UPDATE: Two Senators cancel their CLEAR climate bill presser, details below the Continue reading line.
Climate bill on the ropes
By: Darren Samuelsohn
July 20, 2010 03:10 PM EDT
The Senate climate bill has been at death’s door several times over the past year. But with the days before the August recess quickly slipping away, the case may truly be terminal now.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has wanted to introduce a sweeping energy and climate bill by next week, and Reid even told POLITICO on Monday night that the package was almost ready to go.
But by Tuesday afternoon, Reid was noncommittal about when a bill would come or what it would contain.
“We’re going to make a decision in the near future,” Reid said, describing plans for a Democratic caucus on the issue Thursday. “We’re really not at a point where I can determine what I think is the best for the caucus and the country at this stage.”
…
“The clock is our biggest enemy,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday, shortly after a meeting with several major electric utility industry CEOs who asked for a delay in the floor debate. “Some people know that. We have to figure out what is doable in this short span of time. That’s the test, and we’re going to take a look at that.”
Read the entire article at Politico
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UPDATE:
Another sign of Climate bill DOA, I just got this email sent to me. As reported on WUWT in this story yesterday: Two Senators upcoming presser on CLEAR Act
that event is now canceled:
=============================
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED.
Controlling Greenhouse Gases: The CLEAR Act Option
With Remarks by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan M. Collins (R-Maine)
Thursday, July 29, 2010, 2:00–3:30 p.m.
G11 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20002
1:45 p.m.
Registration
2:00
Introduction:
KENNETH P. GREEN, AEI
2:10
Address:
SENATOR MARIA CANTWELL (D-Wash.)
SENATOR SUSAN M. COLLINS (R-Maine)
2:40
Respondents:
ALAN D. VIARD, AEI
KENNETH P. GREEN, AEI
3:00
Question and Answer
3:30
Adjournment
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Visit AEI’s new blog at http://blog.american.com.
“lip service” is a wonderful term. It seems possible that neither Reid nor Obama really wants this thing due to the evolving uncertainty over the reality of the conditions it would supposedly address.
So verbally support it, but don’t knock yourself out trying to make it happen.
Notice what he says:
“We’re really not at a point where I can determine what I think is the best for the caucus and the country at this stage.”
Who comes first in his mind? Certainly not the people that he was elected to represent.
Mr. Chu and the EPA have undermined the President by their holding on to bad science.. ie.. the IPCC and the hockey stick(s). They surely have read ClimateAudit and other relevant blogs. Some homework, and some honesty, such as a public admission that the hockey stick(s) and impending doom predicted by some are not empirically supported, would have made the difference to Obama. Goodby House majority. goodbye second term. This has been a government run by beliefs, not science.
Hmmm … I wonder if this new bill will contain any additional, obscure provisions like the ‘Gold Coin Tax’ embedded deep in the hell [sic] care bill …
.
“The clock is our biggest enemy.” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday.
It most certainly is, and in more ways than one. The November elections and the slow awakening of the electorate that CAGW science has been manipulated will hopefully drive a stake through the heart of this blood-sucking legislation.
The Senate has already voted yes on the climate bill. They had the opportunity to stop the EPA from back door implementation of CO2 control but voted it down (including my two spineless Senators, Warner and Webb). Thanks to their perfidy and/or lack of courage, we now have a situation where the EPA can shut down power plants, refineries and other sources of CO2 without mentioning CO2 or they, in most cases, mention it as a “side benefit”.
One example was the AMP coal-electric plant in Ohio. In its place the DoE allocated some money for a gas pipeline to make a natural gas electric plant instead. But they also persuaded AMP to make a number of shady deals for solar power (I mean shady in a literal sense). This means that customers in rural areas who don’t know better will be cajoled by various means into paying 50% more for feel-good green power mostly by their municipalities signing them up without their consent or knowledge.
The upshot is simple, 30 year contracts with 2% escalators for wholesale power from politically correct sources as a starting down payment for the complete political correctness (i.e. unavailability at any reasonable price) of energy. This is the way the EPA under this administration will accomplish their agenda: stopping power plants and refineries top down (but using false CAA pretenses) and signing up the rubes for expensive new power from the bottom up.
Remember when they were supposed to introduce this on “earth day”? And then it kept getting pushed back, and back, and back. Looking like Reid is down to 3 choices:
1) introduce a stripped down energy bill with no carbon plan, which would infuriate the left.
