POTUS to Announce Plan to Address Climate Change

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 6:00 pm by JM Ashby

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Obama administration may unveil a sweeping climate change plan next month that will tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering a sweeping initiative to address climate change, including the first-ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants, the country’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The White House has yet to settle on specific measures, but “we’re hearing that existing power plants are definitely in the mix,” said a person with knowledge of the deliberations, who, like others, asked not to be identified to talk about White House discussions. An announcement could come by mid-July.

Any plan announced by the White House will likely face fierce resistance both in the courtroom and in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives where the existence of snow is considered evidence that global warming doesn’t exist, but it’s possible the Environmental Protection Agency will the ability to enforce some of the president’s proposals right out of the box.

Congressional Republicans have held several votes to defund the Environmental Protection Agency over the past several years, and I expect we will see another vote before the year’s end.

Posted in Congress, Environment, President Obama | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Boehner Gives Away the Game on Immigration

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 5:00 pm by JM Ashby

House Speaker John Boehner told us all we need to know today about the chances of passing comprehensive immigration reform in the House of Representatives.

(CNN) — Under pressure from House conservatives opposed to comprehensive immigration reform, House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday, “I don’t see any way of bringing an immigration bill to the floor that doesn’t have majority support of Republicans.” [...]

Boehner talked to reporters after the weekly GOP conference meeting on Capitol Hill. A source who attended Tuesday morning’s closed-door meeting said Boehner assured House members that he has no plan to pass an immigration bill without majority GOP support.

If Boehner will not pass an immigration reform bill with Democratic support, it means immigration reform will not pass.

House Republicans may pass their own reform bill, but several committee chairman have already indicated that they would only be open to passing piecemeal legislation, and any bill that is passed with conservative support and a minimal number of Democrats will likely be unacceptable to many senators including some Republican senators.

It’s hard to see a way out of this for the GOP that doesn’t leave them looking bad. Passing their own reform bill could actually be worse than not passing anything. Who knows what kind of nonsensical and discriminatory amendments House conservatives may propose? The sky is the limit.

It’s possible Boehner could go back on his word and ultimately pass a bill with Democratic support, but the resulting explosion of rhetoric from the far right won’t do the party any favors either.

Posted in Congress, Immigration | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Too Extreme

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm by JM Ashby

Republican congressman and member of the US House of Representatives science committee Paul Broun

Representative Paul Broun (R-GA), who is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat, has pulled his support for a ban on abortions after 20 weeks. Not because he has had a change of heart on banning abortion, but because the bill in question includes an exception for rape and incest. That is unacceptable.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, on Monday night pulled his support for a measure that would ban a woman’s right to abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, highlighting a split between the foremost national anti-abortion group and its Georgia counterpart.

Language was recently added to the measure that would make exceptions for cases of rape and incest. National Right to Life recognizes those two esceptions.

But Georgia Right to Life does not.

And in case you forgot, this is the same Paul Broun who said that evolution is a “lie from the pit of hell” while standing in a room adorned with dead animals that, from a distance, could have been mistaken as some sort of Pagan ritual chamber or a scene from Dragnet.

Georgia Right to Life has refused to certify Paul Broun’s opponent, Karen Handel, as “pro-life” because she supports exceptions for rape and incest.

They may not have certified her but they’re all certifiable.

Posted in Abortion, Congress, Georgia, Wingnuts | Tagged | 1 Comment

Stupid Man, Stupid Party

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 2:00 pm by JM Ashby

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has apparently decided being the “stupid party” is chic after all and he has proven it with this mind-blowing column.

At some point, the American public is going to revolt against the nanny state and the leftward march of this president. I don’t know when the tipping point will come, but I believe it will come soon.

Why?

Because the left wants: The government to explode; to pay everyone; to hire everyone; they believe that money grows on trees; the earth is flat; the industrial age, factory-style government is a cool new thing; debts don’t have to be repaid; people of faith are ignorant and uneducated; unborn babies don’t matter; pornography is fine; traditional marriage is discriminatory; 32 oz. sodas are evil; red meat should be rationed; rich people are evil unless they are from Hollywood or are liberal Democrats; the Israelis are unreasonable; trans-fat must be stopped; kids trapped in failing schools should be patient; wild weather is a new thing; moral standards are passé; government run health care is high quality; the IRS should violate our constitutional rights; reporters should be spied on; Benghazi was handled well; the Second Amendment is outdated; and the First one has some problems too.

There’s so much going on here I’ll have to break it down.

Because the left wants: The government to explode; to pay everyone; to hire everyone

Jobs are bad, mmkay?

debts don’t have to be repaid; people of faith are ignorant and uneducated; unborn babies don’t matter

Yes. The very liberal President Obama, who is on a “leftward march,” doesn’t believe that debts have to be repaid, which is exactly why the deficit has shrank every single year that he’s been in office. Of course one could always quote the endlessly-quotable Dick Cheney who said deficits don’t matter.

