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Republicans Are Poles Apart From The World On Global Warming [Infographic] Forbes U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that he's pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The move has come in for widespread international condemnation with the leaders of France, Germany and Italy issuing a joint ...

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Republicans Are Poles Apart From The World On Global Warming [Infographic] - Forbes

WASHINGTON When President Donald Trump released a budget last week with a 10 percent Pentagon increase over current budget caps andmassive cuts to the social safety net, a common reaction among congressional Republicans was this: Why didnt Trump ask for even more defense spending?

There was no plus-up, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told HuffPost. Its a 3 percent increase over the Obama budget. That doesnt jibe with what the president said, so, frankly, Im confused.

So automatic so reflexive is the support for more defense spending among Republicans that they dont seem to care that the Pentagon has never completed an audit. Or, if they care, they dont care enough to actually make the Defense Department account for the more than $600 billion a year it already receives before they hand over even more money.

Like many Republicans, Hunter supports auditing the Pentagon. But he wouldnt support fencing off any of the new money for the Defense Department until it completes that audit. And until Congress introduces consequences for the Pentagons failure to complete an audit, its likely that lawmakers will find themselves in the same familiar position year after year: in favor of an audit but unable to get their hands on one.

Over the past two weeks, HuffPost interviewed more than two dozen House Republicans about military spending and the Pentagons inability to complete an audit. Almost all of them supported breaking the budget caps that Congress set for defense in 2011 while simultaneously advocating large cuts to domestic programs, citing a $20 trillion national debt.

But there was scant support for delaying budget increases until the Pentagon completes an audit, with some members suggesting they would maybe sign on to such a proposal and many more outright opposing the idea.

The United States already spends more on defense than the next seven nations combined. In 2015, the country spent $596 billion on defense. The next closest nation, China, spent $215 billion, with Saudi Arabia ($87 billion) and Russia ($66 billion) following behind. Congress, the Pentagon, and a thriving defense contractor industry have all tied how much money the United States spends to how safe its citizens are.

But what if money spent and military capabilities arent necessarily bound together? If youre really concerned about our safety, wouldnt you want to make sure that our defense dollars are really going to defense? And how do Republicans really know the Pentagon needs more money?

If you sat through the classified briefing that I just held with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you wouldnt ask that question, Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) told HuffPost.

Granger is the chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee in charge of defense spending perhaps the most sought-after subcommittee position in Congress and although she supports an audit and said there are places in the defense budget where we overspend, she doesnt support withholding any money until the Pentagon completes one. In fact, her general belief is that Congress should give the Defense Department as much as it can.

Id go for the highest amount we can achieve, because its still not gonna be enough, she said.

That isnt just the position of the person doling out the Pentagons dollars; its the position of most Republicans in Congress.

We cannot wait to fix our planes and ships until the audit is done, the budget is balanced, and the moon and the stars all align, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told HuffPost. We need ships that sail, planes that fly, today.

Again, Thornberry supports an audit, but he doesnt support fencing off any additional money until the Pentagon completes its accounting.

You gotta walk and chew gum, Thornberry said. You gotta make the department more efficient. You gotta improve their acquisition. And at the same time, you gotta give the people who are risking their lives the training, the equipment, the best this country can provide.

Alex Wong via Getty Images

Republicans seem to believe the military is drastically underfunded. And even if they dont have official documentation of that, theyre certain the Pentagon needs more money.

Just talk to any general over there, and theyll tell you what they need, said Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), a former Armed Services Committee member who gave up his position on the panel to become Natural Resources Committee chairman.

But if you doubt that generals are the most disinterested party when it comes to whether the U.S.needs more defense spending, there are always the lawmakers who oversee the projects that directly benefit their districts.

The open secret on Capitol Hill is that the members whose constituents most rely on defense spending often find themselves on the House Armed Services Committee or the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In one of the last remaining vestiges of congressional logrolling, members support a slate of other defense projects to ensure that their particular program is approved.

When HuffPost talked to Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, he made it clear that he supports more defense spending, but that its not just the increase, its where would the increases be.

And by that, Wittman who represents parts of coastal Virginia where many jobs rely on shipbuilding made it clear he wants the Pentagon to take care of his district.

