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a bunch of grandstanding idiots from which to choose the leader of the free world...

(R)

Four days ago, world leaders finalized one of the most significant international agreements in history. The Paris Agreement, intended to combat climate change, included nearly 200 countries and was spearheaded by the United States and some of its most important allies. Republicans bitterly oppose President Barack Obama's efforts to fight climate change, and most of the party's presidential candidates have committed themselves to policies that would undermine the historic accord.

But somehow, over the course of four hours of Republican debates on Tuesday night, CNN never asked the candidates about the climate deal. The moderators never even bothered to ask about climate change at all. As Rebecca Leber at the New Republic (one of our Climate Desk partners) notes, the only mentions of the issue were short, garbled asides from a few of the candidates about why climate change is a distraction. "The biggest problem this world has today is not President Obama with global warming, which is inconceivable," sputtered Donald Trump.

The CNN debates focused on security and foreign policy. You don't have to be Bernie Sanders—who maintains that global warming is the greatest threat to US national security—to understand why CNN should have asked about the climate. Both Marco Rubio and Chris Christie complained that America's ability to fight ISIS has been degraded because our allies no longer "trust" us. It's hard to imagine that breaking the promises we just made in Paris would do anything to improve that trust. "Every one of America's allies has worked hard to see this deal come to fruition," writes Leber. "How does a Republican president plan on leading the world if he insists we should be the only nation to stand on the sidelines?"

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/cnn-didnt-ask-single-debate-question-about-climate-change-thats-appalling


 

 

Senator Ted Cruz struck arguably the most overtly belligerent tone of all the candidates, backtracking only slightly from his promise to “carpet bomb” Islamic State militants wherever they are. On Tuesday, he said he would “carpet bomb where Isis is, not a city, but the location of troops” with “directed” air power.

 

 

 

 

“The object isn’t to level a city. The object is to kill the Isis terrorists,” he said, only a slight departure from his campaign promise to bomb them “into oblivion”.

“I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark,” he told a rally in early December, “but we’re going to find out!”

Because Isis largely embeds in cities with the civilian population that it claims to rule, Cruz’s plan would by definition entail wholesale bombing of places where hundreds of thousands of people – many the victims of Isis crimes themselves – live.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/16/republican-debate-isis-war-crimes


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

let us pray...

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and dozens of other prominent conservatives are expected to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for president, a move that aims to coalesce conservative support around one candidate, a National Review article claimed Tuesday.

The article states that a coalition of as many as 50 influential conservative activists gathered on Dec. 7 at the Sheraton Hotel in Tysons Corner, Virginia for a meeting that was spearheaded by Perkins for the purpose of hashing out which candidate the conservative activists will unite their support behind.


Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/frc-tony-perkins-50-conservative-activ...

carpet bombing...

 


The Cult of Air Power Won’t Destroy ISIS

 

Bluster about carpet bombing cities sidesteps important questions about rules of engagement and the Geneva Conventions.

 

By KELLEY VLAHOS • December 17, 2015

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/isis-vs-the-cult-of-air-power/

 

bomb whatever ends with ad, an, ah and aq...

 

According to Public Policy Polling, a recent poll of 532 Republican primary voters found that 30 percent supported bombing Agrabah. The only problem is that Agrabah is the fictional country from the Disney movie Aladdin.

 

30% of Republican primary voters nationally say they support bombing Agrabah. Agrabah is the country from Aladdin. #NotTheOnion

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 18, 2015

Public Policy Polling was founded in 2001 and, according to its website, aims to "address inefficiencies in public policy surveys" by using efficient, mathematical polling strategies. Not everyone is pleased with this news, and some have cried foul on Twitter. 

 

And Democrat primary voters? What do they say? No, it’s just hilarious when you trick REPUBLICANS. https://t.co/cug3qyHyQi

— Ellen L. Carmichael (@ellencarmichael) December 18, 2015

@ppppolls Try asking Dems the same question. This is why media is no longer credible.

— Carolyn Parker (@Skonialo) December 18, 2015

 

Actually, they did. Of the Democratic primary voters who were asked the same question, 36 percent opposed bombing Agrabah, compared with 19 percent who supported the action.

We asked the Agrabah question to Dem primary voters too. They oppose bombing 'it' 36/19, while GOP supports bombing 'it' 30/13

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) December 18, 2015

In this same poll, 26 percent of Republican voters thought that Islam should be illegal in the United States, and 46 percent supported a Muslim national database, an idea proposed by Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/12/poll-30-republicans-want-bomb-fictional-disney-country

 

 

Democracy is in good hands.. Now this smells of a fake survey like that conducted by The Betoota Advocate on Adelaide.

 

the next idiot in charge of the planet...

This story originally appeared on Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Republicans didn't even wait for a global climate change deal to be struck in Paris to start undermining it.

Last month, congressional Republicans were loudly discouraging other nations from signing onto any agreement, arguing that the US won't keep up its end of the bargain if a Republican wins the 2016 presidential election. And they passed bills that would repeal the Clean Power Plan, the new set of EPA restrictions on carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, which is the centerpiece of the Obama administration's strategy for meeting its emissions targets under the Paris Agreement.


While US negotiators were hard at work in Paris trying to secure a deal, congressional Republicans kept working hard to make the US look insincere. The House passed an energy bill that would expedite permitting for oil and gas projects such as pipelines and expand liquefied natural gas exports. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is running for president, held a hearing stuffed with climate science deniers, including one who Greenpeace revealed is on the fossil fuel industry's payroll. Republicans in Congress have also voted to end the crude oil export ban as part of the budget deal. That policy change would be a giveaway to the oil industry that would increase domestic oil production at the expense of the environment.

Once a deal came out of Paris, naturally Republicans started criticizing it. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, complained—nonsensically, since he doesn't even accept climate science in the first place—that the agreement does not hold countries such as China and India to strong enough standards. Anyway, he promises to interfere with any effort to meet our emissions targets or climate finance commitments.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said President Obama "is 'making promises he can't keep' and should remember that the agreement 'is subject to being shredded in 13 months,'" according to the Associated Press. As AP explains, "McConnell noted that the presidential election is next year and the agreement could be reversed if the GOP wins the White House."

The US—as the world's largest economy, largest historic polluter, and second-largest present-day carbon polluter—is an essential player in any functioning global climate agreement. Well aware of this, President Obama made a huge and largely successful effort on climate diplomacy over the last year, crafting bilateral agreements with key nations such as China, India, and Brazil in order to lay the groundwork for an international deal.

read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/republicans-paris-climate-change-deal-cop21

rock versus jerk...

Bush, speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, railed against Trump’s habit of offending demographic groups ranging from Muslims to women. Then he said: “Just one other thing – I gotta get this off my chest – Donald Trump is a jerk.”

The crowd in Contoocook broke into laughter and applause.

On Friday, on Twitter, Trump called Bush “dumb as a rock”.

After months of mockery from the real-estate billionaire, who has repeatedly condemned him as a “low energy” candidate, the former Florida governor chose the Republican debate on Tuesday to begin a week of fighting back.

In Las Vegas, he told Trump: “You’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency.” He has since repeated the line and he said it again in New Hampshire.

On Saturday a voter asked Bush about his record on supporting people with disabilities. Trump recently created a furor when he appeared to mock a New York Times reporter who has a disability, and then denied doing so.

Bush responded to the question solemnly, then paused before spitting out with clear exasperation that he thinks Trump is a jerk. He continued: “You can’t disparage women, Hispanics, disabled people. Who is he kidding?”

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/19/jeb-bush-donald-trump-jerk-new-hampshire