Day: October 24, 2009

Wait! Could That Be A Public Option?

Holy Moly!  I may have been wro…..wro……mistaken when I said in past posts that the public option was near dead in the Congress and I predicted that it would not be part of any bill that is sent to the prez……it is beginning to appear that I could be mistaken….

I was trying to remain silent on the whole health reform thing until iot was closer to a final count….but as hard as I tried..I could not do it…..

I guess I can thank the CBO for its latest report…it is on the costs of the House Health Reform Bill…..it stated three things that jumped out at me:

1–it would cost less than the $900 billion predicted

2–it would reduce the deficit over 10 years

3–it would cover a great portion of the uninsured in the US

Now this is good news…..those three items were a sticking point for the Blue Dogs and now they can shut the hell up and support the bill like they should have from the beginning….News has come out as I am writing that the House has a commitment for the 218 votes the Dems need,,,,another piece of good news….

Okay the Baucus bill was a good report from the CBO and now they gave a favorable report to the House bill with a robust public option…if this does not get the ball moving then I worry that the Dems are beyond help….

It will be fascinating to see what the Repubs will do now……the CBO report in both cases shot a hole in their arguments the size of a football field….about the only thing they will have left is the trivial BS of the misinformation offensive of the summer.

Damn! It Is Working!

I guess you would like to know what is working, huh?  All the clap trap about the idea that climate change/global warming is nothing more than a made up phenomena of the Left, the Liberals, the …..basically, all the propaganda out there disputing the existence of global warming…..

After a couple of years of attacks by conservative, pro-business lobbyist against any reforms that would lead to the reduction of green house gases and all their hard word, even though most of it is misleading and in some cases out right lies, has had a positive effect for the lobbies that get paid huge dollars for their efforts.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper has a story about the successes of the anti-warming groups:

The number of Americans who believe in global warming has plummeted, falling 20% in two years, a survey said today.Only 57% of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, said the poll of 1,500 people by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

That is a fall of 77% from 2007. The number of people who believe that human activity is causing global warming also fell to just 36%.

The public uncertainty about the evidence behind global warming comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate next week on climate change legislation. Yesterday, 18 scientific organisations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming.

The decline was sharpest among independent voters and Republicans. Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly lined up against climate change legislation. There were also regional differences, with people in the mid-west and Rocky mountain states less inclined to see climate change as a serious problem.

But the perceived lack of concrete evidence for global warming did not necessarily hurt the prospects of voting on climate change legislation, Dimock said. Half of Americans polled remain in favour of putting limits and carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions — the basics of the cap and trade bill now before the Senate.

A majority, 56%, also want America to join other countries in a global agreement on climate change.

If you consider the results of the survey then the money spent by companies was well spent…..all the misleading BS like “clean coal” is working, or that drilling off shore will give the US independence from foreign oil, are among the most popular twists being used by the lobbyists….and Damn!  It is working!