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“The Right’s Political Correctness”: Conservatives Who Condemn Political Correctness Need To Start Calling Out Their Own

Scott Walker insists that when he changes his positions, he is not engaged in “flips.”

“A flip would be someone who voted on something and did something different,” the Wisconsin governor explained last week on Fox News. His altered views on immigration don’t count because he is not a legislator. “These are not votes,” he helpfully pointed out.

Sheer brilliance! Other than former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Walker’s major rivals at the moment are Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). They have all cast lots of votes. So Walker can accuse them of flip-flopping while claiming blanket immunity for himself.

Unfortunately for the Republican Party and the country, Walker’s careful parsing of shape-shifting counts as one of the cerebral high points of the debate among the party’s 2016 presidential candidates.

The shortage of philosophical adventure and the eagerness of GOP hopefuls to alter their positions to make them more conservative have the same cause: a Republican primary electorate that has moved so far right that it brooks no deviation. What makes it even harder for the candidates to break new ground is that the imperatives of orthodoxy are constraining even the thinkers who are trying to create a “reform conservatism.”

The fall-in-line-or-fall-in-the-polls rule means that Walker has gone from supporting to opposing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, as has New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie . Rubio got much praise for his work in negotiating a bipartisan bill that would have allowed the undocumented to become citizens — and then, faced with hostility from tea partyers, he turned against it.

Paul, the most daring of the lot because of his libertarian convictions, deserves kudos for being true to his small-state ideology by standing up — literally, for nearly 11 hours on the Senate floor — against the Patriot Act. But even Paul has recast his foreign policy positions to make them sound more hawkish and thus more in keeping with prevailing Republican views.

Accommodating right-wing primary voters poses real risks to the party in next year’s elections. Its candidates’ messages on immigration and gay marriage could hurt the GOP with, respectively, Latinos and the young.

But the greater loss is that none of the leading Republicans is willing to offer a more fundamental challenge to the party’s rightward lurch over the past decade. L. Brent Bozell III, a prominent activist on the right, could thus legitimately claim to The Post: “The conservative agenda is what is winning the field.”

Where, for example, is the candidate willing to acknowledge that, like it or not, there’s no way that anywhere close to all Americans will be able to get health insurance unless government plays a very large role? Where is the Republican who will admit that if the party had its way on further tax cuts, many programs Americans like would fall by the wayside?

The reform conservatives were supposed to remedy this shortcoming, and they have issued some detailed proposals. But their efforts remain largely reactive. Last week, Yuval Levin, the intellectual leader of the movement, joined a symposium in Reason, the sprightly libertarian magazine, to reassure others on the right that reform conservatives are — honest and true! — no less committed than they are to “limited government,” to rolling back “the liberal welfare state ” and to reducing government’s “size and scope.”

It’s not surprising that Levin’s fervently anti-statist Reason interlocutors were not fully persuaded. What’s disappointing to those outside conservatism’s ranks is that the reformicons are so often defensive.

With occasional exceptions, they have been far more interested in proving their faithfulness to today’s hard-line right than in declaring, as conservatives in so many other democracies have been willing to do, that sprawling market economies need a rather large dose of government. Conservatives, Levin says, are “eager to build on the longstanding institutions of our society to improve things.” Good idea. But somehow, the successes of decades-old governmental institutions in areas such as retirement security, health-care provision and environmental protection are rarely acknowledged.

Many Republicans, especially reform conservatives, know that most Americans who criticize government in the abstract still welcome many of its activities. Yet stating this obvious fact is now politically incorrect on the right. Conservatives who condemn political correctness in others need to start calling it out on their own side. Otherwise, Scott Walker’s artful redefinition of flip-flopping could become the 2016 Republican debate’s most creative intellectual contribution.

 

By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, May 24, 2015

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Conservatives, GOP Presidential Candidates, Political Correctness | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Conspiracy-Minded Conservatives, Be Warned”: Sorry, GOP. There’s No Smoking Gun In Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi Emails

If Republicans were looking for a silver bullet to use against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the State Department’s Friday document dump about Benghazi wasn’t it.

