By Juliet Eilperin
The effort to enact comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year suffered a critical blow Saturday when Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), the key Republican proponent of the bill, withdrew his support because of what he said was a “cynical political” decision by Democrats to advance immigration legislation first.
The move forced the other two authors of the climate and energy bill, Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), to cancel a much-anticipated news conference planned for Monday at which they were to unveil the plan they negotiated with Graham.
Graham, who spent weeks working with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on an immigration measure that will appeal to both parties, wrote in an open letter Saturday to leaders of the climate effort, “Moving forward on immigration — in this hurried, panicked manner — is nothing more than a cynical political ploy.”
Late last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) raised the idea of bringing up immigration legislation before an energy bill, and President Obama on Friday criticized Arizona’s tough new immigration law and said Congress must act on immigration or risk leaving the door open to “irresponsibility by others.”
In an interview, Graham said he has become convinced that Democrats have decided to push for an immigration overhaul in an effort to mobilize Hispanic voters, a key political bloc, and that only a focused effort on a climate and energy bill could ensure its passage.
Democrats denied that election-related considerations were driving the focus on immigration, and the White House, Reid, and Kerry and Lieberman said they would continue to press ahead with the climate and energy effort.
Even so, Graham’s departure greatly undermines Democrats’ prospects of picking up the handful of Republican votes needed for passage. “If Senator Graham leaves the effort, a long shot becomes a no-shot,” said Joe Stanko, who heads up government relations for the law firm Hunton & Williams and represents several industries that would face new federal regulation under a climate bill.
The financial overhaul bill is a priority of President Barack Obama and, after health care, its passage would build on his legislative successes — an important political consideration in an election year. The House has already passed its version of new bank regulations.
Less than an hour before the scheduled vote, the White House issued its official endorsement of the bill, saying Obama would oppose adding any loopholes.
Both the House and Senate bills, aimed at heading off any recurrence of the near collapse of the financial system in 2008, would create a mechanism for liquidating large firms that get into trouble, set up a council to detect systemwide financial threats and establish a consumer protection agency to police lending. The legislation also would require investment derivatives, blamed for helping precipitate the near-meltdown, to be traded in open exchanges.
Senate Republicans have been solidly opposed to the legislation so far, but Democrats are determined to force them to block the bill time and again until their unity cracks.
(The Repuglicans know no shame.)
The housing and development act forced banks to make mortgage loans to people who had no means to pay it back. That’s what started this whole mess. Now you want another piece of legislation to fix it? Heres an idea, repeal the housing and development act and the problem will eventually go away. Don’t force banks to loan to people that have no means to pay it back. But no, you want more regulation. Well IMO I think that will not fix anything, and will in fact make it worse. Everything can’t be solved by regulating it, but that seems to be the Left’s answer to everything! And you call us athoritarian!!!
Nobody forced the Banks to do anything of the kind. That’s nonsense. And wasn’t that W who hyped the “ownership” society. Yep.
If that was true- the Banks would have a perfect built in alibi- and they’d be suing it to the hilt to save their asses now. What do you hear about that ? Nothing at all- not even from those sleazeball banksters. Strange that.
You Rightys always fight for another American Aristocracy, maybe even Royalty. Weirdos.
“using” it
I’m sorry, you’re right! It was not the housing and development act. It was the community reinvestment act. My bad. And no one was fored to do these things, however they were threatened by regulators with a CRA rating. A low rating meant that you could not open new branches or have a merger, ect.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6
“Regulators instructed banks to consider alternatives to traditional credit histories because CRA targeted borrowers often lacked traditional credit histories. The banks were expected to become creative, to consider other indicators of reliability.
Similarly, banks were expected by regulators to relax income requirements. Day labors and others often lack reportable income. Stated-income was a way of resolving the gap between actual income of borrowers and reported income. The problem, of course, comes when the con-artists and liars come into the game”
“Those who were not employing automated underwriting would be putting their CRA ratings at risk. Automated underwriting was seen as a way of eliminating bias in lending.”
“In the case of the CRA, it was the activity of the regulators that matters. And each of these credit innovations described above was put into place to satisfy the CRA regulators.”
And I am not fighting for them. I couldn’t care less about them. I wouldn’t care if they all went broke, and had to live on the streets. The difference between you and I is that I don’t wish that would happen to them, and I am interested in truth, not spin.
