 |
|
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
|
| “NO” – I must drill oil wells next to national parks. |
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked President Obama’s choice to be the number two official at the Department of the Interior.
On a vote of 57 to 39, they sustained a filibuster against David Hayes to be deputy interior secretary. It marked the first time the Senate has voted against one of Obama’s nominees.
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, is leading the fight against Hayes. He says his opposition is not about Hayes’ qualifications. Rather, Bennett says, the administration has not adequately answered his questions about why oil and gas leases in his state — which were approved in the last days of the Bush administration — were canceled by the Obama administration. He called the actions “political.”
The leases were “approved” by dimwit issuing one of his midnight executive orders before he was shoved out the door.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said the disputed leases are near national parks and the Interior Department did not cancel the leases but pulled them for review.
Reid said, “David Hayes will be confirmed. If I have to wait until Al Franken comes, he is going to be confirmed. … Everyone should understand that,” he said Wednesday. “If we happen to lose this today, I will just move to reconsider until we have the votes.”
Cripes – it took reporters reminding another batch of Republicans that hurricane season was coming before they relented on Craig Fugate as the new head of FEMA. And we all remember what a terrific job the Republicans did with that agency.
How is this any different from what the Democrats did to Bush’s nominees? Isn’t filibustering and disagreeing with the other party’s nominations a common occurrence in our government (and a chance for the minority party to have some sort of say in Congress)? Guess that makes both parties greedy old parties of “NO”!
We can always get the farthest left titles and articles from Eideard the “Retard”! Everytime I read one of these articles I can only think what a “Retard”.
#1 FTW
#2
If you can’t use punctuation marks correctly, do not use them at all…
When I read this post, all I could think was
“WHAT A RETARD”.
Umm, seems some Democrats disagreed with Reid.
And yes I know I was completely off topic. Getting back on it, what’s this aboot national parks?
Boo frickin hoo.
The Democrats want us to continue to be dependent on foreign oil and don’t even use that lame ass excuse that they just want clean energy, no, they don’t. They block (along with their tree hugging friends) attempts to use any of our immense resources in the US to supply power to homes or (choke, heaven forbid, businesses) at every attempt. Oh yeah, they want wind and solar, but wait, you can’t have wind and solar without power transmission lines.
So a Republican filibuster temporarily blocks an appointee, big deal. Even with the clown, I mean Senator from Minnesota (Franken, not the other one) that would have only given them 58 votes.
There is hope though, I hear that Minnesota has joined a growing number of states that is going to uphold the 10th amendment to the Constitution by allowing any firearms made in the state (and lkept in the state) to be exempt from federal BULLSHIT regulations.
Yes, I know it will go to court but there is hope.
#2, retard, #4, same retard again
Yup. The moral right wing nuts have nothing better to do than impede those trying to get something done. Instead of questioning the action in the thread, you insult the intelligence of the editor.
Here, moran, just for you.
I don’t understand this whole argument about not drilling here in America.
Maybe I am missing something but why don’t certain groups want us to use our own resources?
Is it strictly a tree-hugger thing?
Maybe someone can explain it to me.
#7, Mr. Diesel,
So a Republican filibuster temporarily blocks an appointee, big deal.
I seem to remember a few years ago the Senate Leaders talking about invoking something called the “Nuclear Option”. Would you remember anything about that?
It was threatened because the Democrats didn’t want to seat some unqualified people Bush was shoveling through the appointment process. Here, the Republicans are holding up an appointment NOT because of the person’s credentials, but because of something they don’t like that Obama has done.
Yup. Real upholders of morality Republicans. No wonder you stand to lose some more seats in 2010.
#7, There is hope though, I hear that Minnesota has joined a growing number of states that is going to uphold the 10th amendment to the Constitution by allowing any firearms made in the state (and lkept in the state) to be exempt from federal BULLSHIT regulations.
Definitely off topic, but certainly worth mentioning. I keep hoping for that information to hit this blog but I haven’t seen it yet.
#9 I’ve no inside information but:-
If you can use someone else’s oil until it runs out then you can use your home supply and because you’ve got all the missiles bombs planes and ships you don’t have to share.
If you use you home supply now then when it runs out you’ll either have to pay whatever someone else decides is top dollar or use the missiles bombs etc. to get hold of the oil.
So, to my way of thinking it’s taking a small inconvenient but affordable hit now instead of a large unavoidable hit later.
Hello!!!
the Democrats can push through anything they want. They have a supermajority. If something fails they only have themselves to blame for it.
The Republicans can not stop anything right now. It takes Democrats going against their own party to stop any action from happening.
The Republicans are going to stand on what they are. It is the problems of controling the Democrats that is the issue here.
Yes, filibustering candidates for completely unrelated reasons is good, rational debate about policy.
How can the Republicans be the greedy party? Isn’t it the Democrats that are going to let the Bush tax cuts expire? Isn’t it Obama’s administration that wants to raise taxes on those people making more than $250k/yr?