For Navy, for shipbuilding, I want to make sure were doing the right things there, getting those things taken care of, he said.

Still, like almost every Republican we talked to, Wittman supported an audit. He just isnt prepared to hold back any additional spending until the Pentagon completes that audit, even if theres good evidence that the Pentagon isnt spending as wisely as it could.

Republicans arent entirely to blame for these problems. It takes the cooperation of Democrats for a massive government agency like the Pentagon to never complete an audit. And perhaps part of the reason Democrats have gone along with increasing the defense budget with little accountability is that, up until just recently, Republicans have matched every dollar of defense spending over the budget caps with a dollar for other domestic programs.

While Democrats also thought the Pentagon should undergo an audit, they werent exactly advocating for defense cuts.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, thought focusing on the Pentagons inability to perform an audit was an awkward question to ask.

Instead, he thought the more pressing issue was the GOPs unwillingness to raise taxes to pay for the defense increases lawmakers want.

Slashing every other aspect of the budget to plus-up defense shows misplaced priorities about what is important for a strong country, Smith said. That if our infrastructure is crumbling, if we stop investing in research, if we gut education, if we take money away from poor people at a time of growing wealth disparity, that we will have a country that is worse off because of it.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), one of the most outspoken proponents of the social safety net in Congress, called the GOP budget cruel and rotten.

We need to redefine what we mean by national security, McGovern said. It needs to encompass more than just the number of bombs we have. It needs to include things like whether people have enough to eat, and whether or not people have adequate housing, and whether people have jobs. I mean, those things are important to our national security. Those are the things that people lose sleep at night worrying about.

But if Republicans have tied increases in defense spending to increases in those other domestic programs, Democrats may have an actual interest in keeping defense spending high. And a Defense Department audit may undermine that effort.

In January 2015, an internal Pentagon study found $125 billion in administrative waste that could be eliminated over five years. Defense officials promptly buried the report to avoid the cuts cuts that would not have resulted in layoffs or troop reductions, but would have restricted the use of expensive contractors and streamlined information technology.

DefenseNews wrote a story on the report almost immediately, but it wasnt until nearly a year later that the study got any major attention, after The Washington Post reported that Pentagon officials had attempted to bury it.

Most of the handful of Republicans who seemed uneasy about the Pentagon budget cited the Post story as evidence that maybe the Defense Department could spend its money a little better.

Even among those conservatives generally uneasy about any spending, however, most werent rushing to draft an amendment that would force the Pentagon to complete an audit by a certain date or else suffer some sort of cut. Instead, when you ask conservatives what they want to do about the Pentagons lack of auditing, many suggest more discussion.

Well talk about it, have some hearings, said former House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Current Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) did say that not only did the Pentagon need to be audited, but that we need to cut back on their staffing by as many as 100,000.

125 billion dollars, eventually, year after year, that adds up to real money, Meadows joked, with a wink.

But when you press conservatives on what theyre prepared to do to ensure the Pentagon completes an audit, they resort to vague platitudes about cutting debt and talking points about the need for an audit. (Meadows, who was entering a meeting with the Freedom Caucus, said the group would talk about the issue that very night.)

No one seems all that interested in offering an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would require an audit and also have some teeth by, say, subjecting the Pentagon to the spending caps Congress set for defense in 2011 if it does not complete a full accounting.

After HuffPost asked whether he would support such a proposal, conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) did say he was going to introduce such an amendment, just for you.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Excusing those few Republican voices in Congress who believe we need to cut it all as Massie has urged Congress to do for every part of government Republicans and Democrats seem perfectly content rubber-stamping even more defense dollars, which is exactly how the Pentagon found itself in this decades-long age of unaccountability in the first place.

When HuffPost asked acting Pentagon comptroller John Roth about the Defense Departments auditing problems, Roth said an audit had only become a priority in the last five or six years. One of the reasons we are where we are is for about 20 years, no one really cared, Roth said last week. So thats why we didnt move the ball.

The Pentagon is closer to an audit than ever before, Roth added. Under current law, the Defense Department is supposed to have an audit ready by September 30, 2017. Officials already acknowledge theyll blow past that deadline.

Its going to take more than a year to get there, Roth said. But we have to start.

