Donald Trump admired as much as the pope

Donald Trump tied Pope Francis for the title of second most admired man in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. Both men lost the title to Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton was voted the world's most admired woman.

The Gallup polls, which have been taken for both genders every year since 1948, asks respondents, "What woman or man that you have heard or read about, living today in any part of the world, do you admire most?"

The multi-billionaire hotelier and the leader of the Catholic Church earned 5 percent of the vote each; President Barack Obama won more than three times their respective shares, with 17 percent. Bernie Sanders ranked third in the poll, pulling 3 percent of the vote.

Bill Gates, Ben Carson, the Dalai Lama, George W. Bush and the Reverend Billy Graham earned 1 percent each.

For the 14th year in a row, Hillary Clinton won the distinction of most admired woman in the world in the survey. This was the 20th time the former first lady, senator and secretary of state has won the honor — a record for the poll. No other man or woman challenges Clinton's performance, but former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was named the world’s most admired woman by Gallup 13 times.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai ranked second to Clinton among women this year, earning 5 percent of the vote to the Democratic frontrunner's 13 percent. Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama tied for third place with 4 percent each, followed by Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, Queen Elizabeth II, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at 2 percent each.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one-time vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and comedienne Ellen DeGeneres also appeared on the list at 1 percent each.

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I wonder who would top the least admired poll?  Probably many of the same names.

Good News

Africa Went a Year Without Any Polio

On July 24, Nigeria marked one full year without a single new case of locally acquired polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease. It is the last country in Africa to stop transmission of wild polio. This milestone represents a huge victory—one that some experts feared would never come. It required mapping every settlement in the north of the country, counting all the children in every house, delivering oral polio vaccine several times a year, working with hundreds of thousands of traditional leaders and community mobilizers, and operating in areas dominated by extremist groups. Nigeria’s efforts show that smart strategies can work even under the most difficult conditions.

When the global campaign to eradicate polio began in 1988, polio was endemic in 125 countries. The list is now down to just two: Afghanistan and Pakistan. We’ve come more than 99 percent of the way to eradication. I am confident we can finish the job.

[and 5 more]

-- Bill Gates

Ted Cruz (and followers) wants to carpet bomb ISIS

Ted Cruz never says anything good just once — when he finds a line or a joke that gets applause, he repeats it over and over. And one of his big crowd-pleasers at the moment is this little ditty about the Islamic State: "We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion. I don't know if sand can glow in the dark, but we're going to find out!"

Does Cruz actually want to drop nuclear weapons on places where ISIS is operating? That's what's implied by the bit about sand glowing in the dark, but he'd never cop to that. How about carpet-bombing? After all, part of the difficulty with fighting ISIS from the air is that they control cities full of civilians. The American military doesn't lack for ordnance; we could level those cities if we wanted. But doing so would mean thousands and thousands of civilian casualties, killing the very people we'd be claiming to want to save. That's not only morally abhorrent, it would be extremely likely to produce the kind of hatred towards America that helped Al Qaeda thrive, helped ISIS replace Al Qaeda, and would help the next terrorist group take ISIS's place.

In an interview Wednesday with NPR, Cruz got asked about this problem, and put his finely honed evasion skills to work. Asked by host Steve Inskeep whether he wanted to "flatten" cities where ISIS is located, Cruz said, "I think we need to use every military tool at our disposal to defeat ISIS." Inskeep pressed him: "You can flatten a city. Do you want to do that?" Cruz responded, "The problem with what President Obama is doing" is that he's too soft, noting that in World War II we didn't worry about the welfare of the German people, we just fought. "FDR carpet-bombed cities," Inskeep noted. "Is that what you want to do?" Cruz answered, "I want to carpet-bomb ISIS."

Of course, Cruz is hardly the only presidential candidate offering absurdly simplistic ideas about how to solve this problem. But one might think that the destruction we could wreak upon civilian populations in the Middle East would be a matter of particular concern given our recent history. Estimates of the civilian casualties in the Iraq War range somewhere between 165,000 and 500,000, but conservatives seem convinced that all that suffering and death had nothing to do with the rise of ISIS, and repeating it would be regrettable but not produce any blowback.

Perhaps we have trouble understanding what it's like to have a foreign army bombing or occupying your country because it's been so long. We haven't had such an army on our soil since the War of 1812, and though we were attacked at Pearl Harbor and then 60 years later on 9/11, those were events confined to a single day. So we can't seem to grasp the kind of resentment and even hatred that an extended military campaign can foster, no matter how noble the ideals of the country that sent the army carrying it out. When the Bush administration assumed we'd be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq (as Dick Cheney put it), they simply couldn't contemplate that Iraqis might not be excited to see us rain down bombs, destroy their infrastructure, and then occupy their country, even if they didn't like the dictator they were living under.

Grasping that requires empathy and a little imagination, neither of which is in good supply in the GOP these days, let alone among its presidential candidates. It's the luxury of running for office that you can make all problems sound simple, pretend that you can carpet-bomb a city and kill only the bad guys and not the people living there, and act as though strength and resolve are all you need to solve problems. The scary thing to contemplate is that someone like Ted Cruz might actually believe his campaign rhetoric, and put it into action if he became president.

-- Paul Waldman

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Donald Trump gets along with everybody.

Trump unites America

Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk on Trump...

Most weeks, you read the two of us debating the latest issues. We have differing perspectives and differing stances. Those differences haven’t changed. Be we are jointly so alarmed at Donald Trump’s sustained position at or near the top of the primary season presidential polls that we feel compelled to join forces on this occasion and say: No. This must end.

