult. These include making, possessing or discharging a destructive device and with possessing or discharging weapons on school grounds! 

"...the charges have not yet been filed and this means that Florida State Attorney Jerry Hill and Assistant State Attorney Tammy Glotfelty have an opportunity to the right thing, use common sense, and drop these charges against Kiera."


Comments:



Hannah Eiseman-Renyard LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM 

I feel compelled to write to you, all the way from London, England, to let you know I am disgusted by your criminalization of a good student's natural curiosity. 

 No one was harmed. No intention to harm was there. There was no 'discharge of a weapon' there was a pop sound and some smoke. I do worse than that when cooking dinner sometimes. 

Your reaction is disproportionate, draconian and disgraceful. 

By ensuring this student has a criminal record you have given her a life sentence as a second class citizen. You said Kiera Wilmot made 'a bad choice'. Sir, your criminalisation of your student - despite understanding she had no ill intent - is a bad choice. Kiera Wilmot did not do anything with the gravitas of making 'a choice' - she was just being a normal 16 year old in a science laboratory. 




Rachel Popkin SEATTLE, WA  

Because my friends and I did similar experiments and worse when we were 16. Ten years later, we are scientists, engineers, and medical students. 

Kiera displayed natural curiousity that all young scientists display. Her life should not be ruined because of it.