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President Dumb's “War on Truth”…

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: August 21, 2018, 03:43:12 pm »


from The New York Times…

The G.O.P.'s Climate of Paranoia

The war on climate science was a rehearsal for Trump's war on truth.

By PAUL KRUGMAN | Monday, August 20, 2018

Until its recent retirement, the J.M. Stuart Station provided electricity largely by burning coal from the banks of the Ohio River in Aberdeen, Ohio. — Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters.
Until its recent retirement, the J.M. Stuart Station provided electricity largely by burning coal from the banks of the Ohio River in Aberdeen, Ohio.
 — Photograph: Brian Snyder/Reuters.


WAR IS PEACE. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Truth isn't truth.

Rudy Giuliani's latest bon mot is a reminder, if anyone needed it, that calling the Trump administration Orwellian isn't hyperbole, it's just a statement of fact. Like the ruling party in 1984, Donald Trump operates on the principle that truth — whether it involves inauguration crowd sizes, immigrant crime or economic performance — is what he says it is. And that truth can change at a moment's notice.

For example, not long ago, Republicans insisted that Russia was our greatest threat, and that Barack Obama was betraying America by not confronting Vladimir Putin more forcefully; now Putin is one of the good guys, and the base has gone along with the change. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

And if you thought you heard something different from the Trumpian version of reality, blame evil conspirators and saboteurs, whom you get to denounce in the Two Minutes Hate, chanting “lock her up”.

But how did this happen to the whole Republican Party? And it is effectively the whole party: There is no serious G.O.P. opposition to Trump or his vision. Why did the party's belief in objective reality collapse so suddenly and completely?

I don't claim to understand the whole story. But one thing is clear: The Orwellification of the G.O.P. didn't start with Trump. On the contrary, the party has been moving in that direction for years; the mind-set Trump is exploiting was already well in place before he burst on the scene.

Consider the claims of Trump and his allies that evidence of his collusion with Russia — not “alleged” collusion, because there is no longer any real doubt — is a hoax perpetrated by the “deep state”. Where have we seen something like that before? In Republican attacks on the evidence for climate change.

Fifteen years have passed since Senator James Inhofe suggested that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”. This was and is an even crazier claim than the assertion of Trump and company that all of the tweeter in chief's woes are the product of a vast deep-state conspiracy; it's not far short of Pizzagate or QAnon territory. To take it seriously you have to believe in a vast international conspiracy involving thousands of scientists, not one of whom dares speak out.

Yet this paranoid fantasy has in effect become the official position of the G.O.P. Climate change deniers have pretty much given up on arguing about the evidence, although the old line “it's a cold day, so global warming is a myth” still pops up now and then. Instead, it's all about the supposed conspiracy.

What's the evidence for this conspiracy? A lot of the argument rests on things like out-of-context quotes from stolen emails (sound familiar?), such as those sent among researchers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit. Like the texts between two F.B.I. officials that supposedly prove the existence of a plot against Trump, “Climategate” actually showed nothing more than that the people involved were human. But to a determined conspiracy theorist, everything is evidence of nefarious activity.

And there's more. Some people seem startled at how quickly Trump has moved to use the power of office to punish and intimidate anyone who doesn't go along with Dear Leader. But Republicans have long been doing that on climate.

Most famously, Ken Cuccinelli, the former attorney general of Virginia, spent several years trying to prove fraud on the part of Michael Mann, one of our leading climate researchers. Cuccinelli's witch hunt (yes, this was the real thing) was thinly disguised as involving concern over misuse of state funds, but it was obviously an attempt to use political power to censor and suppress inconvenient science.

And where were the Republicans standing up against conspiracy theories and for scientific integrity? Inaudible and invisible.

In short, if you followed the evolution of the G.O.P.'s position on climate change (not that Republicans believe in evolution, either), you shouldn't be surprised at the party's intellectual and moral collapse under Trump. For Republicans, ignorance has been strength for a long time.

There's also, I believe, an additional relevant lesson from the climate story: the special rage of those who knowingly act in bad faith.

Climate denial is a deeply cynical enterprise; the people misrepresenting evidence and sifting through emails for “gotcha” quotes have to know that they're not being honest. Yet their rage against “elitists” who continue to point out inconvenient truths is very real — because it's a fact of life that many people feel special hatred for those they've mistreated.

The same goes for Trump and company. Trump knows perfectly well that he's guilty of collusion. That doesn't mean he's faking his volcanic rage at those documenting his guilt: He hates his pursuers all the more because he knows they're on the right track.

And as he lashes out, with no regard for law or the Constitution, will other Republicans try to hold him back? All the evidence suggests that they won't.


__________________________________________________________________________

Paul Krugman joined The New York Times in 1999 as an Op-Ed columnist. He is distinguished professor in the Graduate Center Economics Ph.D. program and distinguished scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the City University of New York. In addition, he is professor emeritus of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School. In 2008, Mr. Krugman was the sole recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade theory. Mr. Krugman received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974 and his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1977. He has taught at Yale, M.I.T. and Stanford. At M.I.T. he became the Ford International Professor of Economics. Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of 27 books and more than 200 papers in professional journals and edited volumes. His professional reputation rests largely on work in international trade and finance; he is one of the founders of the “new trade theory,” a major rethinking of the theory of international trade. In recognition of that work, in 1991 the American Economic Association awarded him its John Bates Clark medal. Mr. Krugman's current academic research is focused on economic and currency crises. At the same time, Mr. Krugman has written extensively for a broader public audience. Some of his articles on economic issues, originally published in Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American and other journals, are reprinted in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist. His column appears every Tuesday and Friday. Read his blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, and follow him on Twitter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/opinion/trump-republican-truth-climate-change.html
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Im2Sexy4MyPants
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« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2018, 07:15:06 pm »

Holy Smoke Batman

More Commie Zombie Paranoia Fake Science sensationalism
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP
Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2018, 08:40:47 pm »


You've got to be intelligent to comprehend an intelligent article such as that.

You obviously fail the test, so remain ignorant.

Probably explains why you support the moron Trump.
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Im2Sexy4MyPants
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« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2018, 06:05:34 am »


You've got to be intelligent to comprehend an intelligent article such as that.


You pretend to be smarter than a box of rocks

meanwhile your a copy and paste brainwashed communist useful idiot
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP

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