There’s no illicit weapons Libyan program to be found in the emails, as some have speculated. No ‘stand-down’ order. Just a hectic flow of information to and from Hillary Clinton—about danger, about death, and ultimately, about condolences.

The State Department released Friday 296 emails involving Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State, from 2009 to 2013. The documents include some 300 emails related to Benghazi, which were turned over to the Congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks. The attacks left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

The hundreds of emails released by the agency show a Secretary of State who was deeply engaged on Libyan issues—but usually just in a crisis. While Clinton was a key proponent of intervening in Libya to protect civilians under threat from then-Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi, her emails show that she took a largely hands off approach towards the country.

Of course, this document trove is an incomplete view, at best. It excludes any phone calls, briefings or memos. It doesn’t include the emails that were deleted by Clinton—and we know there were many. (Republicans noted “inexplicable gaps” in Secretary Clinton’s emails over several time periods, such as from Oct. 2011 to Jan. 2012, and from April 2012 to July 2012. ) And it was released by a State Department that was formerly helmed by Clinton and is still part of a Democratic administration.

But according to her Benghazi-related email traffic, Clinton appears to only have been involved at times of crisis and even then deferred to those on the ground, including Stevens and friends outside government.

Clinton’s emails show that the late Amb. Christopher Stevens had multiple brushes with danger in Benghazi in 2011—more than a year before the September 2012 attacks that would ultimately take his life.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received an update about Stevens’ 2011 security situation: that there had been intelligence indicating a credible threat to his safety, and that officials were moving swiftly out of the hotel he was staying at in Benghazi.

“There is credible threat info against the hotel that our team is using—and the rest of the Intl community is using, for that matter… DS [Diplomatic Security] going to evacuate our people to alt locations. Info suggested attack in next 24-48 hours,” wrote top Clinton aide Jacob Sullivan in an email to Clinton on June 10, 2011, with the subject line, ‘Hotel in Benghazi.’

At the time Stevens was a special envoy to Libya, and the U.S. had joined a U.N. campaign to set up a no-fly zone to assist rebels in the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi.

In a separate incident, in April 2011, a State Department official wrote:

“The situation in Ajdabiyah has worsened to the point Stevens is considering departure from Benghazi. The envoy’s delegation is currently doing a phased checkout (paying the hotel bills, moving some comms to the boat, etc). He will monitor the situation to see if it deteriorates further, but no decision has been made on departure.”

The communications received by the Secretary of State illustrate the fast pace of security decisions made on the ground—but don’t show Clinton with a direct role in these decisions. For example, there’s no indication that Clinton intervened in the decision-making process when told about Stevens’ 2011 security scares.

Clinton was heavily criticized when it emerged in March that she had used a private email server to conduct business while she was Secretary of State. Her private email accounts prevented the normal process of archiving official government records. Clinton’s staff had turned over some 55,000 pages of email correspondence to the State Department in December 2014.

Democrats on the Select Benghazi Committee had urged the release of Benghazi-related emails for months. Clinton herself had urged the State Department to swiftly publish the emails, telling reporters earlier this week that she wanted them in the public domain as soon as possible.

“I am pleased that the State Department released the complete set of Secretary Clinton’s emails about Benghazi—as Democrats requested months ago,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee.

The American people can now read all of these emails and see for themselves that they contain no evidence to back up claims that Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, approved an illicit weapons program, or any other wild allegation Republicans have made for years.

In the time between the June 2011 security scare and the September 2012 terrorist attacks, the mood in Libya ebbed and flowed—Stevens left Libya in November 2011 before returning as U.S. ambassador in May 2012.

In July, Libya held national elections which went off well, leading to people heralding the country worldwide. Meanwhile, Islamist flags had emerged on buildings throughout Benghazi.

The correspondence in summer 2012 shows a somewhat positive situation in Libya: the last email from Stevens that Clinton receives paints a rosy picture: in July 2012 Sen. John McCain is in Tripoli, Libya, being lauded for his support of the rebels.

“The atmosphere in Tripoli is very festive,” Stevens wrote in one email on July 7, 2012. “The gov’t declared today a holiday and people are driving around honking and waving flags and making peace sign gestures… McCain was applauded and thanked for his support wherever we went.”

