A word to Keith Olbermann:
Keith, I like you. I really enjoy your show. I think it’s a great shot-in-the-arm of liberal attitude and I think it’s necessary. Most nights, I’m pretty much right there with you. Tuesday night was different.
Barack Obama, in order to improve the environment, wants to, among other things, build new nuclear power plants here in the United States. To that, I say, “Huzzah!” Excellent. Thank you. I don’t quite understand the “We won’t store it in Yucca Mountain which was designed for exactly that purpose,” bit of the policy, but okay, fine. But Keith, you you ridicule the idea. You seem scared of the idea. And for no good reason. This is one area where I have never understood the environmentalist position. You pointed to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, but did you take the time to think about and research those two events. I don’t think you did. Continue reading…
Mitt Romney: next in line for the GOP nomination?
Mitt Romney is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, largely because he has yet to publicly implode, in contrast to too many of his competitors. As Chris Hayes, of The Nation, pointed out on The Rachel Maddow Show last week, Republicans have a tradition of nominating the “next in line.” Conventional wisdom says that Romney is this next in line. At this point in 2005, speculation was flying over who would be in the running for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Possible contenders? Russ Feingold and Evan Bayh. Really. Bill Richardson was in the mix, too, but the person considered far and away to be the frontrunner was Hillary Clinton.
I’m not sure this is a comparison that Mitt Romney should welcome. Like Hillary, Romney has the money right now. Romney has the deference of much of the Party leadership, again, like Hillary. But in the end, Hillary lost. To the guy who had gotten people excited. As long as we’re looking for parallels, it should be pointed out that the most excitement from the Republican Party post-2008, is coming from Ron Paul supporters, who’ve lifted his book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, to #350 on the Amazon sales rankings. (For contrast, Obama’s The Audacity of Hope is ranked at #368.) Continue reading…
Anyone who paid attention in high school civics class knows it takes a majority to pass a bill. In the Senate, that means 51. In today’s world, though, the operative number is 60. 60 represents the mythical supermajority, the three-fifths of the Senate needed to break a filibuster, but has become the de facto definition of a majority:
Republicans such as Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa have supported other forms of an RES voted by the Senate in 2005 and 2007. However, the RES in 2005 only had a target of 10 percent by 2020 and the 2007 provision — 15 percent by 2020 — was lumped together with an objectionable energy tax provision, both of which were stripped of the energy bill in order to pass. The bill with the RES title and tax provisions originally failed to reach the 60-vote threshold by a vote of 53-42.
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