Lisa Murkowski Plans To Melt The World

The Senate is a club bound and determined to do absolutely nothing in the most boisterous and attention-grabbing way possible. It is filled with the kind of people who get angry when told they're a bunch of do-nothings while holding fast to the ideal of doing nothing. Indeed, there are US Senators like Jim Inhofe who plan to lead a delegation to Copenhagen to tell the world proudly that the Senate will do nothing on climate change.

This is what the Administration has to deal with. So, unsurprisingly, faced with the prospect of Copenhagen fracturing, and rather than being left in China's wake as the world's biggest polluter without a strategy to deal with a warming planet, the White House instructed the EPA to come up with some goals under the law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Supreme Court essentially ratified this already. So as a last-ditch attempt to do absolutely nothing, Lisa Murkowski wants to stop the EPA.

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists say they're disappointed in a proposal by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to force the Environmental Protection Agency to hold off for a year on regulating so-called "stationary" emitters of greenhouse gases, such as power plants.

The Alaska Republican's proposal essentially forbids the EPA from working to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and large manufacturers while the Senate continues to work on its own global warming proposal. It would not keep the agency from continuing work on emission standards from mobile sources, such as automobile emissions.

"The Senate is moving so slowly it's disingenuous to say we just need a time out," said Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. "They want to handcuff the EPA."

Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, plans to introduce the proposal in an amendment to a spending bill. Her proposal does not have the backing of the EPA, which is currently working to comply with a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which requires the agency to determine whether certain greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to the environment and public health.

Believe it or not, Murkowski is seen as one of the gettable votes in the Senate on climate change.

While the Senate dithers, the courts have consistently ruled, including just this week, that carbon is a pollutant and governmental entities can sue or create regulations to limit those emissions. Only some members of the Senate want to revoke that power, and they plan to use multiple steps to force the hand of the other branches.

It's quite a political system we've got here.

Mullahs

Let's take a look at a couple reactions to the President's speech in Cairo. One, Senator James Inhofe:

Sen. Jim Inhofe said today that President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo was "un-American" because he referred to the war in Iraq as "a war of choice" and didn't criticize Iran for developing a nuclear program.

Inhofe, R-Tulsa, also criticized the president for suggesting that torture was conducted at the military prison in Guantanamo, saying, "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

"I just don't know whose side he's on,'' Inhofe said of the president.

Two, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran:

Speaking shortly before Obama delivered his address, in which he called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that "beautiful speeches" could not remove the hatred felt in the Muslim world against America.

"People of the Middle East, the Muslim region and North Africa -- people of these regions -- hate America from the bottom of their heart," Khamenei said at a gathering to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and Khamenei's predecessor as the predominantly Shiite Muslim country's supreme religious leader.

"For a long time, these people have witnessed aggressive actions by America, and that's why they hate them," Khamenei, 69, told a crowd of several thousand supporters in his televised speech. He attributed these feelings to "violence, military intervention, rights violations and discrimination" by the United States.

Is there much of a difference between these two statements? I actually agree with Khamenei on the point that sweet talk and speeches must match action in the Islamic world. But from the standpoint of tone, aren't these just two mullahs worried about keeping their grip on the world and the adversarial relationship that bolsters them? Just like Iranian mullahs, American mullahs need an enemy, to demonize and to criticize their domestic opponents for failing to take seriously. It's no accident that the most vociferous critics of the speech are the right wing in America and extremists in the Muslim world. They need each other.

Rudderless Ship

These days, political opposition leaders either aren't respected enough or don't have a big enough megaphone to "lead" a party. They inevitably have to work at their Congressional job, so they aren't the ones heard by the public throughout the day giving opposition arguments. Democrats didn't exactly have one "leader" during 2002-2006, and Republicans don't have one now. Sadly for them, the people who have the biggest megaphones are frequently absurd. Newt Gingrich talks about the scourge of smiling with the enemy, when he has a picture on his wall of him and Ronald Reagan talking about A JOKE REAGAN TOLD GORBACHEV. Rush Limbaugh demands so much fealty and yet is so radioactive that Republican pols keep falling into the trap of criticizing him only to have to apologize later (we're literally talking about five times this has happened now). You have Dick Cheney all over television defending the indefensible Bush Presidency. And overall, the party has nothing but rhetorical weapons to use in their battles against the President.

“Rhetorically, Republicans are having a very hard time finding something that raises the consciousness of the average voter,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who recently lost a bid to became national party chairman.

Workaday labels like “big spender” and “liberal” have lost their punch, and last fall, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska gained little traction during the presidential campaign by linking Mr. Obama’s agenda to socialism.