The world’s focus doesn’t dwell on Libya, and Clinton doesn’t receive additional emails about Benghazi again until the 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities.

By September 2012, the situation in Libya had deteriorated. In a diary entry on Sept. 6, Stevens wrote about a “security vacuum” and “dicey conditions,” even suggesting that he was on an “Islamist ‘hit list’ in Benghazi.”

On the fateful day of Sept. 11, 2012, at approximately 4 p.m. in Washington, D.C., the first attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound occurred. Clinton had previously testified (PDF) that she was at the State Department that day, which could explain why she did not send or receive a large volume of emails about Benghazi.

She becomes more active on emails that evening, and at 11:37 p.m., she receives word through her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills that the Libyan government had confirmed Amb. Steven’s death.

“Cheryl told me the Libyans confirmed his death. Should we announce tonight or wait until morning?” Clinton wrote in an email to top aides.

Throughout the morning after the initial attacks she has a lot of activity: in particular she received a large number of messages expressing condolences to her and the State Department over the death of the ambassador.

“The Ambassador was a perfect role model of the kind of person we need representing us around the world, and the others had so much to give—and already had given so much,” said former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates.

“What a wonderful, strong and moving statement by your boss. please tell her how much Sen. McCain appreciated it. Me too,” wrote a top national security aide for Sen. John McCain.

That weekend, Clinton continued to exchange emails on the Benghazi issue. On Saturday Sept. 15, the day before Susan Rice appeared on cable shows to make the since-rescinded claim that the Benghazi attacks were the result of protests-turned-violent, Clinton was involved arranging calls from her home and the collection of an action memo via classified courier.

The emails give insight into how Clinton operated at the time: using classified couriers to move memos and getting on the phone with other world leaders, rather than using email.

None of the released emails show Clinton being involved with Rice’s appearance on the Sunday shows, or the discussion of what Rice should say. She does, however, receive a transcript of what Rice would eventually say.

Findings of the Republican-led Select committee on Benghazi may not be released until sometime in 2016, in the thick of campaign season.

If the Select Committee continues to operate through the end of the 2015, its estimated cost will rise to $6 million dollars. The House Select Committee on Benghazi was established in May 2014. If it continues through to the end of 2015, it will have been investigating for 19 months—longer than other major, comparable investigations.

(To compare, the joint inquiry into the intelligence community’s actions with regard to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks took less than a year. The Senate Watergate committee operated for about 17 months before presenting its findings. And the Warren Commission on the assassination of President Kennedy operated for under a year.)

The release of Friday’s Benghazi-related emails has itself been months in the waiting: the State Department had been going through an excruciating process of assessing the emails for any information that would show sensitive or personally identifiable information, and then removing it. The State Department will now turn its attention to performing the same task on thousands of Clinton emails that are not related to Benghazi.

In fact, Hillary Clinton’s email correspondence has the potential to generate headlines at least through the end of the year, acting as a disruptive force that distracts from her presidential campaign.

For Republican committee chairman Trey Gowdy, the release of these emails are just the first step in a long slog to “collect and evaluate all of the relevant and material information necessary.” Gowdy said that the emails released Friday had all been exclusively reviewed and released only after review by her own lawyers.

Earlier this week, a federal judge had dismissed a State Department plan to release her email archives, comprised of some 55,000 pages of emails, by January 2016. Instead, the judge asked the State Department to come up with a plan to gradually release the emails in stages.

In the nearer term, Hillary Clinton is expected to appear before the Select Committee on Benghazi, Gowdy said last week that he will not schedule the former Secretary of State’s testimony until the State Department turns over more documents.

“The Select Committee should schedule Secretary Clinton’s public testimony now and stop wasting taxpayer money dragging out this political charade to harm Secretary Clinton’s bid for president,” Cummings, a Democrat, said Friday.

The New York Times obtained and published about a third of the Clinton Benghazi emails earlier this week, revealing that longtime Clinton friend Sidney Blumenthal had frequently written to her about Libya, serving as a source of information about the country before and after the 2012 attacks.

