112th Congress Starts with Flurry of Bills To Block EPA Regulations

Pelosi, Boehner invite Congress to bipartisan prayer service (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller TheDC Exclusive: A secret $6 billion Bailout for Puerto Rico? Campus Progress reports on for-profit schools issue while coordinating with liberal coalition to push regs Author of 'Anti-American Manifesto', Ted Rall, says Loughner's violent attack not part of coming revolution Despite GOP's best efforts, specter of Steele Second Term hangs around Ask Matt Labash Vol. XLVI: Torturing a dog-torture lover, and defending John Boehner's tan Speaker of the Hous...

Left-Wing Democrats Use Giffords Shooting to Raise Funds
Here is a screen capture of a letter sent out by 21st Century Democrats on the night of the shooting. If someone clicks the "Click here to share your thoughts" link, They are taken to a page with a duplicate of the letter, comment box and donation button. 21st Century Democrats claim to be "Building A progressive Majority" and, claim in the letter, to have helped reelect Giffords in 2010. Their 2010 Candidates page features Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Keith Ellison and Alan Grayson among other...

Late Night Political Humor
“John Boehner chose a huge gavel. I think somebody’s compensating for his small government.” - Stephen Colbert “How about the new Speaker of the House, John Boehner. Have you seen this guy’s enormous gavel. I’m telling you, if in four hours, that gavel is still that size, he’s got to call a doctor.” - David Letterman “In his first Speech as Speaker, Boehner thanked his loved ones - tobacco Lobbyists, the oil companies, the C...

Live Updates: The Gabrielle Giffords shooting
Updated 12:25 p.m. The National Rifle Association declined Monday to enter the political fray over Saturday's shootings in Tucson. Asked to weigh in on the role of the Brady Bill in the shooting, NRA spokesperson Andrew Arulanandam told Politico's Ben Smith: "Anything other than prayers for the Victims and their families at this time would be inappropriate." The Brady Campaign has contended that the 1994 assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004, would have prevented the alleged ...

Climate Craziness of the Week: Eat bugs, not meat, to save the planet
From Mongabay: Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered that insects produce significantly less greenhouse gas per kilogram of meat than cattle or pigs. Their study, published in the online journal PLoS, suggests that a move towards insect farming could result in a more sustainable — and affordable — form of meat production. The rearing of cattle and pigs for meat production results in an estimated 18 percent of global greenhouse Gas Emissions. With worldwide consumption of beef...

GOP All Set To Wimp Out On EPA?
A key Republican is already laying the groundwork for the 112th Congress' surrender on the EPA's climate rules. More surprising is the complicity of a Tea Party group. Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman-designate of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, co-authored an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal with the promising title, "How Congress Can Stop the EPA's Power Grab." Now that we face the prospect of flagrantly illegal, arbitrary, expensive and pointless Regulation of Greenhouse Gases by t...

Meatless Mondays and mitigation
Here are a few things that shouldn't be a huge surprise to most Daily Kos readers. Eating meat is terrible for the environment: According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse Gas Emissions. Some of meat's contribution to Climate Change is intuitive. It's more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to peo...

Key House Republican objects to findings of oil spill commission
A key House Republican is objecting to the findings of the Obama Administration’s Oil Spill commission, arguing that the panel's report should not lead to further delays in Offshore Drilling. The commission this week blamed “systemic” problems within the Oil Industry for last year’s massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The full version of the report will be released Jan. 11, but it is already gaining significant attention among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. But Rep. Joe Barto

Politico gets it exactly backward in calling for a more civil tone
In the aftermath of the Tucson massacre, Politico's Glenn Thrush and Carol E. Lee write one of the most inane responses imaginable: Of all the unfulfilled campaign promises President Barack Obama made in 2008, the one that bothers the president most isn’t any squandered policy priority - it’s his failure to re-civilize what he views as an increasingly savage partisan climate. His failure? The president who reached out to the Republicans on the stimulus, who allowed Republican...

After Arizona Attack, a Leadership Test for Obama, Boehner
WASHINGTON — On opposite sides of the political spectrum, President Barack Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner suddenly face the same challenge: rise above the anger, suspicion and hostility of their liberal and conservative bases to help a rattled nation deal with the deadly outburst of violence in Arizona. [Photo Gallery: Gabrielle Giffords Shooting in Arizona.] But what comes after the easy moment of silence? For now, both men are stepping past the question of what role, if any, ...

Right Wing Media Vitriol Haunts Us In Arizona Shooting
We all had a finger on the trigger—I.F. Stone wrote those words about the Assassination of John F. Kennedy in the cruel fall of 1963. Now we come to the bleak winter of 2011, and how much has changed? Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords lay near dying in her own blood after a shooting rampage in Arizona left six dead, from a Federal Judge to a girl of nine, and 14 others injured. It all happened in the most American of places: a strip mall Parking Lot on a Saturday morning. That's what th...

Top Inhofe climate staffer joins natural gas trade group
Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) top Staffer on air and Climate Change issues is leaving the senator’s office to join a powerful Natural Gas industry trade group. Tom Hassenboehler has been named vice president of policy and legislative affairs at America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), an industry trade group that represents 34 of the country’s Natural Gas exploration and production companies. ANGA was formed in 2009 to help coordinate the industry’s lobbying efforts. Hassenboe

Monckton skewers Steketee
It is easy to cherry-pick periods of less than a calendar year and say they establish a new record. The cherry-picking of the first nine months of 2010 is particularly unacceptable, since that period was dominated by a substantial El Niño Southern Oscillation, a sudden alteration in the pattern of Ocean Currents worldwide that leads to warmer weather for several months all round the world. The last few months of the year, carefully excluded from Mr. Steketee’s statement, showed the be...

