It’s another day of erratic blogging, but it’s worth noting that there have been some interesting policy/political news items that readers might find interesting.
* Tax cuts that are intended to benefit the wealthy do not always benefit the wealthy.
* Alleged Republican beliefs notwithstanding, the GOP Congress doesn’t seem to care much for states’ rights.
The Republican-controlled Congress, in a departure from the traditional GOP support for states’ rights and limited federal rule, has been moving on a number of fronts to curtail state and local powers over matters important to business groups and advocates of tighter national security.
The recent moves by Congress have begun to provoke objections even in states that are socially conservative and have pro-business governments.
“It does appear that Congress is becoming increasingly unplugged from the states,” complained Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican. “It’s a real growing source of frustration for both Democratic and Republican governors.”
* Michael Kinsley did a nice job highlighting Dick Cheney’s phony attacks on his political critics.
* Humans really are having a serious impact on global climate change.
An ice core about two miles long — the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica — shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today.
The research, published in today’s issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the last 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European team that wrote two papers based on the core.
The work provides more evidence that human activity since the Industrial Revolution has significantly altered the planet’s climate system, scientists said. “This is saying, ‘Yeah, we had it right.’ We can pound on the table harder and say, ‘This is real,’ ” said Richard Alley, a Penn State University geophysicist and expert on ice cores who was not involved with the analysis.
* Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), described by the AP as “a leading proponent of free trade and the only openly gay Republican in Congress,” announced this week that he will not seek re-election next year.
* And our good friend, ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown seems to have found his golden parachute.