2) introduce a carbon capping plan, which would infuriate the middle and probably fail.
3) introduce nothing at all, and just say that you never could get agreement.
Option 1 is the best compromise for anyone who feels the need to get *something* accomplished, but I’m betting Reid goes for either #2 or #3.
It won’t happen this Summer, but I am sorry to say that this will probably be passed in NOV/DEC after the US elections–before the new congress is seated. Many of the fence sitters will have been defeated and they will pass this legislation in a lame duck session of congress. Unless the minority party has some parlimentary tricks to prevent action, this legislation will be one of the many things to be defunded and repealed in the years to come.
I wish I were more optimistic but I am afraid that is how it will go.
Tim
Again, all about control and ways to extort campaign contributions using favors from the government to the private sector. The tic is becoming bigger than the dog. Then the dog dies.
Senate climate bill “…may truly be terminal now. “
So it should be. World’s temperatures are regulated by Denmark Strait, narrow deep passage between Greenland and Iceland, or at least ‘misuse’ of Leohle’s latest data for temperature reconstruction shows it:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC1.htm
The clock is the enemy?
1 We will melt rapidly if we don’t empty our empty pockets?
2 The clock is ticking and the greenist extremists are afraid of losing the election?
3 There is pressure to have a few hours to read this fiasco before a vote is called?
4 All of the above?
The deadline on voting is before the election. There will not be enough votes to pass it after the election.
“Let me be perfectly clear”
This bill doesn’t have a chance of any sort in the winter when the snow is falling and schools shut down. Last winter Hansen called a march at a power plant and a blizzard stopped him in his tracks.
Politics, plain and simple.
Why attempt to push it through now and get hammered even more in the upcoming elections when they can lame-duck it after the elections without retribution for 2 years?
“The clock is our biggest enemy,” Sen. John Kerry””
Nothing like admitting just how crooked they really are.
What’s the matter, can’t ram this one though before anyone can read it?
If Junior MA Senator Brown goes full RINO and joins with John Kerry in voting for this wealth redistribution tax, he is dead to me.
Vote for us and we will give you good weather. Vote for us and we will control sea-level. Vote for us and we will save the planet. Vote for us because we know better than you ignorant schmucks what’s good for you and we deserve to be in charge.
After a lifetime of not taking any politician too seriously, certainly not taking any of them at their own evaluation, it is only now that I realise how truly, deeply stupid so many of these people really are. Thicker than two short planks doesn’t even begin to describe it.
To me it’s like a bad horror movie, where every time the monster finally seems to be dead, it keeps waking up and coming after its victims.
I won’t be convinced until this awful movie is really finished and I can read – The End.
wws says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:29 am
“1) introduce a stripped down energy bill with no carbon plan, which would infuriate the left.”
The stripped down energy bill got tacked onto a Defense Appropriations Supplemental bill. Since spending on Defense infuriates the left anyways might as well tack on things like nuclear loan guarantee’s and such and upset the left all in one go instead of upsetting them peacemeal.
j ferguson says (July 21, 2010 at 10:03 am): “It seems possible that neither Reid nor Obama really wants this thing due to the evolving uncertainty over the reality of the conditions it would supposedly address.”
It has nothing to do with reality. Even if climate scientists were unanimously against this bill, if they had the votes, they’d pass it.
They will be back.
One can only hope that the coming winter gets so friggin’ cold, that even politicians have to put their hands in their own pockets.
But I’m afraid that that would require an ice-age.
The cancellation of the CLEAR presser – could it be Victory? That’s a clear signal that Cantwell and Collins have thrown in the towel!
And I don’t think they can do it in a lame-duck session after the election – after a big win, there is no cost at all to the Republicans from implementing a cross the board filibuster and blocking *all* legislation until the new Congress is seated in January. *especially* if they have taken back the Senate and the House.
I lived in Nevada, I can tell you the first consideration is what is good for Harry Reid?
As one of their own dearly beloved idols once put it : this needs to be stopped “by whatever means necessary”.
Let’s hope this bill becomes a casualty of hard core common sense. Let’s hope that it’s creators receive the political ignominy they so richly deserve alongside all their cheerleading rent seekers and sundry parasitical control freaks.
