On US radio's Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama's double insult - first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. "Tough one. Really tough one," I said, torn - as most of surely are - between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured.
Michelle Obama's dress sense may be impeccable, but what of her politics? (Photo: Getty)
Iain Martin is quite right here: no matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain's friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.
What was the guy thinking? In researching my new book Welcome to Obamaland, I discovered that Obama's judgment is pretty dreadful - but this? My favourite theory so far - suggested by presenter Greg Garrison - was that it was a move calculated to please his Lady Macbeth. At the moment in Britain, we're still in the "Doesn't she look fabulous in a designer frock" stage of understanding of Michelle Obama. Gradually, though, we'll begin to realise that she is every bit the terrifying executive's wife that Hillary Clinton was. Or, shudder, Cherie Blair.
We may just LURVE Michelle's fashion sense. But Michelle doesn't reciprocate our affection, one bit. Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade. Never mind that a white, Tory Englishman - William Wilberforce - brought the slave trade to an end. Judging by her record, Michelle does not make room for such subtle nuance.
Consider her notorious statement that: "For the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country." Consider her (till-recently suppressed) Princeton thesis, "Princeton Educated Blacks And The Black Community."
In it she writes: "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."
Here we see that she has mastered the authentic voice of grievance culture. She also - the thesis was written in 1985 - pre-empts the Macpherson report's ludicrous, catch-all definition of racism: "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person." No matter how hard young Michelle's white undergraduate contemporaries try to be nice, it's not their behaviour that counts, but how Michelle feels.
More worrying, though, and dangerous, than young Michelle's desperate quest for validation through victimhood is the other strain within her thesis. "As I enter my final year at Princeton," she writes. "I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates - acceptance to a prestigious graduate or professional school or a high paying position in a successful corporation. Thus, my goals at Princeton are not as clear as before."
"Yes, exactly, you silly girl" you want to shriek at young Michelle as you give her a good shake. "It's called 'opening your mind', 'broadening your experience', 'allowing youthful dogma to be shaped by reality.' It's why people go to university, don't you know?"
Friday, March 6, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Coming Ice Age
The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.
Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.
Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.
In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."
During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted
as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.
The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.
The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.
In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia ’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.
Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.
Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.
Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.
In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."
During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted
as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.
The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.
The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.
In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia ’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Global Ice Levels The Same As 1979
Rapid growth spurt leaves amount of ice at levels seen 29 years ago.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.
Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.
Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
Thanks to a rapid rebound in recent months, global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago, when the year 1979 also drew to a close.
Ice levels had been tracking lower throughout much of 2008, but rapidly recovered in the last quarter. In fact, the rate of increase from September onward is the fastest rate of change on record, either upwards or downwards.
The data is being reported by the University of Illinois's Arctic Climate Research Center, and is derived from satellite observations of the Northern and Southern hemisphere polar regions.
Each year, millions of square kilometers of sea ice melt and refreeze. However, the mean ice anomaly -- defined as the seasonally-adjusted difference between the current value and the average from 1979-2000, varies much more slowly. That anomaly now stands at just under zero, a value identical to one recorded at the end of 1979, the year satellite record-keeping began.
Sea ice is floating and, unlike the massive ice sheets anchored to bedrock in Greenland and Antarctica, doesn't affect ocean levels. However, due to its transient nature, sea ice responds much faster to changes in temperature or precipitation and is therefore a useful barometer of changing conditions.
Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.
Why were predictions so wrong? Researchers had expected the newer sea ice, which is thinner, to be less resilient and melt easier. Instead, the thinner ice had less snow cover to insulate it from the bitterly cold air, and therefore grew much faster than expected, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
In May, concerns over disappearing sea ice led the U.S. to officially list the polar bear a threatened species, over objections from experts who claimed the animal's numbers were increasing.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Cap And Trade Fiasco
Cap-And-Trade: A Devious Tax Plan
June 2, 2008
An unprecedentedly radical government grab for control of the American economy will be debated this week when the Senate considers saving the planet by means of a cap-and-trade system to ration carbon emissions. The plan is co-authored (with John Warner) by Joe Lieberman, an ardent supporter of John McCain, who supports Lieberman's legislation and recently spoke about "the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring."Speaking of endless troubles, "cap-and-trade" comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so government could sell what it has made scarce. The Wall Street Journal underestimates cap-and-trade's perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right ("allowances") to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right. Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain. If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel's carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies. That is the problem.
