"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."
The upshot: Soon enough, you shall be able to file any stories about the Good Old USofA under "Obits."
#1
The coverage of this issue is so wrong-headed, it boggles my mind. Congress CREATED the EPA. It can un-create it. Or at the very least, alter the environmental protection acts to forbid the EPA from regulating the emissions of CO2 and H20. But no, Congress is utterly devoted to wasting its time on 'reforming health care' while other absolutely critical issues get no attention from it at all.
#2
I don't think that the problem is that Congress is too busy reforming health care. The problem is that Congress doesn't want to touch this with a 10 foot pole. If they shut down or restrict the EPA in any way, their leftist base will howl. By not doing anything, if something goes wrong (i.e., the economy craters), they can just blame the EPA.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/09/2009 19:19 Comments ||
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#3
Just create the Department for Fighting Plant Starvation which pays producers of CO2.
Almost $6 million in federal stimulus funds was given to two firms run by Hillary Clinton's former presidential campaign strategist, The Hill newspaper reported Wednesday.
Mark Penn, who worked as Clinton's pollster during her 2008 presidential run, reportedly received $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus package so he could preserve three jobs at his public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller.
The firm has gained attention for securing a contract to work on a campaign advertising the nation's switch from analog to digital television. The Hill reported that $2.8 million of that contract was given to Penn's polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates.
Republicans have blasted the use of federal stimulus dollars, claiming the money has gone to many projects that have little or nothing to do with job creation.
Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., held a news conference Tuesday in which they released a report criticizing 100 projects paid for by the stimulus package that they claim wasted $7 billion.
#3
I understand you think that would bring on unlimited inflation.
You don't give the people of the USA any common sense, anybody selling 50 buck hamburgers will quickly be put out of business, even Millionaires won't be screwed (not including dumbasses), who quickly will NOT be millionaires very long, say two months or so.
There always will be fools, but given a million, I'd sit on it for 6 months or so and let the morons spend themselves broke, and still be WAY ahead.I could stretch my stored food (Pantry, a southern thing) We all have some food put away for hard times.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/09/2009 20:39 Comments ||
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#4
Hilli-bribe, just like a Senate seat
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2009 20:49 Comments ||
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#5
You're right. I don't have much faith in peoples' common sense. I also didn't say prices would go up overnight. But they would go up. That much money in the hands of so many in the economy would lead to a shortage of goods and services in some sectors (home-improvement, for example). It isn't a far stretch to think that costs and prices would go up in other sectors as well.
BTW, Mormons have pantries too. Just a little 'cultural edification' for you.
A new Rasmussen poll (500 LVs, 12/7, MoE +/- 4.5%) has more troubling signs for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), with his numbers slipping against the three potential Republican foes.
General Election Matchups
Simmons 48 (-1 vs. last poll, 9/10)
Dodd 35 (-4)
Und 11 (+5)
McMahon 44 (N/A)
Dodd 38
Und 9
Schiff 40 (unch)
Dodd 39 (-3)
Und 14 (+4)
Favorable Ratings
Dodd 40 / 58
Simmons 48 / 30
McMahon 45 / 35
Schiff 35 / 31 What I find stunning is the fact that as many as 39 percent of Connecticutti would vote for this butt weasel, and as many as 40 percent view him "favorably." Most of that 40 percent are permanently on the Dhimmicratic plantation for reasons we already know ...
President Obama remains popular in Connecticut, with 57 percent approving of his job performance and 43 percent disapproving. Forty-eight support the health care plan in Congress, while 51 percent oppose it. Rasmussen finds the sentiment on health care more favorable in Connecticut than other states.
#3
Creamer is a self-described disciple of Saul Alinsky and this sure appears to be the working model used by the WH. David Axelrod called the book "the blueprint for future victory" and was endorsed by John Podesta, SEIU, ACORN, and the Huffington Post. I'm all for convicting them all on guilt by association for terrorizing the American people.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democratic negotiators said they had reached agreement on Tuesday on a compromise on a scaled-back public insurance plan in a broad healthcare overhaul and would seek cost estimates on the deal.
"We have a broad agreement," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told reporters, refusing to give details on the proposals that will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office.
The government-run plan, along with the issue of abortion, was one of the two biggest hurdles remaining for the overhaul, which is President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
A team of 10 Senate Democrats -- five liberals and five moderates -- had been working for days on a substitute to the government-run plan included in the Senate bill, which has dismayed some moderates.
Democratic Senate sources said the substitute proposal would create a non-profit plan operated by private insurers but administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which supervises health coverage for federal workers. The sources said negotiators also sought cost estimates on an expansion of the Medicare health program for the elderly, which is now available at age 65, to Americans as young as 55 who could "buy-in" to the coverage.
"Insurance companies will certainly have more competition," Reid said of the deal. "The American people will certainly have more choices."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/09/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Medicare health program for the elderly, which is now available at age 65, to Americans as young as 55 who could "buy-in" to the coverage.
#2
but he wouldn't detail the deal. Most transparent government, evah!
