Worried that “there is something catastrophic” that will happen to the economy within years, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) pleaded for action on the budget deficit in a Fox News interview today, using incipient climate disasters in a forceful metaphor. Gregg sharply criticized those who would “do nothing” about a metaphorical “force-five hurricane in five years”:

I genuinely believe there is something catastrophic, I can’t tell you that it’ll happen within the next 2 years. I can tell you within the next five years it will happen. If there’s a force five hurricane in five years, and you know it’s going to hit your shoreline in five years, do you do nothing about it?

Watch it:

Like the rest of his caucus, Gregg has taken a do-nothing policy when it comes to the threat of actual climate disasters, even though they have been dramatically increasing in his own state.

In March 2009, Gregg slammed Obama’s proposed climate action outline, calling it a “non-starter.” A month later, Gregg voted repeatedly to preserve the filibuster for green economy legislation, even if “the Senate finds that public health, the economy and national security of the United States are jeopardized by inaction on global warming.”

After the House passed major legislation to reduce the threat of climate disasters, Gregg again stood up to do nothing. “I think cap and trade has a long road here obviously,”, Gregg said in February 2010, opposing the work by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) to draft climate policy. “I think it’s more logical to focus on those things we can do in the short term.”

He then co-sponsored and voted for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) failed attempt to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse pollution is an imminent threat — which notes the “conclusion in the assessment literature that there is the potential for hurricanes to become more intense with increasing temperatures (and even some evidence that Atlantic hurricanes have already become more intense).”

This afternoon, NASA’s Astrobiology Institute revealed a fairly breathtaking finding: the discovery of what is essentially another form of life. Geobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon found bacteria in Mono Lake, California that can live without phosphorus, instead sometimes using arsenic. All life on earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur, but these bacteria are instead made of arsenic, something previously thought impossible. It even has a DNA blueprint that can contain arsenic, instead of phosphorus, meaning they are essentially a different form of life than anything else that exists on earth.

This discovery not only changes our current definition of “life,” but also significantly expands the possibility that life exists elsewhere in the universe. NASA explains:

“The definition of life has just expanded,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

This finding of an alternative biochemistry makeup will alter biology textbooks and expand the scope of the search for life beyond Earth…. The results of this study will inform ongoing research in many areas, including the study of Earth’s evolution, organic chemistry, biogeochemical cycles, disease mitigation and Earth system research. These findings also will open up new frontiers in microbiology and other areas of research.

“The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake.”

It is important to note that NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, which produced these amazing findings, is surviving despite falling victim to the Republican war on science. Under President George W. Bush, the department saw its funding reduced by half. The cuts were so drastic that many young astrobiologists faced tough decisions about leaving the field entirely:

Astrobiology at NASA has been hit especially hard by the budget cuts. NASA astrobiology funding has declined 50% over the last 2 years, and funding isn’t likely to be restored anytime soon. “These cuts have already resulted in major reductions in programs that fund graduate students and postdocs,” says Michael Mumma, principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Center for Astrobiology in Greenbelt, Maryland. Mumma says he tries to protect the young people as much as possible, but “sometimes you just can’t renew a student or postdoc position when the money simply isn’t there.” Mumma is seeing many young astrobiologists reaching decision points about leaving the field. [...]

Another young researcher, who asked to remain anonymous, says that astrobiology is “dead in the water.” After years of working on flagship missions at a major NASA centers, she tells the students she mentors not to “go into anything related to NASA because it’s too difficult and unstable.” She switched from planetary science to astrobiology 4 years ago, just before the budget cuts started. “I’m seriously thinking about doing something else with my life, maybe starting a business. I don’t know what yet.” She hasn’t given up on science completely. “I’m a good scrounger, so I’m hoping to be able to scrounge up some money.”

Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the young scientist who made these discoveries, apparently persisted in the face of these cuts. One wonders what other discoveries have been set back by the Republican war on science. Just today, The Hill reported that the Bush-era prohibition on stem-cell research may soon return if Congress doesn’t take action; the delays have already had destructive effects on researchers.

Well-versed in obstructing help to the hungry, House Republicans first blocked, then voted against the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act yesterday, a bill that “would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.” The Senate passed this bill by unanimous consent in August — essentially a 100-0 vote in favor of providing school meals to the nation’s 17 million hungry kids.

But 157 House Republicans had a different message for hungry children: get in line. During the House’s first attempt to pass the bill yesterday, Republicans “used a procedural maneuver” to add an amendment requiring background checks for child care workers. Recognizing it as a poison pill, House Democrats delayed the final vote till today rather than allow an amendment to “kill the bill.” The main champion of this tactic Rep. John Kline (R-MN) decried the Hunger-Free Act as a Democratic ploy to increase government spending. On the House floor yesterday, Kline insisted the bill was massive “deficit spending,” dismissing the bill’s offsets as a “stalling tactic that obscures government expansion”:

KLINE: The people are telling us, stop spending money we don’t have…this bill spends another $4.5 billion on various programs and initiatives and creates or expands 17, 17 separate federal programs…The majority claims this bill is paid for. They want us to believe we can grow government with no cost or consequences, but the American people know that’s just not true. More spending is more spending. Whether or not those dollars are offset elsewhere in the massive federal budget, but one offset is particularly questionable. The truth is that, at least some portion of the billions of new program costs is deficit spending. This money was borrowed from our children and grandchildren in 2009 when it was put in the stimulus. That borrowed money is simply being redirected today. It was borrowed then and its borrowed now. This bill with its so-called pay for is merely a stalling tactic. It obscures government expansion in the short-term so this bill can become law and its spending can become permanent.

Watch it:

An equally indignant Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) called the pay-for “a farce!” “It’s a farce, it’s a lie. And it’s borrowing more from our children and this kind of idiocy just has to stop,” he added.

The only “lie” emanating from the House floor yesterday came directly from Kline and Broun. The bill is indeed paid for, unfortunately with offsets from food stamp benefits included in the Recovery Act. Because of the Congressional pay-as-you-go rules that prohibits deficit spending on non-emergency measures, Democrats reluctantly raided much-needed food stamp funds — again — to pay for the Hunger-Free Act. Kline and Broun’s outrage at such a strategy is curious, considering Republicans have pushed the same exact strategy in the past.

Not only is their “deficit spending” cry hypocritical, it is also a downright lie. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the offsets in the Senate bill will actually generate “total savings that effectively meet or exceed costs” while simultaneously providing meals to hungry children. Essentially, 157 Republicans voted to block the holy grail of legislation. The House did, however, pass the bill today and it will now go to the President for signature.

The GOP’s continuing callous treatment of those in need was not lost on Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). “If cutting off unemployment insurance for out-of-work Americans wasn’t enough, House Republicans are now blocking critical legislation to help schools feed thousands of hungry children,” he told ThinkProgress. “Childhood nutrition shouldn’t be a partisan issue. But Congressional Republicans – intent on blocking any progress while President Obama is in office – are willing to put hungry children in the partisan crosshairs.”