KLA says:
July 21, 2010 at 12:05 pm
One can only hope that the coming winter gets so friggin’ cold, that even politicians have to put their hands in their own pockets.
But I’m afraid that that would require an ice-age.
——————————————————————————
Be careful what you wish for, KLA – because, you might get it…
Time isn’t his enemy. I am. And other past Dems turned Independents, Libertarians, and Republicans, not to mention Dems who will stay Dems but sure as hell learned from their past mistake.
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in a well-funded and results oriented public education system. I still believe in the sanctity of stay the hell out of my bedroom and belly womb. I still believe in the fact the love is damned hard to find so if you have found it and one of you is a purple dragon and the other is a pink pansy, you should be able to get married, raise kids, get divorced, and argue, fuss and fight right along with the rest of us. I still believe that religion has no place in government whatsoever. And I still believe in my right to decide for myself any and all medical procedures. That makes me quite liberal.
What I don’t believe in is bailing out businesses, banks, and stock holders for making stupid decisions. I don’t believe in federal power over state land. I don’t believe in CO2 regulations. I don’t believe in wind/water/solar power as our major source of infrastructure energy. That makes me a mule headed independent voter.
I do believe in safe open pit and closed tunnel coal and shale oil mining with clean power generating plants. I do believe in nuclear power, especially the kind that powers ships and subs. I do believe in reduced regulations so that small businesses can compete with large business without the regulatory financial burden placed on small businesses. That makes me a mule headed independent conservative voter.
In view of the above beliefs and the party in power at the moment that I helped put there with deep regret, I no longer believe in any Democratic politician and will never vote for another one as long as I live. That’s why I, and others like me, are Kerry’s and Reid’s enemy. Not time.
There is a old adage that most law students learn during their first year of study. The most important and valuable work that a legislature performs, is the number of bills that are not enacted.
Correction: a should be an.
Pamela Gray says:
July 21, 2010 at 1:41 pm
As a someone just to the right of Attila the Hun , I believe I could happily vote for you.
Pamela, even though I would generally be considered conservative (but the financial type, not the social type – they’re different) I don’t think there’s anything you’ve said that I would have any real disagreement with. THAT’s the direction this country needs to be moving in!
Still angry at finding out that, starting 2012, anyone who buys gold coins is going to be reported to the IRS. Just because they say so.
Money grubbing, power hungry, ill-informed do-gooders. I am hopeful for Nov but it can’t come soon enough; except I love summer so I don’t want it to come too fast.
@ Pamela
well said.
Pamela Gray says: “I still believe in a well funded and results oriented public education system.”
Ms. Gray, do you also believe that you have the right to force your neighbor to fund the sort of education system you desire? Or to hire (with your vote) a politician who will do the dirty work of extorting money from your neighbor to realize your social desires?
Do you enjoy the politicization of education that government control engenders? Are you thrilled by the hypocrisy of politicians who vote against providing more educational choice to parents via things like vouchers, while the ame policitians send their children to exclusive private schools?
Given that the US public education system is organized like the agricultural system of the former Soviet Union (with collectively owned facilties and centralized control) , and that under this sort of system most Russians lacked nutritious food, do you wonder why US public schools are widely seen as unsatisfactory?
Would you like the production and distribution of food in the US to be organized like the public education system?
Pamela Gray says:
July 21, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in a well-funded and results oriented public education system.
Pam the key word here is results. That is not what we have got.
When did the light bulb come on?
The all important quote:
“Electric utilities also want relief from several Clean Air Act rules dealing with smog, soot and mercury, but that demand draws complaints from many environmental groups that see it as an unworthy trade.”
No wonder corporations are willing to play. They get to pass the cost of the carbon tax to customers, get the government to subsidize the “green energy” boondoggles they are planning and get a get out of jail free card on the real pollution.
CLIMATE ACTIVISTS take note – That deal is the serpent in you garden of Eden. I knew there had to be a catch in all this somewhere. The money men want to screw us not themselves.
Pamela, you talk like some NE Oregon Ranchers and their spouses I know.
I agree with what you are saying. Because I and my wife are Independents,
We got an invite to his Union Co. Audience-from Sen. Jeff Smerkley, er,Merekley.
held in the smallest meeting room of the La Grande Senior center. I use the invite
as a coaster…..
If the dems ever want to get elected or re-elected they had better get used to the
idea that people aren’t stupid….
