Ian Millhiser/Think Progress Monday morning, President Donald Trump sent out a series of four tweets attacking the courts, his own Justice Department, and what he described as “the watered down, politically correct version” of his Muslim ban.
The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.
It is, to say the least, highly unusual for a president to comment in such a belligerent way about a matter that is currently before federal courts — the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the most recent version of his Muslim ban last week. It is even more unusual for a president to blame the Justice Department for a policy shift that was made, not by DOJ, but by the president himself.
In any event, Trump’s tweetrage did not go over well with one high-powered New York attorney: George Conway, husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.
These tweets may make some ppl feel better, but they certainly won't help OSG get 5 votes in SCOTUS, which is what actually matters. Sad. https://t.co/zVhcyfm8Hr
An accomplished attorney who recently took himself out of the running to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Mr. Conway is in a position to know something about how not to win five votes on the Supreme Court.
Conway is a partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz — a firm where profits per partner are about $6 million per year, and a Yale law graduate. He has argued in front of the Supreme Court, and frequently appears in appeals courts.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the United States would abandon the Paris climate agreement, but his justification for withdrawing was rooted in a false economic claim.
Trump claimed that U.S. commitments under the Paris accord would cost the country’s GDP $3 trillion, but the report he took that estimate from “does not take into account potential benefits from avoided emissions.”
In other words: The study did not account for any benefits of participating in a global plan to avoid the worst effects of climate change. It is a report on climate mitigation that ignores climate change. The report also does not consider the economic benefits to renewable energy industries, nor does it consider the health costs that are associated with fossil fuel pollution.
Frankly, this analysis in line with Trump’s previously articulated positions on climate change and the economy. He does not believe that climate change exists (he has famously called it a hoax perpetuated by China), and he believes that rolling back environmental regulations will help the economy.
These positions fly in the face of established science and history. For starters, climate change is happening. It is happening right now. It is happening because of the rise in greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. In addition, history has shown time and time again that protecting the environment is good for the economy — and for people, who drink water and breathe and also live in houses by the ocean.
The report Trump cited, released by NERA Consulting, is extreme. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation estimated less cost from the Paris agreement than the NERA report.
Meanwhile, non-partisan reports offer dire warnings for not addressing climate change. Earlier this year, researchers at the University of California Berkeley found that “unmitigated, climate change could reduce global GDP by over 20 percent by 2100.”
A 2015 report from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School found thatthe “present value of the damage caused by human-caused climate change from a moderate warming scenario is an astonishing $400 trillion.”
The same year, a report from Citibank found that not addressing climate change will cost $44 trillion by 2060, while investing in low-carbon energy would save $1.8 trillion through 2040, as compared to a business-as-usual scenario.
Thirty-nine percent of people who think the Benghazi scandal is the biggest in American history don't actually know where it is. Here is a helpful map.
I am going to print out this poll and, perhaps, put it on my wall in a gilded frame. I hope every cable teevee haircut who plans to ride the Benghazi, Benghazi!, BENGHAZI! train to riches and fame and glory does the same thing because this is the best result in a poll in the history of results from polls. Forty-one percent of Republicans polled believe that this is the biggest political scandal in American history. (And roasting on adjoining spits in hell, John Mitchell, Harry Daugherty, and the members of the Whiskey Ring have a collective sad.) But that's not the truly golden part. That would be this, as PPP shows a gift for deadpan comedy I had not anticipated:
One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history is that 39% of them don't actually know where it is. 10% think it's in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.
Cuba? Really? That's classic.
These are the people who will be programming your cable news for the next two years. Just thought you and democracy might like to know that.
The Five co-host Eric Bolling apparently thinks that the United States invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein "financed" the 9/11 terror attacks. This is blatantly false. The link between Hussein and September 11 has been long-since debunked by numerous investigative bodies, including the 9/11 Commission, which discovered "no credible evidence" that Iraq was involved in the attacks.
In a January 11 post on Twitter, Bolling linked to a Huffington Post article highlighting comments he made on The Five on January 9, in which he accused children's book publisher Scholastic of "pushing a liberal agenda." According to Bolling, liberal bias can be found in children's history textbooks that include "very liberally biased" arguments such as: "George Bush went in [Iraq] because he heard there were weapons of mass destruction and they were never found."
Responding to the Huffington Post, Bolling wrote: "We (America) 'went into' Iraq because radical Islamists killed 3k of ours+Saddam financed."
In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration repeatedly suggested (in the absence of credible evidence) close links between Iraq and al Qaeda. A poll taken less than six months after the invasion found that nearly 70% of Americans wrongly believed that Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks.
