No Al Qaeda link in Benghazi

After months of investigation by New York Times journalists, including "extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack" on the U. S. facility, they found "no evidence that Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups had any role in the assault."

Instead, it seems after all that it was carried out by local fighters and "fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam."

This goes a long way to vindicate the Obama administration and, in particular, the initial statement made by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

One more shibboleth that Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) has been using to clobber President Obama bites the dust.

Will he apologize?    Not likely.

Ralph

He never even thought about it

Rep. Jim Buchy (R-OH) who is pushing a bill to ban all abortions, with the only exception being to save the life of the mother, was asked a question by a woman reporter from Al Jazeera:

Al Jazeera:   "Why do you think a woman would want to have an abortion?"

Rep. Buchy:   (onviously taken aback):  "Well, er, there are probably a lot of reasons.   I'm not a woman. . . .  some of them probably have to do with economics.  . . .  It's a question I never even thought about."

Isn't that amazing.  By passing restrictive laws, this man has power over people's lives;  but he never even thought about the needs or the consequences of those whose lives are affected.

Ralph

Christmas Day

On this day when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus who became their Christ -- and when the spirit of giving is masked by the greed and commercialism that the day has come to represent -- let us remember what is common and good in all religions.

Most religions have some version of The Golden Rule, which asks that we treat others as we would like to be treated.

Pope Francis has captured the world's attention and was named Person of the Year by Time magazine for his message of humility and caring for the poor and the outcasts of society.

Another version from the Dalai Lama emphasizes secular ethics, which he bases on the simple principle of kindness to others, along with working to bring about peace among all people.

Let's do it.

Ralph

Losing trust in scientific reporting

From Huffington Post:

"How much faith do Americans have in scientists and science journalists? Not a whole lot, a new survey finds.

"In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, only 36 percent of Americans reported having "a lot" of trust that information they get from scientists is accurate and reliable. Fifty-one percent said they trust that information only a little, and another 6 percent said they don't trust it at all.

"Science journalists fared even worse in the poll. Only 12 percent of respondents said they had a lot of trust in journalists to get the facts right in their stories about scientific studies. Fifty-seven percent said they have a little bit of trust

. . . . "What’s more, many Americans worry that the results of scientific studies are sometimes tainted by political ideology -- or by pressure from the studies’ corporate sponsors.

"A whopping 78 percent of Americans think that information reported in scientific studies is often (34 percent) or sometimes (44 percent) influenced by political ideology, compared to only 18 percent who said that happens rarely (15 percent) or never (3 percent).

"Similarly, 82 percent said that they think that scientific findings are often (43 percent) or sometimes (39 percent) influenced by the companies or organizations sponsoring them."

The survey was done with a group of 1,000 U. S. adults that matched the demographics of the U. S. population in each of 13 categories, so it should be reliable.   The results should not be surprising;  it is to the credit of the American people that they are suspicious.  

It is not surprising because of the alarming number of academic scientists -- whom we have historically accepted as the least biased -- who have been caught either falsifying their data or playing the statistics game to distort the true meaning of the data.

Behind much of this is the corrupting influence of corporate financing of academic research these days.    Often the corporate sponsor controls what can be published.  So, even honest scientists have to hand over their data to the corporation, which will refuse to publish results that are not favorable to their product.   One of the hall marks of science is that negative results are just as important as positive results.

The problem about political ideology is less with the scientists themselves than it is that political operatives have become very sophisticated in ferreting out "junk science" studies with little validity -- and trumpeting them loudly as "scientific studies," so that people lump such shoddy work with real science and then distrust both.

Now money and power are corrupting an institution -- scientific research -- that is vital to all kinds of progress in our society.  We cannot let this happen.

Ralph

"The Next State to Turn Blue?"

An article in Sunday's Wall Street Journal was discussed on the Huffington Post under the title, "The Next State to Turn Blue?"    And it was about Georgia.   How about that?

Citing Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter, respectively the daughter of former U. S. Senator Sam Nunn and the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, it called them "bright fresh faces" with familiar names.   Nunn is running for the U. S. Senate;  Carter for Governor of Georgia.

It's not just the fresh faces -- and the highly regarded qualifications of both -- that is cause for optimism.  In fact, despite every current state-wide office holder being Republican, there has been a progressive shift leftward in the state in recent years.   A big factor is demographic changes due to growing Hispanic and African-American populations.   The percentage of voters who were white dropped from 71% in 2004 to 61% in 2012.  

Even though the Obama campaign largely ignored Georgia in 2012, of the states Obama lost to Romney, only North Carolina had a narrower margin of victory for Romney. 

And then there are the candidates.   Chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party DuBose Porter said:  “Everybody said it could happen by 2018, but because of these two candidates and the excitement they bring, we’re going to do it in 2014.”

Michelle Nunn is the founder and head of the nation's largest organization devoted to volunteer service.  She emphasizes her executive experience as a consensus-builder, and she positions herself as a centrist.   In many ways she seems cut from similar cloth as Kentucky's Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is a formidable threat to Mitch McConnell's re-election.

Jason Carter is a summa cum laude law school graduate and a three term state senator.  A former Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa, Carter wrote a book about his experience, Power Lines.   He positions himself somewhat to the right of his grandfather, differing on the death penalty and the NRA.

So both Nunn and Carter are bright, attractive young people who would be good solid Democrats in Washington;  but they are taking a slightly more centrist stance which is probably necessary to get elected.    Nunn will be helped by the muddle of multiple candidates for the Republican nomination, hopefully dividing the sane vote and delivering her the most far-right opponent and therefore the most easily defeated.

Carter has a harder road, running against an incumbent.  But Gov. Deal has an ethics cloud hanging over him with an ongoing FBI investigation.   He's also vulnerable for refusing to expand Medicaid and to set up a state health insurance exchange.    That might become a political liability by mid-2014 when good news is coming from the millions of enrollees in Obamacare and from the states that did expand Medicaid.

Consider this talking point for Nunn and Carter:   Georgians, through their IRS income taxes, are helping to pay for those Medicaid services in other states that opted in -- and Georgia is not getting any of it in return.   What about that, Gov. Deal?

Ralph

Minimum wage increase -- not a job-killer, as Republicans claim

As reported by the Huffington Post a few days ago: 

Raising the minimum wage would help the working poor and give the entire economy a boost, a new analysis finds.

If the minimum wage rose to $10.10 per hour, as Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama propose, 27.8 million workers would see their wages go up as a direct or indirect result of the boost, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

These workers would take home about $35 billion in additional wages and they would probably spend it, as low-income people living with little financial cushion cushion tend to do. 

The result: During the initial phase-in period, the U.S. economy would grow by about $22 billion, EPI found. The growth in the U.S. economy would result in about 85,000 new jobs, according to EPI.

That counters arguments from conservative economists that raising the minimum wage could actually hurt the working poor by making employers hesitant to hire more workers. . . .

I read an article recently that offered scientific evidence that political ideology is partly influenced by genes.    I find that easy to believe, since otherwise intelligent people seem utterly immune cognitively to arguments that seem so logical and simple to me.    This is one of those.

Ralph