Smerkley is a CAp’n Tax supporter for those who do not know him…
Jim G says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:36 am
Again, all about control and ways to extort campaign contributions using favors from the government to the private sector. The tic is becoming bigger than the dog. Then the dog dies.
________________________________________________________________
Boy isn’t that the truth, and I mean the REAL truth. The tick is now bigger than the dog and we are in trouble. Here are the numbers I worked up a few years ago:
As percentage of work force from Census figures: (Education is % of the population)
…………………In 1970……In 2006
Manufacturing…24.0%…..10.2% (1996)
Education………..4.4%…….1.1% (1996)
Government……14.9%…….16.9% (FED)
Welfare (not SS)…??……….7.2%
Government jobs now out weight manufacturing jobs. In the last decade we had less than half the manufacturing jobs, a quarter of the education jobs but 24% of the labor force was eating at the government trough. (The welfare numbers have those over 65 subtracted out)
If you count direct government employees plus lawyers, teachers, accounting and the other government related jobs I could find, about 25% of our labor forces is directly or indirectly dealing with government bureaucracy. If all the new programs the democrats want are passed,
Government Health Care
Farm and Livestock registration and tracking
the new farming regulations,
Cap and Trade
Just to name a few, how many new government jobs will be added… double??? and how many manufacturing jobs will go overseas – Half of what we have left???
Just to give you an example of how idiotic this has gotten take Farm and Livestock registration and tracking. The government want you to report to the government within 24 hours every time your little girl rides her pony off your property and then back on your property, I kid you not! That is why farmers and horsemen have been trying to kill the idea for ten long years.
Think about what the idiots will do with Cap and Trade with that lunacy as a template!
Keep your powder dry. We were all told that ObamaCare was dead following Scott Brown’s election to US Senate from MA. They pulled the wooden stake out and passed it. The same thing can (and probably will) happen to Cap & Trade. They will do it when we aren’t looking.
Interestingly enough, the Laws of Physics also seem apply to the political world. Though the reaction is not necessarily opposite and it most certainly isn’t linear. They have thumped the system pretty hard over the last 20 months (since Sept 2008). The system is sure to respond – and in ways that they cannot comprehend. Perhaps the political world is not Newtonian; perhaps the political world is Quantum Mechanical in nature.
With the forecasts of a big El Nino heavy on thier minds, the sand in the hourglass is running thin.
Henry chance says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:43 am
“Let me be perfectly clear”
This bill doesn’t have a chance of any sort in the winter when the snow is falling and schools shut down. Last winter Hansen called a march at a power plant and a blizzard stopped him in his tracks.
_______________________________________________________________
Henry the biggest fear is the lame duck period it can go from the second week in November up to December 22. That is plenty of time to do a heck of a lot of damage. I am expecting all sorts of nasty bills to become law during that period such as Markey’s Cap and Trade bill and Markey’s Food safety bill. Both have past the house. GRRRrrrr.
If both these bills pass the Senate, not only will out utilities bills and everything sky rocket but our food bills will go out of sight even faster. A farmer in the UK said similar Regs. take up 60% of his time so food costs will increase even higher than everything else thanks to the double whammy of Cap and trade plus the new farm regulations. They are modeled after drug regulations so individuals have no hope of competing with the Ag giants.
Here is info on the food safety bill:
This is a run down of the problems with the bill:
http://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.php
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news/news-15june2009.htm
Announcement that the bill passed the House:
http://www.ewg.org/release/House-passes-markey-BPA-bill
A quicky overview:
This is for ALL farms and could including granny and her chickens, gardens, bake sales, church fish frys etc via the Commerce Clause:
“…Finally, all registered facilities will be subject to federal inspection even if they engage only in intrastate commerce.”
* Power to Quarantine a Geographic Area; the FDA can also Halt All Movement of All Food in a geographic area.
* Warrantless Searches of Business Records.
* Establishing a Tracing System for Food.
* Severe Criminal and Civil Penalties.
* Annual Registration Fee ($500 for 2010).
* Regulation of How Crops Are Raised and Harvested.