They deserved those low ratings and instead got AAA. THAT was part of the scam. Nice try tho. Keep on fighting for the rich elite Neil- the poor souls need all the help they can get apparently.
The Elite at the hub of our financial crisis have established themselves in positions of preeminent wealth and power without actually contributing anything useful to America’s economy. They make and do nothing, just taking bites out of what others have produced. Since they have so little stake in our society, it is not surprising that their corrupt system built the bubble and arranged to profit when it collapsed. Debate on the Senate version of the Obama administration’s bank regulatory overhaul is expected to begin shortly. The House of Representatives passed its banking bill last December. Neither bill does anything to curb the power of the banks or limit their parasitic and socially destructive activities. What the media is calling the “most sweeping overhaul†of the banking system since the Great Depression in reality sanctions the ever greater monopolization of the financial system by a handful of Wall Street giants, imposes no limits on executive pay, and allows the banks and hedge funds to continue gambling on exotic and largely unregulated securities such as collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps.
Yea, they are funny that way. They don’t think the government has any business telling sellers they have to replace all the windows and doors in their house before it can be sold. Even though they are in great repair. Could be a brand new water heater, but you have buy a new one the government likes before you can sell your house. The paint looks fine, but we need to re-paint it with super-duper paint to satisfy uncle Sam. I gotta go with the “repug’s” on this one.
What you just said is non-reality. Stop making crap up please.
Graham finally got a clue as to what is happening. It’s a glimmer of hope. As to other comments by Rob, cut and paste. Sound bites from the DNC. He must be on their mailing list I assume?
http://newsmax.com/Headline/inhofe-climate-cap-trade/2010/04/25/id/356809?s=al&promo_code=9CEE-1
No- Graham just got his orders from his goose-stepping superiors, who got thiers from their superiors (Big Oil, etc.).
Just another big NOTHING from the Right, the party of No.
Talk about non-reality! Graham was working on cap and trade with Kerry and Lieberman. He didn’t walk away from it. Didn’t you read the article? The Dems decided to walk away from it because they want to push an amnesty bill. Your statement is so ridiculous. Graham is a rino. He has consistantly voted for dem causes. he believes in AGW, which is why he wants a cap and trade bill!!!! He was “reaching across the isle” and got his hand slapped. Your statement is a lie in the form of hyperbole. The Republican party is not the party of no. It is the party of hell no! And Graham was saying yes to cap and trade. That is as idiotic as the headline on CNBC that said “Arizona law makes it a crime to be illegal”…………
No, he finally found reality and the facts.
The party of NO? So, what about this Rubby: “The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. By your beloved Karl Marx.
I’m not in favor of communism, at least as practiced by those flawed souls in the past. I’m for Socialism. And don’t give me that crap about it being a slippery slope and all that BS about Socialism. It’s been practiced for decades in Europe, especially Scandanavia w/o any leanings towards communism AT ALL! Even China- the last big Communist bloc, is gradually opening up and is busy practicing capitalism.
Besides, we are as far from Socialism as we’ve ever been in this country (although we do seem to have a backwards perverted form of it that only benefits the wealthy)- and we’d have a very LONG way to go to become Socialist, let alone some kind of Communism. You people are broken records… Your kind made the country what it is today, and yet you still want to blame others. We have slipped into becoming a Fascist country, year by year, over the few decades. So pull your heads out and start fighting the real enemies, please.
Finally you admit it!
In political jargon, the term “useful idiot” was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in western countries and the alleged attitude of the Soviet government towards them. The implication was that the person in question was naïve, foolish, or in willful denial, and was being cynically used by the Soviet Union, or another Communist state.
The term is now used more broadly to describe someone who is perceived to be manipulated by a political movement, terrorist group, or hostile government, whether or not the group is Communist in nature.
I never denied it. Socialism is not anything like communism. We have had socialist policies in this country for a long time, and thy’ve worked very well. It’s been a mixture- just like many European countries are a mixturre of capitalism and socialism. And it works great, for everyone. Get a life.
Bull! You have too denied it. You have, in the past, tried to pass yourself off as a moderate. Don’t give me that you never denied it line because that is a bald faced lie. And name me one socialist policy that isn’t bankrupt, and I’ll give you a cookie!
I am a moderate compared to you extremists.
We are fighting the “real enemies.”
