America cannot remain a great nation when leaders succumb to magical thinking as exemplified by their positions on critical national economic and national security issues. GOP ideology not only opposes science and research, it defies common sense.

Here are examples of their simplistic, dangerous thinking:

Tax cuts for the wealthy will result in economic growth and create jobs. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service compiled a report finding no effect from this proposal. Instead of studying the expert advice to figure out policies that can increase growth and create jobs, the GOP leadership maintained their ideological bullheadedness and suppressed the report. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/congressional-research-service_n_2059156.html

· Climate Change is a myth: The GOP ideologues demand certainty and do not understand science. They don’t know that scientific conclusions are always subject to revision based on additional evidence and better theory. Ideologues simply can’t appreciate these subtleties. Climate change resulting from man made carbon emissions may not be certain, but the evidence of global warming is consistent with generally accepted theories explaining the phenomena and we ignore the mounting evidence at our peril.

By 2004, the Pentagon had already warned the Bush administration that climate change is a far greater threat than terrorism that could lead to global chaos.

As governor, Romney once acknowledged global warming and supported cap and trade carbon legislation. As a presidential candidate, he repudiates it. His reversion back to GOP ideology is a major reason Michael Bloomberg has endorsed President Obama. Bloomberg knows that storms like Sandy may be related to global warming, a threat that must be addressed.

Increase the defense budget: We already spend more than the next seventeen nations combined and most of them are our allies. Defense spending should be set at levels sufficient to meet, and defeat, reasonably foreseeable enemies. Throwing money at the defense department amounts to corporate welfare for defense contractors who maintain hundreds of lobbyists and propagandists to agitate for more wasteful spending and encourage unnecessary war.

Unbelievably, the Pentagon does not account for what it spends. Those who claim to be conservatives should clamor about war profiteering and wasteful spending. Instead, they agitate to increase defense spending which is already so high that it weakens and distorts our economy. Defense waste, and unnecessary war spending, is a significant cause of the national debt which is a fact the ideologues ignore.

Don’t fall for ignorance and distortion. You can see for yourself how the ideologues mock the reality based community in the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZENtH3psXl4

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“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” Mark Twain