Flannel Shirt

Pennywise, pound foolish

There is a reason why we used to spend money on infrastructure maintenance. Like for dams.

The torrential rains in Colorado this week have resulted in flooding which has killed several people so far. This flooding is made worse by multiple dams which have already failed due to overfill, with dozens more at risk.

Why are they at risk? It turns out that state Republicans have blocked bills to deal with repair or maintenanceon infrastructure throughout the state. These efforts, done in the name of fiscal conservatism, do not save money at all, and wind up costing far more than the money saved. Several bridges and dams had already failed before the flooding, which makes the added stress of the current conditions too much to bear. It is reported thatover 100 bridges are unsafe while the number of dams nearing failure continues to climb, with over 300 dams listed as at-risk, and two dozen as of extreme risk.

The department tasked with managing the repairs for dams in the state is woefully understaffed and underbudgeted, and the state Republicans refuse to fund any repairs in their push for “small government.” This flies in the face of the reality of aging dam infrastructure across the United States, with 85% to be over a half-century old by 2020.

My trust in mankind...

...is getting tested.

More people in Louisiana's Republican Party think Obama is to blame for the post-Katrina government actions than George Bush. Obama wasn't President for another three years after Katrina. Bush was.

This is not a hard one to figure out. How stupid do you have to be?

A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office.

The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders.

Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame.

Bush was criticized heavily when he did not immediately return to Washington from his vacation in Texas after the storm had reached landfall. The government was also slow to provide relief aid and Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), admitted in a televised interview that he learned that many of the storm's victims at the New Orleans Convention Center were without food and water well after the situation had been reported in the press.

Brown's handling of the response ultimately led to his resignation, but Bush offered an infamous endorsement of the FEMA chief only days before he stepped down. 

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said.

The theologian speaks

The great theologian Rush Limbaugh has spoken on The Bible and Global Warming.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh advised his religious listeners on Monday that “intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming” and also believe in God.

At an event on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry had said that climate change was “a challenge to our responsibilities as the guardians–safe guarders of God’s creation.”

“What about God’s creation called a fetus?” Limbaugh asked on Monday. “See, in my humble opinion, folks, if you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in manmade global warming.”

“You must be either agnostic or atheistic to believe that man controls something that he can’t create,” he continued. “The vanity! These people — on the one hand, ‘We’re no different than a mouse or a rat.’ If you listen to the animal rights activists, we are the pollutants of this planet. If it weren’t for humanity — the military environmentalist wackos — the Earth would be pristine and wonderful and beautiful, and nobody would see it. According to them we are not as entitled to life on this planet as other creatures because we destroy it. But how can we destroy it when we’re no different from the lowest life forms?”

“And then on the other end, ‘We are so powerful. And we are so impotent — omnipotent that we can destroy — we can’t even stop a rain shower, but we can destroy the climate.’ And how? With barbecue pits and automobiles, particularly SUVs. It’s absurd.”

Not sure how this is going to work

Their "inclusive" strategy.

It should go without saying that if House Republicans kill immigration reform, Democrats will make it the central issue of the midterm elections. That should be all the more obvious given that a bipartisan immigration bill already passed the Senate, and the Democrats desperately want the campaign to be a referendum on House Republicans.

Enter New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, who implies that Democratic organizing around the failure of immigration reform will make liberals complicit in the GOP recession toward white nationalist politics:

[As New Yorker reporter Ryan] Lizza’s mention of the White House’s political strategy on immigration implicitly acknowledges, this “recipe” is one that left-of-center coalition politics bears a lot of responsibility for cooking up. The Democrats haven’t just been passive players in the recent racial polarization of the parties: Rather, they’ve embraced and furthered the trend, as a necessary part of making their new presidential-level “coalition of the ascendant” work.

It behooves me at this point to note that Douthat himself believes the GOP can’t and shouldn’t reduce its deficit with minority voters by backing immigration reform, and that its future viability rests with moderating its economic policy platform. But you go to war with the party you have and, given where things stand, this sounds an awful lot like an effort to let the party off the hook for walking back the one step it took toward rethinking its platform in the wake of President Obama’s reelection.

Let’s review.

After their drubbing in 2012, Republicans examined the wreckage and made two key, intertwined determinations: The party must be more inclusive (the word “inclusive” appears 12 times in the GOP’s official postmortem [PDF], called the Growth and Opportunity Project), and congressional Republicans should support immigration reform.

