Harry and Nancy’s Last Stand
Think cap and trade is dead? Think again: Politico’s Mike Allen reports that Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership have a plan, a continuation and deepening of the disregard for the American public they so amply demonstrated through the process by which they passed the despised HCR bill:
Phil Schiliro, the White House congressional liaison, has told the Senate to aim to take up an energy bill the week of July 12, after the July 4 break (and after the scheduled final passage of Wall Street reform). Kagan confirmation will follow, ahead of the summer break, scheduled to begin Aug. 9. The plan is to conference the new Senate bill with the already-passed House bill IN A LAME-DUCK SESSION AFTER THE ELECTION, so House members don’t have to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.
The rest of the piece goes on to make it clear that this plan has the full support of President Obama, who himself does not face re-election until 2012 and wants cap and trade passed before the year is out.
This “fierce urgency of now” comes from the obvious political consideration that a lame duck Congress has nothing to lose. Once it’s been thrown under the bus and lies there bleeding (actually, you might say it threw itself in front of the bus, but let’s not quibble about the finer points), it might just as well enact a piece of legislation that will further bankrupt the country and please the left fringe and nobody else. Beware a group that’s still in power but has stopped fearing any consequences from the public.
This strategy has the same odor that stank up the final stages of health care reform.
Actually, the stink is much stronger. At least with HCR, the representatives in the House and a third of the Senate knew they would have to face the voters in 2010. If Republicans win control during that election, and then the present Democratic Congress takes up and passes the hugely unpopular cap and trade between November’s election and January’s swearing in, nearly all pretense of accountability will be gone, and whatever might still remain of Obama’s affable “let us reason together” disguise will have been vaporized as he is fully revealed for the arrogant and cold-blooded power-hungry operator he always has been.
To many people, the congressional Democrats’ contempt for the public’s wishes came as somewhat of a surprise when the HCR bill was first being pondered, and especially when the push was renewed despite the election of Scott Brown. After all, politicians are usually more interested in self-preservation than that. But by the time the bill had become law, we had learned a great deal more about how the Democrats had morphed into an overbearing majority (that phrase comes from Federalist Paper #10, written by the prescient James Madison), determined to pass their agenda and thwart the will of the people because yes, they could.
Back in mid-April, I wrote this piece for the Weekly Standard on that very topic. The following bears repeating now:
[The process of passing HCR] revealed a president and a congressional leadership that in concert have shown more callous contempt than any in history for the will of the American people, the safeguards against the tyranny of the majority built into the Constitution, and the parliamentary rules by which Congress operates. And there’s every indication that, if need be, the same will be true of cap and trade, immigration reform, or whatever else Obama, Pelosi, and Reid may deem the next morsel they plan to cram down the recalcitrant throat of the American public.
It is this stench of tyranny on the part of Congress that is very new and very noticeable, even to ordinary Americans who usually don’t pay a particle of attention to the arcane rules of the House and Senate
Obama may try to freshen it up and disguise the smell with an overlay of perfumed talk. But, like those little pine tree air fresheners that hang in cars, or the sprays people spritz into a stinky room, it fools no one. It only serves to add an additional nasty odor on top of the first, so that we now have two smells instead of one.
But the Democrats do not appear to be so concerned with fooling people any more. They are concerned with enacting their own agenda, and if the people don’t like it, let them just try and stop them. Madison described the process rather more elegantly:
Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.
Whether this effort will ultimately be successful depends on how many members of Congress are willing to demonstrate some sort of integrity come that fateful lame duck period of November through January (this entire scenario assumes, of course, that Republicans are granted control as a result of the November elections; otherwise, the present Congress will not be a lame duck, and such haste will not be required). And, since a version of the cap and trade bill was already passed by the House almost exactly a year ago, all that needs to happen is for the Senate to pass the same bill, or some version that can be reconciled by whatever hook or crook the leadership deems possible and necessary.
Not only is the bill unsupported by the majority of the American public, but the conclusions of researchers that provide its main empirical rationale have become more dubious since the House voted for cap and trade back in June of 2009. In the interim, Climategate has reared its ugly head. But scientists such as MIT’s Richard S. Lindzen have also increasingly made a separate case that the science behind predictions of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is hardly the settled and self-evident truth that politically driven proponents would have us believe.
