If there has been another time in the past fifty years where the American public willingly suspended its disbelief and took everything the government did on blind faith I don’t remember it. We’re doing that now.
From Powerline:
At The Examiner, David Freddoso adds a coda to the bizarre story of the cap-and-trade energy tax that passed the House yesterday. The bill that the House voted on doesn’t, strictly speaking, exist:
Texas Republican Reps. Joe Barton and Louie Gohmert have just asked the chair whether there exists a complete, updated copy of the Waxman-Markey carbon-cap bill.”If a bill for which there is no copy were to actually pass this body,” Barton asked, “could the bill without a copy be sent to the Senate for its consideration?”
Through a series of parliamentary inquiries, the Republicans learned that the 300-plus page managers’ amendment, added to the bill last night in the House Rules Committee, has not even been been integrated with the official copy of the 1,090-page bill at the House Clerk’s desk, let alone in any other location. The two documents are side-by-side at the desk as the clerk reads through the instructions in the 300 page document for altering the 1,090 page document.
But they cannot be simply combined, because the amendment contains 300 pages of items like this: “Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)…” How many members of Congress do you suppose have gone through it all to see how it changes the bill?
I can answer that question: none. There hasn’t been time to do so. The manner in which the Democrats have run the House since taking control in 2007 has been disgraceful.
Reply to Powerline- Time to go back into full campaign mode with stinging ads on the telly all over the country. Need a wealthy member or 2 of the vast right wing conspiracy to pony up $10 or $20 million to the “Americans For Full & Open Debate”, or some such ad hoc group, to run 30 second and one minute spot ads NOW.
There were some really creative spots attacking Obama late in the campaign last fall- hire that ad agency to cook up some new ones bashing Obama, the phony stimulus, the rest of the Obama/Congress government takeover agenda, and Pelosi, Reid and Dimocrats in general. It’s the fastest, surest way to get in front of boob-tube America and counter the lies and cover-ups concocted and spread by the State Controlled Media.
Time to really stir the pot and wake folks up out of the ether they have been put under. Once these crazy bills are passed it’s damn near impossible to reverse them. No more time to tarry.
Am perplexed about where are the many oil and gas billionaires from Dallas/Houston (and other hedgie/PE Republicans like Kovner, Kravis, Schwarzman, etc) in fighting back vs the various commie billionaires like Warren (though it’s amusing that Warren and Hussein obviously aren’t “close” anymore)
Oil $ fight back? Well, I’d like to believe that they see America as worth fighting for, but their best defense in the long run is to let these backward and expensive bills pass so that real change has more momentum in 4 to 8 years from now.
In the meantime, oil $ has the rest of the globe to sell hydrocarbons to if we’re going to be too stupid to use them.
In sum, it’s time to start the ’10 Campaign on the airwaves. Counter-attack, counter-attack, counter-attack and soften up the enemy for the all out assault which must follow next year.