No you are not. That’s the problem. You are fighting for the global elite, and you don’t even know it. You and yours are unwitting cells of brainwashed guerilla warriors, and if it comes down to it, you will turn on people like me, true hard working tax-paying Americans, and not the true enemy. Just like Timmy McVeigh.
Enjoy Rob, your Maximo Lider
Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.
Fidel Castro
How can we help President Obama?
Fidel Castro
I am a Marxist Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my life.
Fidel Castro
I am not a communist and neither is the revolutionary movement.
Fidel Castro
I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating… because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.
Fidel Castro
I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.
Fidel Castro
I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.
Fidel Castro
The universities are available only to those who share my revolutionary beliefs.
Fidel Castro
They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?
Fidel Castro
Whatever- so you hated Fidel and yet you post quotes by him as if he got them off the Temple Mount. Funny. (Psst, here’s a little secret…like all powerful dictators he became crazy).
The guy and his country were, and apparently still are, communist. But it won’t last. It’s becoming capitalistic slowly but surely. And that’s ok with me. It’s their country.
One of the jobs left over from the Busheviks for Obama to accomplish is to deliver the Social Security trust fund to the banksters.
They lust for it more than for life itself. It is the largest pool of cash in the world that is NOT entirely devoted to enriching the oligarchs.
Just as it needed “Republican” Nixon to go to China, and Democrat Clintion to “reform Welfare”, so to it requires “Democrat” Obama to administer the coup de grace to the last vestiges of the New Deal. That’s the implicit purpose of the new “deficit” commission, from the start. They are not gonna recommend raising taxes, when Obama has promised not to raise taxes. Their only real job is to torpedo the last vestiges of the New Deal.
That’s what all you rightys want… the final blow, to any type of security and dignity left in this country.
Even sweeter, to the elite, is the fact that the person designated to drive the last nail into FDR’s New Deal coffin is a “person of color.” You know they laugh and laugh and laugh about that…
Do you believe that? I’ll make you a bet. If the deficit commission recommends raising taxes (which I believe is their sole purpose) you stop posting here. If what you say above happens, I will stop posting here. Do we have a bet?
False bet. Both will occur. Still want that bet?
So here’s the government, using our tax money to bail another corporation out of their mess. It’s called corporate welfare…
“Napolitano said government officials will be able to draw on national resources to try to avert a natural disaster as the slick nears shore. (the off-shore oil disaster now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico).
As local businesses fret about the impact on their way of life and the possibility of an environmental disaster, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the pace of the federal response.
He said Obama has spoken with the governors of five Gulf states about the oil spill.
In earlier developments, a third leak was discovered at the site, which government officials said is spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally estimated — about 5,000 barrels a day coming from the blown-out well 40 miles offshore.”
It’s a tragic situation. Nobody denies that. Been to Valdez? I have in the last four years It’s beautiful after the clean up. Do I agree with what happened? “Hell no.” Things happen with the best intentions. Look at “Challenger.” You take a risk, there is sometimes failure. Hopefully they can contain the oil before it hits land and the ecosystem. Nobody on this site likes what is happening, period! If you disagree, you and whomever else on this site has a major problem. Nobody wish’s nor wants a tragedy, nor does anyone glee over what is happening. If you do, you have a major problem!!!
Oh, so now you love the government as long as it helps out giant corporatations. Hypocrite.
Accidents Rob, do you know what accidents are? Do you have a driving license? Be aware, it may happen to all of us. And don’t worry, the big oild company BP is not happy about it, they will pay a lot for that. Yes, yes, I know it will be better without accident, but nature have incredible resources to regenerate. So drill, baby drill, with increased security measures.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1993/93JC01289.shtml
Natural oil seepage in the Gulf of Mexico causes persistent surface slicks that are visible from space in predictable locations. A photograph of the sun glint pattern offshore from Louisiana taken from the space shuttle Atlantis on May 5, 1989, shows at least 124 slicks in an area of about 15,000 km2; a thematic mapper (TM) image collected by the Landsat orbiter on July 31, 1991, shows at least 66 slicks in a cloud-free area of 8200 km2 that overlaps the area of the photograph. Samples and descriptions made from a surface ship, from aircraft, and from a submarine confirmed the presence of crude oil in floating slicks. The imagery data show surface slicks near eight locations where chemosynthetic communities dependent upon seeping hydrocarbons are known to occur on the seafloor. Additionally, a large surface slick above the location of an active mud volcano was evident in the TM image. In one location the combined set of observations confirmed the presence of a flourishing chemosynthetic community, active seafloor oil and gas seepage, crude oil on the sea surface, and slick features that were visible in both images. We derived an analytical expression for the formation of floating slicks based on a parameterization of seafloor flow rate, downstream movement on the surface, half-life of floating oil, and threshold thickness for detection. Applying this equation to the lengths of observed slicks suggested that the slicks in the Atlantis photograph and in the TM image represent seepage rates of 2.2–30 m3 1000 km−2 d−1 and 1.4–18 m3 1000 km−2 d−1, respectively. Generalizing to an annual rate suggests that total natural seepage in this region is of the order of at least 20,000 m3 yr−1 (120,000 barrels yr−1).
