Maybe we won’t have to wait for Obama-
This would be incredible! Dems eye midnight regulations reversal. By Eria Lovely and Ryan Gram. Politico.
Congressional Dems eye reversal of recent and pending Bush anti-environmental regs
by
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
This is the best news on these issues in many days.
Hopefully much of the horrid policy changes this administration is pushing through at a break-neck pace will be lumped together and deleted in one vote on Jan. 20th.
Sounds like a great plan of action. And none too soon.
Great news, although all speculation. But, If any one can do it it can and will be Obama! Lets all pray he can reverse the Bush era on our environment and wildlife to better!
I thought perhaps that had to be done in the lame duck session of Congress that begins soon. With the close party division in this old, but not yet dead Congress, doing this would be difficult.
However, now I believe it can be done as an early order of business in the new Congress where the Democrats will have at least 58 seats, it appears in the Senate, and a big House majority.
And, as of this morning, looks like Stevens may be OUT as the votes are still being counted and he is behind now, good riddance; Al Franken is only 206 votes down ~ .007%; and Chambliss (GA) is forced into a December run-off election.
In Minn. ~ the Senate will decide if it’s too close to call; Alaska ~ the vote count decides, not the the (ugh!) Governor; Georgia is a forced run-off election!
There’s still hope for a 60-40 Democrat majority!!!
Salle,
I read that too. One can only hope.
I attended the meeting in Cody last night to address the Lynx Proposed Critical Habitat Rule – comment period ends 11/20/08. Not many people in attendance, but the three people who spoke were all advocates for the Lynx (surprising, here in Cody). I spoke with the Fish and Wildlife representative about the coincidence of all of these comment periods ending at about the same time. He said there was a definite coincidence and also told me that in the 31 years he has worked for the F&W Service, things have never been as bad as they have been for them in the past eight years. He said that everything they have tried to do they have had to fight the interference of Interior every step of the way. He stated that he has worked for all of the “conservative” administrations and none have been like the Bush administration. He told me he can’t wait for the new Administration to take its place. It was heartening to me, although I am sure many are skeptical about the future for our wildlife and the environment. “Yes we can!”
Al Franken in the US senate would be a disgrace. It’s sad that some have become so desperate for a “majority” at any cost they could welcome a victory by that guy.
timz:
I’m curious why you think Al Franken would be a “disgrace”? Personally, I don’t like the guy–mostly because he rubs me the wrong way–but I am one who would welcome that filibuster proof majority (though it looks now like Georgia will go Republican with the run off election).
Al Franken is a foul mouthed hate monger. Norm Coleman is a decent moderate republican. Last year he recieved a 73% approval rating from the league of conservation voters. A filibuster proof Senate is a move toward too much one party domination, thus lack of debate and bringing forward different ideas. If the democrats can’t break a filibuster on an issue with the help of the moderate/liberal republicans it’s probably something that shouldn’t pass anyway. If you care to see how well one party domination works we have it here in Idaho, complete control by the republicans, beholding only to the special interest that put them there. It’s a disaster.
i always thought it was odd — when the Republicans were in charge “filibuster” was a bad word – used to stain the Democrats with the suggestion that they were anti-democratic (i.e. wouldn’t allow an “up or down vote”). High-level Republicans even threatened to “go nuclear” and abolish the filibuster using an underhanded legislative technicality to ‘restore the democratic principle’ of an “up or down vote”. Of course – the media went along with this charade marginalizing congressional Democrats even when concerns over important decisions involving the most fundamental legislative functions were voiced about the prospect of this Bush administration brow-beating their radical Supreme (and Circuit) Court appointments into life-term positions. These are the only opportunities that public (i.e. legislative) oversight of judicial nominations takes place – all trivialized by the hyped-up notion of the filibuster as some underhanded technicality.
now that the Democrats are in the majority – the talking-heads all claim the need for a filibuster proof majority – otherwise the Dems won’t be allowed to get anything done. now that Dems are on top, “filibuster” isn’t a bad word, it’s a legitimate procedural hurdle used to suggest Congressional Democrats’ inadequacy.
What’s with this double-standard ? What’s with the short attention span on this ? Does anybody else remember this ?