Harry's a lying sack of sh*t. Send him back to Searchlight, NV voters!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/09/2009 8:11 Comments ||
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#3
Reid's latest plan won't have Nelson (because of abortion) or Lieberman (because of cost) on board. Unless he gets Blanche Lincoln and the two Maine Senators, it won't get to a final vote.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/09/2009 9:07 Comments ||
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By JOHN FUND Majority Leader Harry Reid tarred opponents of his health care bill yesterday as the equivalent of those who opposed equal rights for women and civil rights for blacks.
In a remarkable statement on the Senate floor, Mr. Reid lambasted Republicans for wanting to "slow down" on health care. "You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," he said. "In this country there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' -- about slavery. When women wanted to vote, [they said] 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that -- the day isn't quite right. . . .'"
He wrapped up his remarks as follows: "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."
Senator Reid's comments were quickly condemned. "Hyperbole. It is over the top. It reminds me of earlier people talking about Nazis," said Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News, author of "Eyes on the Prize," a definitive history of the civil rights movement.
Historians also faulted Mr. Reid's curious reference to the Senate civil rights debates of the 1960s. After all, it was Southern Democrats who mounted an 83-day filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The final vote to cut off debate saw 29 Senators in opposition, 80% of them Democrats. Among those voting to block the civil rights bill was West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who personally filibustered the bill for 14 hours. The next year he also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate, and indeed preceded Mr. Reid as his party's majority leader until he stepped down from that role in 1989.
The final reason Mr. Reid's comments were so inapt and offensive is that the battles for women's suffrage and civil rights he referred to were about expanding freedom. That's not what the 2,074-page health care bill being debated in the Senate today does, with its 118 new regulatory boards and commissions. Mr. Reid may reach his needed 60 votes to pass his bill this month, but he is pursuing it using the most tawdry and deplorable of tactics.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Did Harry up his dose of stupid pills this week? He's making Pelosi look positively brilliant.
#4
And Nancy Pelosi said tha denying women acess to abortions was like denying men access to V1@gra
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/09/2009 8:10 Comments ||
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#5
Sorry, that was Babs "Dumber than a bucket of hair" Boxer, Not Queen Nancy.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/09/2009 8:12 Comments ||
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#6
Harry's act of bonding millions of Americans to give up, under threat of jail and loss of liberty, their labor and earnings to satisfy his desires is just another form of involuntary servitude. Looks like you're the slaver Harry.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele is renewing his demand that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologize for likening health care overhaul opponents to those who resisted putting an end to slavery.
The Nevada Democrat made the assertion in a statement Monday as the Senate worked on legislation to remake the health care system, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
Steele said on CBS's "The Early Show" Tuesday "it was an ignorant moment for Harry Reid." He said that when Democrats get in trouble, "they play that race card, that slavery card, that civil rights card." Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley, responded to Steele's initial statement Monday by calling his remarks "feigned outrage."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2009 00:00 ||
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All non-democrats and non-democratic thinking is racist.... isn't it?
#2
It's not the Trunks who are trying to reduce the citizenry to serfs of the state and one party. Note to Reid, being in the party that opposed the Civil War through which the Trunks got the 13th [end involuntary servitude], 14th [equal rights before the law] and 15th [voting rights] Amendments added to the Constitution, shows either gross ignorance of the historical record or pathetic partisanship in which no lie is unreasonable [or in your case, both].
#3
Ried knows that 95% of the general population think [thanks to our noneducation system and the media] that it was the Democrats who freed the slaves, gave them Civil Rights and Voting Rights, etc... And the Trunks who want to enslave everyone.
Heck I thought so until a few years ago. Kennedy is still often given credit for the Civil Rights Act.
#5
CF, that's because the country club Trunks think history is self evident and have failed for generations to hammer home the message. Another reason for that in-party group to be led to the door.
By: BYRON YORK
Phoenix - According to the conventional wisdom after last year's presidential election, Barack Obama's victory proved that a number of once-reliably red states -- Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado among them -- were turning blue, perhaps permanently. Even here in Arizona, Obama gave Republican favorite son John McCain a run for his money, and the 2008 election handed a majority of the state's congressional districts to Democrats. The home of Barry Goldwater might not have been truly blue, but it was shading purple.
That was then. Now, with Democrats pushing an agenda of stimulus, cap and trade, and health care reform -- all opposed by majorities of Republicans and independents -- we might be seeing the re-reddening of Arizona. Or, rather, the re-emergence of the state that has always been.
"I think Arizona has always been a state that can go blue for individuals, but fundamentally, in terms of attitudes, it remains a libertarian/conservative state," says Margaret Kenski, owner of Arizona Opinion, a Republican-oriented polling firm. Kenski says her polling has consistently shown that about 20 percent of Arizonans describe themselves as liberal, while 35 percent call themselves moderate, 23 percent call themselves somewhat conservative, and 22 percent say they are very conservative. The bottom line: "It's always been a moderately conservative state," says Kenski.