So Mr. Anuzis has turned to provocation with a purpose. He calls the president’s domestic agenda “economic fascism.”

“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”

When a politician finally gets to open his mouth, he ends up saying something like Obama's choice for a federal judgeship is a secret Muslim.

These are the reasons why Republicans are less popular than Venezuela. The only people speaking for the GOP right now are extremely distasteful to the broad mass of citizens, and they are saying increasingly ridiculous things. They may lock up the angry white male vote for 30 years, but that's not enough to build an electoral coalition.

Losing The Climate Spin War

I don't really know what quite went on here, but TPM followed all day this effort to delay President Obama's environmental nominees, terming it "the first shot" in the battle against action on climate change. Elena Schor claimed that an anonymous Senator was holding up Nancy Sutley (for head of the Council on Environmental Quality) and Lisa Jackson (for head of the EPA), with the actual pressure being put on the "climate czar" Carol Browner:

... it's about Carol Browner, the incoming White House climate and energy adviser. As Sen. Jim Inhofe (OK), senior Republican on the environment committee and the leading fly in the climate change ointment, told the Washington Times:

"I'm quite concerned that [Sutley's] role has been diluted by the addition of former EPA Administrator Carol Browner as White House climate and energy czar. The new Senate-confirmed CEQ chair will be expected to have the full authority to represent the White House on all matters before this committee."

By holding up Jackson and Sutley, Senate Republicans are doing more than just signaling their discontent that they won't get to question and vote on Browner -- although Sen. Bob Corker [R-TN] suggests to the Times that Browner be called in for a "quasi-confirmation" hearing. They're previewing their strategy to knock down the climate regulation bill that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), environment committee chairman, will release later this year.

Then Schor claimed that Wyoming Senator Tom Barrasso was behind the delay; then it wasn't him; then the nominees could be cleared by tomorrow; and then, they were confirmed along with several other cabinet heads (I think only Geithner, Solis and Holder are left, though I could be missing one or two, and of course there is no nominee for Commerce Secretary).

Exactly what the hell happened here? Between Schor's over-reporting and Matt Cooper's thousand-word musings about Caroline Kennedy, I'm thinking of turning away from the new TPMDC.

However, it would be silly to ignore that the Republicans will stop at nothing to halt meaningful action on climate change. And, that they're winning. Not because nutcase James Inhofe says so, but because the issue is simply not a tangible enough concern to force it into Washington's power centers:

the latest Pew poll on priorities contains grim news for those of us who think we're rapidly destroying out planet: the public couldn't care less. Global warming, once again, ranks as the lowest priority from a list of 20, and the more general category of "protecting the environment" fell 15 percentage points from last year.

And as if that's not bad enough, Revkin also points to a new Rasmussen poll, which finds that 44% of U.S. voters don't believe humans are the cause of global warming, compared to only 41% who do. That's even worse than last year's results.

In one sense, this is because the economy and jobs have superseded the environment and everything else as the biggest concern. (People should listen to Van Jones more, who solves both of these vexing problems with the promise of green jobs). But the need for action grows larger every year, and yet the willingness to do so wanes. I think part of this is the PR machine being global warming denial. I mean, this memo from the coal industry tells you about everything you need to know:

A Virginia-based public relations firm called the Hawthorn Group sent out a newsletter to their "friends and family" outlining the work they did on behalf of a coal industry lobby group called the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.The newsletter outlines in quite a bit of detail about how Hawthorn spindoctored coal during the Presidential election.

The newsletter starts:

"We thought the most fixated of the political and communications "junkies" might find interesting some highlights of a recent grassroots campaign Hawthorn created and managed for the American Coalition of Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE)."

Hawthorn celebrates the fact that their coal-is-clean campaign was a success:

"In September 2007, on the key measurement question—Do you support/oppose the use of coal to generate electricity?—we found 46 percent support and 50 percent oppose. In a 2008 year-end survey that result had shifted to 72 percent support and 22 percent oppose. Not only did we see significantly increased support, opposition was cut by more than half. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain addresses a crowd wearing "Clean Coal hats" in Pennsylvania."

Instead of actually demostrating that somehow coal is clean, Hawthorn used age-old PR tactics to create the image instead:

"Building on our existing 200,000-strong grassroots citizen army, we leveraged the presidential candidates' own supporters, finding advocates for clean coal among the crowd to carry our message. We got these on-the-spot advocates to show strong public support to the candidates and to the media, and enhanced that visibility by integrating online media that created even more of a buzz. We did this by sending "clean coal" branded teams to hundreds of presidential candidate events, carrying a positive message (we can be part of the solution to climate change) which was reinforced by giving away free t-shirts and hats emblazoned with our branding: Clean Coal. Attendees at the candidate events wore these items into the events."