If the unpopular cap and trade bill is passed by the Senate and ultimately manages to become law, and with Obama continuing as president until at least 2012, he can veto any repeal that a Republican-controlled Congress might attempt, assuming (as is likely) that Republicans will lack enough votes for an override. If all of this pans out in such a manner, it will be very interesting to see whether any Democrats in the Senate who are up for re-election in 2012 will activate their own remaining instincts for self-preservation and vote with Republicans to override the president’s veto.
The Senate class up for reelection in 2012 is the one elected in 2006, which was a disastrous year for Republicans. If I am not mistaken, there are 23 Democratic seats at stake against only 9 Republicans. Any Democrat who votes for a lame-duck bill like cap-’n'-tax against the public will is almost certain to be challenged and beat about the head and shoulders with that vote, not to mention health care.
In the House, the Democratic survivors will be mostly safe for 2012, having been elected against the tide this year, but the Senators will be facing an electorate which hasn’t had a chance to register its frustration, and many of the Democrats will be freshman Senators – statistically, the most vulnerable of Senate incumbents.
As to whether the House Dems will be safe in 2012, a lot depends on how angry the voters are. If Barry and the Dems spend two years playing parliamentary tricks to prevent the Republicans from rolling back what the Dems have done over these two years, there is still room for some more Democratic blood on the floor.
“there is still room for some more Democratic blood on the floor.”
And I hope it resembles a scene from the “Shining”.
Amen. I’m hoping that November’s election will look the same way.
In an ordinary election, the Democrats who survive 2010 would probably be relatively safe in 2012. However, Congressional Districts will be reapportioned with the 2010 cencus in time for the 2012 election so even Dems who survive a tsunami in 2010 (if it comes to that) could still be in trouble in 2012, if their district is redrawn to include more conservative voters, or simply voters who are simply unfamiliar with them.
The way to beat this is to put Dems on the spot NOW and force them to commit to opposing such a maneuver.
Republicans don’t actually have to repeal the Health Care Bill, they can just refuse to fund it and then it will die. If Obama vetos the budget because the Republicans refuse to fund health care, then they can have a showdown on closing down the government. That didn’t work so well during the Clinton administration for the Republicans, but this time you would have the majority of Americans supporting the move because they do not like the health care plan. Obama would be seen as the far-left loon bringing the government to a halt because of his determination to maintain a socialist law in place. Forget about overriding the veto. If the Republicans can manage to regain control of Congress, they can do a lot more by simply using the power of the purse to do what needs to be done.
The will of the people will be expressed in the constitution of the next house. They better have the strength to shut Obama’s precious government down.
But we are counting are Chickens.
If the Demos pass cap-and-tax, the Republicans can refuse to fund the entirety of the EPA.
In what dept’s budget is the White House’s maintenance and upkeep? Is there a law stating that there must be things like toilet paper provided for federal buildings?
Oh, that is truly evil. I like it.
Defund the EPA? What, and discover that they really aren’t needed? What a shame that would be!
While this scenario is plausible, and its “the doomed have nothing to lose” premise is quite correct, there are nevertheless ways to prevent cap-and-trade or any of the Democrats’ other anti-Constitutional initiatives from passing. The key is the forty-one-member Republican caucus in the Senate.
In the simplest case, the modern filibuster — i.e., simply vote against cloture when the president pro tem calls a vote on it — would be effective. However, there’s an unpleasantly large chance that one of the soft Republicans (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, John McCain) will bolt the caucus and side with the Democrats on certain subjects. Therefore, to prevent the filibuster from being the only line of defense, it will behoove the GOP Senate caucus to ready the other delaying tactic built into the Senate’s parliamentary procedures, which are derived from Robert’s Rules of Order.
General Roberts did his very best to make those rules fair and impartial. However, he was unable to eliminate at least one byway in his rules by which any two persons with the right of floor objection can prevent the continuation of business. It involves alternating Points of Order and Points of Procedure, each of which is used to question the other. Points of Order and Points of Procedure take priority over all other matters while the Senate is in session; while one of either is before the parliamentarian, nothing else can be considered. By the clever use of that tactic, all business in the Senate could be brought to a standstill and kept there, for as long as any two persons are willing to play the game.