Bolling's assertion that Hussein "financed" 9/11 has been thoroughly debunked. As reported by The Washington Post in 2004, the 9/11 Commission explained that there was '"no credible evidence' that Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq collaborated with the al Qaeda terrorist network on any attacks on the United States.'"
Further, in 2007, the US Defense Department released a report concluding that "Saddam Hussein's government did not cooperate with al Qaeda prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq."
But if Bolling wants to dismiss the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission as "liberally biased," then perhaps he would listen to Dick Cheney, who also conceded in a 2009 speech that, "I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true."
By Hamed Aleaziz/Think Progress Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has no idea what happened in Benghazi but he does know that it’s worse than Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal times 10. Here’s King from a Washington Times article published on Wednesday:
“I believe that it’s a lot bigger than Watergate, and if you link Watergate and Iran-Contra together and multiply it times maybe 10 or so, you’re going to get in the zone where Benghazi is,” Mr. King said. “I don’t think the public has any idea, and I tell you, I don’t either, of the chronology of the events — what took place, and who was where doing what and why. And all the way down through — we still haven’t seen an autopsy report on the ambassador yet. Simple questions that you would ask in the first 24 hours have not been asked yet.”
Of course, mainstream media outlets have extensivelyreportedemerging details about the assault, many of which have undercut Repubican attempts to create a faux-scandal out of the events, over the past three months.
And perhaps King should consult ThinkProgress’ comprehensive timeline on Benghazi to get the details on what is publicly known about the attacks and their aftermath.
From the July 17 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
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RUSH LIMBAUGH: Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie -- what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It's going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they're going to hear "Bane" in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie --"Oh yeah, I know who that is." There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think -- "You're really underestimating the American people who think that will work."
As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) addressed a Tea Party rally calling for its repeal. In a short interview following his remarks, Gohmert told ThinkProgress that Americans will “die early” if the law remains in place and the Court finds it constitutional:
VOLSKY: Congressman, do you think because of health care that people will live shorter lives — that it will shorten the lives of Americans?
GOHMERT: Those are the indications. [...] [This law] would make us like England and Canada where they try to come to America to get the treatment because they don’t want to die.
Watch it:
Gohmert’s rhetoric closely resembles the “sky is falling” hysteria surrounding the measure as it made its way through Congress in 2009 and 2010. Gohmert himself warned, “I would hate to think that among five women, one of ‘em is gonna die because we go to socialized care.” But in the two years since its enactment, none of the GOP’s dire predictions have come to pass.
Media Research Center president Brent Bozell took to CNN last night to make the outrageous accusation that the Smithsonian Institution has put on an art exhibit that would be appealing if "you are into religious bigotry." In doing so, Bozell ignored reporting from his own organization and used a series of contentious descriptions of the works in the exhibit to incite anti-gay sentiment.
Bozell also has sent letters to Congress that purport to speak "on behalf" of "the overwhelming majority of Americans who call themselves Christian." In the letters, Bozell demanded "Congressional hearings to investigate the Smithsonian Institution for its attack on Christian values and common decency." The letters repeatedly reference the federal tax dollars that the Smithsonian receives.
This isn't just about Bozell's attempt to control what the public can and cannot see at museums. It's also about attempting to choke off public funding for the arts.
Here's how Bozell began his tirade against the exhibit, called Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, which is on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington:
Look, if you like depictions of sadomasochism where you have a mummified human remains, if you have a portrait of a man eating himself, if you like homoerotic art -- calling it art -- all sorts of male genitalia, a portrait of -- called Two Brothers, kissing -- two naked men making out, and they're brothers. If you are into religious bigotry, and you like this kind of things with ants walking all over the Lord Jesus Christ -- and this man to say it's not sacrilegious. Of course it's sacrilegious. If you like that, fine. There's a place in some seedy art something somewhere for you to watch it, that's your business.
It's obvious that this litany of questionably accurate descriptions of the exhibit's artwork was designed to provoke anti-gay sentiment. Just look at the words Bozell uses: "sadomasochism," "homoerotic art," "male genitalia," "two naked men." These are invocations of classic stereotypes used to define gay people, especially gay men, as deviants.
As we've noted, such a description of the exhibit is simply not honest. While it is true that Hide/Seekdeals with themes of sexuality and gender, a description like Bozell's cherry-picks the most provocative elements of an exhibit that includes works by artists like John Singer Sargent, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Andy Warhol. From the National Portrait Gallery's description of the exhibit:
This is the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture. "Hide/Seek" considers such themes as the role of sexual difference in depicting modern America; how artists explored the fluidity of sexuality and gender; how major themes in modern art -- especially abstraction -- were influenced by social marginalization; and how art reflected society's evolving and changing attitudes toward sexuality, desire, and romantic attachment.
