Clown Show Climate

While we're unsure of how long this respite will last, it appears that extremist right-wing stupidity on the national level experienced a bit of a lull this past weekend. Of course, there are always the exceptionally stupid and evil, and both Iowa's Rep. Steve King and Texas' Sen. Ted Cruz continued to  fill those roles.

Still, most Congressional Republicans now appear to have finally joined their Democratic colleagues for once, getting serious by turning their attention to the federal budget and immigration bills. On both fronts, developments so far look promising, with some Republicans now finally acknowledging that new tax revenues must be part of any budget deal. Elected Republicans have also begun to admit publicly that immigration reform must happen soon.

This positive turn of events at the national level allowed us to turn our eyes back to our state offices, where the level of political idiocy seems to be on the rise.

Surprisingly, the level of stupid in Florida politics seems to be at the lowest of our three locations right now - even if a bit of ridiculousness did happen surrounding the funeral of U.S. Rep. Bill Young last week. Virginia's level of political stupid has been ramped up recently thanks to the ugly gubernatorial race, where Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe solidly leads current Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Since Cuccinelli also oversees the state's voting laws, this race could get far more nutty before it's all over in a little more than week.

The climate of political stupid in our home state of Nebraska, however, reached new levels recently. That fact became evident to the whole world last week, as the clown show that will certainly be the 2014 elections spilled over into action commissioned this past spring by the Nebraska legislature.

We've published quite a lot about the importance of water to Nebraska over the years, and we wrote about that climate change study earlier this year, in reference to the Keystone pipeline and the effects on water use in Nebraska. We specifically noted Nebraska state Sen. Tom Carlson's surprising but brutally honest quote, that "We will die" if Nebraska's fragile access to an amazing surplus of clean, drinkable, useable water disappears.

The overwhelming majority of the world's climate science studies - 97% of them - concur with Sen. Carlson about water. They all agree that one of the key resources affected by climate change will be safe, clean, potable water. Drought, in fact, was a major cause of the ongoing war in Syria.

Apparently, none of that seems to matter to Nebraska Republican state Sen. Beau McCoy - a GOP candidate for governor in 2014, and a climate change denier. As Nancy Gaarder pointed out in the Omaha World Herald, McCoy slipped a provision into Nebraska's climate study bill making it impossible to do an intellectually honest investigation of the problems of climate change, which would include the role of how humans have affected the climate.

This is exactly why University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists at last week's Climate Assessment and Response Committee meeting immediately refused to do the study. That the Nebraska legislature had also demanded the study be completed next year, and only budgeted $44,000 for the full study, just adds to the clownish nature of dogmatic right-wing extremists like state Sen. McCoy.

For now, it's clear that legitimate scientists aren't going to allow themselves to be seen as political pawns in Nebraska - meaning the climate change study will likely go undone. That also means another tool to properly judge the future water needs of Nebraskans will not exist, even as Keystone's backers attempt another effort to jam the pipeline through.

Without proper data and planning, Nebraskans may not have enough water to drink in about fifty years, let alone grow crops, as Nebraska state Senator Tom Carlson made clear earlier this year.

At least Nebraskans will have another example of clownishly stupid dogmatic politics to study, courtesy of Nebraska state Sen. McCoy.

No Need To Monkey Around

There are few experiences more frustrating than when some idiot purposely monkeys around and tries to sabotage something you care about at the same time you're trying to fix that item. We know that many of the people in both the White House and HHS empathize with that frustrating feeling right now, even as they continue rushing to fix the problems with the federal health insurance enrollment website, Healthcare.gov.

That frustration was also evident at Thursday's mostly pointless hearing in the House - or as Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey called it, a "monkey court." Multiple software contractors for the new federal health insurance system spent hours ducking responsibility, even while some Republican House members seemed to almost revel in the problems of the Obamacare website.

Even as reliable reports of repairs to the healthcare website pop up daily, more people continue to enroll, and the positive opinion of Obamacare continues to grow. That hasn't kept the right-wing media or extremist Republican politicians from acting like a bunch of crazed monkeys about the Obamacare website problems.

Unfortunately, as Ed Kilgore noted in Washington Monthly on Thursday, the insane right-wing reaction to the health insurance rollout has begun to spread like a disease. Now, some of our colleagues in the left-leaning media have even begun to get caught up in the metaphorical poo-throwing - which is actually the most dysfunctional thing anyone on the left could do.

To paraphrase Napoleon, "Never interfere with the opposition when they're in the process of destroying themselves."