It’s an oil slick the size of Jamaica and growing. It will probably devastate many fisheries and those people that earn their living via fishing, and make the Exxon Valdez look small in comparison. There will be a loss of summer (and forseeable future?) tourism money in many areas… PLUS- added BONUS! – the tax payer funded clean-up. Thank you BP and thanks to the lack of proper regulation and/or unforcement of same. And thanks the to the lack of American fortitude and imagination for a better energy solution.
So, yeah, no big deal, eh Neil?
I didn’t say it’s not a big deal, it is. Just not as big as you think it is. Sure some birds and other animals will die, that’s not a good thing, but oil in the oceans is nothing new. The ocean can, for lack of a better term, metabolize the oil. Don’t pop a blood vessel is all I’m saying. There are approx. 6,600,000 gallons of oil that seep out of the ocean floor in the gulf of Mexico every year from natural sources. Now this may be a bit more than that when it’s all said and done, and yes it’s a big mess, but it will pass. So relax!
BS N° 1: It will never be as Exxon Valdez, that is another alarmist vision I already saw at CNN yesterday. BS N° 2: there will be no one dollar from tax payers going to the cleaning, BP already started to assume the costs. BS N° 3 It is true some fisheries and wildlife will be afected, tourism will be afected as well, but there will be compensations, and good ones. BS N°4: the first problem I see is Obama letting this spill in the hands of Napolitano, an hyterical and incompetent empty head at the government who will let it turn into catastrophe category for political reasons (that’s to say, to stop, or delay the drilling offshore for sometime from now. Rob, stop to listen news with your heart at the mouth, relax, take a beer, read a book.
Dream on you Oil Lovers. It’s a disaster of first rate magnitude, in many different ways. Denial is nice temporarily, but real adults need to deal with realities.
Also, you pose a very callous posture. If you lived down there, and especially if you made your living off the ocean in one form or another, especially fisheries, you’d be talking very differently. Not to mention all the coastal wildlife and plant-life that will be killed off and affected for years to come.
All because the USA doesn’t require one expensive (but very affordable for Big Oil) auto shut off system. All other countries require it. Oh well, gee, I guess we’ll just shrug it off, like everything else that could be avoided if we just used our heads and spines better than we do.
Rob, there was a failsafe system in place that IS required by law. They are trying to determine how/why it failed, but it was in place. So don’t go making stuff up. No one here said it’s not a bad thing, and I am certainly not. But you are all too willing to blame the oil company, and the absence of a law that actually does exist, for this disaster. But I am going to hold off making those judgements until the investigations are complete. You know just as much as anyone else does at this point. Please hold your speculation, and stop making things up.
Oh, but I already know what caused it: it was GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m not making stuff up. It’s called a fact.
Halliburton was the main company behind it. Big surprise that, eh?
But it all comes down to proper regulations and affordable measure that are not taken due to Greed and Greed alone. Look at Toyota- same thing.
Most of the time they get away with being sloppy- the pay-offs are a cost of doing business, but when people die- that’s where I draw the line. You guys? Not so much?
My God, I guess Bush will blamed for this as well. Where was Omaba for the first eight days? Reading a book to kindergartner’s? Maybe did a “Fly-over” like Bush? It’s not a political problem, it is BP’s and our problem. Deal with it! It’s a major problem. Does that mean no more drilling? Hell no!!
I now assume that Dick Cheney was behind the whole thing. My God, do people ever go forward on the left wing side? When I’m 90 Cheney et-al will be blamed for me being 90! Never changes does it.