To be sure, we have differing reasons to arrive at the same conclusion.

195 countries agree on climate change

LE BOURGET, France — With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 nations reached a landmark accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.

The deal, which was met with an eruption of cheers and ovations from thousands of delegates gathered from around the world, represents a historic breakthrough on an issue that has foiled decades of international efforts to address climate change.

Traditionally, such pacts have required developed economies like the United States to take action to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but they have exempted developing countries like China and India from such obligations.

The accord, which United Nations diplomats have been working toward for nine years, changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor.

“This is truly a historic moment,” the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said in an interview. “For the first time, we have a truly universal agreement on climate change, one of the most crucial problems on earth.”

President Obama, who regards tackling climate change as a central element of his legacy, spoke of the deal in a televised address from the White House. “This agreement sends a powerful signal that the world is fully committed to a low-carbon future,” he said. “We’ve shown that the world has both the will and the ability to take on this challenge.”

Scientists and leaders said the talks here represented the world’s last, best hope of striking a deal that would begin to avert the most devastating effects of a warming planet.

The new deal will not, on its own, solve global warming. At best, scientists who have analyzed it say, it will cut global greenhouse gas emissions by about half enough as is necessary to stave off an increase in atmospheric temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the point at which, scientific studies have concluded, the world will be locked into a future of devastating consequences, including rising sea levels, severe droughts and flooding, widespread food and water shortages and more destructive storms.

But the Paris deal could represent the moment at which, because of a shift in global economic policy, the inexorable rise in planet-warming carbon emissions that started during the Industrial Revolution began to level out and eventually decline.

At the same time, the deal could be viewed as a signal to global financial and energy markets, triggering a fundamental shift away from investment in coal, oil and gas as primary energy sources toward zero-carbon energy sources like wind, solar and nuclear power.

Trump no different than FDR

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States, comparing his plan to the World War Two detainment of Japanese-Americans and others in dismissing growing outrage from around the world.

The White House called on Republicans to say they would not support Trump, currently the party's front-runner for the November 2016 election. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said his comments could undermine U.S. security.

The prime ministers of France and the United Kingdom, Canada's foreign minister, the United Nations and Muslims in Asian countries all denounced the real-estate mogul's comments.

But Trump said his ideas were no worse than those of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who oversaw the internment of more than 110,000 people in U.S. government camps after Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

"What I'm doing is no different than FDR," Trump said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program.

"We have no choice but to do this," he said. "We have people that want to blow up our buildings, our cities. We have to figure out what's going on."

how do you solve a problem like The Donald?

For months, much of the Republican Party’s establishment has been uneasy about the rise of Donald J. Trump, concerned that he was overwhelming the presidential primary contest and encouraging other candidates to mimic his incendiary speech. Now, though, irritation is giving way to panic as it becomes increasingly plausible that Mr. Trump could be the party’s standard-bearer and imperil the careers of other Republicans.

Many leading Republican officials, strategists and donors now say they fear that Mr. Trump’s nomination would lead to an electoral wipeout, a sweeping defeat that could undo some of the gains Republicans have made in recent congressional, state and local elections. But in a party that lacks a true leader or anything in the way of consensus — and with the combative Mr. Trump certain to scorch anyone who takes him on — a fierce dispute has arisen about what can be done to stop his candidacy and whether anyone should even try.

Some of the highest-ranking Republicans in Congress and some of the party’s wealthiest and most generous donors have balked at trying to take down Mr. Trump because they fear a public feud with the insult-spewing media figure. Others warn that doing so might backfire at a time of soaring anger toward political insiders.

That has led to a standoff of sorts: Almost everyone in the party’s upper echelons agrees something must be done, and almost no one is willing to do it.

With his knack for offending the very constituencies Republicans have struggled with in recent elections, women and minorities, Mr. Trump could be a millstone on his party if he won the nomination. He is viewed unfavorably by 64 percent of women and 74 percent of nonwhite voters, according to a November ABC News/Washington Post poll. Such unpopularity could not only doom his candidacy in November but also threaten the party’s tenuous majority in the Senate, hand House seats to the Democrats and imperil Republicans in a handful of governor’s races.

Asked about concerns over Mr. Trump’s potential influence on other contests, his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said, “I think the facts indicate the exact opposite is true,” and emailed a link to a consumer marketing firm’s assertion that Mr. Trump would ensure the highest general election turnout from Republicans, Democrats and independents alike.

Yet the clamor for a “Stop Trump” effort has become pervasive at the Senate’s highest levels, where members up for re-election are realizing that they can no longer dismiss as strictly theoretical the possibility of his capturing the nomination. Mr. Trump’s persistent ranking at or near the top of the polls is prompting urgent calls for an advertising assault to try to sink his campaign.

“It would be an utter, complete and total disaster,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, himself a presidential candidate who has tangled with Mr. Trump, said of his rival’s effect on lower-tier Republican candidates. “If you’re a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot, you’re going to have a hard time being president of the United States, and you’re going to do irreparable damage to the party.”

Slowly, some members of the party’s establishment are reckoning with the idea of a Trump ticket. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has cautioned its incumbents in blunt terms not to let themselves be linked to him.

But beyond sheer intimidation, some members of Congress worry that if the party’s establishment went after Mr. Trump, it would only fuel his anti-Washington appeal.

“I think it would play into his hands and only validate him,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. “A ‘Stop Trump’ effort wouldn’t work, and it might help him.”