Chancellor DeMint’s (R.Teabagger-S.C.) Standing Hold On All Legislation

How will Democratic Senators who care more about self-imposed rules and traditions handle somebody like Sen. Chancellor Jim DeMint (R.Teabagger-S.C.) who held up every piece of legislation in the Senate until he personally cleared its progress?  Until very recently, the public wasn’t even aware that such an abuse of Senate procedure was occurring.  Sen. Chancellor DeMint shouldn’t have the power to be the single person who prevents the Senate from doing what it is supposed to do: deliberate and pass legislation.

Instead, we get nonsense like this:

“It is my understanding Jim DeMint has had a standing hold on everything throughout this two year process,” Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told the Huffington Post on Tuesday. “When I have had amendments on a couple of occasions, I have been told: ‘Absolutely, we in the Republican leadership are fine but you are going to have to clear it with Jim DeMint because he has a standing hold on everything.’ So I’m not sure this is a real change from what he has been doing.”

If Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid loses his race to Republican Teabagger Angle, as it looks like he might, will he think back on his lack of drawing attention to this cancer in the Senate?  If Sen. Michael Bennet loses his race to Republican Teabagger Ken Buck, will he think back on his ham-handed attempts at pursuing bipartisanship at all costs?

The Senate is a broken institution.  I don’t want to listen to empty platitudes or promises from anybody on either side of the aisle until the Senate fixes its own problems.  The past 10 years are proof that Republican Teabaggers will do anything and everything in order to pass their legislation and completely halt Democrats from passing their legislation.  Serious people would address this issue.

The Climate Doesn’t Care About Process, Sen. Reid

The main focus of this message is meant for Sen. Majority Leader Reid, but applies to anyone who is either actively working to prevent any energy or climate legislation from passing Congress or is offering up mealy-mouthed whines about how hard it is.

The climate doesn’t care, Sen. Reid.  It doesn’t care about your chamber’s absurd set of rules; about how many votes you do or do not have; about your re-election campaign; about any political process or effort to fawn to the media.

The climate simply responds to forcing, of which humans have done and continue to do plenty of.

Think action on climate change is hard, Sen. Reid?  Ask the Russians how hard their worst heat wave in recorded history was earlier this year.  Ask the Pakistanis how hard the floods are making their lives.  Ask some Africans how hard it is to feed and water their families when record drought continues to strike the region.  Those folks are dealing with the industrialized world’s greenhouse gas pollution.  Their lives are not only being made harder, but in a growing number of cases, impossible.

I’m sure they’ll all feel much more comfortable, and perhaps their lives will all get easier, as soon as they hear you might take up climate and energy issues piecemeal, because dealing with them in all their complexity is just more than you and your colleagues can seem to manage.

We’ll deal with this issue when we’re forced to and not much sooner, as I see it now.  By then, of course, the costs associated with it will have skyrocketed and whatever actions we take will be less effective than they would be if started today.  But Sen. Reid and others will have kept their hands on power as long as they possibly could along the way.  That’s the truly important part to this story, after all.

Cowardly Democrats & Climate

If you follow this policy topic, by no doubt you’ve already heard or read somewhere that elected Democrats have decided not to even try to put together a climate and energy bill in 2010.  I don’t know when they think they’ll take it up.  I don’t think they know when they’ll take it up.  What I do know right now is outside of Nancy Pelosi, a number of Democratic “leaders” have done anything but lead and should be voted out of office (or positions of responsibility) as soon as possible.  Sen. Reid. Sen. Schumer and Sen. Durbin are on that list.  President Obama very well could be.

Random Pieces 7/22/08

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is personally holding 100 bills up in procedural gamesmanship. That’s despite the fact that the bills have no serious opposition and even broad support. That’s despite the fact that Sen. Coburn has been in the Senate as long as Sen. Barack Obama. Do we hear about Sen. Coburn’s inexperience as a reason he shouldn’t be where he is? Of course not. Sen. Coburn is just acting like an ass. He’s playing the Republican playbook of “government can’t work” to an extreme. He and his extremist ideologues want to show the American people just how little work the Congress can do.

In a brilliant and likely unprecedented move, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is gathering the bills into what’s called an omnibus and will bring that to the floor. Instead of taking up time with 100 individual bills, the Senate will consider only one.

Sen. Coburn is up for reelection in 2010. I’ll support his opponent enthusiastically.

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Isn’t it interesting how the price of oil is “plummeting” as Congress looks to pass legislation that would crackdown on unregulated speculation of commodities? Throw this on top of the giant list of examples that demonstrate the market isn’t free, as conservatives have been crowing about for too long. Remember, the price of oil kept going up despite a significant decrease in demand earlier this year.

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Barack Obama’s campaign is launching Solutions for Colorado, which is a good thing. The first two events, however, are being hosted by the most right-leaning Democrats Colorado has to offer: the Salazar brothers.

Our first event is in Pueblo, where we’ll share our ideas on the economy and be joined by Rep. John Salazar. At our second event in Windsor, we’ll be joined by Sen. Ken Salazar to discuss our energy solutions for Colorado.

What about Reps. DeGette or Udall, both of whom have been in office longer and both of whom are more progressive than the Salazars? This is an interesting way to begin these meetings and points toward a likely mode of behavior if Obama is elected President: tacking right in search of the mythical center.

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