Polluting industries have a huge megaphone and lots of money to deny the problem, deny that anything can be done, warn that job loss and economic contraction would ensue, and on and on. And yet with each passing day, the landscape is charred by the effects of a warming planet. The trees are dying, the ice is melting, the planet still has that fever. And we aren't gaining much traction to get us out of it.

President Obama, if you care about this, it's time for one of those stemwinders of a speech.

I Have A List Of 350 Card-Carrying Think Tank Employees!

James Inhofe does his best Joe McCarthy impression.

I have other problems with Carol Browner. There’s another organization that a lot of people don’t realize — it’s called the Center for American Progress. This report that came out — this is the group that’s trying for the Fairness Doctrine. Trying to, I think, dramatically upend the First Amendment. And try to stop talk radio and talk TV from being conservative.

FOX: And she was a member of that group?

INHOFE: Yes, she was a member of that group. It’s called the Center for American Progress.

And what a radical group the Center for American Progress is, what with all the ex-Clinton staffers and panel discussions and occasional free sandwiches. ¡Viva la revolucion!

Why, if more people join this free-love-and-abortion outpost, we can expect more white papers and open-to-the-public lectures, and before long we're living in the People's Republic of China!

(I recognize that this only holds if CAP expands their budget to hire more staffers. Hey, I know I'm ready to join up with the movement! Up against the wall, motherfuckers!)

Closing In OK?

A new DSCC poll out today shows Oklahoma State Senator Andrew Rice down only 9 points, 50-41, to global warming denialist James Inhofe, after being down 22 points in the same poll just two months ago. Inhofe is right at that magic 50% barrier and still maintains a higher name ID than Rice, so this is only on the cusp of the danger zone for Republicans. But if Jim Inhofe can't cruise to victory, then suddenly a lot of Senate seats are going to be close, and the NRSC just doesn't have the money to defend them all. Right now the conventional wisdom is that the Democrats will pick up 5 seats - I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that number stretch to 8 or 9. I think Minnesota (where Al Franken is closing the gap) and Oregon are better targets than Oklahoma, but I've had the pleasure of meeting Andrew Rice and he's an impressive young man and a fine candidate. This ad, which may have contributed to the moving numbers, is top-notch:



Nothing would be better to beat a nutjob denialist like James Inhofe.

UPDATE: Another pretty amazing result - Jim Martin is within 6 points of Saxby Chambliss in GEORGIA. And the difference here is that this is a state where Barack Obama is competing strongly.

Today's Republican F-Ups

First in what promises to be a long series.

I hadn't heard about this Congressional candidate in Ohio, but he seems bound for George Allen-like levels of greatness:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) today circulated a video of GOP House candidate Kirk Schuring, at a rally in Ashland, Ohio, saying "we might be shot at" if the rally had been held in the downtown area of nearby Canton.

Schuring was speaking at a John McCain rally, according to the DCCC.

"Where I come from, we could never have a rally like this in the center of Canton. If we did, we might be shot at," Schuring said. "But not in Ashland, and that's what makes you so great."

Really, can Republicans figure out that through the magic of "the YouTube" you're going to be held responsible for anything you say on the campaign trail?

But this is even funnier. James Inhofe makes a commercial touting his continued attention to the continent of Africa, and in the VO he includes... countries not in Africa.



There are countries like "Bosnia" and "Jordan" scrolling along on screen, too, but I think he's including non-African countries in the lists because they're lists of trips that included countries in Africa. That doesn't have anything to do with saying that Iraq is in Africa, sadly showing the geography skills of the average American. And I love the questioning "Jim Inhofe did this?" at the end of the ad, as if to say "that asshole cares about someone other than himself?"

McCain's Bipartisanship Results In Nothing

This week, on the same day that veterans groups rallied in support of the Webb GI Bill, James Inhofe, who was browbeaten into supporting the bill, quietly dropped his name off the co-sponsor list. This is a direct consequence of John McCain's twisted vision of bipartisanship. Because in his mind, no bill can pass muster without his support, he had his minions construct a competing bill (talk about passive-aggressive) and suddenly, conservatives who were won over to the concept started splitting off. The end result is that no veteran will end up receiving increased education benefits, because the two camps will splinter and the whole thing will devolve into a typical Washington clusterfuck. And the only man responsible will be John McCain.

This is the legacy of John McCain's "leadership" - real people suffer.

For their part, Oklahoma veterans have taken him to task.

"Senator Inhofe is undermining America's heroes, as they reach for the American dream," said Miranda Norman, a veteran of the war in Iraq, from Norman, Okla. and a state captain for VoteVets.org. "It’s insulting and a slap in the face. Not only has Senator Inhofe turned his back on legislation backed by every veterans’ group, but he signed on to a sham bill, because he thinks veterans are fools who won’t be able to tell the difference." [...]

