Dumbassery | Grist

Garbage in, garbage out, journalists in between, all but useless

Treasury memo hysteria shows media incapable of screening out junk 0
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Is any piece of nonsense from right-wing opponents of clean energy policy too silly, too outrageous, to get its day in the national press spotlight? It would seem not.

Last week, CBS conservo-blogger Declan McCullagh breathlessly reported: "Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year." That figure spread like wildfire through right-wing blogs, then jumped to Glenn Beck, and eventually reached The Washington Post. Now Republican lawmakers are repeating it.

The number is completely and utterly misleading. At least in reference to current policy options, it's a lie. But now it's out there, forever part of conservative mythology and forever a "controversy" in the eyes of the establishment media. Is there any way it could have been stopped? Is there any way the next lie can be stopped?
It's the end of the world and we know it

Climate doomsday film ‘The Age of Stupid’ still hopeful, says director in video interview 9
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
The new film The Age of Stupid paints a grim view of the future: In 2055, a man living in a world wrecked by climate change gets pissed off at the people of today who knew they were messing with the climate but failed to do much about it. Age of Stupid director Franny Armstrong video-chatted with Grist before the film's U.S. premiere.
Paranoid racists ascendent

Thoughts on Van Jones’ resignation 37
Posted 2 months ago
Van Jones had to resign. It became inevitable when Gibbs offered no support.

Much of the blame for this incident lies squarely on the White House. The information used against Jones was freely available on the web. All it took was a search. I thought by hiring Jones they intended to take a chance on a real left progressive, but now it appears they were simply caught flat-footed. Either Valerie Jarrett -- Jones' champion in the upper echelons of the administration -- didn't know much about him or didn't widely share what she knew. They certainly seemed disinclined to mount a vigorous defense with Glenn Beck gnoshing on his favorite new chew toy and the health care reform battle was about to heat up again.
CoC block

Chamber of Commerce keeps stepping on rakes 2
Posted 2 months ago

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce can't catch a break these days. It has pretended to agree with the goals of climate legislation while recommending changes in the means so drastic that they would gut the bill. But there's a problem: many, many business see enormous opportunities in the shift to clean energy. And many of those businesses happen to be members of the CoC.
Is that Beck going to stain?

Cleaning some of the Fox off of Van Jones 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
A while back I lampooned a Glenn Beck segment on Van Jones, who's an advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to Beck, Jones is the man on the inside for a vast cryptosocialist conspiracy involving the Apollo Alliance, Color of Change, the Center for American Progress, George Soros, ACORN, Al Queda, and the Trilateral Commission. Everything that goes bump in Beck's closet at night.

Back then I still thought the Gomer Pyle meets Father Coughlin shtick was harmless, too clownish to be taken seriously. Ah, those innocent days before the nation was locked in a room with frantic teabaggers.
Notable quotable

Sen. Tom Coburn has scientific document reading training 9
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
"I am not the smartest man in the world, but I have been trained to read scientific documents, and [climate change] is malarkey."

-- Sen. Tom Coburn, who also explained why Jesus would oppose a public option in health care reform
Off the rails

Washington Post features rail hack job from Robert Samuelson 4
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Today, the Washington Post's lame excuse for an economics columnist, Robert Samuelson, wrote an extremely regrettable piece arguing that investments in high-speed rail are misguided. But this is no honest entry into the discussion of how best to invest in transportation infrastructure. It's a hack job, plain and simple.
Like splitting hairs with bald people

Sarah Palin, George Will, and Potemkin debates 21
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Debating climate policy with conservatives is a surreal exercise because, as a movement and as a party, conservatives do not believe anthropogenic climate change exists. But the mainstream media refuses to notice.
Bond. Kit Bond.

GOP Sen. Bond thinks climate policy is just too confusing 6
Posted 4 months ago
Missouri Sen. Kit Bond (R) is circulating this incomprehensible graphic that he says illustrates the "bureaucratic nightmare" of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that the House passed last month.
Dept. of Misinformation

No, Jeff, there’s not a debate about the science of climate change 13
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Following on our in-depth series, How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic, Grist is launching an occasional feature that tracks the latest global warming denialisms and skeptics garbage, making sure to point readers to the real story.
Lowlights from the House climate debate 3
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Still spinning

EPA ‘suppression’ story grows, despite shoddy science in report 6
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
The peculiar story of a "suppressed" report at the Environmental Protection Agency continues to grow, despite the fact that the agency appears to have done nothing worse than holding its employees to professional standards.
Minute man

The House climate bill debate, in one minute 0
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Grist sat through roughly six hours of debate of the climate bill on Friday, and if you were watching or following our live blogging of it, you know how painful it got at times. For those who want to see the short version of Friday's debate, Progressive Media USA put together a one-minute summary of Democratic and Republican talking points.
A look inside the right-wing message machine

Scant evidence for charge that EPA ‘suppressed’ dissent [Updated] 8
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
The conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute has issued a release under the headline "BREAKING: EPA Suppresses Internal Global Warming Study." Wow! A huge story, right? Not so fast.
A Green WTF?! Moment

Global warming did NOT cause this plane crash 7
Posted 5 months ago
Saying global warming brought down the Air France plane is like saying climate change is a myth because it's cold today in Miami...
Antics roadshow

Video highlights from the GOP’s anti-climate-bill crusade 0
Posted 5 months ago
House Republicans release a video of their climate and energy roadshow that couldn't be funnier if we'd made it ourselves.
Bringing 'round the House

We watch dozens of hours of climate bill debate so you don’t have to 1
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago
I'm keeping close watch over debate on the Waxman-Markey climate bill in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. (Grist ... sitting through hours upon hours of markup so you don't have to!)
The incredible shrinking tent

Republican counter-strategy on climate: Revenge! 2
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago
How much smaller can the climate denial tent get? We’re about to find out.
What are you smoking, Smokey Joe?

Barton worries that EPA will regulate runners 5
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks ago
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is concerned about the plight of marathon runners under a cap-and-trade plan. No, we're not making this up.
What's the sound of one hand solving a problem?

Republican incoherence on climate change 10
Posted 6 months ago
Republicans can't offer the public a solution to climate change because their base won't allow them to acknowledge the problem.