While Blumenthal had originally blamed demonstrators in the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, a subsequent memo fingered a Libyan terrorist group for the attacks, arguing that they had used the demonstrations as cover for the violence. This week, the Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed Blumenthal to appear before the panel.

 

By: Tim Mak, The Daily Beast, May 22, 2015

May 25, 2015 Posted by | Benghazi, Conservatives, House Select Committee on Benghazi | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Maintaining Its Sad Tradition Of Disenfranchisement”: Texas Lawmakers Are Busy Making It Harder To Vote

Another legislative session, another unfortunate attempt by Texas politicians to make it harder to vote. While other states move their registration systems into the 21st century — by putting the onus on the government to add eligible voters to the rolls, or letting citizens sign up online, for example — Texas maintains its sad tradition of disenfranchisement.

One measure (HB 1096) that would make it more difficult for voters to confirm their residency recently cleared the House. Another bill approved by the Senate (SB 1934) would eliminate nonexpiring photo identification cards for the state’s senior citizens. Because unexpired photo IDs or IDs that have been expired no more than 60 days are required to vote, this change would make it even harder for Texas seniors to get their ballots counted. Do we really need to wonder why lawmakers are making these changes?

While some legislators have introduced bills this session to help voters, these bills have largely gone nowhere. A bill that would issue no-charge birth certificate copies to some Texans under a limited set of circumstances passed the Senate, but the law, if passed, would help only a fraction of disenfranchised voters. This is not enough. Texas deserves a Legislature that will take action to ensure that the voices of all eligible voters are heard, rather than putting up more obstacles to the ballot box.

In 2011, Texas enacted the nation’s strictest voter ID law. It permits use of limited types of photo IDs to vote, and the ID must be current or recently expired. To obtain nearly every form of acceptable ID, an original or certified copy of a voter’s birth certificate is required. Hundreds of thousands of registered Texas voters lack the ID or supporting documents needed to meet these stringent requirements.

While Texans of all ages have felt the negative impact of the photo ID law, the burden on the state’s seniors is particularly acute. Older voters are less likely to have a current driver’s license — because many no longer drive — and are more likely to find it difficult or downright impossible to obtain a birth certificate. Many live in long-term care facilities and, because of health or liability issues, are unable to travel to renew their IDs, or are understandably overwhelmed by the required paperwork. Cutting nonexpiring state IDs for seniors would only exacerbate these burdens.

So far, two federal courts have stepped in to block the Texas ID law because it disenfranchises Latino and African-American voters. Last year, a federal court in Texas found the law not only had the effect of discriminating against minority voters but also that the Legislature passed the law with the intent of making it harder for voters of color to cast a ballot. The case is now before a federal appellate court. During oral arguments, a Republican-appointed judge pointedly asked Texas’ attorney why the Legislature hasn’t taken the opportunity to fix the problems with the photo ID law. The lawyer had no response when the judge asked why it should fall to the court to fix the law, when legislators have had years to do so.

The numbers show that some legislators have had ample opportunity to help voters. This legislative session alone, there have been at least 17 bills introduced to ameliorate the strict voter ID law. Bills that would allow expired government-issued IDs to be accepted for voting and others that would expand the list of acceptable IDs have not gotten so much as a public hearing. The Legislature has instead chosen to expend more energy on changes that would make voting even more difficult.

Bills to soften the draconian photo ID law are not the only voter-friendly measures Texas legislators have left on the table. At least 28 other bills have been introduced that would expand access to the ballot. These efforts range from proposals that would make it easier for voters to update their registration to legislation that would increase language access for voters whose primary language is not English. Nearly all of these bills have received no legislative attention.

While a proposal that would have allowed Texans to register through a secure online portal did manage to at least get a public hearing, legislators expressed skepticism that the modernizing reform — which has been successfully adopted by nearly 30 other states — could be done in Texas. They promptly killed the bill.

Given Texas’ sordid history of manipulating the right to vote, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the Legislature is making voting harder. Texans should demand better.