Did I say that? No. Is anyone on the left saying that yet? No. If it was Al Gore’s company involved would you guys be saying it was his fault? Yes.
It is you that doesn’t change.
How about this doozy?:
Another sad example that many Republicans are in dire need of psychiatric help:
…the Minnesota Republican party just nominated for Governor Tom Emmer who says no federal laws should apply in Minnesota unless 2/3 of both houses of the state legislature approve the law in advance.
Where were all these lunatics when Bush/Cheney were starting illegal wars, when Bush/Cheney ruined the American economy, when they deregulated everything they possibly could? Where were they when Bush/Cheney turned their backs on New Orleans and on and on and on?
They were there applauding and supporting every cockamamie thing Bush/Cheney did that brought us to where we are today! “No federal laws in Minnesota” is the most ridiculous campaign slogan ever, even when considering it is Republican. Is he just another looney Libertarian in disguise??
Bush/Cheney is in the past as previously stated. Quit looking back. Tell us peons what should be done going forward all knowing one?
I’ve been doing that all-forgetting one.
With no substance nor detail. Simple blather does not solve problems.
Obama said in a University of Michigan: Don’t call our socialism “socialism”!
http://patriotupdate.com/exclusives/read/102/Obama-to-students-Dont-call-our-socialism-socialism
Cubanshammo, I loved that quote. True colors they say. “You are what you speak.” said my grandfather.
Me too Paul, and indeed, with the global warming the make up is vanishing like icecream at noon in front of a school.
In other words taking away the freedoms of the innocents not knowing what will be forthcoming. No more Ice cream at Noon or nothing to look forward to thereafter. With that mindset, I understand my friend and totally agree. The children are the future and they have no “voice.”
For thirty years, the Chicago School of Economics promoted Wall Street deregulation by insisting that markets were inherently self-regulating and, no matter how severe the setback, markets would quickly return to equilibrium. This conservative theory touted “efficiency,” “productivity,” and “trickle-down equity” as the inevitable byproducts of laissez-faire capitalism. The result was a savage increase in monopoly capitalism, increasing inequality, and the loss of eight million jobs.
Blind faith in science and belief the market will solve all our problems derive from a core magical belief: what is good for capitalism is good for America. It’s easy to poke holes in this belief – by for example, noting that unbridled capitalism utilizes slave labor and condones obscene pollution – but it has an ironclad grip on the American psyche. This is an example of the Fallacy of Accident, a naivete that lets crooks like Alan Greenspan off the hook.
Magical thinking would be of only academic interest if it did not have such a profound affect on public policy. Naïve faith in the “free-market” and the “self-correcting” marketplace led to deregulation and, ultimately, horrendous disasters. Now America is facing difficult choices about issues such as deficit reduction and energy. Widespread use of magical thinking could preclude wise decisions.
Most Americans are worried about the deficit. But they also want their taxes to be reduced. When asked the best way to both reduce the deficit and cut taxes, they typically answer reduce wasteful government programs. Magical thinking believes this is plausible and uses miniscule examples of ill-conceived Federal programs to support an unwarranted generalization: all government programs are wasteful.
But they’re not. Roughly 46 percent of budget goes to military-related spending that most Americans don’t want to reduce. Another 39 percent goes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs that most Americans support. That leaves approximately 15 percent of expenditures that could theoretically be reduced. But this includes items like the interest on the debt and homeland security, programs that Americans support once they understand the details. As was true in the meltdown of the financial system and the BP oil leak, magical thinking will not allow the US to both reduce the deficit and taxes. The solution to the deficit problem is to raise taxes for corporations and the rich.
Cut and Paste, Cut and Paste. Give us your own feelings/thoughts my friend! I can always go to a liberal left wing site to read your dribble that you never say from your heart. Now that my friend is “Real World!” Tell it the way YOU see it not what you cut and paste.
It’s REALITY Paul. Can’t you deal with it?
M-T head, I told you from the begining, this guy walk, eat, and probably talk too, but you can’t ask him more. He’s a liberal Paul, a liberal. And the worse, he even do not know why!!!!!
Remember the Three Stooges routine:
“I can’t see! I can’t see!”
“Why not kid?”
“I’ve got my eyes closed”
Rob, get back to reality. Either you are a broken record or you have been hit with a virus as well.