No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for March 11th, 2009

Senate Republican “leadership” – FAIL

by @ 19:00. Filed under Politics - National.

Shoebox wrote back in the immediate wake of the November election that there was no difference between 57 Democrats in the Senate and 60. Something that John Hawkins tweeted today reminded me of that: “The GOP’s leadership in the Senate is utterly failing. They haven’t stopped ANYTHING yet and Lamar Alexander voted for the Omnibus bill.”

I have decided to run with that and see just how big a failure that has been. The Senate has taken 96 votes in this session of Congress. There were 14 votes on items supported by the Democratic leadership (majority leader Harry Reid, majority whip Dick Durbin, vice chair Chuck Schumer and secretary Patty Murray) that required a 3/5ths majority, and thus could theoretically been stopped by the Republicans. Depending on the day, they needed not only their entire caucus that was present, but also between 2 and 8 “Republicans”. Let’s review the record:

  • Floor vote #1 and floor vote #2 on the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which among other things proposed locking up 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 331 million barrels of recoverable oil in Wyoming) – John Barrasso (WY), Michael Bennett (CO), Thad Cochran (MS), Susan Collins (ME), Mike Crapo (ID), Michael Enzi (WY), Orrin Hatch (UT), Richard Lugar (IN), Lisa Murkowski (AK), James Risch (ID), Olympia Snowe (ME) and Roger Wicker (MS) joined all the present Dems (excepting the absent Joe Biden, Sherrod Brown and Ted Kennedy) on the vote to exceed the 59 votes necessary to proceed to that as the Senate’s top priority (vote #1), while Kit Bond (MO) and Lindsey Graham (SC) joined the aforementioned “Republicans” and all the present Dems (Biden, Brown, Kennedy, Kent Conrad and Debbie Stabenow weren’t present) to exceed the 59 votes necessary to invoke cloture (vote #2). While it did pass the Senate, it is languishing in the House.
  • Floor vote #4 and floor vote #14 (Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which allows the perpetually-aggrieved to wait until 6 months after they leave a job instead of waiting 6 months after “discrimination” to sue) – Lamar Alexander (TN), Bennett, Bond, Richard Burr (NC), Collins, Bob Corker (TN), Chuck Grassley (IA), Judd Gregg (NH), Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Mel Martinez (FL), John McCain (AZ), Mitch McConnell (KY), Murkowski, Snowe, Arlen Specter (PA) and Wicker joined all the present Dems (Brown and Kennedy were absent) to exceed the 59 votes necessary to proceed (vote #4), while Collins, Hutchison, Murkowski, Snowe and Specter joined all the present Dems (Kennedy was absent) to exceed the 59 votes necessary to pass the bill (vote #14), which is now law.
  • Floor vote #33 (an attempt to waive the Budget Act with respect to an attempt by Murray to acquire some pork in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka Porkulus) – Bond and Specter joined all the present Dems (again, Kennedy was absent) except Mary Landrieu in a failed attempt to make that happen; they fell 2 votes short of the 60 votes necessary. Of note, this was the only victory against the Dem machine, but only because Kennedy was absent and Reid suffered a rare defection from his caucus.
  • Floor vote #35 (an attempt to waive the Budget Act with respect to a Barbara Mikulski/Sam Brownback amendment to Porkulus that allows the deduction of interest, state sales tax and state excise tax paid by certain taxpayers on the purchase of a car/light truck bought between November 13, 2008 and December 31, 2009) – Most of the Republicans joined most of the Democrats on this 60-vote-majority one; the amendment was subsequently agreed to by a voice vote. Of note, more Democrats than Republicans opposed it (17-9); that and the nature of the amendment means that I am not counting this against the Republicans. The interest portion was subsequently stripped out, but the taxes deductions survived.
  • Floor vote #55 (an attempt to waive the Budget Act with respect to an amendment to Porkulus to greatly expand the tax deductibility of plug-in electric vehicles) – Alexander, Bennett, Bond, Sam Brownback (KS), Burr, Saxby Chambliss (GA), Collins, Corker, Crapo, John Ensign (NV), Graham, Hatch, Johnny Isakson (GA), Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Murkowski, Risch, Pat Roberts (KS), Snowe, Specter, John Thune (SD) and George Voinovich (OH) joined all present Democrats (Kennedy absent) to exceed the 60 votes required to waive the Budget Act; the amendment was subsequently agreed to by a voice vote. It appears most of this was subsequently scaled back.
  • Floor vote #59 and floor vote #60 (an attempt to substitute the Collins/Nelson/Reid rewrite of Porkulus) – Collins, Snowe and Specter joined all the Dems (yes, they even brought in Kennedy this time) to exceed the 60 votes required to invoke cloture on (vote #59) and waive the rules for (vote #60) that particular version of Porkulus for the one already on the floor. The subsequent vote to pass was a simple majority, and that was modified in conference.
  • Floor vote #63 and floor vote #64 (final adoption of Porkulus) – Collins, Snowe and Specter joined all the Dems (Kennedy was back to being absent) to get to the 60 votes required to waive the rules (vote #63) and pass (vote #64) the final version of Porkulus. Had just one of the three not bolted, we wouldn’t have had Porkulus.
  • Floor vote #65 and floor vote #73 (the DC House Voting Rights Act of 2009) – Cochran, Collins, Hatch, Lugar, Murkowski, Snowe, Specter and Voinovich joined all the Dems present (Kennedy and Tom Harkin were absent) except Max Baucus and Robert Byrd to exceed the 60 votes required to proceed (vote #65), while Collins, Hatch, Lugar, Snowe, Specter and Voinovich joined all the Dems present (Kennedy was again not present) except Baucus and Byrd to exceed the 60 votes required to pass the bill (vote #73). The bill is currently stalled in the House.
  • Floor vote #96 (passage of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009) – Alexander, Bond, Cochran, Murkowski, Richard Shelby (AL), Snowe, Specter and Wicker joined all the Dems present (Kennedy absent again) except Evan Bayh, Russ Feingold and Claire McCaskill to exceed the 60 votes required to pass the pork-laden Omnibus bill signed in secret by Obama.