Of course, the details of the tactic (e.g., what Points of Order and Points of Procedure should be raised; who raises which ones, etc.) would have to be agreed upon by the Senators who intend to use it. Also, it would be far better to have more than two Senators involved in the thing, so no one would be unduly deprived of sleep, meals, bathroom breaks, or any other little necessities of life. Still, no counter to this tactic has ever been devised. Just in case the Democrats prove as unscrupulous as you fear, Neo, the true-blues in the Senate GOP caucus had better have it ready to hand.
Maintaining a filibuster will be much easier after winning a few special elections this fall, as the winners will assume office immediately, rather than having to wait for January 3. Even if the outcome of the election is disputed, the seats will be wrested from the Democrats while the dispute is considered.
Have you so soon forgotten the Slaughter Rule? The Dem’s feel no need to garner 60 votes and will go to any underhanded, unethical, unAmerican length to push this thru.
Just as we now see that Obama intends to pass massive Amnesty by executive order. Go to the Senate website, find Orin Hatch, look at the letter he and 6 others sent to Obama asking him not to do so.
A lame duck session only lasts seven weeks before Congress adjourns. Surely, Republicans can hold out that long.
I dare the House and Senate Dems to do this after the land slide that will likely sweep them from control of the House and possibly cause them to lose the upper chamber.
There are few better issues to run on than cap and trade legislation and it’s harmful impact on energy prices and employment. Conservative candidates should demand that their opponents commit publicly on their intended vote on these issues and hammer home that point again and again prior to November 2, 2010. Each conservative candidate should pledge to vote to defund or sponser bill to repeal these bills if passed and signed into law by the President.
The President will be signing his own unemployment contract if this legislation becomes law, as an addition to the other destructive legislation he has happily signed. He will be on the street January 20, 2012. I am looking forward to his assuming private citizenship again.
Samiz, you make an excellent point here. It’s yet another item to run on against any Dem this year. Because this bill will run electric costs through the roof…and a large marjority of this country wouldn’t be able to afford a to pay triple their costs…I sure can’t. If the lights go out for any length of time…then Congress will pay, either through the ballot box…or through other means.
Those presently serving in DC should think long and hard about that. If, through artifcially raising electric bills (by at least 3X’s) they cause millions to lose their eletrical service, The People will become unhinged. I don’t think the Dem’s really understand what would happen, they’d be jumping off of a cliff…or be thrown.
I’d say tar and feather, but I fear the Democrats are going to ban tar. It is a petroleum product after all.
Don’t worry, there are always plenty of rails to ride them out of town on.
I like the sentiment, Rich, but truth is that even if “Cap & Tax” causes electricity rates to triple, only a fraction of a percent of folks will lose service. Reason is that Obama and the Dems will pass a law to have the feds pay the electric bills of poor people (probably administered by ACORN). And middle-class folks will always find something they can do without in order to free up cash to pay theirs.
Example: Most would obviously cancel cable TV if the that was the only way to keep the lights on. Or stop eating out entirely instead of once a week. Hey, lots of ‘extras’ in the budgets of us middle-class folks!
Won’t happen with ACORN. It’s now defunct, and as of March of this year, announced it’s closing the remaining chapters due to no revenue.
Which, for us, was an Epic Win.
We’ll see. I hope you’re right but suspect that you aren’t.
They aren’t dead yet – courts ruled that they still get funded. The real question is what will their new name be? If they are killed, they will, like zombies, be reanimated under a different name.
Brown shirts, maybe.
Makes you wonder if the corportists, like GE and others that stand to gain massively from the new like CapnTrade law, may be the real enemy of the people. They’re called mercantilists, and they appears to be the real ‘man behind the curtain’. Perhaps its time to start boycotting the big Cos – whether they make cars, electronics, etc. Perhaps its time to let them know we are on to them. Might have to make do without the cool gizmos for a while, but once the big Cos get it they will back away from their seedy marketing schemes i.e. convince buearacrates their products solve great social problems (think: florescent lighting, low flush toilets, smart meters..) and then Congress makes a law requiring everyone to buy them. Works great.