 

By: Jennifer L. Clark and Gary Bledsoe, Cross-Posted from The Dallas Morning News; Brennan Center for Justice, May 19, 2015

 

May 24, 2015 Posted by | Discrimination, Voter ID, Voter Suppression | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Hillary Clinton Has Already Crushed Republicans On Immigration”: It’s Heads She Wins And Tails They Lose, Regardless Of What They Do

You can question Hillary Clinton’s political scruples. But don’t doubt her political smarts.

There is no better proof of either quality than her U-turn decision last week to go all out in embracing amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Clinton’s gambit is a major flip-flop — one that will put Republicans in a bind that they’ll have a hard time extricating themselves from. It’s heads she wins and tails they lose, regardless of what they do.

Clinton stunned everyone — even Latino activists — when she boldly called for a “path to full and equal citizenship” for all of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the country. Speaking at a gathering of handpicked young immigrants in a high school in Nevada, a Latino-heavy swing state, she rejected the notion of a mere path to legalization — like the sort Jeb Bush and some of the more immigrant-friendly Republicans have skittishly backed. “That’s code for second-class status,” Clinton declared. She promised to go much further than even President Obama’s recent executive action and “defer” deportation proceedings not only against some illegal immigrants, but virtually all of them, while working toward comprehensive immigration reform that included citizenship.

This was a remarkable shift for someone who has not only maintained a studious silence for months about Obama’s executive action, but also previously opposed drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. Indeed, her flip is so dramatic that instead of raising questions about her credibility, it has changed the conversation so much that we’re immediately asking what Republicans need to do to catch up.

No doubt her proposal, which she offered no realistic plan for pushing through an unfriendly Congress, is designed to deflect attention from “Emailgate” and any number of other scandals that might yet derail her candidacy. But that’s not all its aimed at doing.

Its chief purpose is to compound what pollster Whit Ayres calls the GOP’s “daunting demographic challenge” in 2016.

Ayers points out that Mitt Romney got 59 percent of the white vote in 2012, the highest percentage of any Republican challenging an incumbent president, and still lost because he got only 18 percent of the overall minority vote and 27 percent of the Latino vote. However, the white share of the national electorate is on track to drop by three percentage points (from 72 percent in 2012 to 69 percent in 2016) — and the minority share, likewise, to rise by the same amount.

This means that the GOP candidate has to do one of two things to win against Clinton: Improve his or her performance with whites to about 65 percent, a feat only Ronald Reagan has accomplished in the last 50 years, or boost his or her minority vote to 30 percent, which would require drawing about 45 percent of the Latino vote — as George W. Bush did.

But here’s the thing: While Democrats’ white and minority supporters are united on the issue of immigration (or at least not hopelessly divided), the GOP’s are not. This means that the more Republicans question and condemn Clinton’s support for “amnesty,” the more they’ll dig themselves in a hole with Latinos and make her more popular. On the other hand, it they stay mute — which is what most of them have done (with the exception of Lindsey Graham) — they’ll risk alienating the anti-amnesty white base that they have spent the last decade riling up.

In other words, if Republicans fight Hillary’s call for amnesty, they’ll lose Latinos, which will benefit Hillary. But if they don’t, they’ll lose whites, which will also benefit Hillary.

The dilemma is particularly acute for Jeb Bush, whose broad support for immigration (along with his Mexican-American wife and Spanish fluency) has made him perhaps the best-placed Republican to do well among Latinos. Yet even he doesn’t come anywhere close to the 45 percent mark yet. He has been rather equivocal in his support for a path to citizenship and has been assuring GOP voters that whatever course he charts for the undocumented, it will require them to jump through all kinds of hoops, such as paying fines and passing English tests and possibly “touching back” to their home country. Still, a recent Bloomberg poll found that 41 percent of likely Republican voters in New Hampshire, far from the most restrictionist state in the country, considered his immigration views a “deal-killer.”

By positioning herself as even more pro-immigration than the most pro-immigration GOP candidate — and potentially picking as her running mate Julian Castro, secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the former mayor of San Antonio who is wildly popular with Latinos — she will basically lock up the Latino vote. This will mean that the Republican nominee, even Jeb Bush, would have to go whole-hog for the white vote by hardening his or her opposition to amnesty and immigration, further cementing the GOP’s reputation as the anti-minority, white man’s party.

