Politics Report

Making the final push for health reformHealth care. After all the revisions, all the hemming and hawing, all the opposition, all the tea party antics, all the State of the Union talk and all of the money spent on both sides of the issue over the 6 months+ of debating and dealing with it, we still have to deal with it. Even though the one bill passed through the House of Representatives, it will probably have to be dramatically changed if not abandoned altogether. Because the Senate is no longer filibuster-proof. And that whole Massachusetts thing. But, I’d kind of love to hear Scott Brown’s favorite recipes and his reading of the Great Gatsby or something, you know? Why don’t we just let them filibuster? It would probably be more interesting that whatever else is going on. Read more

President Obama

President Obama had a successful, televised Q&A session with GOP House members. Now he has invited Republicans in Congress to participate in a bipartisan, half-day TELEVISED summit on on health care this month. Note my emphasis on TELEVISED! A televised event offers the public the opportunity to see the "Party of No" in action. If the GOP shows up,  their leaders will have to come to the table with something, and not with their hands folded, their faces in frowns, offering absolutely nothing, but scorn.

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Republicans are Challenging California's Global Warming ActIf they aren’t trying to knock down the health care reform legislation, they’re trying to block appointees in the Senate review. And if they aren’t busy calling Obama a socialist tyrant, they’re occupied defending the needs of the Wall Street bankers. And when they need something to do for a weekend, well, it’s time to go out and demonize some sort of forward-thinking climate law. Like, say, in California.

I realize that those examples are Federal Republicans, but the same sentiment pervades on the West coast. And California is a leader in all things for the Earth, meaning that this is the front lines for the next generation of progressive green policies. So the Republican party tries to nip it in the bud, so to speak… Read more

Should the Government take half?Two Democratic senators are pushing for a tax on the bonuses that banks have handed out for the end of last year. Oh, boy.

The proposal calls for any bonus over $400,000 to be taxed at 50% for any firm that took over $5 billion in government assistance. That’s quite a line in the sand. It’s even more serious than the 35% tax on any bonus from a bailed out firm that was proposed last year. No action on that one was taken, and I can’t imagine there will be any action taken on this one either. It’s being called the Boxer-Webb proposal, and while it does ride the tone of anger across the U.S., I don’t know if it’s where the Democrats want to put their energy right now.

"We don't believe it's class warfare. We think it's eminently fair,” said Boxer. Read more

Who is responsible for the Earth?Two House of Representative committee chairmen have filed a bill to keep the federal government from regulating GHG’s. Is this ok?

It brings up the question of who is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions- as in, who should be responsible for monitoring them and reducing them. I’m reading Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, right now (you should too if you want to have your world rocked!) and I’ve read it before, taught it as a class, and it has seeped irreversibly into my consciousness and framework with which I understand the Earth. It’s a lot of question and answer, very Socratic method based learning, but the essential components are: 1) Everyone is responsible for the Earth, and 2) We live out the story we believe. Read more

Exiled and Hated by China: The Dalai LamaChina is angry with the U.S. over a possible visit to the Dalai Lama and a multi-billion dollar arms deal. Peace and war. I love the irony. Obama is rumored to be meeting with the Dalai Lama sometime this month and China is dramatically unhappy. Why? The same reason they are unhappy that the U.S. is selling weapons to Taiwan- Both are land claimed by the Chinese as part of China. Taiwan is independently governed and refuses to accept China as their political ruler, and Tibet, where the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader, is asking for significant autonomy in their own political rule- a move China sees as the same as independence. Read more

The U.S. is installing new missile defense systems in the Persian GulfThe U.S. announced that it will be expanding both air and sea-based missile defense systems in and around the Persian Gulf. The move is a response to a perceived threat from Iran.

"The chairman has made it clear many times that he remains concerned about the ballistic missile threat posed by Iran, but it would be inappropriate to discuss any mitigation or defense measures we might have in place to deter/defeat that threat," said a spokesman for Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff. Read more

a pretty promise

saying it won't make it true

neither will Congress

Will the Federal government really reduce its GHG emissions?

The U.S. government has announced its intention to reduce its GHG emissions by 28% by 2020. Apparently President Obama issued an executive order.

It’s funny that I am finding myself taking a much more cynical view of the Obama presidency after the state of the union address. I’m not sure what it is, yet, but something about everything coming out of the White House now seems to strike me as political chess less so than it used to. Maybe I was swept up in the honeymoon period for longer than some, maybe I truly believed in what Obama was saying for the past year, or maybe I just wanted to. Read more

Obama"Join with me. Let's do this together, Republicans and Democrats." These are just some of President Obama’s words in this weeks extremely unusual face to face meeting with the Reupblican leaders. Reuters says the session lasted 82 minutes and essentially served to highlight the political divide between the Dems and Republicans. And he did some of this live on Cable.

For his part, Obama wavered between two approaches- accusing the Republicans of blocking his policies and at the same time asked them to join with him in creating jobs and other moves to help the economy get back on its feet. Read more