This is only a stop gap strategy, even if the current mercantilists are brought down, new ones will rise up to take their place. As long as congress is willing to sell economic sucess to the highest bidder, someone will bid.
The only real solution is to strip from govt, the power to pick winners and losers. Then it won’t matter how big companies get.
Typo alert: the Lindzen link appears to be an error, referring to this very page, but, because of an extra character, then bouncing the reader to the main page.
I don’t understand why anyone is surprised that Congress and the White House are creating the same type of political storm that they did with the healthcare bill. It’s the same people, the same radical leftist agenda, the same methodology. And what’s more, we have the the White House staff deliberately creating drama to cover up the many actions this administration has taken that are diametrically opposed to the will of the majority of Americans. The General McChrystle “scandal”, which actually seems more of an orchestrated hit, covers up for Holder’s suing Arizona for jurisdiction over immigration and the further fumbling of the Gulf Oil Spill by Administration red tape. The key is that we MUST press hard on Democrats up for reelection. They need to understand in no uncertain terms that this will not be tolerated. While Pres. Obama continues to refer to Spain as a role model, Spain is just about to go the way of Greece. And in Spain, those ‘green’ jobs cost more than they were worth, even to the point of losing two jobs for every single one created. Make no mistake, an additional tax on business will be added at every level from manufacturing to distribution and those costs will weigh on the consumers first and foremost. Corporations never really pay taxes, it is passed along as additional cost. If you don’t believe that, look at the prices at the grocery store which have risen since new mandates have taken place.
This administration through legislation is changing the America that I knew. When Obama said “Change”, I don’t think this is what most Americans had in mind. We now live in tyranny (thank you Mark Levin). The citizens no longer matter to the dictators in Washington. It is all about RAW POWER. Unfortunately for the citizens, it looks more like a dictatorship.
When I was a kid, I was taught and read about socialism. I was ALWAYS GLAD I lived in a country that was free. Because of Obama and the Democrats, that is no longer the case.
Thanks for NOTHING Obama. I hope I live to see this despicable President and his cronies brought up on charges against the people. How about TREASON?
Neo-neocon’s argument is that if the boat is sinking anyhow, those who are getting thrown overboard may as well rock the boat by passing an unpopular bill, Cap’n'Tax. That overlooks the effect which seeing their colleagues voted out of office will have on the survivors, especially if the Democrats lose their majority in the House. They will soon have a new Speaker to deal with and new chairmen of every House committee. That will scarcely be time to risk the displeasure either of the voters of 2012 or the new regime in the House.
“…Obama may try to freshen it up and disguise the smell with an overlay of perfumed talk…”
There is no way to disguise the smell of $7 a gallon gasoline, double electricity bills and 25% unemployment…exactly what Cap And Tax did to Spain. Spain, you know, the next socialist domino to crash, pulling the senile Social Democracies of Europe into the trash can of history. If the Demos are suicidal enough to do this they will be REMOVED from office in 2012 unless Boss Obama suspends the elections or gives instant citizenship to the illegal aliens, cartoon characters, corpses, imnates of prisons and mental institutions and other key Democrat constituencies. And these idiots arent going to stop at Cap and Tax; that lame-commie-duck session will produce a VAT and Card Check as the angry legislators gather to exact their revenge on the voters who have rejected their Trotskyite recipes so soundly. This is the end of the Demo Party. By the time President Palin takes office in 2013 there will be total chaos and economic collapse.
According to Drudge, there’s a rumor that Obama is preparing an EO to give full amnesty to all illegals. I would guess citizenship would just be a short jump from there.
We’ve had no revolution since 1776 but this is always subject to change. Who do you think is going to defend this bunch of petty tyrants against an armed, unemployed, and aggravated majority?
One hopes it doesn’t come to this, but I’m already seeing things I’d never thought possible.
We don’t need a revolution, we need a mutiny.
But these only treat the symptoms, not the underlying cause. What we REALLY need is a Purge.