But now, Democrats control five of Arizona's eight congressional seats. Three of those five Democrats -- Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, and Gabrielle Giffords -- hail from districts that are largely Republican. Kirkpatrick is a freshman, while Mitchell and Giffords were first elected in 2006, meaning they are all products of elections in which voters rejected GOP candidates because of unhappiness with George W. Bush and the GOP majority in Congress. Now, it is Democrats who are likely to bear the burden of voter discontent.
Kirkpatrick, Mitchell, and Giffords all voted for the $787 billion stimulus bill. They all voted for the House national health care bill. And Kirkpatrick voted for cap and trade. Those won't be easy records to defend in 2010.
"We have three districts in the state that should or could be Republican," says one long-time Arizona politico who asked to be nameless. "Conditions for Republican pickups should be the best we've ever had."
All three vulnerable Democrats are viewed as appealing candidates. "Giffords has a lot of money saved up, she has an image as a pleasant person, and she's married to an astronaut," says Kenski. "Her PR machine will say she's a middle-of-the-road Democrat, but if you look at key votes, she goes counter to the way most Arizonans would have voted." Similar things could be said about the records of Kirkpatrick and Mitchell.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2009 00:00 ||
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PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > SPEND, SPEND SPEND! REALLY? POTUS Bammer's plan for the USA to simply "SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!" its way out its deep recession + high unemployment rates regardless of the merits or consequences???
* STARS-N-STRIPES > EXPERTS: US-BRED TERRORISM A GROWING THREAT [Rising Islamo-Militancy in the USA].
By: SUSAN FERRECHIO
When a throng of reporters approached Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. after a closed-door meeting with Democrats, only one person asked him about his recent decision to recommend girlfriend and former aide Melodee Hanes for the job of U.S. attorney for his home state of Montana.
Baucus, 67, brushed off the query, saying he had already explained himself a day earlier.
But the potential conflict of interest is just the latest chapter of Baucus' complicated love life on Capitol Hill.
In 1999, Baucus fired then-Chief of Staff Christine Niedermeier, who in turn accused Baucus of sexual harassment. Baucus, who has served in Congress since 1975, said at the time that Niedermeier drove his staff too hard.
Niedermeier, now a lawyer in Fairfield, Conn., told The Examiner that Baucus pursued her relentlessly, asking her jealously about other boyfriends and suggesting the two vacation together. She said he even proposed marriage. Niedermeier said his unwelcome overtures, which were seen by the rest of the staff, made it impossible for her to run the office. Niedermeier said she sought help from staff in the office of then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., a close friend of Baucus, shortly before she was fired.
Baucus denies Niedermeier's allegations. At the time, he was married to second wife Wanda Minge, who he began dating when she was a staffer in the office of Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark. Baucus divorced Minge, who made headlines in 2004 after her arrest for assaulting another female patron at a Northern Virginia garden center, in April of this year. Baucus said he was separated from Minge when he began his relationship with Hanes, 53, who at the time was serving as his state director.
Baucus divorced his first wife, Ann Geracimos, in 1982. The couple has one son, Zeno, a Washington lawyer.
"I don't think it's a very good idea for members of Congress to date staffers," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. "But he's not alone."
As for Niedermeier, she said she was promised a five-figure settlement from Baucus 10 years ago, but he failed to deliver it. Her subsequent court case against him was tossed out because it exceeded a special 90-day filing deadline for suits against members of Congress.
Niedermeier said senators are protected in ways that workers in the private sector are not.
For instance, Niedermeier had to take her complaint to a special Senate panel made up of staffers, but none of the information was ever released publicly, including e-mails from Baucus that she said would have backed her claim.
"If you make it transparent and you mirror it against the process that is in effect in the private sector in America, I think it would significantly deter this kind of conduct," Niedermeier said.
And Sloan said to forget about the ethics panel ever looking into senators dating staffers.
"No member of Congress is going to call for an ethics inquiry into something like that," Sloan said. "Because people on both sides of the aisle do it."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/09/2009 00:00 ||
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"Because people on both sides of the aisle do it."
AND THIS MAKES IT RIGHT???? SLOAN....YOU ARE AN ASSH@!* !!
Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to attend the summit of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, state television network IRIB reported Fwiw, the weather in Copenhagen is forecast to be cloudy, damp and cool but no snow, 20% chance of terrorism.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/09/2009 09:17 ||
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MOSAD, paging MOSAD to the white courtesy phone....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Almost $6 million in federal stimulus funds was given to two firms run by Hillary Clinton's former presidential campaign strategist, The Hill newspaper reported Wednesday.
A new Rasmussen poll (500 LVs, 12/7, MoE +/- 4.5%) has more troubling signs for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), with his numbers slipping against the three potential Republican foes.
Majority Leader Harry Reid tarred opponents of his health care bill yesterday as the equivalent of those who opposed equal rights for women and civil rights for blacks.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele is renewing his demand that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid apologize for likening health care overhaul opponents to those who resisted putting an end to slavery.