As much as it might expedite the process, Democrats in the Senate don’t need 60 votes to pass legislation – they need to grow the b***s to learn how to use their leadership positions in Congress to frame/lead the political conversation – don’t cede a single issue – and build public support sufficient to marginalize right-wingers who would sabotage the current political mandate.
Step 1: Fire the soft-spoken limp-noodle Harry Reid. DLC Democrats have been dropping the ball on this for too long.
Amen to Step 1! Reid may be a nice fellow, but he doesn’t have what it takes to herd cats and get things done. I’m not sure Nancy Pelosi does, either. Time for a reassessment of Democratic leadership across the board.
Step 2: Issue a memo to all Congressional Democrats with a talking point to use for any interview with media. Example :
Step 3:
You gotta believe…
😉
You know — I really hope that some of the dreams of the radical democrats on this blog come true — the dreams that say there will be something besides partisan politics and political “business as usual” for the next few years.
Will it really happen?? Not a snowball’s chance in hell!! There is NO difference between the Republicrats and the Democans — not one bit — they are ALL politicians and, if they are worth a damn when they get elected, they surely won’t be by the time they are there two years!!
Somehow the American dream that touted non-professional government has become so corrupt that it is worthless.
“The America people have spoken, they want change”
Yes Barack is really delivering change. 31 of his 47 appointments so far are former Clinton staffers. Hillary, Kerry, Richardson, all names for cabinet posts. Some change.
Change is a meaningless word unless the kind of change is described.
Politicians specialize in using words where people use their own hopes and fears to fill in these blanks.
So, there will be change under any President.
It appears most people didn’t like the direction the changes were going in recent years.
As for me, I liked the time from about 1993 to 2001 just fine. If something like that could be recreated, IMO, great!
Ralph,
Do you think this is the change the people who voted for Obama had in mind? If they wanted a repeat of the Clinton administration why didn’t they make Hillary the nominee?
Ralph, some of the changes that happend in the 1993 to 2001 helped bring about the current finical mess that we are dealing with today. I’m talking about regs being relaxed so people who had no business buying houses were able to buy them. It worked really well untill their ARMs finally cought up with them, and they wern’t able to flip that house into a bigger and more expensive one that they really couldn’t afford. Alot of this mess started with Feddi and Fanny in the 90s, and the idea that everyone could and should be a homeowner. Now all of us who lived within our means and bought houses that fit our income are paying the price.
timz,
You can’t truly repeat an era.
Obama’s vote came from those who liked him, and/or what they thought his ideas were. Also from traditional Democrats. We await a good analysis of election data, but he also won because many perceived McCain’s direction would be too much like Bush.
People vote both in prospect of what two candidates offer, but also in retrospect of how they think things have been.
My vote was more retrospective, but it was forward looking to a degree too.
I watched Obama on 60 minutes last night. He was asked if he was going to ease up on energy since gas prices are lower now. He stated NO, that something has to be done now, as we fall into this pattern everytime we have a crisis. He said we cannot let up now, it has to be dealt with. (Ofcourse I paraphrased…ut you get the jist.) He also said he was going to appoint republican(s), and hinted that like Lincoln, he may place some of his enemies in his cabinet.)
He also said he is going to use executive power as soon as he is in office-Gitmo will be closed. I hope he uses his power to reverse some of the crap being done right now.
We won’t know for certain how much change will happen. But this is the brightest hope I have seen for a while. I will keep optomism alive.
And yes, some of what we see now is courteousy of Clinton, and Reagan, and Bush Sr., It is also due to many before them. But economic change takes 7-10 years to show major impact (or so economists say)….so we won’t know what’s fixed for a long time, on that front. But the environment starts to heal right away. We will see more of that happen soon, with any luck.
The SOB Dick Kempthorne and the pile of dog feces Bush are going to try and Screw America one last time.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28180872/
I have more offensive things to call them but I can’t d that here. I hope people realize how much it will cost taxpayers to protect these pieces of trash when they are out of office.
I think they should be deemed “persons without a country” and be sent off the continent. Maybe there’s a camp in the Caribbean, like Guantanamo, where they can be sequestered… Secret Service would have an easier time protecting them from the public there.
Grrrrr!