Why did the Chicken cross the road?

To smoke a Marlboro in the Oval Office.

Raising energy unnecessarily during a recession is another example of federal govt. abuse. Our constitution states that the people have the right to dissolve the federal govt. if it becomes abusive or no longer represents the will of the people. It is time for the people to push the governors of all 50 states to agree to push a vote of no confidence on the federal govt. The governing power must be returned to the individual states in effort to rebuild a function type of federal govt.

Obama can combine his Healthcare bill and his Energy Tax bill into one...

He already has it to where people over 65 wont get certain care because its a waste of money on the elderly.  Instead we can use them for fuel!  It wont be the first time!

We should use BO the dog for fuel - he burns cleaner than coal.

Well, the left wing extremist whackos who post their drivel on this blog are guilty of the exact same thing and cloaking their lunacy under the mantle of righteousness. What a pile of misguided, sanctimonious – and typically hypocritical -- crap.  
Bill, Fairfax, VA (Sent Friday, June 26, 2009 1:48 PM)
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Well, the right wing extremist whackos who post their drivel on this blog are guilty of the exact same thing and cloaking their lunacy under the mantle of righteousness.

It works both ways Bill. Most of everyone on these blogs are whackos - whether left or right.

The Cap & Trade bill is not a job killer, but a job creator! A creator of jobs in China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, . . . . . .

Nashville_fan (Sent Friday, June 26, 2009 2:26 PM)

"Just say you don't like it or you don't believe it will help . . . but don't pretend it's "the rush" that is the problem . . . unless you mean Loud Mouth Limbaugh."

The bill is over 1200 pages.  It might take folks a week just to read the damn thing.  But we want to do more than read it, we want to analyze it to fully understand the implications of this massive piece of legislation.  And we want that analysis to occur in the light of day so all Americans can understand what their government is about to do to them.  So yes, rushing to failure is part of my concern, but only a part.  The other part is the credibility of the so-called science.  So I say again, if the facts are on your side then what's the harm in taking a more deliberative approach?  What are you afraid of?

And by the way, I did not invoke Limbaugh's name anywhere in my post.  Unlike many of you lefties, I think for myself and don't need him or anyone else to do my thinking for me.  Your comment about him was a typical lefty cheap shot.

Has anyone asked what those hold out Dems. want? Why do they object to the bill. If cap and trade is the problem drop it for now and get an otherwise good bill through, passed and signed. Then cap and trade can be brought up later. If done well enough the cap and trade may be moot as companies can be shamed into complying with environmental standards. Other laws can be made that will make them wish they had begged for cap and trade. I really don't see what the problem is in getting this done. A few spoons of honey and a fanagle or two and Pelosi should have a cake walk with this but she doesn't seem to be able to even get her own party on board for what should be a real slam dunk.

To Alan, NJ:

Someone who is here illegally should not get preferential treatment, but they should get treatment as long as they are here.

What exactly is gained by "punishing" people for wanting a better life?

Maybe we should just strenghthen our immigration laws, treat people like people regardless of their citizenship, thank the Lord that we are blessed to live in a stable prosperous country, and stop all the whining.

That is the only humane thing to do, don't you think?

Jonathan Flint, MI (Sent Friday, June 26, 2009 2:35 PM)
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I think you are missing some key points about immigrants.

First, I don't think immigrants come to the US for our health care. They come here because they feel they can make more money and better support themselves and their families.

If you want to do something about illegal immigration, let's put the burden on companies that hire them. There should be massive fines for any company that is found to be employing illegals. And if they are caught employing more than some level (say 10) undocumented workers, it should be a felony.

As far as health care costs, consider emergency care versus preventive care. The reason insurance companies encourage preventive care is they know it saves them money. So if those "illegals" had preventive care, the overall cost would be lower. And who is paying for the emergency care? Well, we are all paying for it. Because when the hospital doesn't get paid, it passes along the costs to everyone else. So essentially, we are already being "taxed" for health care for those that don't have insurance.

Second, all I hear all the time from republicans and libertarians is whining about taxes and how much they are going to hurt the "middle class." But I have a question for you. When we push all the undocumented workers out of the country how are we going to fund the police to do it? And how are we going to afford food and landscaping when suddenly there are no more illegals and those businesses have to pay considerably higher wages (and taxes on the wages since they will be documented workers with valid social security numbers)?

I don't buy into the paranoia about the illegal immigrants in the US. It is nothing but more fear and a form of racism.