Less than six months since the GOP published that retrospective, its prescriptions lie in tatters. The party’s on the verge of killing immigration reform; it’s reluctant to fix the weakened Voting Rights Act (thanks, SCOTUS!) leaving minority voters in Southern states vulnerable to a coming flood of suppression laws; and it has no interest at all in moderating its economic policies, which remain rooted in the idea that we already redistribute too much wealth to the poor.

So after feinting toward more inclusive policies, the GOP might actually change nothing, and have no choice but to deepen its strategy of maximizing white turnout and depressing the minority vote. Its transformation into a white-only party will be complete.

If that weren’t inherently troubling, let alone difficult to execute, the party probably wouldn’t have organized its postmortem report around precisely the opposite idea. The strategy pre-supposed that a lot of Republicans would support comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform. And unless they were deluding themselves, they had to know that once the legislative efforts began in earnest, they were on the hook. Democrats would never let them off if they killed the project. They had to deliver.

But they might not deliver. The best we can hope for out of the House is a reform that weakens the key tradeoff in the Senate’s bill: eventual citizenship for current immigrants in exchange for the kinds of border security provisions Republicans would have a hard time ever passing on their own.

To the extent that House Republicans support eventual citizenship for current immigrants at all — and many do not — most want to keep the path blocked until after the border has been somehow deemed secure. The charitable interpretation of this kind of “trigger” — the kind endorsed by Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill. — is that Republicans want to induce the executive branch to lock down the border as quickly as possible. The cynical interpretation is that Republicans want to lock in the border security gains, while back pocketing the option of reneging on citizenship later.

The party is at best frozen between inclusionary and exclusionary visions of its future, and isn’t sure which one to embrace.

But the choice is theirs. And if they choose exclusion, it would be malpractice for Democrats to just pretend it didn’t happen. The party’s agenda will still represent voters of every ethnicity. And if the ensuing campaign drives some working-class and ethnically chauvinist whites out of the Democratic coalition, it won’t be the result of a decision to purge voting blocs from the party. Only one party’s thinking of doing that.

 

Botanists battle for evolution in New Orleans

Bobby Jindal was invited but didn't show up.

In any given year, the biggest buzz coming out of the annual national Botany conference is normally among the botanists ourselves. This year, however, we've been painted as either the heroic defenders of evolutionary biology or the attackers of Louisiana's right to worship freely.

The Botanical Society of America (BSA) has been spearheading an annual plant science conference for more than a century. Last week we convened in New Orleans for Botany 2013, with 1100 botanical researchers, teachers and students flooding the Hilton Riverside with wondrous tales from the Kingdom Plantae.

On Monday afternoon, during the first day of the scientific program, Drs. Marsh Sundberg of Emporia State University and Joe Armstrong of Illinois State University organized a session called "Yes, Bobby, Evolution is Real!" This title is a not-so-thinly-veiled catcall to Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal related to his support for the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), a document insisting that public school teachers teach alternative explanations for how life diversified on Earth.

One of eight sessions happening at the same time, the "Bobby Symposium" featured seven 30-minute presentations on the teaching of evolutionary biology and the challenge of doing so in Louisiana. The star of the day was Zack Kopplin, the "boy who fought Louisiana" by organizing and continuing to lead a campaign to repeal LSEA on the grounds that it is a creationism law. A speaking slot had also been offered to Governor Jindal, himself, but he opted not to accept (or read?) the invitation.

As far as Botany conference sessions go, this one was the sort of friendly and spirited exchange of ideas that brings us all back to the meetings each year. As has happened during professional science meetings all around the world for more than 25 decades, speakers made their cases, attendees asked questions, and everyone broke for coffee halfway through. When it was over, at 6:00 pm, most folks just continued on with the conference and headed down to the evening poster session to grab a few hors d'oeuvres and hear about more science. It was just another day at the annual Botany meeting.

But, of course, this one was destined to be different. Marsh and Joe had stirred the pot (and the gumbo simmering inside it). The story of the session had caught the attention of local news outlets -- and then the Huffington Post, whose headline "Botanical Society Panel Derides Creationism, Louisiana Science Education Act" drew thousands of readers who left more than 5600 comments in just the first day after the story went live.

Suddenly our annual conference on plants had gone from below the public's radar to, depending on one's perspective, either being lauded or derided for its subversive agenda.

A closer look at the other ~900 presentations given at Botany 2013 tells a different story. Science, at its very core, is not political. We seek explanations of the phenomena around us -- and we follow where the evidence leads. And the evidence in biology leads to evolution.

On the Monday when the seven Bobby Symposium talks took place, there were also 256 other presentations citing evolutionary principles in their titles, alone. About 300 more would follow before the conference concluded on Wednesday afternoon.