Some pundits pooh-pooh this problem, noting that like all voters, Latinos list jobs and the economy as their top concerns, not immigration. That’s true. But, also like all voters, Latinos won’t put their economic faith in someone they don’t trust politically. They will have much more confidence in Clinton solving those problems, not because they necessarily buy into her liberal tax-and-spend plans, but because they have more confidence in her personally, thanks to her appeal for them on immigration issues.

What’s more, life will get only more miserable for Republicans once Clinton enters the White House and makes comprehensive immigration reform her signature issue. That’s because if Republicans go along with her plans to extend full-fledged amnesty, they will basically be handing her a whole new block of Democratic voters. But if they don’t, Democrats will be able to milk this issue in subsequent elections, when the electorate is even more Latino.

Regardless of where one stands on the merits of the issue, the political reality is this: Republicans’ harsh anti-immigration rhetoric has left them no good options. They have created their own vulnerability. And Hillary Clinton has just zeroed in on it.

 

By: Shikha Dalmia, The Week, May 22, 2015

May 23, 2015 Posted by | Amnesty, Hillary Clinton, Immigration | , , , , , , | 4 Comments

“Iraq War, 1%; Climate Change, 97%”: Jeb Bush Needs More Evidence For Climate Change Action Than He Does To Start A War

Former Florida governor and likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush had a lot to say about climate change this week, putting to rest prior speculation that he might take a more reasonable position on the issue than his Republican opponents. At a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Bush said, “I don’t think the science is clear of what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted.” Though he said the “climate is changing,” Bush isn’t convinced that mankind has contributed or that we have a mandate to do something about it. “For the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you,” he continued. “It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t have a conversation about it, even.”

On foreign policy, however, Bush needs much less certainty. The bar is so low, in fact, that he’s said he would still have invaded Iraq, even knowing what we do today about the bad intelligence. “I would have,” he told Fox News earlier this month. “And so would have almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.” As with climate change, it’s hard to pin down exactly how Bush views the Iraq War, and he’s tied himself into knots trying to explain it, later backtracking with, “I would have not gone into Iraq.”

Under George W. Bush’s administration, the White House subscribed to the hawkish war philosophy known as the One Percent Doctrine, which got its name from former Vice President Dick Cheney’s post-9/11 strategy and which was codified in a book of the same name. “If there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction—and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time—the United States must now act as if it were a certainty,” the author, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind wrote. Cheney insisted that “our response” was more important than “our analysis.” The administration presented its severely flawed intelligence as a certainty, in order to convince the public that Iraq had nuclear, chemical, and biological capabilities.

The Bush administration’s troubling approach to foreign policy isn’t a perfect parallel to the case for climate change action, because the certainty is much higher than 1 percent—97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists say that humans are responsible for our changing climate. Still, it exposes the fallacies in Bush’s argument that the U.S. should wait to act on global climate change until the science is more sure. Not only is perfect certainty a stupidly high bar to set for climate action, but it’s irresponsible to insist on perfect knowledge. Climate scientists are still improving their models to forecast the precise effects of warming the planet 4 degrees Fahrenheit and higher, but they agree on this: The longer the world waits to act, the more it risks and the more catastrophic the consequences become. If we waited another few decades to do something while Republicans like Bush misrepresent reality, the damage will already be done. It will be too late.

Advocates for government action on the climate often liken it to taking out insurance for a car or home. The point of investing now is to mitigate the most severe consequences of climate change. “Confronting the possibility of climate catastrophes means taking prudent steps now to reduce the future chances of the most severe consequences of climate change,” a 2014 White House report said. “The longer that action is postponed, the greater will be the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the greater is the risk.”

In another world, Cheney might have said something like: If there’s a chance that we can forestall the worst impacts of climate change, the U.S. must do what it can. It’s about our response, not just our analysis. What if he had?

Compared to going to war, acting on climate change isn’t a risky bet.

 

By: Rebecca Leber, The New Republic, May 22, 2015

May 23, 2015 Posted by | Climate Change, Iraq War, Jeb Bush | , , , , , , | 1 Comment