Rebecca Leber questions why Mitch McConnell, who “often chides Obama for his lack of leadership” is now “willing to make an exception for climate change … McConnell said on Monday that he would rather the U.S. do less on climate change and let other countries take the lead.”  

McConnell: “Well the president has been trying to take a leadership position, but of course nobody is interested in tying their hands behind their back and creating more problems for their people in pursuit of a goal they do not think we can achieve … My job is to look out for Kentucky’s coal miners.”  

And Jonathan Chait contends that Paul Ryan is “a nut” for constantly dodging the question about the link between human activity and global warming.  

“His ideological fantasies prevent him from accepting even basic scientific facts. He is, to be sure, a lucid nut, rather than a raving nut who accosts passersby on street corners. Ryan has spent his life imbibing the tenets of right-wing-movement thought, and he can apply the concepts he has learned to nearly any topic.”  

“So while nuttery can be found on the left and right, it is not a bipartisan problem at the national level … If the Democrats let [Robert Kennedy Jr — a Democratic ‘nut’ –] write their party-policy manifesto, or gave him a spot on their presidential ticket, it would be very, very alarming. But Ryan is in a party where this sort of thing barely even attracts attention.”