Contrary to popular parlance, Darwin didn't discover evolution. He uncovered one (most would say the) essential mechanism by which it operates: natural selection. Even then, his brainstorm was incomplete until the Modern Synthesis of the early/mid-20th century when (among other things) the complementary role of genetic heredity was fully realized.

Thousands upon thousands of studies have followed, providing millions of data points that support this understanding of how life on Earth has come to be as it is. And, as evidenced by the 600 evolution-themed studies presented at Botany 2013, the "discovery of evolution" is still happening every day.

The Bobby Symposium, however provocative its title, wasn't really an anomaly -- even among the topics presented at this single plant science conference. There are annual conferences like this all over the globe for other disciplines of biology that support the same fact: Evolution is the glue that binds all biological principles. It underlies every topic we teach and every study we undertake.

And, really, this was the message of the Bobby Symposium, the HuffPost coverage it received, and (interestingly) most of the reader comments the story generated. The question is not: How can we justify the unobstructed teaching of evolution in public schools? The question, of course, is: How can we not?

Yes, Bobby, even in Louisiana.

The stupidest man in Washington, DC

Louis Gohmert.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) knows that Republicans may lose some votes at first after the party kills immigration reform, but he is predicting that Hispanics will then wake up and realize that “Republicans really like me.”

In an effort to block all efforts at comprehensive immigration reform, Gohmert joined with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to explain to the conservative website World Net Daily why so-called “amnesty” would be bad for the country.

Gohmert said that Republicans needed to make it clear to immigrants that comprehensive reform was being stopped to “preserve a country that Hispanics will want to come to.”

“If we are not willing to follow the law, we’re going to lose that, and I’m afraid that people do not realize how serious things have gotten,” the Texas congressman said. “But, yeah, we could possibly pay in the polls in the short term. But just as you’ve had more and more African-Americans realizing, ‘Wow, we have one party that’s pandered to us, doled out government benefits, kept us from reaching our God-given potential.’”

Republicans, however, Gohmert said, wanted Hispanics to learn English “because we want you not to be a ditch digger because you can’t communicate. We know you are smart enough to be president of this company and to be president of this country if you’re born here.”

“And if we don’t communicate that message we could pay for it,” he warned. “We could in the short term, but in the long term, I think you will see people start waking up and go, ‘Wow, I’m Hispanic, these Republicans really like me.’”

3 things

Unarmed fetuses?

It's hard to follow the logic.

As hundreds of pro-choice protesters swarmed to the Texas capitol on Sunday, state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R) quipped on Twitter that he’s “extra thankful” for the Second Amendment because “today is 1 of those days.” Attempting to explain that comment hours later, he insisted it was actually, somehow, a reference to unarmed fetuses.

Demonstrators have packed the Texas legislature for consistently since Thursday, when over 700 pro-choice protesters staged a “people’s filibuster” of legislation that will close nearly every abortion clinic in the state. The bill is in its final stage of debate after receiving the approval of 20 Texas Senators last Tuesday.

Amid desperate protests against the legislation, state Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R) – who brings his gun to work every day, according to The New York Times — thought it was appropriate to assure fellow Republicans he wasn’t taking any chances with all these liberals running around. “Some days u r extra thankful we still have the right 2 protect ourselves & the 2nd amendment,” he wrote. “Today is 1 of those days”.

Hours later, an essay went up on Stickland’s website insisting that anyone who makes the connection between relying upon the Second Amendment and actually shooting someone is merely engaging in “Illogical Liberal Attacks.”

Saying the replies he got on Twitter “at least warrants a response,” Stickland began by making it perfectly clear that when he was talking about potentially opening fire on demonstrators in self defense, he really meant that he’s sad fetuses aren’t armed themselves.

“My reference this morning to being grateful for the ability to defend myself is coupled with the knowledge that there are those among us who cannot defend themselves,” Stickland wrote. “Through my vote today I will be defending the rights of those who cannot speak for their own rights.”

He went on to claim that by making it nearly impossible to obtain an abortion in Texas, Republicans are somehow increasing the “standard of care” for women — and certainly not waging a war against rights affirmed by the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

“Only liberals would take a mention of the 2nd amendment and my gratefulness for my ability to protect myself from threats and twist it into absurd accusations that I am going to attack people today at the Capitol,” Stickland concluded.

Still don't get it, do they?

The ignorance is staggering. But maybe it's not so much ignorance as indebtedness to the monied class.

