“They’re Not Scientists…Or Mathematicians”: Face It, Republicans Are Really, Really Slow Learners
Last week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker John Boehner made clear that the Republican Party has a new line in response to questions about climate change: they don’t feel “qualified” to know whether or not to believe scientists and the available evidence. “I’m not a scientist,” Florida’s GOP governor told reporters.
Apparently, they’re not mathematicians, ether.
For example, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of the Senate Science Committee*, yesterday issued a statement condemning the Obama administration’s climate policy, vowing to “fight the president and his administration every step of the way to stop this unprecedented power grab.” (The White House is acting under congressionally approved legislation, endorsed by the Supreme Court. How this could possibly be a “power grab” is unclear.)
Blunt’s statement went on to get specific, pointing to evidence from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that Americans will pay “almost $290 billion more for electricity between 2014-2030” as a result of Obama’s policy, adding, “Missouri consumers would pay on average $65.4 billion more between 2014-2030, on average $11 billion more per year.”
Roll Call’s Steven Dennis took a closer look and concluded that Blunt’s math is “spectacularly wrong – and even internally inconsistent.”
Missouri is covered in part by three different regions, Blunt’s spokeswoman, Amber Marchand, explained in an email. Blunt’s office totaled up the costs for all three regions – including parts of 25 states – and divided by three to come up with Missouri’s supposed costs of $65.4 billion.
That’s not how math works.
The Blunt release then kept the $11 billion total yearly costs for all three regions – remember, parts of 25 states – and assigned them all to “Missouri consumers.” … It’s simply wrong to take regional costs – and certainly not the costs for three regions covering 25 states – and ascribe them all to Missouri.
Of course, the Missouri Republican wasn’t the only one struggling with math yesterday.
Speaker Boehner, also relying on the hilariously wrong U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, argued, “The president’s plan would indeed cause a surge in electricity bills – costs stand to go up $17 billion every year. But it would also shut down plants and potentially put an average of 224,000 more people out of work every year.”
As Glenn Kessler discovered, none of this is true, either.
Note that the EPA rule said that the agency would seek a reduction of 30 percent. But on page 15 of the Chamber report, the Chamber says it assumed the rule would impose a 42 percent reduction…. Given the significant difference between the emission targets in the proposed rule and the assumptions in the Chamber report, Republicans should have avoided using the Chamber’s numbers in the first place. We understand that they believe the negative impact will outweigh any positive impact but even by the Chamber’s admission, these numbers do not apply at all to the EPA rule as written.
Some might argue this was only an innocent mistake, but the EPA last week in a blog post on the Chamber’s study noted that it would not require carbon capture technology for new natural gas plants…. That should have been a tip-off that some of the Chamber’s assumptions were shaky — and that it would have been a good idea to double check what the rule actually said before firing off a statement.
* Update: Blunt’s office contacted me to note that the Senate committee that oversees science policy is formally known as the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The Missouri Republican is a member.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, June 3, 2014
“The Big Benghazi Dance”: In The End, Both Democrats And Republicans Are Going To Get Exactly What They Want
Nancy Pelosi has now announced the five Democratic members of Congress who will serve on the Republicans’ select committee to investigate Benghazi. They will be outnumbered by the committee’s seven Republicans, but at this point we can safely predict what’s going to happen with this committee.
To quote Macbeth, it will be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
OK, so maybe the “idiot” part is too harsh — no one thinks that Rep. Trey Gowdy, who will be leading the committee, isn’t a smart guy. But it’s easy to see exactly how the big Benghazi dance will unfold, and how everyone will play their appointed parts.
That’s partly because of the nature of this matter, partly because of everything that has happened up until this point, and partly because of who’ll be on the committee. This description in the New York Times makes the contrast in who got chosen to represent each party:
The Democrats chosen were Mr. [Elijah] Cummings, who clashed repeatedly over Benghazi with the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Representative Darrell Issa of California; Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee; Adam B. Schiff of California, a member of the Intelligence Committee; Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a decorated and severely wounded combat veteran of the Iraq war; and Linda T. Sánchez of California, the ranking Democrat on the Ethics Committee.