As stated above, I consider one of the votes (vote 35) a bipartisan measure. Another 3 votes were essentially purely procedural (votes 1, 4 and 65). That leaves 10 meaningful places the “Republicans” could have stopped the Dingy One. 9 times, they failed.

So, who were the big failures? Specter and Snowe lead the pack at 9, but I give the edge to Specter for his attempt to make the total failure rate 100%. Collins isn’t too far behind at 8. Bond and Murkowski each bolted 4 times. Hatch and Lugar departed 3 times apiece. Alexander, who is supposed to be one of the “leaders”, was among the multiple offenders. In all, 29 of the 41 members caved at least once on a critical vote, and only 9 didn’t cave at all.

But, But, But…..

by @ 11:01. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

In early January, then-PEBO had his staff deliver a white paper to provide economic justification for the stimulus bill.   As you might remember, one of the key issues for putting the stimulus in place was that it was going to dramatically reduce job loss.   In fact, the argument was that the stimulus would not only reduce job loss but quickly put us into the position of lowering the unemployment rate.   PEBO’s staff put together the following chart to show how unemployment with the stimulus would compare to unemployment if we just left things alone:

job-loss

What you can see here is that in early January, PEBO believed that without the stimulus package, unemployment would peak at a bit over 9% and then recede.   However, with the humungous, pork laden, we’ll pay for it forever stimulus package, unemployment would peak around 8% and make a rapid descent.

Today, American Pravda notes that 4 states have hit double digit unemployment rates.   That’s not good.   However, that’s not the important part of the article.   Here’s the money line from the article:

Some economists now predict the U.S. unemployment rate will hit 10 percent by year-end, and peak at 11 percent or higher by the middle of 2010.

Barely two months ago, Obama and his ilk saw unemployment capping at 9% if they did nothing.   Now that they’ve done a major something, they’ve pushed unemployment to a potential of 11%!  

Obama had better hope that these economists are wrong.   If not, the growing skepticism from all sides of the political spectrum, will quickly turn into a full scale rout!

Whose Science Will It Be?

by @ 5:16. Filed under Global "Warming", Politics - National.

You may not be aware of it but there is a global warming conference going on this week.   The International Conference on Climate Change is in New York.   You probably haven’t heard about the conference because it is specifically for skeptics of global warming.   You know, the folks who also believe that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe?

Ronald Bailey from Reason magazine is covering the conference and has a recap of the presentations here.   Included in yesterday’s presentations was the following scientific data:

  • According to Indur Goklany, assuming the worse case scenario for global warming, income in both developed and undeveloped countries would be higher, worldwide deaths would increase by less than 1/2% and the amount of land required for agriculture would drop by 1/2.
  • According to Paul Reiter, head of the insects and infectious disease unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, 150 EDEN studies have been published so far and that “none of them support the notion that disease is increasing because of climate change.”   In fact,

Reiter pointed out that many of the claims that climate change will increase disease can be attributed to an incestuous network of just nine authors who write scientific reviews and cite each other’s work. None are actual on-the-ground disease researchers and many of them write the IPCC disease analyses. “These are people who know absolutely bugger about dengue, malaria or anything else,” said Reiter.

  • Finally, Stanley Goldenberg, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division in Miami presented evidence refuting the notion that hurricanes have become more prevalent due to global warming.   Goldenberg showed evidence that hurricanes increase and decrease over decadal cycles he provided this synopsis:

Tropical North Atlantic SST [sea surface temperature] has exhibited a warming trend of [about] ) 0.3 °C over the last 100 years; whereas Atlantic hurricane activity has not exhibited trend-like variability, but rather distinct multidecadal cycles….The possibility exists that the unprecedented activity since 1995 is the result of a combination of the multidecadal-scale changes in the Atlantic SSTs (and vertical shear) along with the additional increase in SSTs resulting from the long-term warming trend. It is, however, equally possible that the current active period (1995-2000) only appears more active than the previous active period (1926-1970) due to the better observational network in place.

Goldenberg completed his remarks with:

“Not a single scientist at the hurricane center believes that global warming has had any measurable impact on hurricane numbers and strength,”

Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would be lifting the ban on Federal funding for stem cell research that had been implemented by President Bush.   In his statement describing the reason for his decision, President Obama said:

But let’s be clear: Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s also about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about letting scientists like those who are here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.   (emphasis mine)

I have to say, this is the first statement I can completely get behind President Obama on.   We should allow science to operate “free from manipulation or coercion.”   We should follow the facts and findings and “listen to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient.”   That leaves me with just two questions for President Obama:

  1. Free from manipulation or coercion by whom?
  2. Even when it’s inconvenient for whom?

All animals created equally?

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