If the Republicans were really the “Greedy” party wouldn’t they be supporting the raising of money for the government and supporting the “tax and spend” policies the Obama administration is pushing? If that is the case then why did not one single Republican vote to support Obama’s stimulus package? I’ll tell you why in case you couldn’t figure it out and from this article your brain is narrow enough to make me believe that is true. Republicans disagree on the fundamentals of the stimulus bill and disagree with how to get the economy moving again with as little repercussions in the future as possible. Sure, the stimulus plan might work for now. I can roll a car down a hill too, but that doesn’t mean it is a good way to get it moving.
I don’t know when you fools are going to wake up and realize that the economy and this country are never going to work correctly for the benefit of all the people unless there is an agreement reached on how to do so by a majority of the country and not just a few counties or states that are all one party or the other that happened to have the most votes in the electoral collage.
#9: It’s not strictly a tree-hugger thing. The thought process went something like this:
1) Gas prices are high because there isn’t enough gas.
2) There is oil underneath some of our national parks.
So, if we add the oil that is currently under our national parks, prices will go down, right?
Wrong.
First, gas prices are fixed and there is no real price competition for gasoline so standard supply-demand economics do not completely apply.
Second, there is no infrastructure to support drilling in these areas and so even if the oil companies were given the go-ahead today, they wouldn’t get anything out for about fifteen years. There would be significant ecological effects to our national parks immediately, though.
The main issue here is that opening federal lands for development means a given oil company has more wells. More wells means the company is more stable for a longer period of time.
If they had their way any park that had some kind of exploitable natural resource would cease to be a national park and be bulldozed for profit. This is just the way of the corporation. They have no ethics. They have an obligation to their shareholders to make as much money for as little investment as possible. The only thing that constrains their behavior is 1) government regulation and 2) consumer feedback. The problem you run into is that oil companies are so far up the supply chain that there is almost no way to know if the gas I’m filling up with came from the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Rosneft, or Oil Fields ‘R Us… This means that even if the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (the company with the biggest reserves) bulldozed every US National Park, this wouldn’t hurt them in the slightest.
Now, nobody is suggesting that we replace ALL of our national parks with oil fields. Oil drilling is more ecologically friendly than it has ever been as well. The first problem is it’s a non-solution. Drilling in the national parks has been billed as a way to reduce prices and dependence on foreign oil today and that just isn’t going to happen. The next problem is that the way they’re going about it is because it is being touted as a solution to a “crisis” the kind of planning to do it responsibly just isn’t being done.
So, basically, they want to take action which may drastically affect some of our national parks in response to the “crisis” when we won’t see results in the short term anyway. If we are going to do this we need to make sure we do our homework so that as little damage to the environment is done as possible. The “crisis” mentality they’re approaching this with is misplaced in this case.
Mostly this issue is being used to politically bias the country. We are being split up into
“DRILL IN THE RESERVES NOW! NOW! NOW! I’M PAYING TOO MUCH FOR GAS FOR MY SUV!!!”
vs.
“THEY ARE TRYING TO DESTROY ALL OUR NATIONAL PARKS!!! THE POOR SPOTTED OWL!!! SCREW YOUR SUV!!!”
So:
Do I object to development of federal lands?
No.
There’s a long history of various kinds of development on federal lands and this development has been expanded by pretty much every president that has had the opportunity, both Democrat and Republican.
Do I object to the current call to start drilling in Alaska?
Yes.
Would I object to this plan if it were accompanied by adequate oversight and environmental consideration?
Probably not. It would be nice if we could reduce our dependency on foreign oil eventually even if we won’t see it for fifteen years. Eventually oil WILL run out, though. No matter what happens there is only so much oil out there so I’d hate to see damage done to a park that could still be there long after all the oil is gone.
I’d want to see a real cost-benefit analysis done. How much oil is really down there? Is it actually a significant enough amount that it will affect prices at the pump? How much lead time is there, really, between starting development and actually trucking gasoline to filling stations? What EXACTLY would the environmental impact be? Would it affect the coming end of fossil fuels and by how much?
@15
Greedy in the sense of enabling a small group of very rich people (<1% of population), to get much richer at the cost of the majority and the poor.
If you look up charts of wealth distribution over the past 30 years you’ll see that trend getting worse and worse.
Now as has previously been argued – the ‘trickle down’ effect makes this all fine. Ie the money from all these super rich people will trickle down to the less rich people. The wealth distribution graphs show this to be utter rubbish.
Having policies which promote increased wealth to a < 1% minority, to the penalty of everyone else, which seem to be largely the result of the Republican platform would seem to me to be the very definition of greed. If for no other reason that the super rich < 1% don’t need it.
Now you can argue how best to sort this out. The democrats way not be right. Who knows.
It seems straightforward that having a more reasonable distribution of wealth will make for a more stabler and happier country.
It always amazes me how people who aren’t the super rich < 1% would argue against this. What are they hoping someday, like by winning the lottery, to join the super rich and don’t want to take a hit? That could be described as stupidly greedy. Or just stupid.
On your last point – ‘economy and this country are never going to work’ etc. I agree.
