DAYLEE PICTURE: The Bamboo Stinkhorn Fungus in India. From Wikipedia.
Why Outrage is Dead (Marc Ambinder) from The Week
"Republicans want to know where the outrage is hiding. Why aren't Americans angrier about the (a) cover-up (b) conspiracy (c) lunacy (d) evil-ness of how the Obama administration responded to the events in Libya? ... If everything is an outrage, then nothing is an outrage."
In some ways, this will represent one of the biggest barriers (as well as one of the biggest political dangers) the GOP faces in their effort to "get Obama" over the Benghazi or the IRS issues. They and the right-wing more generally have zero credibility with the larger electorate. Even their own base doesn't believe what GOP lawmakers are saying most of the time. Can Issa/Graham/McCain and company really gin up a compelling enough corpus of evidence to alter the general public's view that these efforts are anything put an abuse of partisan political power? I doubt it. But that doesn't mean they won't try. See Tomasky's commentary below.
ANOTHER UP-FRONT POLITICAL NUGGET WITH EXTENDED QUOTE!!
The Coming GOP Civil War Over Climate Change from the National Journal
“[Newt] Gingrich and [Mitt] Romney understood, … and I think they even believed the evidence and understood the risk,” [MIT scientist Kerry] Emanuel says. “But they were so terrified by the extremists in their party that in the primaries they felt compelled to deny it. Which is not good leadership, good integrity. I got a low impression of them as leaders.” Throughout the Republican presidential primaries, every candidate but one—former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who was knocked out of the race at the start—questioned, denied, or outright mocked the science of climate change." Soon after his experience in South Carolina, Emanuel changed his lifelong Republican Party registration to independent. “The idea that you could look a huge amount of evidence straight in the face and, for purely ideological reasons, deny it, is anathema to me,” he says.
New Orleans Shooting: I Saw the Mother’s Day Parade Gunman from the Daily Beast
"Medical student Jarratt Pytell was dancing with the crowd at the Mother’s Day parade when he heard a sound like fireworks. He describes seeing the young gunman—and responding to some of the 19 wounded."
It will be on-going episodes like this that will keep gun control front and center for the foreseeable future.
Student Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream (Joseph Stiglitz) from the New York Times
"The crisis that is about to break out involves student debt and how we finance higher education. Like the housing crisis that preceded it, this crisis is intimately connected to America’s soaring inequality, and how, as Americans on the bottom rungs of the ladder strive to climb up, they are inevitably pulled down — some to a point even lower than where they began. This new crisis is emerging even before the last one has been resolved, and the two are becoming intertwined."
How to Reinvent College (Nick Romeo) from the Daily Beast
"An undergraduate having to pay off $120,000, and a university that has more than $165 million in debt? Paying adjuncts less but having them teach more, and instructors who give A's 43 percent of the time? Nick Romeo on a new book that critiques how higher education has changed, and what needs to be done to save it."
The Coming Attempt to Impeach Obama (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"The idea of impeaching Obama is industrial-strength insane. Republicans will probably try anyway, predicts Michael Tomasky."
It has long occurred to me that an Obama 2nd term might go this way. Having failed to defeat him in 2008 and again in 2012, the GOP will take whatever scandal-like material they had on hand in 2013 and (if they controlled the House) simply impeach him. It has NOTHING to do with the merits of the case or whether any "high crimes or misdemeanors" were committed. It is simply an exercise in power and a desperate attempt to cater to an extremely angry and misinformed party base. Since Republicans have done nothing about anything legislatively they have to bring something to their constituents to say they are doing something -- so look for this to be it. It's unclear to me what Obama can do to derail this effort -- but I suspect his team and the Dems will take this quite seriously as Tomasky suggests.
Right-wing Media Check up: still crazy: The Right-Wing Media Hasn't Learned Anything from its Failures in 2012 (Ana Marie Cox) from the Guardian [of the UK]
"Several observers have pointed out that the conservative media's real complaint about #BENGHAZI is that the coverage in the MSM hasn't taken their side, and, even more to the point, the American public at large (i.e., those outside the Fox News demographic) has not responded to the coverage with outrage and alarm to match their own. The Week's Mark Ambinder has teased out why that is; they aren't on board with the guiding principle of today's right-wing journalists: Obama is evil."
Politics and Race: Looking Ahead to 2060 (Paul Taylor) from the Pew Research Center
"The report on the racial and ethnic breakdown of voters in 2012 released Wednesday by the Census Bureau attracted lots of well-deserved attention. But for readers of political tea-leaves, a report the bureau issued last December tells an even more compelling story. That report projected the racial and ethnic makeup of the U.S. population through 2060. If you combine key numbers from those two Census Bureau reports into a single chart, as we’ve done below, you’ll get a feel for a political and
demographic drama that’s going unfold over the next half century. And if you’re a Republican thinking of running for president one day, you may be a bit concerned."
Republicans Ask: Where Is John Boehner? from BuzzFeed
"Worried rank-and-file Republicans say the speaker seems to be “a bit checked out” as new legislative battles loom. His allies say he’s working behind the scenes to move the conference forward. ... Today though, Republicans shoulder the brunt of the responsibility for the outrage they're not finding. "
South Carolina 'Creationist' Science Quiz is Real (Hunter) from Daily Kos
"This has been floating around for a while, but it looks like Snopes has now confirmed it. It's real. The above is an actual science quiz given to 4th graders at Blue Ridge Christian Academy in South Carolina."
NYC NUGGET!!
Spire Installed on WTC Tower, Making It 1,776 Feet from the San Francisco Chronicle
"The World Trade Center's rebirth has long revolved around creating a centerpiece of unsparing symbolism: a skyscraper 1,776 feet tall, its height an homage and a bold statement about looking forward. The new 1 World Trade Center reached that height with the lowering of a silvery spire from a crane on Friday, officially taking its place as a signature of the city's skyline and, with some argument, the nation's tallest tower.
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