Smith Still Wrong About Warming ‘Halt’

Having an anti-science idiot as chairman of this House Committee is an affront to American science.

Rep. Lamar Smith at a recent hearing claimed a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change “confirms the halt in global warming.” It doesn’t. In fact, the authors of the paper write, “We do not believe that warming has ceased.”

Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and longtime climate change skeptic, used the Nature study as ammunition against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in an ongoing battle over the validity of a paper that NOAA researchers published in the journal Science last June.

While the Nature study, published online in late February, claims there was a “slowdown” in the rate of global warming in the early 21st century, the Science paper argues there was not. But the studies compared different time periods. Both studies agree that there was no complete halt in global warming and the long-term warming trend remains unabated.

At the March 16 House hearing, Smith also continued to criticize the Science paper. He said the paper was “prematurely published,” but the editor-in-chief of Science told us Smith’s claim is “baseless and without merit.” Smith also said that the NOAA researchers used “controversial methods” in their study, but the authors of the Nature paper cited by Smith said this wasn’t the case. In fact, they cite the Science paper as having “high scientific value.”

Overall, each study asked different scientific questions, the answers to which can both remain valid and correct, according to the Nature authors themselves.

FACT CHECK. ORG

Backing away from the GOP loyalty pledge

Back in September, when Donald Trump signed that loyalty pledge to the Republican Party with great fanfare, how many people really thought the promise would hold? Last night marked the moment when Trump formally dumped the pledge, saying when asked if he still respects his promise to back the GOP nominee: “No, I don’t anymore. No. We’ll see who it is.” John Kasich made moves to back away yesterday too, saying “If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country, and dividing the country, I can’t stand behind them, but we have a ways to go.” And Ted Cruz continued to go right up to the line again, reiterating the argument he made last week that he’s “not in the habit” of supporting people who attack his family. Look, we’ve already long since been past the point when any of the likely outcomes of the Republican convention result in a party that’s anything but split between the pro- and anti- Trump crowds. But yesterday is yet another date to circle in the history of the GOP’s identity crisis nonetheless.

MSENBEECEE

Community Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime crisis

Fresh off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act — a 30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush administration just as the worst lending wave began. This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and Fannie.

The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977 law is silly. But it’s even more ridiculous when you consider that most subprime loans were made by firms that aren’t subject to the CRA. University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr testified back in February before the House Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime loans were made by mortgage service companies not subject comprehensive federal supervision and another 30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which are not subject to routine supervision or examinations. As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August, 2007, speech shortly before he passed away: “In the subprime market where we badly need supervision, a majority of loans are made with very little supervision. It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the beat.”

Not surprisingly given the higher degree of supervision, loans made under the CRA program were made in a more responsible way than other subprime loans. CRA loans carried lower rates than other subprime loans and were less likely to end up securitized into the mortgage-backed securities that have caused so many losses, according to a recent study by the law firm Traiger & Hinckley (PDF file here).

Finally, keep in mind that the Bush administration has been weakening CRA enforcement and the law’s reach since the day it took office. The CRA was at its strongest in the 1990s, under the Clinton administration, a period when subprime loans performed quite well. It was only after the Bush administration cut back on CRA enforcement that problems arose, a timing issue which should stop those blaming the law dead in their tracks. The Federal Reserve, too, did nothing but encourage the wild west of lending in recent years. It wasn’t until the middle of 2007 that the Fed decided it was time to crack down on abusive pratices in the subprime lending market. Oops.

Better targets for blame in government circles might be the 2000 law which ensured that credit default swaps would remain unregulated, the SEC’s puzzling 2004 decision to allow the largest brokerage firms to borrow upwards of 30 times their capital and that same agency’s failure to oversee those brokerage firms in subsequent years as many gorged on subprime debt. (Barry Ritholtz had an excellent and more comprehensive survey of how Washington contributed to the crisis in this week’s Barron’s.)

There’s plenty more good reading on the CRA and the subprime crisis out in the blogosphere. Ellen Seidman, who headed the Office of Thrift Supervision in the late 90s, has written severalfact-filled posts about the CRA controversey, including one just last week. University of Oregon professor and economist Mark Thoma has also defended the CRA on his blog. I also learned something from a post back in April by Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, which ends with this ditty:

It’s telling that, amid all the recent recriminations, even lenders have not fingered CRA. That’s because CRA didn’t bring about the reckless lending at the heart of the crisis. Just as sub-prime lending was exploding, CRA was losing force and relevance. And the worst offenders, the independent mortgage companies, were never subject to CRA — or any federal regulator. Law didn’t make them lend. The profit motive did. And that is not political correctness. It is correctness.

Businessweek

We Worry About The Wrong Stuff

In December of last year, Gallup noted the following: After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, Americans are now more likely to name terrorism as the top issue facing the U.S. than to name any other issue -- including those that have typically topped the list recently, such as the economy and the government. About one in six Americans, 16%, now identify terrorism as the most important U.S. problem, up from just 3% in early November. (1)

Yesterday, Juan Cole offered some reality to the debate over what we really need to worry about:  The right wing is carping that President Obama is “downplaying” the dangers of Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in the wake of the Paris and Brussels attacks on soft targets. But whipping up hysteria about the threat of terrorism is a racket that mainly benefits security firms and arms manufacturers. No one will deny that such attacks are horrible affairs that kill dozens of innocents and everything humanly possible should be done to combat them. But it is also just the case that the attacks are intended to provoke fear, terror, hatred and polarization, so such sentiments should be avoided. And these assaults on soft targets should be seen in some sort of perspective. So let us just consider the leading causes of death in the US (2014), a country of some 318 million, in the context of terrorism (defined as non-state actors using violence against civilians to accomplish a political goal). (2)

A partial list of leading causes of death for Americans:

1. Heart disease: 611,105

2. Cancer: 584,881

3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205

4. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557

5. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978

Meanwhile, in the 10 year period ending in 2015, about 303 Americans died from terrorism worldwide, or 30.3 per year. 30 people dead per year from terrorism vs. 130,000 from accidents… methinks (I love that word and just had to use it here) we need to shift our expensive Horrific War On Terrah™ to something far more beneficial to the average American.

1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/187655/americans-name-terrorism-no-problem.aspx
2. http://www.juancole.com/2016/03/30-americans-die-worldwide-from-terrorism-annually-while-130000-die-by-accident.html

Yes, righties are this awful...

Read it here.

O'Bamaphobia!

It took little time Tuesday morning for conservatives to turn the tragic attack in Brussels into an attack of their own on President Barack Obama for happening to be on a visit to Cuba.

Conservatives have been up in arms over President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba this week, marking the first time a U.S. president has visited the island nation in 88 years.

Earlier in the week, National Review knocked the president after he had his picture taken in front of a mural of Che Guevara, with editor Rich Lowry calling it, “President Obama’s Che moment.”

The Brussels attack opened another door to go after the president because he happened to be out of the country when it occurred.

Obama was also rapped he didn’t issue an official statement immediately in the aftermath — waiting to be briefed first — while GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump made the circuit of mornings shows spouting opinions and speculating.

Former Bush speechwriter and current Washington Post contributor Marc Thiessen got the ball rolling by tweeting,”Brussels under attack. Obama on a tourist trio in Havana with his family. Says it all.”

Richard Grenell, a former Mitt Romney advisor, expressed concern about the “optics,” writing, “Terrible optics: ISIS attacks Brussels and Obama is with the Castro Brothers in Cuba.”

Trump’s America Is Here: Man Kills 3 People For Not Speaking English

As violence increases at rallies for Donald Trump and hate crimes are encouraged by the presidential candidate’s rhetoric and nationalist remarks, it appears as though a shift is occurring in America. People with racist and nationalist views now think it is okay to act on their bigoted beliefs, and innocent people are winding up injured or dead because of it. Such is the case with Dan Popp, a Milwaukee resident who murdered 3 people with a rifle because they didn’t speak English, according to a witness who just barely escaped being shot as well.

It was Sunday afternoon and Jesus Manso-Perez, 40, and his 18-year-old son, Jesus Manso-Carrasquillo, had left the apartment to do laundry. They ran into Popp on their way to the basement in their apartment complex, who Manso-Carrasquillo said offered them a beer. When they declined, Popp asked where they were from and they replied that they were from Puerto Rico, to which Popp reportedly replied, “Oh, that’s why you don’t speak English. You’re Puerto Rican.” After they parted ways, the father and son started a load of laundry and made their way back to their apartment. It was then that they met Popp at the stairs, he pointed a rifle at them, said “You guys got to go” and shot the father in the head. The son managed to run away and just barely missed the shots that Popp fired at him.

Photo: Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office

Minutes later, Popp kicked down the door of the Vue family’s home, who lived in a neighboring unit. The family had heard the first shots, presumably those fired at Manso-Perez and Manso-Carrasquillo, and huddled together in the bedroom. Popp knocked at first but when no one answered he kicked the door in and forced his way into the bedroom. He pointed the rifle at Phia Vue, a 36-year-old father of the four children he huddled around, and told Phia to leave with him. The two left the room and the family heard shots. Phia was later found dead in the bathroom by police.

Popp made his way back to the room and demanded that everyone leave with him and even began dragging Mai Vue, a 32-year-old mother of the four children, and two of her children out of the apartment. The other two children and an adult relative that was with them at the time all ran out and had called police, eventually directing authorities to Popp. Mai Vue was found shot to death in Popp’s apartment.

After cops arrived, Popp came out of his apartment with the rifle slung around his shoulder. Cops ordered him to the ground and arrested Popp. He was charged withthree counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of attempted first-degree homicide in the case of the 18-year-old son. He was given a bail of $150,000, which seems a bit low for a triple homicide and what many would consider a hate crime. Popp’s attorney asked at his initial court hearing that he be examined for mental competency to determine if he is of sound mind.

Family and friends of the two families gathered at a memorial this past Sunday to honor and remember those who were lost. Some signs were held by those seeking justice for the terrible murders, and some read “Hate Speech Leads To Hate Crimes.” With such diverse families being affected by the tragedy, it was fitting that the prayers were recited in three different languages: English, Hmong, and Spanish.

What do you think of these heinous crimes and the rise in violence since Trump first began his hateful speeches? Comment your thoughts below and share this article!

This article (Trump’s America Is Here: Man Kills 3 People For Not Speaking English) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author, Brianna Acuesta and TrueActivist.com, the original publisher.

tRUMP, the neofascist blames Bernie for the behavior of his own supporters and the resulting protests

Of course a neofascist would blame a Jewish man for problems...

Carl Bernstein joined CNN's Reliable Sources and was asked tried to explain the Trump phenomena by Brain Stelter, while also properly labeling what his brand of politics are. Bernstein didn't compare him to Hitler or Mussolini's type of fascism, nor is he another version of George Wallace. He did classify him as a new kind of American fascist, one who dishes out loads ofauthoritarianism, despotism, nativism, and incitement. And it's the first time he's ever heard of an American politician be described this way.

More here.

Are You SHITTING Me, Republicans?

Seig Trump

I couldn't believe my eyes and ears when I saw this on TV today. I see someone got a picture. Now, where have I seen that salute before?