"A fair education benefit is a sacred promise made to America's military after World War II," added Norman. "That promise has been allowed to become outdated and tarnished. Only the Webb-Hagel bill will restore its luster. And, for that reason, it is the only acceptable bill to America's veterans. By removing his name from that bill, Senator Inhofe has made it clear. He does not support our veterans, and we will make sure all Oklahomans are well aware of that fact."

There's a better sway for Oklahoma - Andrew Rice for Senate.

Rice For America

It occurs to me that I never wrote about my meeting with Oklahoma Senate candidate Andrew Rice at a house party in Venice last weekend. Apparently the Oklahoma GOP is calling it some kind of dark secret, but somehow I found out about it and I'm not invited to anything. Furthermore, they claimed that Dianne Feinstein and Henry Waxman were on hand, which isn't true. I did see my state Senator Sheila Kuehl, my state Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, and LA City Councilman Bill Rosendahl. But I guess they aren't big enough to term the event "a “Who’s Who” list of the most liberal Democrat’s in California." On the plus side, I suppose I'm one of those "liberal Democrat's" (jeez, they're a political organization, can't they hire a copy editor?).

Rice is a 35 year-old former divinity student (he has a Masters in theology from Harvard) who wasn't all that involved in politics until after 9/11, when his brother died inside the World Trade Center. Afterwards he devoted his life to social causes and became drawn into the world of public policy. He worked in the grassroots for a few years, behind the scenes on such projects as ensuring the creation of the 9/11 Comission. In 2006 he was elected at the age of 33 to the Oklahoma State Senate from Oklahoma City. In his speech he emphasized his proud Democratic ideals (though I'm a little upset that the word "Democrat" isn't on his fliers, I know it's Oklahoma but at some point we have to be proud of the signifier), particularly in the areas of ethics reforms, economic justice and fairness, and renewable energy solutions for Oklahoma. That last bit is significant, because he's going up against James Inhofe, public enemy number 1 for the environmentalist crowd. Inhofe's delusional rants denying the existence of global warming, which he called the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on Americans, has generated notoreity and publicity, but not the good kind. In fact, both of Oklahoma's Senators, Inhofe and Tom Coburn, are from the grandstanding, angry, wackadoo school of Republican politics. That state REALLY lost the lottery on this one.

However, even Coburn has come out and said that the war in Iraq is a mistake. Inhofe, when asked about it, said that "he couldn't have said that," moving him even further to the fringe than... Tom Coburn. At the gathering, Rice noted that Inhofe has been an elected official for 41 years - "that's six years longer than I've been alive." The nutball quotes from Inhofe over the years could fill a book, but my favorite was a story I heard at the event from an Oklahoma local. Howie Klein heard it too.

Someone I met from Tulsa told me a very interesting story about Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage. Well, actually the story is about Oklahoma's crazy U.S. Senator, James Inhofe. And it isn't another "crazy Inhofe" story. This one is a "nasty Inhofe" story. I mean everyone I've ever met from Oklahoma has been polite and courteous; so this one kind of surprised me.

While Susan was mayor of Tulsa her daughter Emily's 8th grade class went on a school trip to Washington, DC. The school had arranged for the kids to meet a member of the Oklahoma congressional delegation. It turned out to be Senator Inhofe. When he came forward to address them he asked if Emily Savage could raise her hand. Nervously, she did.

"Emily's mother is the mayor of Tulsa," the senator told her classmates. "I try to work with her and do what's right for the people of Tulsa but Emily's mother believes in killing babies."

When Emily got home and told her parents what happened they thought she must have misunderstood Inhofe. Susan called the teacher who had chaperoned the trip and was aghast to learn that Emily didn't misunderstand anything. She called Inhofe and told him that if he ever came near her daughter again or said anything to her she would seek a restraining order in court. Which is exactly what the long-suffering folks in Oklahoma should do in November.

Inhofe's grandstanding and outrageousness has hurt him in Oklahoma. His approval ratings are below 50%, and Rice keeps him under 50 in a head-to-head matchup, too. That's the danger zone for incumbents. If the environmental groups see promise here, you know they'll jump in hard as well. Plus, you have to love a guy whose wife is named Apple. That's right, Apple Rice. Which I believe I've gotten at Thai restaurants from time to time.

Expanding control of the House and Senate is going to be very important this year, although it's getting almost no attention thus far. Rice is obviously a long-shot, but in a map-changing scenario anything is possible. I'll be posting a lot more on Congressional races as the year goes on.