Forget it, Newt.

Has anyone ever tried harder than Newt to gin up enthusiasm among people to beg him to run for president? And wasted so many people's time while he waffled -- and then finally concluded that there wasn't a parade for him after all? Now he's at it again.

This week alone he's teased reporters with (1) yes, then (2) no, then (3) maybe; then he said he was "seriously considering it," then he was "exploring the possibility." Who cares?

Give FoxNews credit for acting decisively and suspending him from his contract as a news analysis contributor; i.e., they called his bluff.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) praised Newt for his vision but said we needed someone who is "stable." S.C. Governor Nikki Haley said, "There was a place and time for him."

But HuffPost blogger Jason Linkins delivered the "unkindest cut of all."

Oh, Newt Gingrich! For four presidential cycles you have been teasing us with the idea that you are running for president. I think that two ladies have been your potential "First Lady" during that time, and dude, seriously, have you thought about that? I mean, it's going to be really hard for you to talk about the "First" Lady, right?

Get it, Newt? There was a time for you. We need someone stable. And who would be your First Lady, Newt? Presumably the one you were having an affair with while you were married to the other "First Lady."

Not to mention that the first "First Lady" gave a searingly damaging interview in Esquire last year. Although she still supports his political ambitions, she says that he "has no integrity," with examples to back it up.

Newt, James Dobson may have given you "forgiveness" and "redemption." But he only has one vote, Dude. You need a lot more than that.

Ralph

More good news

A new Pew Research Center poll shows, for the first time, a statistical tie between those who approve of same-sex marriage and those who oppose it: 45% for, 46% opposed.

As recently as April 2009, only 35% supported it.

Ralph

Some good news

This doesn't balance all the bad news in the previous post, but this is an impressive bit of trivia about Oscar nominees.

James Franco, nominee for best actor for 127 Hours, and Natalie Portman, winner of best actress for Black Swan, also have a bit of impressive turns in academia to their credit.

James Franco received his MFA in film making at NYU and has been accepted in the PhD program at Yale's English Department.

As a high school student, Natalie Portman was a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search, a highly competitive search based on extensive, original science projects. Previous winners include seven Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry, as well as a long string of MacArthur 'genius grant' winners. Ms. Portman went on to study science at Harvard before turning to a serious career in acting.

Ralph

Discouraging news

Just checked my Huffington Post home page. Under the banner headline about the success of the Libyan rebels routing the Gadhafi forces, was this series of discouraging news headings:

"Ohio Union Bill Aimed at Reducing Bargaining Rights Passes State Senate: Aims to Dramatically Reduce Bargaining Rights of Public Workers"
[Like Wisconsin, it's just the modern version of "union-busting" -- trying to destroy the influence of labor as a political force. Citing the budget crisis is a false issue; the unions have already conceded the pay/benefits reductions the governor asked for.]

"Democratic Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) Won't Seek Re-Election."
[Another vulnerable senate seat -- and the GOP only needs a net gain of 3 to control the senate in 2012]

"South Dakota Passes Anti-Abortion Bill"
[Whittling away at Roe v Wade. This one will require a woman to wait 72 hours after requesting an abortion and to undergo counseling about why she shouldn't go through with it.]

"U.S. Military Files 22 Charges Against Allegded WikiLeaks Source: Bradley Manning Charged, Faces 'Aiding Enemy' Charge"
[Mixed feelings about this one. All for freedom of press, but stealing classified documents is a serious crime. Where is the line between "traitor" and "whistle blower"? Publishing such documents, once they're made available by another party, is a different matter. ]

"Gadhafi Warns U.S. Against Intervention: Threatens to Turn Libya Into Another Viet Nam"
[Yes, but aren't the rebels winning? True, but Kadhafi is certifiably crazy and could do anything.]

I guess that's enough bad news for one page.

Ralph

GOP anti-intellectualism

Paul Braun, as chair of a subcommittee of the Science and Technology Committee, is part of the larger Republican anti-intellectualism and its war on science. I would like to explain it all as simply coming from the influence of the uneducated and willfully ignorant right fringe in its latest version.

But an interesting article by Judith Warner in today's New York Times Magaine puts the origins of such thinking in the liberal academic world of the 1960s and 1970s, when post-modernist thinkers began "questioning accepted fact, revealing the myths and politics behind established certainties."

It's true -- the trend in academia was toward contextualized "truths" (note the plural), relativism, deconstruction, and the idea that multiple points of view can be simultaneously "true," even if seemingly contradictory. Or, rather, that there is no one Truth. This intellectual, philosophical challenge to "received truth" perhaps had some influence on blind acceptance of governmental authority (about Viet Nam, for example). But I think that's really a leap into a different category of discourse.