That is, in fact, exactly what the GOP has been doing over the last few weeks. Greg Sargent pointed that out brilliantly on Thursday, in a chart based on polling from the Washington Post and ABC News. As Sargent noted, "unfavorable ratings [for Republicans] have jumped 19 points among seniors, to 65 percent; 17 points among independents, to 67 percent; and 10 points among women, to 63 percent. Those are all key constituencies in midterm elections."

You don't just have to take Greg's word for it, though.

Larry Sabato, a well-known political prognosticator changed his take on key races this week in both Virginia and North Carolina to significantly favor the Democratic candidates, based in large part on Republicans not only turning voters off, but actually driving them to the Democratic Party. Sabato's predictions mirror multiple polls in the Virginia governor's race which have Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe up solidly in most cases over his GOP rival, Virginia's current Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.

There are even growing signs that Republicans may lose control of the House in next year's elections, as their hopes to regain the Senate have almost been snuffed out.

Of course, that's the time historically when members of the left-leaning media being throwing crap at each other, while Democratic politicians begin doing really stupid things, as Maryland Democratic Attorney General Douglas Gansler did this week.

We simply don't have either the time or the inclination to slap all of our left-leaning media colleagues and every important Democratic politician we know, while at the same time giving our best impersonation of Cher saying "Snap out of it!" So we'll simply say our piece here, and hope both groups of people are paying attention:

Stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Stop it. Now.

There's no need for Democrats and those of us on the left to monkey around like the idiots in the GOP are doing. Leave that kind of stupid maneuver up to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

Too Far? You're There, Nebraska.

If you're a sports fan of any kind, you've likely seen or heard the State Farm insurance company series of ads over the last couple of years, that capitalize on the "That Moment When" meme. For Nebraskans, we're definitely at one of those moments in history, as journalist Don Walton pointed out earlier this week - though frankly, many Nebraskans are still in denial about it.

What Walton noted in the Lincoln Journal-Star is a sad and disgusting fact if you're a Nebraskan who can think critically and prefers multiple worthwhile choices at the polls. Unfortunately, the question for 2014 isn't whether a Republican will replace current U.S. Senator Mike Johanns. The Nebraska Democratic Party doesn't even have a serious candidate for the 2014 U.S. Senate race. Further, even if such a candidate existed, and swept both Omaha and Lincoln, there are still enough low-information Republicans in the state overall that a Democratic candidate effectively has no chance to win statewide, at this time.

So 'That Moment' in Nebraska? It's happening right now. It's the beginning of the 2014 political circus - and Nebraska Republicans have a decision to make.

Will they choose a sane, old-fashioned, center-right, Republican to win the Senate seat - someone who actually understands the meaning of important words like "governing" and "compromise"?

Or will the second U.S. Senate seat from Nebraska go to some bat-crap crazy, neo- Confederate, Ted Cruz wannabe who's willing to do anything - ANYTHING - to get public attention and the spotlight, but couldn't govern his or her way out of a paper bag?

It may be early, but from the looks of the race so far, it appears Nebraskans seem more than willing to let extremist right-wing out-of-state political interests buy the seat and install their latest puppet, Ben Sasse. Sasse, a relative political neophyte, a Harvard and Yale graduate, and current president of Midland University picked up the endorsement of the tea-party backed Senate Conservatives Fund this week, over former Nebraska state treasurer and Navy hero, Shane Osborne. That doesn't mean Osborne would be a better candidate.

As Dave Weigel noted in Slate yesterday, both Osborne and Sasse already seem to be thinking of themselvess as Ted Cruz-like figures, though the money backers of the extreme right only seem to be treating Sasse like Cruz.

Don't think the 2014 U.S. Senate from Nebraska race will be a runaway for Sasse, though.

Not only will Karl Rove and the business wing of the GOP likely be attacking tea party extremists like Sasse. The 42-year old Fremont teabagger will also have to face three other GOP opponents, plus the newest entrant to the race, rancher Jim Jenkins.

Jenkins, a former Democratic voter in Nebraska who admits he voted for corporate shill Mitt Romney in 2012, is running as a "Non-Party" independent candidate. That just may entice some of those old-fashioned sensible moderate Nebraska Republicans who understand there is no realistic future in governing with the right-wing fanatics.

No matter who Nebraska Republicans choose to fill that seat, as Don Walton pointed out, the race for the next U.S. Senator from Nebraska effectively ends next May. So this is that moment - when most of those current Republican candidates begin acting like clowns, trying to show Nebraskans just how far to the extreme right they're willing to go to get their party's nomination.

How will Nebraskans know when these candidates have gone too far to the extreme right for common sense and good governing?

If you have to ask, you're already there.