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Politics trumps science

2 min read

Some elected officials these days trump politics over science.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), for example, said he can’t admit to climate change and global warming, despite broadening and overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, because he is not a scientist. McConnell by the way, in his toughest re-election bid, represents a state where coal, a fossil fuel that evidence shows contributes to global warming, is big business.

Chris Christie is also not a scientist. He is, though, the Republican governor of New Jersey and a highly touted, potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate. But his lack scientific credentials didn’t stop him from ordering a nurse, returning to the U.S. via Newark International Airport after treating and trying to stop the Eubola outbreak in western African, to be quarantined for 21 days, the time period science has proven the disease to become evident and contagious.

The nurse, despite not having any symptoms of Eubola, was housed forcibly in an isolation tent. Erected outside. In a hospital parking lot. But she had, Gov. Christie assured us, access to the Internet and take-out food from Newark’s best restaurants.

 So much for individual liberty and small government, tenants of Christie.

Republicans aren’t alone in these nonsensical hysterics. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats and neither of them holds a degree in any science discipline, have taken steps similar to Gov. Christie to quarantine anyone traveling from west African nations where Eubola is prevalent from entering the U.S. from their international airport hubs, O’Hare in Illinois and JFK in New York, respectively.

 And there are others like Sen. McConnell, on both sides of the aisle, ignoring an onslaught of evidence of the existence of deleterious global warming.

 Political expediency should not overcome fact, especially facts based on science.

Richard Ringer

Uniontown

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