The Republican members, by contrast, largely lack foreign policy and military credentials, although with Mr. Gowdy and Representative Susan W. Brooks of Indiana, they have prosecutorial experience. They include Representative Peter Roskam of Illinois, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, Representative Martha Roby of Alabama and Representative Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia.
Just by looking at the committee’s membership, you can see what the two parties are trying to achieve. John Boehner picked a combination of prosecutors, intense partisans, and hard-right blowhards, people who are there to pound the table, shake their fists, and raise their voices. Pelosi could have picked similar Democrats (there was a move to get Rep. Alan Grayson on to the committee), but instead she selected a group of serious members who come with some knowledge on the matters to be explored. Despite the fact that Democrats (even those on this committee) think this is all a waste of time, they’re taking a high road approach, hoping that they’ll look reasonable and sober while Republicans look wild-eyed and angry.
So here’s how this is going to go down:
1) The first day of hearings will get blanket coverage in the media. The members will each get a chance to make their opening statements, which will leave the walls of the hearing room quivering under the power of all the thunderous outrage the Republicans can muster.
2) At some point, Hillary Clinton will testify. The media will rub their hands together in anticipation of the confrontation, the smack-down, the Capitol Hill cage match! Republican members will preen for the cameras, and Clinton will, most likely, parry all their assaults. It’ll be good television, but no new information will be revealed.
3) After that, the media will quickly lose interest.
4)Republicans will then complain that the liberal media are covering up the scandal.
All that is predicated on the assumption that the committee is not actually going to discover damning new evidence of Obama administration malfeasance that will lead to resignations, criminal indictments, or even (be still the Republicans’ hearts) impeachment. I feel secure in assuming that, given how much Benghazi has been examined over the last year and a half. Keep in mind that there have already been investigations and hearings on Benghazi not only by Darrell Issa’s oversight committee, but also by House and Senate committees on foreign affairs, intelligence, armed services, and homeland security (not to mention lengthy investigations by the FBI and news organizations). Is it theoretically possible that there is some blockbuster revelation that none of these committees were able to uncover, but the select committee will? Sure. It’s also theoretically possible that there really are space aliens being held at Area 51.
In the end, both Democrats and Republicans are going to get exactly what they want out of this committee. Republicans will be able to show their base that they’re holding Barack Obama’s feet to the fire and giving Hillary Clinton the business. Democrats will be able to show their base that Republicans are crazy. Everybody wins.
By: Paul Waldman, The Plum Line, The Washington Post, May 22, 2014
“Issa’s Latest Benghazi Stunt Backfires”: The New Story Is The Same As The Old Story
There’s a usual pattern to House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) media game: he’ll quietly leak misleading information to a news outlet; the outlet will run with the exclusive; then the story will be entirely discredited, leaving everyone involved looking rather foolish. It’s happened more than a few times.
Today, Issa tried to play a similar game, but it backfired much quicker than usual.
The California Republican appears to have sought out a reporter he hoped would be sympathetic – in this case, ABC News’ Jon Karl – with Issa’s new Benghazi scoop.
A still-classified State Department e-mail says that one of the first responses from the White House to the Benghazi attack was to contact YouTube to warn of the “ramifications” of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Issa, in a perpetual state of high dudgeon, issued a statement describing the White House’s message to YouTube as evidence of … something nefarious. It’s not entirely clear what.
But the trouble, as Karl, to his credit, was quick to note in his report, is that Issa’s revelation actually undermines Issa’s preferred narrative.
The memo suggests that even as the attack was still underway – and before the CIA began the process of compiling talking points on its analysis of what happened – the White House believed it was in retaliation for a controversial video. […]
Asked about the document, a senior White House official told ABC News it demonstrates that the White House genuinely believed the video sparked the attack all along, a belief that turned out to be incorrect.
“We actually think this proves what we’ve said. We were concerned about the video, given all the protests in region,” the official said. And the intelligence community “was also concerned about the video.”
