For those who missed it (and Andy’s post doesn’t quite convey the whole story of the farrago), Rep Mike Pence started the debate yesterday morning by pointing out that the House leadership had dropped a 300-page amendment to the already 1200-ish page Waxman-Markey energy tax bill at 3:09 in the morning.  Clearly, debate started before anyone had had a chance to read it properly, but the House leadership just didn’t care.  Then, mid-afternoon, Reps Louie Goehmert (who did a splendid job all round) and Energy & Commerce Ranking Member Joe Barton (who clearly couldn’t believe what was going on) raised a series of Parliamentary Inquiries as to whether there was a copy of the amended bill anywhere in the House for members to read.  Chairman Markey was dismissive, saying there was a copy on the wesbite, which, Rep Barton pointed out, was not much help to members on the floor of the House actually, you know, debating the bill.  Eventually the Chair, who was very fair throughout the afternoon, admitted that the Clerk was in the process of integrating the amendment into the hard copy in the House.  So for most of the day the House was debating a bill that didn’t actually physically exist, never mind having had a chance to read, digest and consider it.

If Congressmen were kept to the same standards of lawyers, they would be guilty of malpractice.

via Just Read The Bill, Already – The Corner

But there’s more. None of that includes the new fiscal “stimulus” that President-elect Obama has promised to introduce upon taking office in two weeks. The details aren’t known, but Mr. Obama and Democrats have been talking about at least $800 billion, and probably $1 trillion, in new spending or various tax credits and reductions over two years. Toss that in and add more expected bailout cash, and if the economy stays slow the deficit could reach $1.8 trillion, or a gargantuan 12.5% of GDP. That 2006 Democratic vow to pass “pay as you go” budgets seems like a lifetime ago, which in political terms it was.

We’ve long argued that deficits per se are not worth losing sleep over, though we do recall when Robert Rubin and Larry Summers claimed that reducing them was itself an economic virtue because it reduced interest rates. With their acquiescence in the magnitude of these deficits, we trust they will now admit to burying Rubinomics as a serious economic philosophy. Democrats are once again all Keynesians now — at least until they want to use the deficits as an argument to raise taxes in a year or two.

Funny how quickly principles get thrown under the bus…

How is it that unconscionable loans to the US auto industry that reward uncompetitive behavior and fundamentally unsustainable union demands… loans that line the pockets of interest groups that give generously to the Democratic party… are hailed as brilliant and necessary public policy by the same people who despise Republican tax cuts?

Does not anyone wonder how Democrats behaving exactly like republicans as a practical matter (except worse, they are rewarding incompetence instead of rewarding ingenuity), they are hailed even by their own party as saving the country, standing up for the little guy… but when Republicans try to make life easier on businesses, they are EVIL CORPORATE SHILLS…

You democrats are a piece of work… I’m serious.

One would have thought that leading Democratic senators who claim to be interested in finding other sources of funding to replace American dollars in Iraq, in helping Iraq spend its own money on its own people, and in lowering the price of gasoline for American citizens, would have been all for it. Instead, Senators Chuck Schumer, John Kerry, and Claire McCaskill wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rice asking her “to persuade the GOI [Government of Iraq] to refrain from signing contracts with multinational oil companies until a hydrocarbon law is in effect in Iraq.” The Bush administration wisely refused to do so, but the resulting media hooraw in Iraq led to the cancellation of the contracts, and helps to explain why Iraq is doing oil deals instead with China.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.“

And this was the Democratic Party of John F. Kennedy, who promised in his inaugural address that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of freedom.“

This belief in the American cause and its people has slowly been replaced, on the left, with a hatred for these very principles. The Left did not see the Soviets were not evil… they were victims of American provocation…

Rather than seeing the Cold War as an ideological contest between the free nations of the West and the repressive regimes of the communist world, this rival political philosophy saw America as the aggressor – a morally bankrupt, imperialist power whose militarism and “inordinate fear of communism” represented the real threat to world peace.

It argued that the Soviets and their allies were our enemies not because they were inspired by a totalitarian ideology fundamentally hostile to our way of life, or because they nursed ambitions of global conquest. Rather, the Soviets were our enemy because we had provoked them, because we threatened them, and because we failed to sit down and accord them the respect they deserved. In other words, the Cold War was mostly America’s fault.

But before I reprint the article in its entirety, head over to WSJ.com and read it for yourself.

I must admit; it feels a bit odd to find myself finding such common ground with former Democratic presidents. Does this make me some kind of Neo-Democrat… or does this say more about the lengths the Democratic party has moved left?… I would tend to think it’s the latter.

By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction.

It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood.

If that comparison seems unfair, consider that even the least-CO2 emitting industrialized nations do not come close to the 2050 target. France and Switzerland, compact nations that generate almost all of their electricity from nonfossil fuel sources (nuclear for France, hydro for Switzerland) emit about 6.5 metric tons of CO2 per capita

Today, the average residence in the U.S. uses about 10,500 kilowatt hours of electricity and emits 11.4 tons of CO2 per year (much more if you are Al Gore or John Edwards and live in a mansion). To stay within the magic number, average household emissions will have to fall to no more than 1.5 tons per year. In our current electricity infrastructure, this would mean using no more than about 2,500 KwH per year. This is not enough juice to run the average hot water heater.

If this goes to prove ANYTHING… it is that Democrats are so out-of-touch with facts and reality that neither facts nor reality matter to them in the slightest. They are completely willing to believe that we can have lower carbon footprints in 2050 than we did in 1700… even though there was next to NO industry in the 1700’s. The Democrats who want or believe this is possible suffer from a severe mental impairment. They are delusional. To even suggest this as a matter of public policy is laughable…

Are these the minds we want RUNNING the country? (oh! let’s allow these minds to manage the economy too…)

• efforts to stabilize the country had been a “complete failure” - Senator Barak Obama
• the surge “is a failure,” - Senator Nancy Pelosi
• the troop buildup “is a failure” – Senator Biden
• the surge was an “absolute failure” – Ron Paul (ya, I know he isn’t a democrat but he was still wrong)

Democrats NOW:

• More American troops have brought more peace to more parts of Iraq. I think that’s a fact. – Dick Durbin
• The military aspects of President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq … appear to have produced some credible and positive results. – Carl Levin
• We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar Province, it’s working. – Hillay Clinton

I don’t need to add any commentary to this… I am vindicated.

Oh, and this in the New York TImes:

Based on such an odd move, I can think of only one explanation. It seems this fear-mongering about Bush’s police state is nothing more than a political ploy. They know the program is within constitutional limits, but are trying to scare their base into believing Bush is going to listen in on their phone conversations. They know how effective the wiretapping program is at preventing terrorists activities and know that the consequences of future terrorist activity could be placed squarely on them should they stonewall the bill.

I suppose the Democratic leadership could be so ineffective that they can’t stop anything the Bush administration wants passed–even though they are the majority party in a lame duck presidency, but I’d hate to be accused of thinking that badly of them.