The exhibition begins with late nineteenth-century works by Thomas Eakins and John Singer Sargent and charts the twentieth century with major works by such American masters such as Romaine Brooks, Marsden Hartley, and Georgia O'Keeffe. The exhibition arcs through the postwar period with major paintings by Agnes Martin, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. It continues through the end of the twentieth century with works by Keith Haring, AA Bronson, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres about life, love and death during the AIDS crisis, and charts the vigorous reassertion of lesbian and gay civil rights in the twenty-first.
(Bozell's effort to prey on anti-gay sentiment in this situation fits in well with the MRC's decades-longlosing battle to ostracize gay people.)
Furthermore, it seems that the only evidence that Bozell and the MRC have provided that the exhibit contains "religious bigotry" is that it included a video work called "A Fire in My Belly," in which ants are shown crawling over a crucifix. I write "included" because the Portrait Gallery removed the video on Tuesday, more than a day before Bozell appeared on CNN to express his outrage.
The article that instigated this ginned-up controversy -- from CNS News, which is a division of Bozell's MRC -- featured a picture of the imagery in question:
There it is. Bozell's evidence that Congress should spend taxpayers' money to investigate a display of "anti-Christian bigotry" at the Smithsonian.
On an individual level, Bozell's sputtering declaration that this is most certainly "sacrilegious" is questionable -- Fox News' Juan Williams said on Hannity last night that "as a Christian," it doesn't "blow [him] out." But the CNS article itself provided a very specific explanation of why it is not sacrilegious [emphasis added]:
Through the NPG's external affairs office, [David C. Ward, a National Portrait Gallery historian who is also co-curator of the exhibit] and co-curator Jonathan D. Katz issued a statement to CNSNews.com about the video "A Fire in My Belly." It reads as follows:
"David Wojnarowicz went to Mexico and in Mexican life he found colorful metaphors for AIDS in America. Seeking to convey his anger at the American government for its inattention to AIDS he took images of suffering, marginality and extremity in an attempt to create and art that would awaken a sleeping populous.
"Katz feels that there is no more potent image of AIDS in America than the image of the construction workers [in the video] standing on the concrete that they are trying to remove from the wire suspended in the air.
"The crucifix, covered with ants, represents the lack of attention to Christian teachings in that Christian morality has been cast to the ground and the teachings of Jesus abrogated by speaking in his name. In the film this represents that the most vulnerable and the most in need are the most aggressively attacked."
And this is the main point about Bozell's objections to the contents of the exhibit. Bozell is a conservative activist who purports to detect "liberal bias" in the media.
He's entitled to his opinion, but his is not the final word on art.
During the CNN segment with Bozell, Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik repeatedly questioned Bozell's standing to made unilateral judgments about art. Gopnik said, "The question is, do we want to have museums that show the best art they can have?" As he turned to Bozell, he then asked the most important question: "Do we want to have art museums at all? No one objects to the National Gallery, that's full of pictures that everyone agrees are fantastic, wonderful works of world art. The question is, with contemporary art, who's going to decide that?"
When Bozell returned to calling works in the exhibit "offensive," Gopnik interjected, "That you find offensive -- let's make it very clear -- that you find offensive. And lots of people don't. I don't."
Later, Gopnik explained further: "It seems to me that we just have a very different notion about what art should do, maybe. I think that it's good that art is getting you angry. I think it's good that this stuff is provoking you. That's why some of this art was done. The brothers kissing is meant to be provocative. It's meant to make you wonder and think about these issues."
Again, all this comes back to a very specific political agenda. Bozell wants a congressional investigation. "Americans will not rest until we receive answers to why this exhibit was approved, how the Smithsonian justifies using tax-payer dollars for such a display of anti-Christian bigotry, and what corrective actions will be taken," he wrote in the letters to Congress.
It's wrong for Bozell to appoint himself the sole arbiter of what's acceptable art and what's not. Media outlets should keep that in mind when they're reporting on his campaign to attack the Smithsonian through congressional investigations.
On his Fox News program tonight, Glenn Beck teased tomorrow's program on the "history of heroes and villains in the textbooks." One problem: throughout the segment, the blackboard Beck repeatedly referred to was titled "Heros or Villians?" From tonight's Glenn Beck:
