Motley Moose – Archive

The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama discussed new actions by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut dangerous carbon pollution, a plan that builds on the efforts already taken by many states, cities and companies. These new commonsense guidelines to reduce carbon pollution from power plants were created with feedback from businesses, and state and local governments, and they would build a clean energy economy while reducing carbon pollution.

The President discussed this new plan from the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he visited children whose asthma is aggravated by air pollution. As a parent, the President said he is dedicated to make sure our planet is cleaner and safer for future generations.

By: inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

One of the best ways to learn about the politics of different places is to read their newspapers. To that extent, I recently had the pleasure of reading a Bolivian newspaper supportive of, or published by, the government.

More below.

I joined a Progressive Reform Synagogue about a year and a half ago. I first wrote about an experience I had there in this diary. Last year I wasn’t too active beyond taking my daughter to Hebrew and Sunday School, a few Friday Night Services here and there and the High Holy Days. I really had no idea how involved the Social Justice and Food Justice committees were in educating and organizing the congregation. I only just became involved a couple weeks before NetrootsNation2013 when I received an email from the Rabbi about my protesting the Keystone Pipeline, would I like to join a meeting about incorporating Climate Change into a Friday Night Service? Um, yes.

I was one of a panel of three in which we were asked to bring awareness about Climate Change to our congregation in the context of the upcoming Tisha B’Av and to describe our personal connection to Climate Change. I learned about the association between Tisha B’Av and Climate Change initially from our Rabbi and then through reading the work of Rabbi Arthur Waskow. I am often amazed at the depth of knowledge and feeling that some people are capable of conveying, and these two Rabbi’s are no exception.

I experienced a lot of anxiety about writing this presentation, I felt lost, like an outsider trying to talk about something of which she really doesn’t understand. My original draft had nothing original in it. So I took a break and read some diaries on Daily Kos, and I found my inspiration.

Some things deserve the honor of our tears and our sadness.

was written in a comment in response to a writer’s grief. What I followed that sentence up with is block quoted below and was presented to the congregation.

The GOP wants to excuse this based on the prevailing opinion that we need to reduce the deficit, but the whole thing is ridiculous. There are stupid cuts all over the place, but let’s get down to the science.  

While Waxman may have accused Republicans of presiding over the “most anti-science” Congress in history, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) tells Mother Jones that his colleague’s characterization doesn’t even go far enough: “This is the most anti-science body since the Catholic Church ostracized Galileo for determining that the earth revolves around the sun.”

Mother Jones, emphasis added

I wish it were possible to collect information about all the wrongdoing of the GOP into one diary, but even a series of books would probably find such an endeavor impossible. Even fully covering a specific topic is, realistically, far beyond the scope of any single diary. In trying to provide an aggregate summary of any currently relevant topic, the best I can give is a brief overview of the most recent and egregious Republican transgressions.

Today we address in brief (kind of) the GOP’s war on science.

A recent study conducted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that global warming may already be irreversible, even in the event of significant and immediate reduction in carbon emissions worldwide. According to the study, the Arctic has already plummeted over a precipice and passed the point at which global warming might have been halted or substantially slowed.