Officials note that different accounting procedures and software across the massive Defense Department make it difficult to perfectly track every dollar. How bad is the problem? In July 2016, an accounting service for the Army could not find documentation for $6.5 trillion worth of transactions over the years.

Thats roughly the same amount of money Trump suggested Congress approve for the military over the next 10 years.

If lawmakers get their way, itll be much more than that.

David Wood contributed to this report.

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No Audit? No Problem: Republicans Blindly Support More Defense Spending - HuffPost

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

NEW YORK When Mike Long, the legendary New York Conservative Party chairman, told guests that Kellyanne Conway, the scheduled speaker at the partys annual banquet Thursday night, would be late because President Trump has just announced he is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, the room erupted in spontaneous applause.

Mrs. Conway, the omnipresent Trump White House counselor (the job Ed Meese held in the Reagan White House), had been recruited for a spur-of-the-moment why Trump did it interview at the Fox News studios around the corner from Mr. Longs dinner in Manhattan.

The spontaneous cheers of approval instead of tepid, pro forma clapping was a bit surprising. With Democrats outnumbering Republicans by lopsided margins of 108-42 in the N.Y. Assembly, 18-9 in the U.S. House and a Democrat serving as governor, New York is not exactly Trump territory.

Elected swing-district Republicans, plentiful in the Empire State at all levels, are generally considered vulnerable to even the merest whiff of unorthodoxy on climate change. But they and the assembled conservative and GOP and activists, pollsters, consultants and donors were almost overly upbeat about the Trump Paris pullout. That would be understandable for those dinner guests who are proud warriors in the cause of skepticism about climate warmings claimed culprits.

Convincingly unforced smiles lit the faces of those and there were lots who privately confessed concerns about re-election in 2018.

They told me they were telling constituents that the Paris accord pullout didnt mean the U.S. was veering smoky gray instead of easy-breathing green but that the Barack Obama-negotiated Paris compact had been needlessly costly for U.S. jobs and economic health and the president was determined to negotiate a better deal with the other Paris signatories.

This is the core argument in the White House talking points distributed to Republicans nationwide. Because it is so eminently credible as a motto, putting Pittsburgh before Paris works even for Republicans cringing at the prospect of the 2018 elections at least for now, in this one Gotham test tube. (If you want to win office as a Republican almost anywhere in this state, every vote counts; so it helps energize GOP-skeptical conservative voters to be able to boast the endorsement of the Conservative Party.)

With every Republican in the Sheraton Hotel ballroom knowing full well that the GOPs electoral health is mainly in Mr. Trumps hands, Mrs. Conway made that reality look like a better-than-just-doable deal.

She told the diners that Mr. Trump pulled off the biggest surprise win in memory in 2016 for all the reasons most people cite but most important was that he ran as a freedom-first conservative. That line drew applause and emphatic nods from N.Y. state GOP Chairman Ed Cox (the establishment personified), Conservative Party Vice Chairman Allen Roth (a heart-and-soul Trumpster), Congress members John Faso, Lee Zeldin, John Katko and Claudia Tenney, state Senate majority leader John Flanagan and Assemblywoman and Conservative Party candidate for New York Mayor Nicole Malliotakis and dozens of Conservative Party county chairmen.

Asked how she came to be the first woman to manage a successful U.S. presidential campaign, Mrs. Conway said, I want you all to remember it was Donald Trump who gave me that opportunity. The issue of gender never came up in our discussions.

A New Jersey denizen about to relocate in D.C. with her husband and four children, she said that when she lived in New York, she registered to vote as, yes, a member of Mr. Longs Conservative Party.

Ralph Z. Hallow has been covering presidential elections and Washington politics from the nations capital for 35 years.

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Trump has changed climate for vulnerable Republicans, too - Washington Times

On Monday, the 85th Texas Legislative session came to a dramatic close: Protests erupted at the Capitol, a Republican lawmaker called Immigration and Customs Enforcement from the floor to deport a group of alleged undocumented immigrants, and House representatives exchanged alleged threats of violence.

