It’s okay if you’re a Republican

~ susie

Congressman Raul Grijalva

I just love this. Grijalva’s giving the Repugs a taste of their own medicine, and now suddenly they’re concerned that he’s silencing “legitimate academic and scientific inquiry.” Jim fucking Imhofe is worried about legitimate science? ROFLMAO!

Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, wants to know whether money from the energy sector might be influencing scientists who come before Congress to deny climate change. Since asking that question, Grijalva has been accused by fellow lawmakers, and some scientists, of perpetrating a “witch hunt” that could have a “chilling effect” on scientific exploration.

Rep. Grijalva’s questioning comes after a lengthy article in the New York Times last month detailed the source of research funds used by Wei-Hock Soon, an aerospace engineer who has testified in several congressional hearings to express doubt that climate change can be attributed to human activity. Soon, who is affiliated with a joint venture of Harvard and the Smithsonian, is responsible for bringing in research dollars to pay his salary and fund his projects. The Times revealed he has received more than $1.2 million from the fossil-fuel industry over the past decade, including at least $230,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. (As the Times notes, part of Koch’s fortune comes from oil refining.)
Continue reading “It’s okay if you’re a Republican” →

Customer service

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

seanthorntonspublichouse-ex

So my friend and I went to this neighborhood brunch place yesterday. One of the main attractions was that they advertised that they start serving brunch at 9 a.m. Very few places around here serve food that early, with the exception of the one remaining diner, and the food there is overpriced and meh. A profile in the local paper sounded like it would be good, so we went.

On the outside, it looked promising. It was all done up like a real Irish pub, but once we got inside, it had all the ambiance of a church basement, circa 1965. There were real tablecloths at least, but our tabletop was covered with a thin glass square that kept sliding off.

We asked for tea, and the waitress shrugged and said, “If we have it.” Even though it said it was served free with brunch, right on the menu. That took a while; it was finally delivered, with no spoons, a quart container of half and half and a bowl of sugar with a spoon sticking out.

We ordered food, which arrived 45 minutes later. (We finally saw the chef arrive, about 25 minutes after we ordered.) I have to say, though, the food was really good. My friend said, “Maybe the chef overslept with daylight savings time.”

Hear no evil

~ susie

rick-scott-osceola-visit98

God, I love Republicans!

Officials with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the agency in charge of setting conservation policy and enforcing environmental laws in the state, issued directives in 2011 barring thousands of employees from using the phrases “climate change” and “global warming”, according to a bombshell report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR).

The report ties the alleged policy, which is described as “unwritten”, to the election of Republican governor Rick Scott and his appointment of a new department director that year. Scott, who was re-elected last November, has declined to say whether he believes in climate change caused by human activity.

“I’m not a scientist,” he said in one appearance last May.

Scott’s office did not return a call Sunday from the Guardian, seeking comment. A spokesperson for the governor told the FCIR team: “There’s no policy on this.”

The FCIR report was based on statements by multiple named former employees who worked in different DEP offices around Florida. The instruction not to refer to “climate change” came from agency supervisors as well as lawyers, according to the report.

When you’ve seen one Clinton scandal

~ susie

Jeb Bush

You’ve seen them all. Paul Waldman from the Prospect explains the routine.

I’ve been saying for years: Give Democrats the fucking benefit of the doubt! Don’t assume the worst, don’t assess it by your “feelings.” Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the screaming scandal turns out to be a “never mind.”

nevermind

I do think one of the problems is that the Clinton era was ‘way before the internet took off, and Dems not only couldn’t fight back effectively, we even swallowed the right wing narratives. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right?

Not when it comes from the right-wing smoke machine. Pay attention, for Christ’s sake.

1. Jeb Bush releases (a carefully screened portion) of his own private emails from his own private server.
2. Two weeks later, his campaign does an oppo dump to the New York Times. The Times seemingly prints it verbatim, because it was really badly edited.
3. Media goes wild. “We KNEW IT!”
4. Dems say, “She broke the rules! She broke the rules!”
5. BENGHAZI!!!!

Rinse. Repeat.

Jesus. Stop falling for this crap. Look at the big picture. Even Obama, as bad as he is, was better than Mitt Romney. Put all that mental fury into the state races, where the Koch experiments continue unabated.

Oh look, more Republican smoke and mirrors

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

It turns out that the Republicans have already read the Hillary Clinton emails they subpoenaed!

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said, “We knew as of last summer that the Secretary used a private email account. This is not something new. We knew also that she was cooperating. She was giving us everything that we asked for. Nothing changed except for the pressure on the Republican members of the committee this week became too great for them to resist from the Stop Hillary PAC people and the RNC people, so they issued a subpoena for records that we already have. Now, the Secretary has called for those records to be made public. Why isn’t the chairman doing that? Why aren’t we doing that? The reason is we’ve read them. There’s nothing in them. My colleague says well, how do we know we have them all? The reality is that if this secretary or anyone else emailed a stand down order as this mythical claim exists out there, there would be several people on the receiving end of that email. There would be people at the Pentagon, people in the field who would have to receive that order. None of that. There is no evidence of that.”

Rep. Schiff brought up a great point. If there were anything in the emails, Republicans would have quickly made the emails public in order to build and prolong the story. The fact that former Sec. Clinton has called for the emails to be released, but Republicans refuse to make them public, speaks volumes about what this “scandal” is really about. The subpoena for documents that they already had in their possession is straight out of the Republican Benghazi playbook.