And it needs to run its’ course, not be truncated as Eisenhower did by witholding support for Joe McCarthy. The consequences of that job left half-done are with us every day.
Who will defend them? My guess is it will be mercenaries from Russia, Venezuela, and any other Marxist despot with a few spare men.
During this campaign, every single Democrat needs to be grilled on whether he/she supports a lame duck session to pass cap-and-trade. WHile this may or may not scare the Democrats out of trying such a move, at least it will whittle down the number of Democrats in the next congress making it easier for the Republicans to block the rest of Obama’s agenda.
I know that this is really off-topic, but with some editing that little photo could be a made into “American Gothic.” The expressions on their faces are just right. (Alas Harry’s on the right, not the left – in the picture that is.)
The Senate Democrats have the option of passing the Democratic House passed Cap & Trade bill by Reconciliation the way they did Health Care Reform.
The issue is whether the surviving Democratic Senators of Nov 2010 want to go there since 26 more of them will be up in 2012 to face the results of their vote.
I suspect going there will give Republicans 60 votes in the Senate and possibly 300-ish seats in the House in Jan. 2013
I think this is a place where Scottt Brown will help a lot. Even liberal and moderate Republicans will see this as an affont to the procees. If Collins, Snowe and company hold, moderate Dems wont bother in the Senate. The House can raise all the hell they want. But nothing is getting done in the Senate in a month and a half.
Cap and Trade is a fraud.
If all the oil the world uses each year (27 billion barrels) were put into a single volume, it would amount to only 1.03 cubic miles. If this amount of oil were spread over the entire Earth, how thick would it be? Well, print this out. It would take 12 years worth of the world’s oil consumption to be as thick as a single sheet of copier paper. That sheet of paper would only be 0.004 inches thick. Now imagine burning that thin layer of oil, 12 years worth in a single day. Would you even notice it an hour later? Consider that above that sheet of paper is 1375 pounds of air. While 12 years worth of oil spread equally would weigh about two tenth’s of an ounce. In other words, the air out weighs the oil by a factor of 106,000 to 1. Remember this is 12 years worth of oil consumed by the entire world. For a single year, the ratio of oil burned to the atmosphere it goes into is 1.27 MILLION to 1.
Is CO2 a poison? It is what plants use to grow, and we are talking about very low levels.
Just to be fair, you left out natural gas and coal.
But the idea that CO2 drives the climate has been thoroughly disproven.
Let`s see we are suppose to be afraid of a lame duck congress because they have nothing to loose with their so called last vote. What have we become jellyfish? It is time to hold these thieves responsible for their actions. I know a few of them right off hand that should be tried and put into prison, but us jellyfish will not do that. These are elected officials they are better and above just us average people. These politicians are even better than and above our laws than the wall street boys. We are to blame if we fear our government, if we can not stand up for what is fair and right than we get what we deserve!
If they’re not afraid of the people perhaps the people should up the ante, say, indictment, a trial and very possibly prison. That, of course, would only be if we the people remained civilized. If not, all bets are off and, well, I wouldn’t want to be in they’re shoes.
Articles, comments, op-ed pieces, editorials, etc., spend a lot of time dissecting the liberal, socialist, Marxist politicians now in office, but say precious little about the voters, who put them there.
Did these voters hate Bush so much that they cut off their noses to spite there faces? Were they deceived about what and who Obama and the Democrats were all about? If so, who deceived them? Are today’s voters so uneducated that they can’t think for themselves, but must be guided by an agenda driven media and tendentious pundits?
Let’s hear a little more about the voters, who they are, what they think, and why, at times, they will vote against their own self-interests. What psychology inspires them to behave like lemmings?
Tar and feathers (or worse!) Insurrection. Mutiny. Revolution. Purge.
Sedition.
Never thought I’d live to hear such talk.
Executive orders and lame duck legislation to complete the progressive agenda will result in street protests and general strikes. We need a general like McCrystal to save us.
Civil war is coming. Soon.
Civil war and Revolution is the only thing that can come out of this mess we have found ourselves in. The wheels of destruction upon our republic are in full momentum and won’t be stopped in time before the enevitable.
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