Cooper Co Sponsors Bill to Remove Half Billion Dollar Gift to Amgen Hidden in Fiscal Cliff Bill

This shows what a sleezey outfit our Congress has turned into.

The Amgen deal "confirms the American public's worst suspicions of how Congress operates," Representative Welch told us this week. "As the nation's economy teetered on the edge of a Congressional-created fiscal cliff, lobbyists for a private, for-profit company seized an opportunity to feed at the public trough. It's no wonder cockroaches and root canals are more popular than Congress."

"That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God"

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

President Obama

Darwin

My good friend Charles Darwin spent a little time in East Tennessee this weekend. He seemed pleased to see all the Sandhill Cranes and to spend a little time with folks in the very town that put his theory of the "Origin of Species" on trial. The irony was delicious and thoroughly enjoyed.

TN Environmental Orgs Send Open Letter to Corker and Alexander Regarding Blocking TVA Board Member Dr. Marylin Brown

From a Tennessean Editorial:

 The Georgia Tech professor was the only person on the board of the giant federal utility with expertise in energy efficiency and sustainability. Think of that: the only director for a seven-state utility who would know the best practices for saving ratepayers’ hard-earned money; yet Alexander and Corker deemed her unsuitable for the board of an agency that is going to need all the expertise in sustainability that it can get in coming decades.

 While the editorial boards of several newspapers around the state are calling our good Senators on the carpet for Blocking the impressively credentialed Dr. Brown from the TVA Board, Community and environmental organizations are asking how in the world the Senators can make the statement that they want someone with better qualifications?  They were really nice about it but the letter hits hard...

Read the Letter

 Behind the scenes the buzz is that she was a threat to the Chairman Bill Sansom holding on to that position. Without Dr. Brown on the Board the thrust could continue to be build more power plants even in the face of the well crafted Sierra Club report that showed we can easily save energy costs and eliminate the need for any new power plants with no cost to the greater economy.

The call is building for Corker and Brown to withdraw their opposition to the only Board member with credentials in energy efficiency and climate change and for President Obama to renominate Dr. Brown to the TVA Board.

Quote of the Day

"Obama isn't going to take your guns.He just wants to take your weapons of mass destruction."  That was me, btw.

Was Dr. Marylin Brown Removed From TVA Board For Trying to Save Ratepayers Money?

Dang sure looks like it:

The move by Tennessee’s two U.S. senators to block the reappointment of Georgia Tech professor Marilyn Brown to the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors threatens energy efficiency efforts that could save ratepayers billions of dollars...

This continues to get interesting. It remains to be seen how many people call out Senators Corer and Alexander and demand that President Obama re-submit Dr. Brown's name for the TVA Board.

Neither Alexander nor Corker would explain why he didn’t think Brown qualified for reappointment. Both also declined to answer questions about whether the TVA should continue with energy efficiency efforts.

Tennessean Article

Want To Understand the Bailout? Ignore WSJ and NYT...Subscribe to Rolling Stone

We should be shocked at:

  the complete immunity of the elite Wall Street folks who caused this crisis through fraud, who became wealthy because of those frauds, and were then bailed out as a result of their frauds. None of them are being prosecuted.

...robo-signing, ...means what they were doing was lying systematically to the tune, typically, of the large places, of 10,000 times a month, so over 100,000 times a year, committing felonies that would lead to people being made homeless in America, in many cases. It’s just an astonishing aspect that nobody has gone to prison for all of this and that they gave them one of the largest grants of immunity you’ll ever see.

An interesting read (skip the video) of an interview with Matt Taibbi and William Black.

No elite Wall Street creeps were prosecuted, nobody from the banks who feloniously foreclosed on innocent homeowners has gone to jail.

Sunday Reader: A Short History of the NRA Descent Into Crazy

Part One in which we see Ronald Reagan become a gun control advocate well before he got shot. Hint: It was because he found out blacks could legally own and carry guns.

 Part Two: In which we learn that a Sportsman's organization was taken over by gun cultists in a convention coup. Hint: Sportsmen apparently haven't realized that their gun club is now primarily serving aspiring vigilantes and arms merchants.

The Next Quote of the Day...

"The findings in the report are a three-alarm fire," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. "Climate change is already causing widespread disruption across the nation. We are in deep trouble if we don't act forcefully this year." More

Quote of the Day

"We're not going to have a clean-energy economy if the same companies that are polluting our rivers and oceans are also polluting our elections." Sierra Club Exec Director Michael Brune

Saturday Funnies

From our "Aren't Conservatives Just Darling?" Department:

Michelle Bachmann is refusing to pay staff members from her failed Presidential campaign unless they sign a document agreeing to commit obstruction of justice. No, Really...

Crafting legislation is often compared to making sausage (both are grisly tasks, you see), so every once in a while you hear Congress being referred to as the sausage factory. I must confess the analogy never struck me as particularly apt.
I suppose I could see it if the sausage factory was, say, only open two or three days a week. Or if any one employee of the sausage factory could put a blanket hold on the making of today's sausage, or tomorrow's, or next week's. Or if half the employees kept trying to put rat poison in the sausages.
But I guess where the analogy really breaks down for me is that I just can't see workers at an actual sausage factory having that kind of top-notch health insurance... From KOS

Why Comment Trolls Suck...from Mother Jones:

There's a science to why people are Climate change deniers, it is exploited by the folks who make money on things that are killing us, and you're an idiot if you don't believe me. (Sorry to be rude but if you read the piece you might get the point...Not climate change deniers, of course.)

  And Tennessee Treasure Clay Bennett...  

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free PressJan 11, 2013 EditorialCartoonists.com

     

We Need a Democratic Party in This State

The Executive Committee of the Tennessee Democratic  Party is about to elect its new chair person. There are several good and qualified people who have offered themselves up for the position. While I think each and every one of them is qualified, I would like to say that what they are qualified for is not necessarily the chair person position. This wagon train needs a driver.

I wrote about this sometime back. Go read this and come back. I'll wait...

Ok, anyone who was pissed off by that rant, well good. It was aimed at you. You know who you are.

We keep treating the TNDEM Chair race as a beauty contest. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! We are electing a leader. We should be looking at an operative for this job. A community organizer with muscle and fangs. Democrats have a great messages and we need to get them out there.

You want good schools you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are just going to sell them to their friends.

You want decent health care you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are the ones who brought us forever increasing insurance costs and only getting the 34th best care in the world for our money. They are the reason your mother is on Medicare and they are trying their damnedest to kill that.

You want Social Security you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are trying to tell you it is causing deficits, which is a lie on the face of it, and that it is an entitlement even though we all pay for it.

You want safe schools you have to elect Democrats because Republicans can only bow down to the NRA, who would have told you the answer to drunk driving deaths is more alcohol.

You want your kids to have clean water to swim in and clean air to breathe you have to elect Democrats because Republicans think the only value those things have is what they can be sold for.

We need a candidate running for every elected office at every level who carries those messages and more... We need a drummer at the head of the boat pounding incessantly on the beat of a resurgent Democratic Party and who will pound on the head of anyone who thinks the way to be a Democrat is to be a moderate Republican. There aren't any moderate Republicans anymore. Get that through your heads and get us a leader who understands what it takes to build a revolution in this state.

 Who is our drummer?

Grrrr!

Steve

Read what Left Wing Cracker says about the race to be the new TNDEM Chair.