* A written food safety plan must be developed and implemented
1. Conduct a hazard analysis (or more than one if appropriate);
2. Identify, implement, and validate effective preventive controls;
3. Monitor preventive controls;
4. Institute corrective actions when monitoring shows that preventive controls have not been properly implemented or were ineffective;
5. Conduct verification activities;
6. Maintain records of monitoring, corrective action, and verification; and
7. Reanalyze for hazards. [section 102(b), sec 418A(a)–p. 18]
Not only will out utilities bills sky rocket but our food bills will go out of sight. A farmer in the UK said similar Regs. take up 60% of his time so food costs will increase even higher than everything else thanks to the double whammie of Cap and trade plus farm regulations.
mkelly says:
July 21, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Pamela Gray says:
July 21, 2010 at 1:41 pm
As a someone just to the right of Attila the Hun , I believe I could happily vote for you.
_____________
Actually you sound like an intelligent individual.
It is those who wish to control individuals that try to push us into categories. It is much easier to establish control if you can get people squabbling about right and left, black and white, citizen and illegal so they are not paying attention to what the politicians are really up to. That is why the politicians are always stirring up trouble. Just look at how Obummer is playing the race card every two minutes, saying the tea party and any one else who criticizes him are racists. By doing that he is hoping to keep Blacks and Hispanics from seeing what he is really doing and the whites too busy fighting the charges of racism.
I now live in the south (NC) and see a heck of a lot LESS racism here than I ever saw in the very liberal town of Boston MA.
Pamela Gray says: “I still believe in a well funded and results oriented public education system.”
David Longinotti says:
July 21, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Ms. Gray, do you also believe that you have the right to force your neighbor to fund the sort of education system you desire?….
____________________________________________________
In general I want a very small government. But there are certain basics we need for civilization. Army, police, a road system, some sort of fire protection, AND education. Why education?
The guy who completely destroyed the USA education system gave the answer over one hundred years ago:
“Dewey’s philosophy had evolved from Hegelian idealism to socialist materialism, and the purpose of the school was to show how education could be changed to produce little socialists and collectivists instead of little capitalists and individualists. It was expected that these little socialists, when they became voting adults, would dutifully change the American economic system into a socialist one.
In order to do so he analyzed the traditional curriculum that sustained the capitalist, individualistic system and found what he believed was the sustaining linchpin — that is, the key element that held the entire system together: high literacy. To Dewey, the greatest obstacle to socialism was the private mind that seeks knowledge in order to exercise its own private judgment and intellectual authority. High literacy gave the individual the means to seek knowledge independently. It gave individuals the means to stand on their own two feet and think for themselves. This was detrimental to the “social spirit” needed to bring about a collectivist society.” http://www.ordination.org/dumbing_down.htm
THAT is why I believe we as a country need a good education system. But as Andrew Jackson said “But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government.”
We, our Grandparents and parents were not ever vigilant. We did not keep a sharp eye on our politicians. We allowed those who hate freedom and liberty to steal it from us little by little starting with the corruption of our education system. We screwed up by allowing the federal government to grab control of a local issue. by allowing the Federal Reserve System to be created, by allowing the “Commerce Clause” to be warped out of all recognition.
There will more than likely be a constitutional challenge within 6-9 monthes from now. The way the EPA has changed things plus a federal government that has taken liberty of its boundaries is going to make a very volatile situation come lame duck and next congress…
You are going to see some of the most bizarre and perhaps frightening things, but will the media report the relevant information like how the head of the EPA has stakes in green business? Probably not, so the horse and pony show will go on without the truth for either side. Constitutional crisis followed by who knows…hopefully the supreme court can decide the issues, otherwise we will have a very worthless government for a couple years.
The clock is our biggest enemy,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday…
==========================================
On the contrary, Senator Kerry.
The truth is your biggest enemy.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
yeah, like the health care bill was dead like eleventy billion times…it will pass
This should be a no brainer for congress, the senate and the Pres. Just today Bernake was talking about the poor state of recovery and recommending no further stimulus.
Unemployment will get worse before it gets better. Most Americans can look forward to being worse off in the near future and retirement is now only a dream for the upper class.
I hope these idiots in power are voted out forever come November. How could they put Americans in such risk even if AGW was real, which it is not. I just hope the Republicans can keep this from a vote before the next election, but there’s always some stupid Senator who sells out to get a personal favor, which in the end probably will never materialize anyway.
Perhaps people of power, who can think for themselves, have gotten the message from all the recent books and videos showing how runaway defective idealistic influences that have tainted the results of modern climate research.