In other words, Issa has uncovered a document, intended to discredit the White House’s argument, which actually bolsters the White House’s argument.
So, here’s the larger question to consider: did Issa just not understand his own story, or, as Eddie Vale suggested, did he release this to undercut the select committee Issa is so opposed to?
Either way, when coming to terms with House Speaker John Boehner’s 180-degree turn on creating the new committee, keep today’s story in mind – GOP leaders long ago lost confidence in Issa’s ability to deal with the investigation competently.
Update: Hannah Groch-Begley discovered that today’s “new” story from Issa to ABC is practically identical to news we already learned – from, among others, ABC – in 2012.
By: Steve Benen, the Maddow Blog, May 22, 2014
“A Very Risky Plan To Rile Up The Base”: Republicans’ New Midterm Strategy; Obama Is A Lawless President
Last year, the Republican political strategy for the midterms was clear: Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare. In December, Representative Paul Ryan even promoted his bipartisan budget deal with Senator Patty Murray as a way to keep the heat on the Affordable Care Act: “We also don’t want to have shutdown drama so we can focus on replacing Obamacare.” A functioning website and eight million enrollees later, the law is no longer guaranteed to work in Republicans’ favor. So the party’s shifting to a new strategy that carries even greater risks: that Barack Obama is a lawless president.
Republicans are in excellent position to pick up Senate seats in November. They have the structural advantages of a favorable Senate map, stronger historical turnout in midterm elections, and the sixth-year curse. Obamacare will remain a potent issue in red states, but with all the good news lately about the law, the opposition has lost its bite. Senate Republicans were largely complimentary of Sylvia Mathews Burwell at her confirmation to become the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. When House Republicans invited insurers before them last week, they were disappointed to find that their testimony refuted the House GOP’s “study” that a large percent of Obamacare enrollees were not making payments. Both of these events went largely unnoticed—something that never would have happened if the law was still struggling.
What did make news last week was the Special Select Committee on Benghazi convened by House Speaker John Boehner. The impetus for the committee is the release of the previously-withheld memo from Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes that laid out the talking points for then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice before her infamous Sunday show appearances in 2012. The memo demonstrated that while the Obama administration was certainly intent on spinning the incident in the best political light, Rice did not lie to the American people and there was no cover-up. Nonetheless, Boehner has put this at the top of the agenda for House Republicans, Obamacare be damned.
This represents a shift in the Republican Party’s political strategy from a focus on Obamacare’s failures to Obama’s “lawless” presidency. Republican politicians have accused Obama of breaking the law and ignoring the Constitution countless times, but until now, it was not their top political strategy. This tactical change makes sense. Obamacare is no longer struggling and Democrats are putting Republican congressional candidates in difficult positions over the Medicaid expansion. Criticism of Obama’s lawlessness will rile up the base and bolster turnout.
But this strategy carries considerable risk as well: Republicans could lose control of it. It’s only a short step from calling Obama lawless to calling for his impeachment. Some conservatives have already called for it, in fact. Those voices are rare, but Dave Weigel noted last week that more people on the right are starting to make those calls, led by National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy with his upcoming book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment. As Republicans learned in the 1990s, impeachment trials are terrible politics. That should at least give GOP leaders pause as they plan their midterm strategy.
It’s a long time between now and November. If Republicans intend to campaign on Obama’s lawlessness, they shouldn’t be surprised to discover more of the base clamoring for impeachment. The Benghazi hearings will only exacerbate these calls. If President Obama takes executive action this summer to ease undocumented-immigrant deportations, as many expect, that will only lead to more calls. As 26 Senate Republicans wrote in a letter to Obama in April, “Our entire constitutional system is threatened when the Executive Branch suspends the law at its whim and our nation’s sovereignty is imperiled when the commander-in-chief refuses to defend the integrity of its borders. You swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We therefore ask you to uphold that oath and carry out the duties required by the Constitution and entrusted to you by the American people.”