This the largest "TAX" bill ever put forward in the house, I know they keep saying the cost of the bill is $$$$ per household in the US, but does anyone in the world believe that it cannot be raised, warped, reinvented or whatever these guys want.

CAP AND TAX is stupid, unless you are on the receiving end of the money.

These legislaters have decided that they are above the people, they are kings and queens, not to be questioned, not to answer to anyone, Please people, vote these dogs out next time, all of them please.  A complete turnover would be fantastic.

This CAP and TAX garbage should not even be considered, don't accept the answer that they haven't read the bill as a reason for not having a definate answer on how they will vote.  If the haven't had time to read the bill, they should always vote "NO"  Like the hypricatic oath, "first do no harm"

chris, alabama (Sent Friday, June 26, 2009 2:54 PM)
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That's what the right has been saying since the 1960s about anything on the environment. It is time to stop putting it off and do something about it.

By the way, one of the biggest oil reserves in the US is in western ND and eastern Montana (and southern Saskatchewan) and there are no real legal impediments preventing drilling. It is estimated at 3-4.3B barrels - which is the biggest oil reserve outside of Alaska. The reason the oil companies aren't sinking more wells? The price of oil is too low to make it economical to the oil companies.

Also, it should be noted that despite all the claims that we need to drill more to become less dependent on foreign oil, the US exports over 1M barrels of oil a day, while it imports over 13M. So we could reduce our imports by 8% if we stopped exporting!

Regardless of these facts, the key point is that oil reserves are very limited and with China and India using more and more oil, we are going to see the price of oil to continue to climb (it temporarily declined due to the world recession). The only way to avoid the pain of ever rising fuel prices is to do something about it now!

There appears to be a little bit of disappointment here with regard to Maureen Orth and her stmts this morning. I too think she chose a few words which appeared at first callous, but she offered what I thought was a sincere apology. She’s a journalist and when a person dies, a journalists’ job is to paint as complete a picture as possible.
Pat, Boston, MA (Sent Friday, June 26, 2009 1:53 PM)
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Hi Pat!  

I’m going to have to respectfully disagree in part of what you said.  I don’t know if it was disappointment or shock at the viciousness! I never saw that coming! What I am disappointed with was her timing… we all know this is going to be dragged out for all it’s worth – so yeah… I think she could have waited until the body was at least cold! And the complete picture (whether you agree or not) was he was acquitted) which no doubt she didn’t agree with! So to me it was more sensationalism that any thing else!  Kind of like to GEENOPEE always living in the past!

Yes she did apologize – was it sincere?  Whether it was or not – it’s like one lawyer yelling ‘Objection’ and the other one yelling ‘Withdrawn’… the genie is already out of the bottle.

And on the journalist angle – I do think we agree that these days a great majority of them SUCK!

Anyway… just my two cents… still LOVE your work!  Happy Weekend!

Should be interesting.  If we don't get off oil, we'll continue paying Iranian and Venezuelan dictators to stay in power.

Resulting in the loss of more American soldiers fighting in the middle east against radicals paid for by our thirst for oil.

Without the wind and solar manufacturing jobs in America, we'll see more manufacturing jobs disappear from the US.

Everything that goes wrong is Obama's fault. If you wanna throw Jackson's death in on that, so be it.

The logic?

When Bush was Prez everything that went wrong was his fault, according to the Dems, so let's level the playing field.

What part of 'non-renewable energy sources' do you right wingers not understand?  What part of 'environmental catastrophe' that oils spills and mine trailings cause do you not understand?  This bill has been coming down the pike for a long time and the Republicans have had plenty of time to participate and debate it but noooooo, all they did was sit around crying about not being included (crocodile tears when you were invited but chose not to attend), claiming that climate change is a hoax and just generally saying, "NO!" to everything.

Yes, global warming is real: 0.6 deg C per century, whether we emit CO2 or not.  No, there is nothing we can do about it.  Yes, the latest scientific scholarship shows conclusively that the climate models used by the IPCC are rubbish.  No, even if they were accurate, this bill would only reduce warming by about half a deg by 2100 C if everybody -- including India and China -- did the same thing.  Yes, this bill will double your electric bill and raise oil prices to the stratosphere.  How lovely!

I'm suggesting those voting for this bill hand out "Ostrich pins" to those Repubs and skittish Dems, for burying their head in the sand and not seeing the truth.  For those ignoramus who deny that ice is disappearing in the Arctic, that great chunks of Antartica are breaking off, that glaciers are receding, that the warmest year on record have occured in the last decade; can you not read?  Or have you been mesmerized by the whale of sleaze Mr Limburger?

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