A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade — government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business — is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.The proper price of permits for carbon emissions should reflect the future warming costs of current emissions. That is bound to be a guess based on computer models built on guesses. Lieberman guesses that the market value of all permits would be "about $7 trillion by 2050." Will that staggering sum pay for a $7 trillion reduction of other taxes? Not exactly. It would go to a Climate Change Credit Corp., which Lieberman calls "a private-public entity" that, operating outside the budget process, would invest "in many things." This would be industrial policy, aka socialism, on a grand scale. Lieberman's legislation also would create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board empowered to "provide allowances and alter demands" in response to "an impact that is much more onerous" than expected. And Lieberman says that if a foreign company selling a product in America "enjoys a price advantage over an American competitor" because the American firm has had to comply with the cap-and-trade regime, "we will impose a fee" on the foreign company "to equalize the price." Protectionism-masquerading-as-environmentalism will thicken the unsavory entanglement of commercial life and political life.McCain, the political hygienist, is eager to reduce the amount of money in politics. But cap-and-trade, by hugely increasing the amount of politics in the allocation of money, would guarantee a surge of money into politics.
Regarding McCain's "central facts," the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, which helped establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — co-winner, with Al Gore, of the Nobel Prize — says global temperatures have not risen in a decade. So Congress might be arriving late at the save-the-planet party. Better late than never? No. When government, ever eager to expand its grip on the governed and their wealth, manufactures hysteria as an excuse for doing so, then: better never.
George F. Will is a syndicated writer in Washington.
June 2, 2008
An unprecedentedly radical government grab for control of the American economy will be debated this week when the Senate considers saving the planet by means of a cap-and-trade system to ration carbon emissions. The plan is co-authored (with John Warner) by Joe Lieberman, an ardent supporter of John McCain, who supports Lieberman's legislation and recently spoke about "the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring."Speaking of endless troubles, "cap-and-trade" comes cloaked in reassuring rhetoric about the government merely creating a market, but government actually would create a scarcity so government could sell what it has made scarce. The Wall Street Journal underestimates cap-and-trade's perniciousness when it says the scheme would create a new right ("allowances") to produce carbon dioxide and would put a price on the right. Actually, because freedom is the silence of the law, that right has always existed in the absence of prohibitions. Businesses with unused emission allowances could sell their surpluses to businesses that exceed their allowances. The more expensive and constraining the allowances, the more money government would gain. If carbon emissions are the planetary menace that the political class suddenly says they are, why not a straightforward tax on fossil fuels based on each fuel's carbon content? This would have none of the enormous administrative costs of the baroque cap-and-trade regime. So a carbon tax would be a clear and candid incentive to adopt energy-saving and carbon-minimizing technologies. That is the problem.
A carbon tax would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade deviously is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade — government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business — is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.The proper price of permits for carbon emissions should reflect the future warming costs of current emissions. That is bound to be a guess based on computer models built on guesses. Lieberman guesses that the market value of all permits would be "about $7 trillion by 2050." Will that staggering sum pay for a $7 trillion reduction of other taxes? Not exactly. It would go to a Climate Change Credit Corp., which Lieberman calls "a private-public entity" that, operating outside the budget process, would invest "in many things." This would be industrial policy, aka socialism, on a grand scale. Lieberman's legislation also would create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board empowered to "provide allowances and alter demands" in response to "an impact that is much more onerous" than expected. And Lieberman says that if a foreign company selling a product in America "enjoys a price advantage over an American competitor" because the American firm has had to comply with the cap-and-trade regime, "we will impose a fee" on the foreign company "to equalize the price." Protectionism-masquerading-as-environmentalism will thicken the unsavory entanglement of commercial life and political life.McCain, the political hygienist, is eager to reduce the amount of money in politics. But cap-and-trade, by hugely increasing the amount of politics in the allocation of money, would guarantee a surge of money into politics.
Regarding McCain's "central facts," the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, which helped establish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — co-winner, with Al Gore, of the Nobel Prize — says global temperatures have not risen in a decade. So Congress might be arriving late at the save-the-planet party. Better late than never? No. When government, ever eager to expand its grip on the governed and their wealth, manufactures hysteria as an excuse for doing so, then: better never.
