Month: May 2014

Boehner Claims to Not Be ‘Qualified’ to Debate Climate Change

Buck Banks

It’s a strange form of reasoning. Very few of us are scientists, which is exactly why we tend to defer to scientific judgment. It might make sense to question expert consensus in a field where you are an expert, but if you know very little about it, you probably want to just go along with what the experts think. Scientists do, in fact, have a nearly unanimous view of anthropogenic global warming. Scientists likewise believe that chugging Liquid Drano is bad for your health, which is why, precisely because of my lack of scientific training, I hold off on the Drano Cocktails.

— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine in response to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) telling the Huffington Post “I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change.”

113th Congress Has Taken Most and Most Expensive Junkets Ever

Buck Banks

2,844

Number of trips nonprofits have funded for lawmakers during this Congress, “including the most expensive such trip ever funded — a $49,635 trip to Australia for Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) and his wife in February. That trip was paid for by Defence Teaming Centre Inc., an Australian defense industry nonprofit,” according to the Washington Post.

Should U.S. Senators Who Voted against Additional Funding for VA Hospitals in February 2014 Also Resign?

Jon Ponder
Filibustered VA hospital funding, from left: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Veterans Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Burr of North Carolina and Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake — all Republicans

With the drumbeat growing to hold VA Secretary Gen. Eric Shinseki accountable for the wait lists at hospitals in Arizona and elsewhere by forcing him to resign, perhaps the U.S. senators who voted in February to filibuster a bill that would have increased the VA’s budget by $24 billion should resign as well.

You’ll find a complete list of senators who voted to filibuster the VA hospital funding after the jump.

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