Now that the Climategate review hearings have sounded the ‘all clear’ signal, I do seem to see renewed calls in the elite news media (the mainstream press) for one more push to finally have the government make a serious commitment to fixing the Global Warming problem. I do not know how well the general public is responding to these appeals.
I just found a recent posting of the results of a New York Times and CBS poll published back in April 2007 saying that 90 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of independents and 60 percent of Republicans believed immediate action was required to stop global warming. I also do recall a major poll last winter saying that support for government action on Global Warming in this country had fallen to a shocking all time low. Since then, this issue appears to have ‘gone off the radar’ of the major published tracking polls. I have, as yet, found no comprehensive published polls on this subject for the post-Climategate review inquiry period.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/56_don_t_want_to_pay_more_to_fight_global_warming
RE: Jack Simmons: (July 22, 2010 at 1:38 am)
link:->56% Don’t Want To Pay More To Fight Global Warming
Sorry, that one appears to be a year out of date. The effects of the BP mess in the Gulf and the fallout from the Climategate panel reviews are not represented. I have checked those sites for up to the month data on this issue and found a seemingly mysterious silence. Perhaps that is good news.
One problem with Google search is that a bounded search for recent reports may pick up many old, outdated articles that have just been re-echoed in your specified time frame.
This tune will be very different if November goes as predicted and the Left is voted out overwhelmingly.
The lame duck session will probably bring this bill, and as many other destructive bills back to the floor for votes, as they try to get as much of the agenda passed as possible.
They know they still have the Presidency; they know it can’t be undone.
““The clock is our biggest enemy,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) told reporters Tuesday”
Yes indeed, November 2 will be here before you know it.
When one Party has all the cards, all the money, all the votes, all the power, They can pretty much do whatever they want; whenever they want. Don’t assume that anything today works the way “it’s supposed to” or that whatever is said today will mean anything tomorrow, or that the American people won’t get exactly what they deserve for what they did on election day 2008. The first lesson for voters in a democracy, “Don’t Ever Give Any One Party ALL the Marbles! EVER!!!!!!”
It is said that political memory is about 6 weeks. What is now has little effect in November. It’s the people who vote who are the problem not the people they elect.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Tea Party for electing Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown since he voted for the Financial Reform Bill and help the President of the United States with another legislative victory, thank you Tea Party. Have you heard of “Unintended Consequences” or “Blowback”? Was he working for the Tea Party, himself or our Country, hmmm only you can answer this one?
The problem is this. Tea Party candidates will win a number of these congressional races because local districts are often safely partisan in nature. They can make their wild, unfounded claims, crazy accusations, etc., and win. That means not only are we likely to see an increase in Republican seats in both houses, we’re likely to see more antics, more insanity, more stupidity. At the same time they’re going to do everything they can to derail Obama’s policies which will likely mean high unemployment, a moribund economy, and more compromises on policy positions that make no one happy.
That could literally mean that if the Republicans put up a legitimate candidate in 2012, they could win. Such a result is bad enough, but the likely response for the Democrats is to move further to the “middle” to placate voters. As we’ve seen over the last decade, the “middle” in American politics is basically on the verge of being an 80s Republican. Increasingly that means we’ll have a political landscape of a conservative party and ratfuck insane parties. The former, given it’s track record, slowly moving to the right, the latter, given it’s track record, loudly screaming “socialism, communism, fascism!!!”
If we continue on this course, privatization will be socialism.
Dogmeat says:
July 22, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I was waiting for the incoherent potty-mouthed babbler to show up. Not a cogent thought in the entire diatribe!
Thanks for stopping by, Dogmeat.
I’m quite happy with Scott Brown.
He voted for the fake financial reform bill, which is fine. While there’s no financial reform in it, it’s generally harmless. So Scotty gets to look like a bipartisan compromiser to his leftist Massachusetts electorate by voting for a meaningless bill.
As for “helping the President,” go ask your friends and neighbors, “Hey, what do think about that awesome financial reform? What a win, huh?” As if a complete farce of a bill written by the corrupt Dodd and Frank is going to swing any moderates or turn out any base.
Go Scotty B!!!
As for the overall Tea Party, sure there are some nuts. But mainstream Republicans (Boehner et. al.) are the ones who drove this country into a ditch along with Bush and the Democrats. We need reform so desperately that I’ll take a few kooks along with the wave of reformers.