George F. Will is a syndicated writer in Washington.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Coal To Oil Energy
Capito prepares to offer coal-to-liquids legislation next week
From Staff ReportsThe Register-Herald
Mandatory production of 6 billion gallons of coal-to-liquids fuel by 2022 is the thrust of the proposed Clean Coal-Derived Fuels for Energy Security Act that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito intends to offer next week.Coal can be converted into clean, zero-sulfur, synthetic fuel and oil products for nearly $35 to $45 a barrel, Capito, R-W.Va., said Tuesday.This means that with the use of modern technology, a cheaper alternative to traditional crude oil, now going for nearly $135 a barrel, is possible, she said.“West Virginians are feeling it at the gas station and they’re feeling high gas prices in the spike in food costs,” the 2nd District representative said.“It’s time for an all-hands-on-deck policy and coal must play a part in our energy solutions. Our nation’s coal reserves are larger than the combined oil reserves of the rest of the world. We’ve seen enough excuses and it’s time to get serious about coal-to-liquids.”Capito said her plan can lead to production of clean fuel on the home front that leads to more American jobs, “and it’s the right thing to do for West Virginia.”An energy policy that expands domestic oil and natural gas exploration and embraces conservation efforts and investment is renewable energy technology is needed, she said.“There is no single or easy solution to our nation’s energy needs,” Capito said.“But without increased domestic production of energy, we will continue to subject ourselves to the massive fluctuations in global energy prices that have led prices to their record highs.”
From Staff ReportsThe Register-Herald
Mandatory production of 6 billion gallons of coal-to-liquids fuel by 2022 is the thrust of the proposed Clean Coal-Derived Fuels for Energy Security Act that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito intends to offer next week.Coal can be converted into clean, zero-sulfur, synthetic fuel and oil products for nearly $35 to $45 a barrel, Capito, R-W.Va., said Tuesday.This means that with the use of modern technology, a cheaper alternative to traditional crude oil, now going for nearly $135 a barrel, is possible, she said.“West Virginians are feeling it at the gas station and they’re feeling high gas prices in the spike in food costs,” the 2nd District representative said.“It’s time for an all-hands-on-deck policy and coal must play a part in our energy solutions. Our nation’s coal reserves are larger than the combined oil reserves of the rest of the world. We’ve seen enough excuses and it’s time to get serious about coal-to-liquids.”Capito said her plan can lead to production of clean fuel on the home front that leads to more American jobs, “and it’s the right thing to do for West Virginia.”An energy policy that expands domestic oil and natural gas exploration and embraces conservation efforts and investment is renewable energy technology is needed, she said.“There is no single or easy solution to our nation’s energy needs,” Capito said.“But without increased domestic production of energy, we will continue to subject ourselves to the massive fluctuations in global energy prices that have led prices to their record highs.”
Friday, May 23, 2008
Why Congress Is Broken
By Robert Novak
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, at age 38 and having served less than five terms, did not leap over a dozen of his seniors to become ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee by bashing GOP leaders. But an angry Ryan last Wednesday delivered unscripted remarks on the House floor as the farm bill neared passage: "This bill is an absence of leadership. This bill shows we are not leading."
Ryan's fellow reformer, 45-year-old Jeff Flake of Arizona, in his fourth term, is less cautious about defying the leadership and has been kept off key committees. On Wednesday, he said of a $300 billion bill that raises farm subsidies and is filled with non-farm pork, "Sometimes, here in Washington, we tend to drink our own bath water and believe our own press releases."
A majority of both Senate and House Republicans voted for a bill that raises spending 44 percent above last year's, dooming chances to sustain President Bush's promised veto. GOP leaders were divided, with Bush sounding an uncertain trumpet. Today's Republican Party -- divided, drifting, demoralized -- is epitomized by the farm bill.
At the moment Congress passed the farm bill, Republican were terrified by the previous day's defeat in the Mississippi 1st Congressional District, the third straight supposedly safe Republican seat lost in special elections. Fearing a November tsunami for the Democrats, incumbent Republicans talked about following their new standard-bearer, John McCain, against pork. But that's not the way they voted last week.
George W. Bush was just as ambivalent last week. In 2002, he signed a massive farm bill. But with Democrats in control of Congress, Bush preaches the old time religion. Addressing the House Republican caucus behind closed doors at the White House May 7, he disclosed that he would veto the farm bill, then implied it was all right if members "voted their districts" -- that is, if the "aggies" supported the bill. This message was pressed on his colleagues by Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee.
Nevertheless, would the party's leadership in Congress push hard enough to produce enough votes to sustain a veto? There was never any hope in the Senate, where Republican Leader Mitch McConnell not only supported the farm bill but earmarked a tax provision benefiting horse farms in his state of Kentucky. But in the House, Republican Leader John Boehner always has been anti-pork, even if passive about exhorting other Republicans to follow his example.
On May 9, Flake sent Boehner a candid letter: "We need more than individual members of the Republican leadership to state their opposition to the bill. We need the leadership to use its good offices to explain the importance of sustaining the president's veto as opposed to advising members to 'vote their districts.'"
