Friday links! Dream of history edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment
Ronald Reagan gets the last word at the brokered GOP convention of 1976.

Ronald Reagan gets the last word at the brokered GOP convention of 1976.

Remember adolescence, when you read 1984, studied the Great Depression and rise of Hitler, and lamented, in your childish way, that history basically stopped after your parents were adolescents? Remember wishing history would happen right now? Here you go, asshole. The middle class is evacuating, an ineffective political class serves the rich at the expense of its own popularity, and a charismatic maniac is rising to power on a platform of militant ethnic nationalism. Today is Friday, and events are starting to eerily resemble those dark days before the Republican National Convention of 1976. Won’t you thank goodness there’s no other parallel with me?

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House Benghazi panel finds no wrongdoing, enraging Republicans

By Dan Brooks in Go berserk? 1 Comment
Disappointed that an investigation of its books found no wrongdoing, congressional Republicans set fire to a Shakey's.

Dejected congressional Republicans set fire to a DC-area Shakey’s.

The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee has concluded its investigation of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi and found no evidence of wrongdoing. There was no “intelligence failure” before the attacks, and although the effort to assemble talking points for the president in the immediate aftermath were “flawed,” conspiracy theories like the stand-down order or denial of air support were found to be groundless. You can read the whole report here, if you have Asperger’s Syndrome. Or you can take the Washington Post’s word for it and consider the case closed. Or—and I’m just spitballing, here—you can call the report “garbage” and “full of crap,” as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–SC) did yesterday. But that is an advanced move.

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GOP routs Dems in history’s most expensive midterm election

By Dan Brooks in Campaign Advertisements 1 Comment
Republicans wrest control of the Senate from Democrats, horses

Republicans wrest control of the Senate from Democrats.

The results are in, sort of, and yesterday’s elections were a resounding victory for the Republican Party. You might replace “resounding” with “pyrrhic” and also get a true sentence. Candidates and unaffiliated groups spent $4 billion this cycle, making the 2014 midterms the most expensive in US history. The financial services industry won the dubious honor of spending the most, donating $171 million to candidate and the groups that support them. And what hath all that money wrought? The GOP picked up at least seven seats in the Senate, giving them control of the other house of a Congress that happens to be the least productive in history. We’re just busting records left and right.

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National GOP group buys ad time in nonpartisan MT race

By Dan Brooks in Montana Politics 0 Comment
You are way too close to Lawrence VanDyke.

You are way too close to Lawrence VanDyke.

Kudos to The Missoulian for the stubbornly bland headline Independent Groups Raise Profile of Montana Supreme Court Race. That’s one way to describe what The Republican State Leadership Committee Judicial Fairness Montana PAC—catchy name, guys—did when it made this ad and bought $100k worth of airtime to support Supreme Court candidate Lawrence VanDyke in an ostensibly nonpartisan race. VanDyke’s campaign slogan is “following the law, not the politics.” It’s good he doesn’t follow politics, or else he might realize he was the object of partisan mendacity and get sad.

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Climate change survey suggests axis of denial between GOP, old people

By Dan Brooks in Baby Boomers 3 Comments
Mitch McConnell (R–KY) briefly considers his role in climate change, reassuring himself that he will die soon.

Mitch McConnell (R–KY) reassures himself that nothing matters and he will die soon.

The good news is that 54% of Americans now believe global warming is caused by human behavior, the highest percentage yet reported in a New York Times/CBS News poll. Among survey respondents who identified as Republican, however, 18% said global warming didn’t exist, and another 42% insisted it was caused by “natural patterns in the Earth’s environment”—an impressive 60% who believe there’s nothing we can do. But maybe the most exciting statistic has to do with age:

More than seven in 10 of those 65 and older expected to see no impact from global warming in their lifetimes, but many younger people did, including 50 percent of those under 30.

That’s the beauty of believing that scientists are lying and we don’t have to do anything about the most serious environmental problem in human history: if you’re wrong but also old, you’ll never have to pay for it.

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