John Boehner’s remarks on recent financial events have attracted a lot of unfavorable comment, and they should. Actually, I think even the stuff most commentators have shied away from — he talks about the Fed “deflating” when I think he means either inflating or debasing, or possibly is doing a Sarah Palin and merging the two — is significant. I mean, he’s the Speaker of the House at a time when economic issues are paramount; shouldn’t he have basic familiarity with simple economic terms?

But the main thing is that he’s clinging to a story about monetary policy that has been refuted by experience about as thoroughly as any economic doctrine of the past century. Ever since the Fed began trying to respond to the financial crisis, we’ve had dire warnings about looming inflationary disaster. When the GOP took the House, it promptly called Bernanke in to lecture him about debasing the dollar. Yet inflation has stayed low, and the dollar has remained strong — just as Keynesians said would happen.

Yet there hasn’t been a hint of rethinking from leading Republicans; as far as anyone can tell, they still get their monetary ideas from Atlas Shrugged.

Oh, and this is another reminder to the “market monetarists”, who think that they can be good conservatives while advocating aggressive monetary expansion to fight a depressed economy: sorry, but you have no political home. In fact, not only aren’t you making any headway with the politicians, even mainstream conservative economists like Taylor and Feldstein are finding ways to advocate tighter money despite low inflation and high unemployment. And if reality hasn’t dented this dingbat orthodoxy yet, it never will.

I'm really embarrassed

A relative of mine on a social media site linked to a very racist, ignorant webpage. It's embarrassing. Here's a sample:

Apparently, there are still people, I'm presuming mostly older white people living in the former Confederacy, who think that Obama was born in Kenya. Many think he is an anti-Christ (although at the site there was some disagreement on when the end times were coming), that he wants to take away their guns and all sorts of other crazy things. For example, Paula Deen didn't get fired from the Food Network because she was oblivious to events of the last fifty years regarding race and society and was saying offensive things that hurt the network's ratings, but rather because her high-calorie recipes offended the First Lady. Actually, the website didn't use "First Lady" but an offensive term which I won't repeat here.

When I was in the army at the end of the Vietnam War I was stationed at Fort Devens in Massachusetts. I was a clerk but was temporarily assigned to the Headquarters on base to help with a race relations program the army was instituting then. Racial tensions were boiling in the military and someone in Washington decided it would be a good idea to spread some sensitivity and understanding among the troops.  When I returned to my job in personnel the warrant officer in charge of my unit was extremely cool to me. He wouldn't release me to work full-time for race relations because I was "too valuable" but as soon as he saw the opportunity he moved me to an engineering battalion to be their company clerk. The base commander plucked me up within a week and assigned me as an instructor with the race relations program. 

During the week I was in the engineering company I had to pull CQ duty one Saturday. CQ means "charge of quarters" and by definition means defending the base or something, but it really meant that I sat in the battalion headquarters and answered the phone while everyone was off for the weekend. Someone must have known of my teaching role because the desk where I was assigned was covered with racist literature. I moved it all to the side and did my shift. A week later I was reassigned to the base headquarters and finished my active duty in the army as an instructor in race relations. 

That was forty years ago, in 1973.

1973 was the last of George W. Bush's six years he contracted to serve in the Air Force National Guard. While I was in Fort Devens George W. Bush was in Harvard's Business School forty miles to the east. He wasn't attending National Guard meetings. He hadn't done that for quite awhile. He wasn't excused from his commitment. No, he was AWOL. Actually, when you're AWOL over thirty days you're considered a deserter, but when your dad is a rich man with powerful political connections someone somewhere papers over that kind of thing. 

At some point during his time in the National Guard, before he stopped going to meetings and doing his service commitment, he was relieved of flying. Why? There's some evidence that he had lost his nerve. Then again, there was some evidence that he couldn't pass the drug test. There is no evidence that Obama ate a dog while he was growing up. 

So what do I do? Do I ignore the racism and ignorance this relative is spreading around? Mostly, that's what I do. But sometimes I can't. I'm embarrassed for my relative. But at this late stage in our lives there is nothing I can do to change her. 

It's too bad because there are plenty of things to discuss politically. I've got plenty of complaints about the Obama Administration, but when my relative deals in fantastic, insane fear-mongering instead of what's actually happening in Washington, D.C. there really is no point of engaging in a dialogue. The shame of it all is that she is now at an age where she is dependent on things like Social Security and she keeps voting for the same people who keep voting to cut it. (Really, look at Paul Ryan's budget that the Republicans passed in the House.)

These two illustrations, and many more, were at that website. It's not just the "media" that calls Obama the President. It is a majority of the voters, the Electoral College, and it's the rest of the world. Except for those living in the Confederacy of the Mind.