Boehner, waiting four days before responding, last Tuesday rejected the "vote their districts" escape for House Republicans: "I believe they should also vote their consciences, and cast their votes in a manner consistent with the small government principles upon which our party was founded." Boehner took the floor Wednesday to speak against the bill.
But nobody cracked the party whip. On the contrary, Minority Whip Roy Blunt voted for the bill. So did Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, who was seen whipping votes for passage. House Republicans voted 100 to 91 to approve the bill (with only 15 Democrats in opposition), assuring an overriden veto. Similarly, in the Senate, Republicans voted 35 to 13 for the bill, and the only Democrats opposing it were Rhode Island's two senators.
That did not conclude the dismal Republican performance for the week, as lawmakers raced out Thursday for their usual long weekend. Seventeen pork-minded Republican senators gave the Democratic leadership necessary support to waive from the farm bill the brand new ban of earmarks on a bill that had cleared both houses. Thirty-two craven Republican House members voted for upper-bracket tax increases to finance new veterans benefits. They all return to work this week to encounter a new comprehensive reform introduced by Paul Ryan on health care, Social Security and taxes -- titled "A Roadmap for American's Future." If anybody needs a roadmap, it's Ryan's colleagues.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, at age 38 and having served less than five terms, did not leap over a dozen of his seniors to become ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee by bashing GOP leaders. But an angry Ryan last Wednesday delivered unscripted remarks on the House floor as the farm bill neared passage: "This bill is an absence of leadership. This bill shows we are not leading."
Ryan's fellow reformer, 45-year-old Jeff Flake of Arizona, in his fourth term, is less cautious about defying the leadership and has been kept off key committees. On Wednesday, he said of a $300 billion bill that raises farm subsidies and is filled with non-farm pork, "Sometimes, here in Washington, we tend to drink our own bath water and believe our own press releases."
A majority of both Senate and House Republicans voted for a bill that raises spending 44 percent above last year's, dooming chances to sustain President Bush's promised veto. GOP leaders were divided, with Bush sounding an uncertain trumpet. Today's Republican Party -- divided, drifting, demoralized -- is epitomized by the farm bill.
At the moment Congress passed the farm bill, Republican were terrified by the previous day's defeat in the Mississippi 1st Congressional District, the third straight supposedly safe Republican seat lost in special elections. Fearing a November tsunami for the Democrats, incumbent Republicans talked about following their new standard-bearer, John McCain, against pork. But that's not the way they voted last week.
George W. Bush was just as ambivalent last week. In 2002, he signed a massive farm bill. But with Democrats in control of Congress, Bush preaches the old time religion. Addressing the House Republican caucus behind closed doors at the White House May 7, he disclosed that he would veto the farm bill, then implied it was all right if members "voted their districts" -- that is, if the "aggies" supported the bill. This message was pressed on his colleagues by Rep. Robert Goodlatte of Virginia, ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee.
Nevertheless, would the party's leadership in Congress push hard enough to produce enough votes to sustain a veto? There was never any hope in the Senate, where Republican Leader Mitch McConnell not only supported the farm bill but earmarked a tax provision benefiting horse farms in his state of Kentucky. But in the House, Republican Leader John Boehner always has been anti-pork, even if passive about exhorting other Republicans to follow his example.
On May 9, Flake sent Boehner a candid letter: "We need more than individual members of the Republican leadership to state their opposition to the bill. We need the leadership to use its good offices to explain the importance of sustaining the president's veto as opposed to advising members to 'vote their districts.'"
Boehner, waiting four days before responding, last Tuesday rejected the "vote their districts" escape for House Republicans: "I believe they should also vote their consciences, and cast their votes in a manner consistent with the small government principles upon which our party was founded." Boehner took the floor Wednesday to speak against the bill.
But nobody cracked the party whip. On the contrary, Minority Whip Roy Blunt voted for the bill. So did Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, who was seen whipping votes for passage. House Republicans voted 100 to 91 to approve the bill (with only 15 Democrats in opposition), assuring an overriden veto. Similarly, in the Senate, Republicans voted 35 to 13 for the bill, and the only Democrats opposing it were Rhode Island's two senators.
That did not conclude the dismal Republican performance for the week, as lawmakers raced out Thursday for their usual long weekend. Seventeen pork-minded Republican senators gave the Democratic leadership necessary support to waive from the farm bill the brand new ban of earmarks on a bill that had cleared both houses. Thirty-two craven Republican House members voted for upper-bracket tax increases to finance new veterans benefits. They all return to work this week to encounter a new comprehensive reform introduced by Paul Ryan on health care, Social Security and taxes -- titled "A Roadmap for American's Future." If anybody needs a roadmap, it's Ryan's colleagues.
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