Via Brian Beutler at TPM, we learn of the latest GOP profile in courage. Once upon a time, all the way back in 2009, then-Congressman Mark Kirk (R-Gutless) voted in favor of broad climate-change legislation. Not no more, no way, no how, never.
Why?
Let now-Senator Kirk explain:
“The consensus behind the climate change bill collapsed and then further deteriorated with the personal and political collapse of Vice President [Al] Gore,” Kirk told Greenwire.
Uh, what? Gore is accused, but not charged in a sexual assault case. He gets a divorce. (Unlike any Republican, ever…right Mr. Gingrich.*) And so action on what is almost certainly the single most serious long-term threat to American and global health, wealth, and stability must cease?
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I understand that being a Republican elected official now means squirreling away both your fortitude and your frontal cortex in a lockbox for which there are no keys (but Alan Keyes). But this isn’t even trying. Al Gore may or may not have played the naughty and you abandon a position on which you took a stand that required actual deliberation and courage?
The GOP is not a governing party. It’s a badly run kindergarten, populated and led by people who have lost the capacity to own their own actions.
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Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est.
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*Let me make one bold prediction: No candidate whose name sounds like gum disease is going to be elected president. Just not gonna happen.
Image: George Iakovidis, The Naughty Grandson, 1884
Spaghetti Lee
Huh. Apparently in his world “Oil company payola” is pronounced “Al Gore.”
Spaghetti Lee
No candidate whose name sounds like gum disease is going to be elected president. Just not gonna happen.
Or like a fictional, green, Christmas-stealing monster, for that matter.
Roger Moore
Shorter Mark Kirk:
They’re threatening my campaign funds unless I change my mind.
Egypt Steve
Off topic, but via Mediaite:
She’s smarter than I thought.
cleek
luckily for our current pres, having a last same that’s similar to OBL’s first name didn’t seem to matter.
Svensker
But scientific theories are proved/disproved by whether its lay supporters are cool kids or not! One dumb person “believes in” global warming and the whole theory is struck down dead. My wingnut brother tells me so.
Zifnab
And he was all for Bob Dole’s health care bill in ’94, until he realized that a mandate would be unconstitutional in ’08. And financial reforms seemed great right up until Barack Obama failed to produce his birth certificate.
Remember when being “for it before [he] was against it” was a political liability?
scav
Clearly he’s a devoted reader of the sub-zero-IQ comment section of the ChiTrib immediately after a big snow looking to capture the wandering and vapid attention of the masses.
bemused
I never underestimate the ability of republicans use of non sequiturs to climb to ever increasing levels of ludicrousness.
Violet
Today Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that because at some point in the past climate change scientists said that snow would become so rare that children wouldn’t recognize it, and that today some U.S. cities are experiencing record snowfall, that climate change doesn’t exist.
Boots Day
So if Paul Ryan gets a divorce, the GOP will no longer be in favor of reducing the deficit.
jayjaybear
The right-wing is all about personality cults. Thus they project that on the left. If Darwin was wrong about something, then evolution must be false. If Al Gore has feet of clay, then global warming must be false.
Note that this doesn’t count if it’s one of THEIR cultic personalities. Rush Limbaugh and drugs, W and being completely wrong about Iraq, Glenn Beck being a faking cryer. Noooo…something was misread, or misunderstood, or deliberately spun by communists, so that all of their heroes wear perfect halos, regardless of what they’ve done.
David Brooks (not that one)
Bob Dole got a divorce, so we actually lost the Second World War.
jeffreyw
…and you KNOW why Algore is fat, don’t ya!
WereBear
It’s all excuses.
ALL. excuses. ALL. the time.
That’s ALL it is.
And I’m so sick of it. But I believe I am more sick of the putrid, squealing, “ignorant and proud of it” troglodytes who fall for crap like this and keep electing assholes like that.
Cripes!
athena
Kirk promoted himself to Illinois voters as “Mr. Independent,” which title he claimed, in part, because he once voted positively on some aspect of Cap and Trade (hey, didn’t that used to be a Republican position?)
What a joke and a sham he is. When Mitch McConnell says “jump”, he asks “how high?”
Suffern ACE
Longer Mark Kirk:
I was once alone with a woman who wasn’t my wife, too, and the oil companies know who she is and will bring her forward so that the police can harass me. That chilled me to the idea of discussing this issue.
The Moar You Know
Willful ignorance – and the emphasis here is on the “willful” part – is going to be the end of our nation as we know it.
To be dumb is one thing. To be proud of it is something else entirely. And right now, no one is more proud to be stupid than the citizenry of the United States of America.
S. cerevisiae
But having two continent-sized cyclonic storms in opposite hemispheres at the same time is perfectly normal.
Death Panel Truck
@cleek:
Not to mention that middle initial. The one that stands for Saddam’s last name.
freelancer
@WereBear:
Sigh, yup.
