Don't Mess with California

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Monday April 05, 2010 · 1:37 PM PDT

2010/04/05 · 13:37

California has the toughest global warming standards in the country, requiring polluters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions much more than pending Federal legislation. Remarkably, this legislation was backed and signed by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger after a campaign by dozens of environmental groups, including CREDO Action.

While imperfect, this legislation would address global warming more swiftly than anything being considered in Congress. Indeed, the standards are so tough that many Senators backed by polluting interests have made preemption of just this kind of innovative state rules a precondition for obtaining their support for weaker national legislation.

Krash

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Thursday March 18, 2010 · 10:33 AM PDT

2010/03/18 · 10:33

Message to environmental groups.

Stop the emails telling me that it is urgent to bring global warming legislation up for a vote in the Senate. Over the past two weeks, I have must have received twenty emails (yes, I am a junkie for environmental activism).

Yesterday, E&E Reporter posted an article with the following headline:

CLIMATE: Senate trio courts industry in bid to pre-empt ad war (03/17/2010) Darren Samuelsohn, E&E reporter

The first sentence of the story? "The lead authors of the Senate climate bill are courting key members of an industry coalition that once cheered on Dick Cheney's energy policies."

Krash

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Friday February 12, 2010 · 10:20 AM PST

2010/02/12 · 10:20

When it comes to attacking the Clean Air Act, it's not just Republicans we have to worry about.

As every Kossack knows, Sen. Blanche Lincoln is a real problem for progressives on a whole host of issues, but she has thrown her lot in with Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) attempt to gut the Clean Air Act.

This appears to be positioning her for a cushy K Street lobbying job more than representing the health of her constituents, as her poll numbers continue to sink like a rock.

This week CREDO Action is teaming up with Friends of the Earth to run a billboard contest that will hold Sen. Lincoln accountable to her constituents for trying to gut the Clean Air Act.

Krash

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Tuesday January 12, 2010 · 11:17 AM PST

2010/01/12 · 11:17

After the failure of the Copenhagen global warming talks, attention has returned to the Senate, where cap-and-trade legislation is languishing. For months, many proponents argued that we needed to pass legislation -- no matter how compromised -- to produce momentum for the Copenhagen talks. Since scientific consequences hold no votes in the Senate, about the only thing pressuring the Senate to act is that the Environmental Protection Agency has finally started to engage after ignoring the matter under Clinton and being suppressed under Bush. Even the possibility of EPA action has mobilized the dirtiest lobbyists of K Street.

Help save the Clean Air Act and stop Sen. Murkowski.

Krash

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Sunday April 26, 2009 · 3:47 PM PDT

2009/04/26 · 15:47

The worst approach is to let Dianne Feinstein stall everything and have the Senate Intelligence Committee investigate. Nobody has done worse than the Senate Intelligence Committee so far.

This is a rare moment when the country is seeing just how things have worked in official D.C. With sufficient pressure, we can force Obama, Holder and the media to do the right thing.

Krash

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Friday March 06, 2009 · 11:02 PM PST

2009/03/06 · 23:02

Nobody takes seriously the Coleman suggestion that the election in Minnesota is so close that a rerun is the only way out. But Coleman's donors can count, and they see the power than adding a Sen. Franken to the Democratic caucus would have and and will have. One more vote on the stimulus package would have allowed the White House to more easily split Spector, Collins and Snowe. It is not hard to imagine that a Franken vote could have kept in tens of billions in expenditures on public transit and education.

And the Franken vote would have allowed the appropriations omnibus bill to pass this week as well, as the recession accelerated.

Surely the Coleman legal team is costing less than a few million a month, while preventing valuable stimulus efforts from proceeding and requiring a stop gap budget. For those who want Obama to fail, this is the cheapest possible strategy. And with sufficiently well funded lawyers operating in the very polite and fair Minnesota courts (eventually to go to the Federal courts), this strategy could work for months.

It is highly unlikely that serious health care reform and global warming legislation can pass without another vote. Anyone want to go check the donor records for Coleman and report back?

Impeach Judge Bybee

Krash

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Wednesday March 04, 2009 · 8:04 AM PST

2009/03/04 · 08:04

Jay Bybee, author of several of the Bush Administration legal memos released this week, was rewarded for his effort with a lifetime appointment to the Federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Put simply, one of the key architects of the successful effort to ignore the Constitution now sits in judgment of constitutional issues.

While many raised concerns about Bybee during his confirmation, the damning secret memos were, well, secret.

John Conyers is holding hearings today as to whether some kind of Truth Commission should be set up. This is a good idea, though it pales relative to the necessity to prosecute the responsible.

But an even easier step is available - the impeachment process applies to Federal judges, and begins in Conyers' own Judiciary Committee. He can finally indicate that he is serious by starting impeachment hearings. The resulting testimony, under oath, will reveal a great deal.

Having members of the Judiciary Committee on record as to whether they support the outlandish legal reasoning of now Judge Bybee would be useful on its own account.

A successful impeachment would lead to a trial in the Senate, where it would be equally useful to have senators on record.

RSS

Don't Mess with California

Environmental Groups: Stop the Push for Global Warming Legislation

Send Blanche Lincoln a message

Will the Senate Castrate the Clean Air Act Next Week?

10 ways for accountability on torture

Coleman legal strategy is cheap and effective for the Republicans

Impeach Judge Bybee