Republican Candidate Kasich Sucks Up To Antediluvians: Reverses View Of Global Warming

Kasich: Do nothing on climate change because it’s an unproven theory. FromThinkProgress: “Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) is the rare GOP presidential candidate who has acknowledged that climate change is a real problem … But just days after earning plaudits for his relatively moderate-sounding approach inThursday’s GOP presidential debate, Kasich adopted a climate-change denialist approach on Sunday … ‘I think that man absolutely affects the environment, but as to whether, what the impact is… the overall impact — I think that’s a legitimate debate.’ He then added: ‘We don’t want to destroy people’s jobs, based on some theory that is not proven.’”

Alan: On the right side of the aisle, political survival now depends on the promotion of falsehood.

From Trump On Down, Republicans Can't Be Serious

Paul Krugman

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/from-trump-on-down-republicans-cant-be.html

Excerpt: It has long been obvious that the conventions of political reporting and political commentary make it almost impossible to say the obvious — namely, that one of our two major parties has gone off the deep end. Or as the political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put it in their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” the G.O.P. has become an “insurgent outlier … unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science.” 

It’s a party that has no room for rational positions on many major issues. Or to put it another way, modern Republican politicians can’t be serious — not if they want to win primaries and have any future within the party. Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign policy are all necessary parts of a candidate’s resume.

Until now, however, leading Republicans have generally tried to preserve a facade of respectability, helping the news media to maintain the pretense that it was dealing with a normal political party. What distinguishes Mr. Trump is not so much his positions as it is his lack of interest in maintaining appearances. And it turns out that the party’s base, which demands extremist positions, also prefers those positions delivered straight. Why is anyone surprised?

American Conservatives And Aggressive Ignorance

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/08/american-conservatives-and-aggressive.html

We Know What To Do. 
But Politicians Don't Know How To Get Elected If They Do It

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/we-know-what-to-do-but-politicians-dont.html