Also, Conor wants to know why so many houses are empty…
Take it from a non-expert, this isn’t a hard question to answer.
batgirl
@Suffern ACE:
Fixed that for you.
agrippa
The GOP is not a governing party. Those people have intention of even attempting to govern.
What does the ‘collapse’ of Al Gore have to do with global warming?
BGinCHI
Actually, if Gore had nailed the masseuse and there were pics of her and she was hot and then he had dumped Tipper the GOPs would have flocked to him.
That’s why Clinton should have just shrugged and said, “Yeah, I’m human.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Mark Kirk? Crazy or stupid? It’s an open question, but for whatever reason, his elevator doesn’t go to the top.
Keith G
1. Free market forces deregulate much of electricity provision in Texas
2. Climate change fractors may be helping a lot of unusually cold air get deep into Texas.
3. The electricity grid here can not keep up with supply = statewide rolling blackouts
4. Many, many wingnuts are very unhappy.
5. Delicious irony over ice.
mellowjohn
@Suffern ACE: my new senator mark kirk was once “alone with a woman?”
yeah, right.
evinfuilt
@jeffreyw:
I’d totally get fat for those, I WANT NOW!
Ruckus
I once posted that I thought that this country needs to grow the fuck up. Right now I’d be happy if we’d just hit puberty.
Judas Escargot
It’s a badly run kindergarten, populated and led by people who have lost the capacity to own their own actions.
This pretty much describes the whole damned culture (well, most of it).
What if GOP rule is just another sign that our government is working exactly as designed?
Montysano
My reasoned response to my conservative friends goes something like this: if I’m wrong about climate change, then we will have unnecessarily spent some money and restrained the economy. If you’re wrong, your grandchildren will be living on the coast of Tennessee and talking about what an asshole you were to use up every last bit of fossil fuel as quickly and as wastefully as you could.
And yes, I realize that punching myself in the face would accomplish exactly the same thing…
evinfuilt
@Keith G:
But what they’ll do next is make it ten times worse.
Tonal Crow
@S. cerevisiae:
Now many wingnuts are saying that it’s a “sign of the end times” as “predicted by the Bible”, rather than admitting that it’s probably related to anthropogenic climate change.
They’ll say anything — anything at all — to prop up their empire of crazy.
Davis X. Machina
@Keith G: Ah, but did they de-regulate enough?
Conservative economic remedies are like humoral-theory medicine. If the patient dies of exsanguination, the difficulty is they didn’t have enough blood to begin with, the bleeding itself remains the correct treatment.
Paul in KY
I wish my life had collapsed like VP Gore’s ‘personal & professional life’!
Dickheads.
Tonal Crow
@BGinCHI:
Clinton should have said, “Hell yes I had sex with Monica, and it was *hawt*! Now, let’s talk about how Republicans are interfering with my plans to protect us from terrorists.”
gnomedad
There are no such things as facts, just personalities and ideology, so Kirk’s logic makes perfect sense.
Calouste
@The Moar You Know:
That’s not particularly new. Churchill didn’t pull his “Americans always try to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” out of thin air.
BGinCHI
@Tonal Crow: Cover-up worse than the crime, and enabled the self-righteous Repubs to roll out their hurdy-gurdy.
Advice to Dems: if you’re gonna be an asshole or do asshole things (to your family, for example), at least govern well and do the most good you can.
You’ll still come out miles ahead of the other party.
Paul in KY
@Tonal Crow: He should have said something to that effect. I think he thought Hillary would geld him if he said that.
A different take was he hated the deposers so much he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction right there of a ‘gotcha’, so he shucked & weaseled.
Aidan
You know who else got a divorce? Mark Kirk
toujoursdan
@Montysano:
Mine is (and I have said this to my conservative father and stopped him in his tracks more than once): if I’m wrong about climate change, then we will have taken steps to get us off of oil, which is a finite resource whose price spikes have triggered deep recessions and job losses, and which has also caused us to spend trillions of YOUR tax dollars on imperialist ventures in the Middle East. If you’re wrong, your grandchildren will be living on the coast of Tennessee and talking about what an asshole you were to use up every last bit of fossil fuel as quickly and as wastefully as you could.
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
@Ruckus: Puberty hell – I’m not sure 5th grade is a realistic expectation, given how badly behaved the GOP kindergarteners are.
trollhattan
@Montysano:
But, but, but…gummint control! Power-grab! Scientists under Soros’ cruel, clawy control!
Also, too, this in from the Bastardi. You can bet the rent he’s 180 degrees wrong (as a semi-famous denialista) but there’s nothing quite like predicting the continuation of annual winters, in the middle of winter.
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/45220/bastardi-three-of-next-five-wi.asp
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
@Paul in KY: I suspect Hillary would have gelded him had he said something like that, so his fear was not unreasonable. Though I agree that it is exactly what he should have said.
Paul in KY
@Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q): He knew his Hillary!
Woodrowfan
@toujoursdan:
good answer. If we act like it’s real and it’s not, what’s the worst that can happen? We develop all sorts of neat new technologies that make us rich and we can tell the Saudi’s to go jump in a dune.
chopper
jesus, what isn’t al gore’s fault with these chumps? christ, the GOP is a political party in the same way the kids in lord of the flies were a political party.