Clean-energy group: Martinez overstepped bounds in halting carbon reduction program
According to a New Mexico Clean Energy group, Gov. Susana Martinez overstepped her bounds in halting the carbon reduction program early last week. The Environment Department requested the Regulations not be published in the state Register and the state Administrative Law Division complied. The regulation would have required three-percent annual cuts in greenhouse Gas Emissions from sources like Power Plants. Mariel Nanasi, Executive Director of New Energy Economy, told The Independent on Friday ...

Climate: Unstoppable Global Warming
One of the biggest obstacles to reducing Carbon Emissions is the simple fact that political time and climatological time are very, very different. Politicians in elected democracies think on two- or four-year cycles—if that—while even the leaders of an autocratic state like China, without the pressures of an election, are still limited in just how far ahead they can plan. That's not just politics—that's Human Psychology. We tend not to be very good at planning for the future...

Poland gets two new wind farms
WARSAW, Poland, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- With the commissioning of two new Wind Farms in Poland, the country is situated to become a regional leader in Renewable Energy, a German company said. RWE's renewable energy division RWE Innogy announced it commissioned two new Wind Farms in what it described as one of the more attractive wind regimes in Europe. The company, through its Polish subsidiary RWE Polska, commissioned two Wind Farms with a total of 31 turbines that collectively meet the demands of mor...

WATCHDOG SUES FOR $777 MILLION OF CAP & TRADE SECRETS
By Mark Lagerkvist Who is secretly buying the Carbon Dioxide “Pollution permits” sold under the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade system? That $777 million question - and your right to know - may be answered by an open records Lawsuit filed by investigative reporter Mark Lagerkvist of New Jersey Watchdog, an investigative news web site. The CO-2 permits are issued by 10 Northeastern states and auctioned by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).  RGGI covers

Shock, anger and finger-pointing in Washington
On opposite sides of the political spectrum, President Barack Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner suddenly face the same challenge: rise above the anger, suspicion and hostility of their liberal and conservative bases to help a rattled nation deal with the deadly outburst of violence in Arizona. But what comes after the easy moment of silence? For now, both men are stepping past the question of what role, if any, the vitriol of the past election campaign played in Saturday’s shooting ...

Tragedy in Arizona
Gabrielle Giffords was doing what members of Congress do every week: She was home in Tucson to meet with her constituents. Today, Giffords lies in critical condition in a Tucson Hospital after one of those constituents opened fire with a semiautomatic Handgun. Six people died in the attack; 14 were injured. The madness at the Tucson shopping center Saturday morning raises old and troubling questions about gun violence in America and threatens a treasured American tradition: the right of the pe...

Tom DeLay, former U.S. House leader, sentenced to 3 years in prison
Austin - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the brash Texan who helped build and tightly control a Republican majority in his chamber until resigning in 2005, was sentenced by a state judge on Monday to three years in Prison for illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to Texas legislative Candidates. State Senior Judge Pat Priest, citing the need for those who write the laws to "be bound by them," rejected DeLay's impassioned argument that he was the Victim of poli...

After attack, a leadership test for Obama, Boehner
(01-10) 19:30 PST WASHINGTON, CA (AP) -- On opposite sides of the political spectrum, President Barack Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner suddenly face the same challenge: rise above the anger, suspicion and hostility of their liberal and conservative bases to help a rattled nation deal with the deadly outburst of violence in Arizona. But what comes after the easy moment of silence? For now, both men are stepping past the question of what role, if any, the vitriol of the past election ca...

Boehner: Shootings wont sway GOP agenda
House Speaker John Boehner says that the shooting of an Arizona congresswoman won’t stop representatives in Washington from their duties. In a brief statement Sunday morning, the newly sworn speaker said flags on the House side of the Capitol in Washington will be flown at half staff to honor Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ slain aide, Gabe Zimmerman. Thirty-year-old Zimmerman was among six killed Saturday in a Tucson, Ariz., shooting rampage that left the Democratic congresswoman among 13 ...

Ohio Congressman Stivers talks security, office and personal pay cuts
COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - First-term Ohio Congressman Steve Stivers, who was sworn-in as a Member of the 112th Congress last week after beating the Democratic Candidate he lost to in 2008, is one of the 85 fresh Republican faces who helped elect another Ohio congressman, John Boehner (OH-8) of West Chester, the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Speaker Boehner was present along with Stivers to watch as Gov. John R. Kasich, who was officially was sworn-in just past midnight Monday, ...

Most from Mass. refuse more security
WASHINGTON — The “Congress on Your Corner’’ meeting for Representative Niki Tsongas and about 40 constituents was just beginning at the Chelmsford Library Saturday when the horrific news came. Her good friend and colleague Gabrielle Giffords had just been shot at an event of the same type in Tucson. “We asked if [an officer] could come and stay with us, because you just don’t know,’’ said Tsongas, who normally doesn’t arrange for police at h...

Capitol Hill Community Mourns Another Loss
Yahoo! Buzz Congressional Democrats are mourning the loss of another close colleague: Ashley Turton , a former Chief of Staff to Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and the wife of a senior White House aide. “Ashley and her husband Dan are part of the Capitol Hill family; Ashley’s loss is tragic and is grieved by all of us,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) said in a statement released by her office Monday evening. Ms. Turton, 37 years old, was a Lobbyist for Progress Ener...