#10 Mr Fusion
I vaguely remember something about the nuclear option a few years ago but I paid less attention to politics back then.
As far as 2010 goes what’s this “you stand to lose” shit? I’m not Republican or Democrat.
I’d register as a fiscal conservative if they would let me…..I’m agnostic (but I am a preacher in the ULC), fiscally conservative and believe in a woman’s right to choose up to the end of the second trimester (but not partial birth or letting a baby die like Obomba does), strong defense and closing the porous borders. I also believe in the US Constitution and not what politicians are doing to it.
BTW If this is the only way Senator Bennett can get the Obomba administration’s attention then you gotta do what you gotta do.
So the GOP admits denying a qualified appointee as a punitive act for something unrelated?
Obama needs to call the military, arrest the GOP mob for treason and send them to Egypt for “enhanced interrogation”, not torture of course.
Oil is a finite resource, if they don’t get it now it will be worth so much in 50 to a 100 years they will find away to get it then. Keeping it in the ground is like money in the bank(well like money in the bank use to be) for the next generations.
Eventually all the oil that can be got will be got. The longer they have to wait the more it will be worth and the better the technology to extract it safely and burn it efficiently.
Would it kill us to sit on some of this for a few decades?<not a reference to lives lost in the oil wars going on now in the Middle East now.
Sounds exactly like what the Democrats were doing a few years back on Bush nominees. What, you didn’t expect the Republicans to do the EXACT SAME THING!?!?!
Payback.
#19, thats a great idea. I mean its worked so well in the past. When the other side doesn’t let you do everything you want you simply bring in the military to quell the opposition. Next maybe, we can start to arrest and execute people for not voting for democrats.
After that we will just avoid this entire election problem, by not having them. After all, why bother, since you are right and everyone else is wrong, its just a waste of time correct?
Dallas, you are whats wrong with this country. A perfect example of how Germany of the 1930’s and 40’s was able to come into power.
#17, It seems straightforward that having a more reasonable distribution of wealth will make for a more stabler and happier country.
Who gets to do the distributing? The mob?
#7 – You mean the soon-to-be Senator from Minnesota Representing the States of California and New York.
#22 bob
Dallas is an idiot, get used to it.
To Alex Wollangk, re: #16
… The best, and most responsible post here.
First of all, as others have said, the Democratic Party has a majority. As fun as it is to blame everything bad on Republicans, it just doesn’t ring true.
Second, I tend to agree with those favoring leaving US oil under the ground as a “bank” while we use up oil from hostile offshore nations. But, you have to drill the wells and have the pumping equipment at the ready to switch on at short notice. This would defend against sudden adverse actions by the OPEC cartel.
Third, we have to get out of the habit of burning petroleum as a fuel. It is finite, and it is extremely useful for other purposes. Damned near anything will burn if you set the stage right. And we should also be getting away from burning things for power as well.
On the other hand, human nature being what it is, maybe we will only do that when the oil runs out?
Ooops I almost forgot the most important part:
Reduce the Surplus Population!
@23
‘Who gets to do the distributing? The mob?’
I don’t know that anybody does particularly. We live in a legal framework, that enables a certain pattern of wealth distribution.
Assuming the majority of wealth is controlled by such a system (for example drug money is largely outside the legal system), then changing elements of the system can change the distribution.
Note that ‘the system’ is completely artificial, it doesn’t have to be the way it is. IMHO its largely the way it is because its been lobbied that way. By presumably people who would gain from such an arrangement and have the funds to do so. Ie not the poor.
Some examples…
Patents. I think we can agree that patents can be a good thing, but they are in many cases being abused for profit.
The same with copyright law. Artists need to make a living. Should copyright be 20 years, 50 years or forever? Changing such a period will change the distribution of wealth.
The largest multinational companies can pay next to no tax, when they should be doing a significant part of the heavy lifting.
I’d argue the concept of a corporation is being abused, in allowing a small percentage of people within such an entity to make huge amounts of money as fast as possible, and then jump ship with no penalty when the messy edifice falls down. For example look at AIG, and the banking fiasco.
And so on. Ideally you’d have a simple transparent set of rules that achieve a reasonable distribution.
So ‘who gets to do the distributing’ misses the point. You could argue that the people who decide the rules do the distributing, but they do not, as deciding said rules should be a large part of what politics is about.
For that to work the framework has to be communicated impartially to an engaged public, that can have real impact on the results.
As it stands we live in a world of confusion, with multiple conflicting messages, for conflicting interests, with little reporting and little engagement. Worst of all is seems the public is and feels effectively powerless.
As an example I’d again give the bank bailouts – which the majority were against, and told there representatives, and yet still went through. And its still not clear why.
As an example I’d again give the bank bailouts – which the majority were against, and told there representatives, and yet still went through. And its still not clear why.
Because the U.S. Congress is a fully owned subsidiary of the banking industry. Can anyone remember the last time the Congress voted for something that benefited the people of the country instead of the corporations?
The Repubs have 57 Senators? Eideard, can you answer this one?