And we obviously don’t care about the unborn, which is why we’re advocates for reproductive health clinics and proper prenatal care.

pornography is fine

No argument there. Although I will point out that the highest online porn consumption in the nation occurs in Utah. Utah isn’t exactly a liberal bastion.

traditional marriage is discriminatory; 32 oz. sodas are evil; red meat should be rationed

Disallowing any form of marriage other than “traditional” is discriminatory, and I love red meat. As for sodas, I love those too, but I try to cut back.

trans-fat must be stopped

Is the Republican party now that pro-trans-fat party? Is this the logical conclusion of opposing the ban on large drink sizes? How about low fat and low sodium? I’ll bet those are a liberal plot as well.

moral standards are passé

Who needs moral standards? Opposing funding for pre-K education, cutting children off food stamps, and attempting to repeal Obamacare 37 times is so much fun. Pre-existing conditions are the true moral high ground.

the IRS should violate our constitutional rights; reporters should be spied on

What?

the Second Amendment is outdated; and the First one has some problems too.

You’ve finally caught me red-handed. I do believe the second amendment is outdated, but I don’t have a problem with the first. And as much as dislike them, I won’t be joining Peter King (R) in his call to arrest certain writers who are protected by it.

Bobby Jindal doesn’t know when this tipping point will come, when Americans will realize that pornography is terrible and that trans-fat has what plants crave, but he’s pretty sure it will come soon.

Bobby Jindal is very concerned

Posted in Stupid Party, Super Stupid | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

The Left’s Tea Party

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 11:45 am by Bob Cesca

I tweeted this yesterday, but in case you missed it… Because I’m not taking a random guy’s word at face value, I’m clearly an apologist for the surveillance state. The extremism is so tea party.

I remember when the Bush administration’s case for Iraq WMD hinged on an Iraqi defector named “Curveball.” I don’t care to blindly jump on the word of a guy who comports as someone he’s not. Until he’s forthcoming, both about the things he knows as well as some of the gaps in the story, I’m going to remain highly skeptical.

This is not an endorsement of government overreach or the war on terrorism. It’s an endorsement of healthy skepticism in the face of a very big story.

But in the meantime, there are a growing number of voices on the left that are sounding like the tea party: either you’re with them or you’re a villain (like Bush, or an Obamabot, etc).

Posted in NSA | Tagged | 27 Comments

The Vagueness and Obfuscation of Edward Snowden

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 10:35 am by Bob Cesca

For someone who’s making hugely monumental claims that are supposed to shatter the NSA into a thousand pieces, he’s incredibly short on details and evidence. Kevin Drum on his remarks from Monday’s Q&A:

Snowden’s reply about direct access is weirdly nonresponsive. He’s talking here about analysts’ access to NSA databases, not to corporate servers, and he seems to be talking about metadata, not content. What’s more, even if he is talking about content, he’s talking about content that’s already been collected by NSA, not content “direct” from Google’s servers. He’s right that access to this stuff is policy-based, but then again, I’m not sure what else it could be. In the end, access to everything is policy-based.

His reply to the warrant question is a little clearer, but doesn’t really say anything new. Section 702 warrants are indeed very broad, and once issued can cover communications from a lot of targets. When this stuff is swept up, some of it inevitably turns out to be domestic communications, which NSA is required to either discard or segregate away from the view of analysts according to court-mandated minimization procedures.

Now, does NSA really do this? How do we know? Those are good questions, but Snowden sheds no light on that. He’s just telling us that 702 warrants are very broad, something we already knew.

I really wish Snowden were more forthcoming and less evasive in his answers to questions like this. It’s been over a week now, and if he really has more detail about what “direct access” means, it’s long past time to share it with us. Ditto for any evidence that NSA is abusing its minimization protocols.

If he actually explained in exculpatory detail how all of this works and provided independently vetted documents, I might be prepared to retract my skepticism and consider him an honest source. But for now, there’s a powerful strain of Project Mayhem nihilism in all of this.

Posted in NSA | Tagged | 5 Comments

Crazy Quote of the Morning

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 8:21 am by Bob Cesca

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful… They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX)

Masturbating fetuses?!

WHATTHEFUIW)*($UJIOFJS:GUGFJHGF?????!

Posted in Abortion, Quote | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Greenwald Conducts Online Chat with Snowden, Inflicting More Damage to Their Cause

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 7:00 am by Bob Cesca

In case you missed it, here’s my Tuesday column which I posted way early (yesterday afternoon, in fact).

It seems that every time Edward Snowden emerges from hiding and communicates something through either Glenn Greenwald or other reporters from The Guardian, he loses credibility. It’s not the fault of a government agitprop smear campaign or those of us who are critical of the shoddy reporting that’s botched this story from the beginning. It’s really just Snowden’s own words that tend to flummox his cause. And, frankly, I have no blessed idea if there’s even a Cause any more.

First, over the weekend, Snowden dumped a new packet of documents into the world via The Guardian. This time around, he revealed that the U.K. version of the NSA, the GCHQ, and with the help of the NSA itself, spied on various leaders at the G20 summit, with a particular focus on Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

And this leak is in service of… what exactly? American civil liberties and the Fouth Amendment? Not at all. [READ ON]

Posted in Glenn Greenwald, NSA | Tagged | 3 Comments

Morning Awesome

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 6:00 am by Bob Cesca

Morcheeba – “Blindfold”

Posted in Morning Awesome, Music | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Cornyn & Cruz Construction

Posted on June 17, 2013 at 8:00 pm by JM Ashby

It took me a moment but then I laughed and laughed.

CruzConstruction

Artist – John Branch

Not-coincidentally, Senator Ted Cruz also unveiled an amendment today that will throw another monkey in the wrench.


Ted Cruz clearly sees the Voting Rights Act as a ‘hole in federal law.’ One that must be plugged if we are to save his party.

Posted in Open Thread | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments