Kutcher Praised for Speech - But Why?

The Hill has an article complete with video on how conservatives are praising Ashton Kutcher because of a speech he gave at the Teen Choice Awards. What was so amazing about this speech that it drew praise from people such as Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz and Rush Limbaugh? He talked about the virtues of work. Why do they consider this so remarkable? Because of the conservative straw man argument that liberals don't believe in work and instead believe in giveaways. Limbaugh's quote from the article:

"This is a message that young kids today are not hearing except maybe in their homes from their parents, but they're not hearing this. They're not hearing this from Obama. They're not hearing this from presidential or political leadership," he said.

Really?

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential. - Barack Obama “The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” - Barack Obama

It looks like he said something about it at least a couple of times. If you read comments on the internet you'll see that with appalling regularity people who defend the necessity of social programs will themselves be referred to as being on welfare or told they should go get a job. I know that I've been told that many times myself. It's the belief that gave rise to the 47% controversy and it's something that every person I know who votes exclusively for the Republican Party believes. The motivation for believing something so contrary to obvious facts is something that still puzzles me about our current political and social environment but maybe some day some one will figure it out. Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

RealClearPolitics forgets a major factor in article on female GOP candidates for President

RealClearPolitics has a speculative article on the GOP's problem fielding female candidates but misses a huge point that also affects their male candidates. The reporters point out that current GOP women who hold office in blue leaning states are quite successful. But they fail to mention that to make it as a nominee for President from the Republican Party these women from blue or purple states would have to veer far to the right, abandoning much of what made them popular enough in their home states to win and what they need to avoid alienating a lot of independents and moderate Republicans in the general election. But the GOP base currently still seems convinced that they lost to Obama because they weren't conservative enough. Personally I think that's still a recipe for continuing failure.

GOP lawmakers link Sebelius calls to IPAB concerns

Next up: GOP calls for investigation as to why any members of the Obama administration are still breathing.

The Conservative Groups Often Deserved Investigation

The New York Times writes about how conservative groups screaming about being investigated by the IRS actually deserved it in multiple cases. The 501C4 status they were applying for limits direct participation in political campaigns. Yet these groups were actively campaigning for Republican candidates and that kind of activity is directly prohibited by law. Gee, maybe that was why they were being investigated.

New Audit Allegations Show Flawed Statistical Thinking - NYTimes.com

Nate Silver shows through some simple analysis that the claims that are being made about Republican donors being targeted by the IRS are questionable at best. Simply put, if you can find 4 people who say they were audited and they were donors to the GOP you haven't proven a thing other than those 4 people were audited. Innumeracy abounds in America though, so don't expect many to understand this.

Were the Benghazi emails altered | The Moderate Voice

The Moderate Voice links to reports that it appears that the emails GOP critics of the administration are trying to seize upon as evidence of a cover up appear to have been altered. This is on top of revelations that in fact these emails had been shown to intelligence committee members, including some of the Republicans who'd been attacking the Obama administration back in March and dismissed as not really proving anything.

Even if all of these allegations against President Obama are thoroughly disproven, including the ones concerning the IRS I have absolutely no doubt that the Republican faithful will be talking about how everyone knows that Obama was responsible for the deaths in Benghazi and used the IRS against his political enemies for many years to come.

Senators’ boycott blocks action to confirm EPA head

Yet another meaningless obstruction of an action by the Obama administration by the GOP. I am admittedly an anti-Republican. Things like this just make me think that I am correct in my choice of political affiliation. Block everything the guy in the White House tries to do no matter what is does not make one a useful public servant in our form of government. But I don't think that the fanatics with all of the influence in the current GOP really care.

Weird Anti-Science

Two different articles on Slate point out different aspects of Republican dislike of science. First Phil Plait on his Bad Astronomy blog addresses the broad anti-science agenda expressed by multiple GOP politicians, especially Lamar Smith who apparently thinks that peer review is highly overrated when compared with political review. The other article is actually linked to by Plait's article but is more focused on the dislike of research in the social sciences.

I consider it reasonable to judge some of those attitudes by those who hold them and one of the Republican members of the house mentioned in the article on the attacks on social science research is a real gem. When Rep. Bill Posey had been in office for a whole two months he became the first Republican to propose a birther bill, one of those masterpieces of legislation whose sole purpose was to legitimize those who thought Barack Obama was the result of a strange conspiracy to put a non-citizen in the White House. Basically he criticized multiple research studies on the basis of them not being vital to national security or our national interest. Apparently the concept that learning new things is inherently in our best interest lies somewhere beyond the ability of his mind to grasp. It's also rather sad that apparently Posey believes this doozy of a claim:

Posey slightly softened his tone. “I'm not advocating we stop all the social-science study spending,” he said. “I just think it might be appropriate that much of that be left to the private sector.” How much, though? Someone should probably conduct a study.

I'm not aware of any private sector funding for real research in these fields that isn't interested in predetermined answers, are you?

GOP Embraces “The Crazy” | John Avlon via The Moderate Voice

Joe Gandelman's Quote of the Day over at The Moderate Voice is from John Avlon at The Daily Beast and addresses how insanity has worked its way throughout so much of the GOP. It's not just their media outlets like WorldNetDaily, Breitbart, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones any more. You hear the most outrageous conspiracy theories and claims about their opposition's motives and policies from state legislators, members of the House of Representatives and high ranking officials in state governments now.

Avlon's article even addresses the Missouri example of GOP crazy where scanning documents (A standard procedure in modern business and government.) became part of a grand conspiracy theory. There was even a tidal wave of ads on television warning viewers in a sinister tone that the Nixon (Jay) administration might be sharing your information with the Obama administration.

Somehow this isn't too surprising when the governing of the nation is only a priority after those of winning the election "game", demonizing your opposition and reassuring yourself of your moral superiority.