Suffern ACE
@BGinCHI: LOL. You need to be cleaner than Clorox in your personal life to become a powerful liberal. Seriously. Because of course, he knew that those independent counsels were playing so fair. Also, probably best not to write an academic article of any sort. Or have once had an opinion that turned out to be wrong. He could have come clean instantly and still been impeached. The job of those counsels was to find a way to impeach him, not to investigate anything. The public’s opinion really didn’t matter.
Did we ever find out who was on that Christmas Card list?
freelancer
@toujoursdan:
Just think of the looks on future generations faces when they see footage of motorsports like NASCAR.
Our civilization will not be judged kindly.
Chris
Again, we need to start saying “global storming”. :-)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
All the things I need to know, I learned in a badly run kindergarten:
Don’t drink the milk or eat the cookies, you don’t know what might be in them.
Count the children before they lay down for a nap, just in case later on we come up a few short.
And definitely don’t under any circumstances whatsoever go and open the door to the basement. You don’t need that mop as badly as you think you do. Anyway, the Free Market Fairy will come and clean up the acid while nobody is looking.
BGinCHI
@Suffern ACE: I have no memory of any Christmas cards.
rickstersherpa
The weather only disproves global warming when it snows. When we have heat waves and droughts in the summer (and we are having more such events and more severe such events every summer as the climate change models predict), well that is just weather and proves nothing.
The stupid, it burns, it burns.
Lurking Canadian
Global warming is a unique issue and the wingnuts haven’t figured that out yet. On everything else, it is essentially possible to throw up enough chaff, discredit the speaker, teach the controversy or whatever that they really can create their own reality. If, for example, their party line is “Businesses are not creating jobs because of economic uncertainty”, and they repeat it over and over again, and enough CEOs are Republicans, it can become true that businesses are not creating jobs because of economic uncertainty. See also: accusing enemies of being Commies and/or Islamofascists; inciting racism to crush social policy; claiming victory in Vietnam or Iraq, and so on.
But they just haven’t figured out that the laws of physics don’t give a shit how many White Papers the Cato Institute publishes alleging to show how damaging cap-and-trade will be, or what the latest Rasmussen poll shows, or whatever. In this case, they CAN’T create their own reality, but they’ve been doing it so long that they’ve forgotten how to live the old way.
Allan
I’m glad to hear this, and I completely concur with Mark Kirk. Allegations of sexual impropriety completely invalidate the political positions and prescriptions of a politician.
That’s why I’m counting on Mark Kirk to walk away from the Pledge to America, which has been permanently rendered a proven fraud by allegations that John has been slipping the little Boehner to a
whoreDC lobbyist not his spouse.evinfuilt
@trollhattan:
Amazing to see how much he can get right, and then totally miss it.
I do assume, this same “gentleman” has also noticed how severe the summers have gotten (or are right now down under.) He probably is right, and the next 2 winters will be worse. Yet, I’d also put money on the next 2 summers being some of the deadliest in the northeast.
asiangrrlMN
@WereBear: What you said. The willful stupidity, ignorance, and craven cowardly behavior pisses me off, but the fact that so many people buy this shit sends me right off the rails.
Steeplejack
@freelancer:
Oof, the stupid, it burns.
Conor:
rikyrah
this is my punk ass Senator. I didn’t vote for him.
lovable liberal
Republicans have a choice: brains or balls. Most choose balls, which is why we should always refer to them as fucking Republicans.
I might too. Fortunately, I don’t have to choose, since I will never ever in a million years be a Republican.
S. cerevisiae
@Steeplejack: And with the price of copper going through the roof due to fears of Cyclone Yasi those empty houses will be stripped before anyone even gets close to living in them again (legally). With today’s popsicle stick and cardboard construction most will need to be torn down within five years.
Lemmings
You’re being desensitized and disarmed one press release at a time and you don’t even realize it.
ArchPundit
Fixed a bit more
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Suffern ACE:
Fix’t moar bettah…
PanurgeATL
@Lurking Canadian:
The GOP and conservatives might finally have found the limits of their ability to create reality, but an equal part of the problem is that Dems and liberals rarely even test those limits. The closest they’ve come is in the sort of thing that gets branded “political correctness”, e.g. finding new words for various things whose names have acquired negative connotations. When Apparently Karl Rove spoke about being “history’s actors” and “the reality-based community”, he was essentially right, and liberals still haven’t learned their lesson. What he was saying was, “Conservatives act, assuming they’re strong. Liberals react, assuming they’re weak. Look what success we’ve had compared to you.” Yeah, they finally hit their wall. But maybe, just maybe, if we as a group acted the same way, things would never have come to this pass and we’d see our wall before we hit it.
twiffer
@Violet: what’s funny is that scientist was talking, specifically, about england. where it doesn’t snow all that much anyway.