The states Legislature meets for only one 140-day session every two years, so its final days are often fast-paced and tense. But the antics this week shouldnt overshadow the fact that the Texas Legislature churns out bills with reliable efficiency. As stagnation and White House scandals continue to hamper policy efforts in Washington, Texas example shows how conservative lawmakers can get a lot of their agenda done, at least at the state level.

Texas is one of 25 states where Republicans have a so-called trifecta of control over the House, the Senate, and the governors mansion. By the end of the whirlwind session, Gov. Greg Abbott had more than 1,200 bills sitting on his desk, awaiting his signature, many advancing conservative causes that can set the tone for other states.

I think we saw the center of gravity moving to the right, James Henson, director of The Texas Politics Project, explained. I think from a national perspective theres no way to look at what happens in the Texas Legislature and not see it as kind of an avatar of conservatism in the country.

So lets take a look at what they did.

The 85th was a session primarily driven by the social agendas of conservative lawmakers, like border security and documentation, abortion, gun licenses, and whether transgender Texans should be able to use the restroom associated with their gender identity.

Senate Bill 4 is probably the most infamous bill signed by Gov. Abbott, and its now one of the harshest immigration laws in the country. Starting in September, the law will allow police to inquire about the immigration status of people they lawfully detain, as well as ban immigrant sanctuary jurisdictions statewide, and levy fines and jail time on local officials who fail to comply with federal authorities and immigration agents.

Texas also pushed through new restrictions on abortion. Senate Bill 8 requires every health care facility or clinic to bury or cremate fetal remains from abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth. Providers are also now banned from a common form of second-term abortion termed dilation and evacuation but provocatively called dismemberment by supporters of the bill.

The Supreme Court struck down Texas last attempt at a sweeping abortion law. In 2013, House Bill 2 required abortion clinics to meet costly, hospital-level standards and caused half the abortion clinics in the state to close down. This years abortion bill concentrates on the fetus, not the clinic, but it is likely to face legal challenges too.

Conservatives successfully got a religious freedom bill through to Abbotts desk, which would allow publicly funded adoption agencies to reject would-be parents whose lifestyles they dont like. Christian groups will now be able to legally keep Muslim, Jewish, unmarried, and LGBT couples from adopting.

At a time when the Trump administration and Republicans in D.C. are struggling despite their majority to execute on much of anything, Texas Republicans are a model of legislative efficiency, passing some of the most conservative bills in the country. Thats thanks in part to a culture of caving to the will of the core electorate they need for re-election.

The conservative wing that is again oriented toward a relatively small Republican primary electorate put the elected officials, particularly less ideologically driven legislators, on the spot and forced votes on issues that a lot of people had hoped to avoid, and that includes some of these issues like the more controversial abortion measures, Henson said.

The result? Moderate Texas Republicans think twice about going against party leadership, and legislation that might seem unimaginable at the national level lands on the Governors desk.

Politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle have little to do but protest. Democratic Sen. Jose Rodriguez of El Paso described the 85th session as one of the toughest in recent memory, as rhetoric and policies filtered down from the Trump administration, which rolled into Washington just as the session began. That said, Rodriguez contends D.C. lawmakers have been less effective than Texas Republicans because of Trumps style of leadership.

I think its no secret that Trumps administration has been disorganized from Day One, he said. I mean, the fact that he hasnt even filled a lot of the positions in the State Department and the other major federal agencies tells you that the government is not able to function at the normal level that it does. Whereas in Texas, remember, the Republican Party has been in control now for over 20 years, and its pretty much the same people of the same stripe that continue governing the state.

Conservatives in Texas didnt get everything they hoped for, including a voucher program in a school finance bill, property tax relief, and Texas very own contentious version of a bathroom bill that would require transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to their biological sex, not their gender identity.

But they still have a chance. Not every bill that misses the end of the regular session remains dead. Gov. Abbott can call lawmakers back to Austin for as many special legislative sessions as he pleases, and there has been speculation that the bathroom bill could catch a second wind soon. On that final, theatrical day in session, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told senators as they adjourned, Normally, I would say Ill see you in 18 months, God willing! But well see you a little sooner than that.