Warner also makes too great a leap and gives the Paul Brauns and the Glenn Becks too much credit for being thinking human beings. They are not coming from a position of such lofty and abstract relativism -- they're coming straight out of rigid literalism of anti-scientific, religious beliefs, not from advances in free thinking.

Philosophical academics may discuss such relative truths for hours on end, without actually having to grapple with the practical world we live in -- but their lofty abstraction is not a world where science is dismissed, only "problematized," to use one of their favorite words. They don't deny scientific findings; they say it's far more complex than we thought. They don't, for example, deny evolution or global warming.

They accept evidence-based data; they just think that there are always more data and other observation points that give another perspective.

The fringe right, which has a strangle hold on the Republican party right now, is on an anti-science roller coaster down into the valley of ignorance and third-world mentality -- all distracting us from the scariest truth of all: that big money interests (Koch brothers) and rightwing media empires (Rupert Murdoch) are funding and amplifying all these hypocritical, unprincipled purveyors of untruths for their own political advantage.

Getting rid of public sector unions is only part of that far-flung strategy.

This is a dark time, indeed.

Ralph

Why is he surprised? - 2 - Paul Braun (R-GA)

Paul Braun finished medical school and was a practicing physician until elected to Congress in 2007 to fill the the late Charlie Norwood's vacated 10th district seat (the Athens area). He was re-elected in 2010 as a Republican and became a member of the Tea Party Caucus.

Here's some of what he's done and said:

1. His first act when he reached Congress was to introduce HR 4157, "Sanctity of Human Life Act," which defines human life as beginning with fertilization. It had 61 cosponsors and was referred to the Judiciary Committee, where it died. He reintroduced the bill in Jan 2011; and with Republican control of the House now, look for it to make it out of committee.

2. He proposed federal legislation that would have made 2010 "The Year of the Bible." Didn't happen either -- but, again, control of the House has changed since then.

3. In 2009, Braun spoke at the John Birch Society's black-tie gala in Atlanta and clearly spoke their language, referring to the supposed conspiracy of the "New World Order" that would subordinate our nationalism to global interests. He claimed that President George H. W. Bush was involved in this. And he clearly wanted them to think of him as in sync with them:

"The John Birch Society is trying very hard to get the right people elected to Congress. There are very few of us --very few."

4. He distorted a report from the CDC that said Americans aren't eating enough fruits and vegetables, calling it "socialism of the highest order" where the government tells you what to eat.

Well, they didn't teach much about nutrition in my medical school either -- but this isn't just ignorance. This is either pandering or paranoia. After all, the CDC's mission includes "prevention" as well as "control" of disease. Proper dietary advice seems well within that mandate. But to Braun, not only is this socialism, but he then confuses socialism with totalitarianism.

News for Braun: Health advice is not fascism.

5. He seems fixated on that, making news recently when, instead of sitting in the House chamber for Obama's State of the Union address, he sat in his congressional office twittering his running comments -- claiming that Obama "believes in socialism." On another occasion, he called Obama a "Nazi-like Marxist dictator."

Is it too great a leap to think that a Braun fan might ask at a rally, "So who's going to shoot him [get rid of him for us]?" That's the tone of the question and Braun's non-answer. (Yuk, yuk.).

6. But the scariest of all is this -- because he now has some power in this area: In June 2010, to explain his vote against climate change legislation, Braun claimed in debate on the House floor that

"Climate change is nothing but a 'hoax' perpetrated by the scientific community,"

This is scary because Rep. Braun is now Chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Committee on Science and Technology. That gives him the power to hold hearings and call witnesses to discredit climate science -- or any other politically inconvenient truths. And there are plenty of kooks out there who will grab the spotlight he gives them to spin out bogus science and to distort the story of hacked-into emails of British climate scientists, purporting to "prove" that they were "fixing" the data. That story has been investigated and debunked by four different groups, including the British government. But look for it to resurface in his hearings -- and the sound bites and distortions will be amplified by the Beck, Limbaugh, Fox unholy trinity.

Our best hope is that Braun overplays his hand and that the ranking Democratic member of his subcommittee, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) is able to exert some influence, such as demanding her own list of witnesses and using whatever parliamentary and persuasive tactics she can.

From reading her online bio, she seems capable and savvy, an attorney who has worked in both the public and private sector for good causes -- but she's pretty new to Congress. They both are: he came in 2007 and she in 2008. And I'd put my money on her being a lot smarter than he is. But he will have more powerful connections in the current House.

Ralph