The letter doesn’t specify what the authors would do if Obama fails to uphold the constitution as they deem acceptable, but the broad implications of their words are clear: Republicans will not sit idly by if Obama takes executive action on deportations. They plan to make it a national issue. That’s a risky strategy, but it’s not like Republicans have many options. For far too long, they assumed that Obamacare was guaranteed to win them votes. That’s no longer the case, and their failure to develop a Plan B is on full display.
By: Danny Vinik, The New Republic, May 12, 2014
“An Election-Year ‘Hustle The-Base’ Strategy”: Democrats Should Boycott Latest Benghazi Charade
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is trying to make the GOP’s latest Benghazi theater more than partisan drama by asking Speaker John Boehner to appoint an equal number of Democrats and Republicans to the new “investigative” panel he’s convening. The speaker is unlikely to do that, so Democrats should boycott this latest GOP fundraising stunt.
Five House committees have already investigated the Benghazi tragedy and issued biased reports; there have been two Senate committee reports plus the Accountability Review Board’s findings. The bipartisan reports found errors on the part of State Department personnel and recommended staffing and other changes. But because none of the investigations were able to charge then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with incompetence, or prove that President Obama tried to cover up the truth to get re-elected, Republicans won’t believe them, and insist there’s more to “investigate.”
Thus we have the latest House Benghazi stunt – and Democrats should stay away from it. There’s precedent for boycotting such a panel: Dems did so in 2005, when Republicans organized a sham “investigation” into how President Bush handled the Katrina catastrophe, when it became clear the effort was meant to be a whitewash, not a thorough probe.
I admit, Benghazi is to progressives what climate change is to conservatives: No matter how much the right wing shrieks about it, and purports to have new evidence of wrongdoing, we don’t believe it. The difference is, progressives are right. The notion that a newly uncovered email from national security communications staffer Ben Rhodes “necessitated” this latest investigation is another partisan cover story.
On one level, the new committee is actually a rebuke to histrionic House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa, whose many forays into the swamp of Benghazi conspiracy theories uncovered nothing to hurt Democrats, not even the Rhodes email. As ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings has pointed out, Issa denied Democratic members the most basic tools with which to participate in his committee’s sham investigation:
Over the past year, House Republicans have conducted their Benghazi investigation in a completely partisan manner by denying access to hearing witnesses, leaking cherry-picked excerpts to create a false narrative, issuing unilateral subpoenas without Committee votes, releasing multiple partisan staff reports, excluding Democratic Members from fact-finding delegations to Libya in violation of the Speaker’s own rules, and launching unsubstantiated accusations that turn out to be completely false. So I do not have much faith that a new select committee will be any different.
The new committee won’t have any more power than Issa’s did. And there’s no reason to believe chairman Trey Gowdy will be smarter or fairer than Issa (check out Simon Moloy’s profile here.) Gowdy is the Oversight Committee member who has set his hectoring of witnesses to action-movie music and posted it to You Tube. He is likely to out-Issa Darrell Issa.
There’s possible political risk in boycotting the Gowdy charade. “Some of these hearings are going to be televised,” political scientist Norman Ornstein told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. “The question is, does it make more sense to be in there, participating in the process and pointing out Republican overkill again and again, or does it make more sense to further destroy the image of the committee by staying out of it?”
It’s true that as the Oversight Committee’s leading Democrat, Cummings has been able to regularly thwart Issa and counter the chair’s allegations in the media. But he did so at a constant disadvantage, since he was shut out of the investigative process by Issa. There’s no reason to expect Gowdy to treat Democrats any differently. (Cummings’ office says he has not yet taken a position on the boycott idea.)
Gowdy’s committee is best understood as as a base-energizing fundraising tool for the GOP, part of what Politico’s Michael Hirsch calls “the Benghazi industrial complex,” engineered to damage Clinton so much she either can’t run for president or decides it’s not worth the pain. Of course, Benghazi fever hasn’t spread beyond the fever swamps of Obama hatred that afflict the GOP’s far-right base. But that’s enough to keep it alive, and potentially make it a potent midterm-election organizing tool. House Democrats should make that role clear by boycotting it.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, May 6, 2014
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