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Texas Republicans pass 1200 bills, show DC how one-party rule works - VICE News

By Martin Wattenberg By Martin Wattenberg May 31 at 5:00 AM

On a recent episode of Saturday Night Live, Colin Jost opened the news segment by saying, Obviously, Trumps not done yet, but lets just say that Mike Pence is definitely warming up in the bullpen. The (presumably liberal) studio audience in New York applauded probably because they believe that any normal Republican would be better than Trump. Indeed, polls show that Democrats prefer Pence over Trump.

The prospect of a vice president preparing to take over the presidency would usually alarm members of the presidents own party. After all, the president won after many primary victories, and should be very popular with the partys voters. By contrast, the vice president is chosen by the presidential candidate with little or no public input, and is less likely to be known to and popular with the rank-and-file.

[Trump threatened Germany over trade. Heres what you need to know.]

But heres whats really surprising: Pence may be in the unusual position of being more popular than Trump not just among Democrats but also among Republicans. In survey data from the fall of 2016, Pence was the first vice presidential nominee in nearly five decades of data collection to be more popular among his own partys voters than the presidential nominee himself.

Vice-President elect Mike Pence said on Tuesday during remarks to the Heritage Foundation that President-elect Donald Trump's administration will "rebuild" the military and vowed to hunt down members of the Islamic State. (The Washington Post)

The chart below shows the average rating on a feeling thermometer a scale from 0 to 100 that rates how cool or warm respondents feel toward a political figure for the victorious presidential and vice presidential candidate among their own partys supporters. These data come from the American National Election Studies surveys conducted in the fall of every presidential election year.

In every year until 2016, the winning presidential candidate was more popular among his fellow partisans than the vice presidential running mate. Only in 1992, when Bill Clinton held just a two-point advantage over Al Gore among Democrats, was the rating even close.

[Thanks to Trump, Germany says it cant rely on the U.S. What does that mean?]

Until last year, when Republicans rated Pence on average six points higher than they rated Trump.

Why? Did ideologically dedicated conservatives prefer Pences consistently conservative track record to Trumps more variable positions? Or did the party faithful prefer the candidate more strongly identified as a Republican?

[How would removing Trump from office affect U.S. democracy?]

No. Neither of those were related to the preference for Pence. So what was? Views of Trumps character.

One question, for example, asked respondents how well the phrase honest described Trump. Respondents could say anything ranging from extremely well to not well at all. Republicans who thought that Trump was extremely or very honest rated him three points higher than Pence. But a quarter of GOP identifiers thought that Trump was only slightly honest or not at all honest; they rated Pence a striking 15 points higher than the president. And I found the same pattern for questions about how even-tempered and knowledgeable Trump is.

Lets note that these data were collected before Trump was elected. After Trump won and took office, many Republicans have rallied around him. GOP leaders like Paul D. Ryan and Mitch McConnell who maintained a cordial distance from Trump during the campaign warmly embraced him. Republicans in the electorate followed suit, with 84 percent approving of the presidents handling of his job in a recent Gallup poll.

But should the presidents character again be seriously questioned, the Republican preference for Pence could easily reappear with a vengeance. The scandals bubbling around the White House could endanger Trumps presidency. Day after day, news stories have been breaking that give voters reason to question the presidents personal character.

[So what exactly counts as an impeachable offense?]

If more Republicans come to think that the president is not honest, knowledgeable or even-tempered, then more will warm to the notion of President Pence.

One of the turning points in President Richard Nixons downfall was when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in a scandal of his own, and congressional leaders insisted on appointing Gerald Ford to replace him. Nixon had joked that no one would try to get rid of him as long as Agnew was next in line. Once the alternative was the trustworthy Ford, the choice between Nixon and his vice president looked quite different.

[Once again, its time to ask: How low can Donald Trumps approval rating go?]

Another major turning point came when seven of the 17 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted to approve an article of impeachment against Nixon. As Republican Lawrence Hogan, father of Marylands current governor, said, The evidence convinces me that my president has lied repeatedly, deceiving public officials and the American people.

If current scandals lead Republicans to reach a similar conclusion about President Trump, many will be quite glad to see Vice President Pence warming up in the bullpen.

Martin Wattenberg is professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine and author of Is Voting for Young People? (Longman, 2007).

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Republicans like Pence better than Trump. That's unprecedented. - Washington Post