I suppose it goes without saying that we’ve reached a point in political discourse where words like “radical,” “betrayal,” “abandonment,” “dangerous,” “crazy” and even “unAmerican” just don’t pack the same base-spazzing juice they used to. Beck, Rush and Hannity have already discarded “Socialism” and “Communism” in favor of “intentionally destroying everything that made America great and enslaving us all to Global Government.” And, of course, we are all familiar with vastly less influential observers to whom every ungood thing is cast as a “rape,” a “violation” or a “lynching.” And let’s not forget “Nazi”—the Swiss Army Knife of really asinine pejoratives.

I wish Krugman had resisted the temptation.

There’s every possibility that this will die in the Senate, but hopefully not because anyone thinks that’s going to keep their utility bills down. State environmental laws and tax incentives have already killed “cheap coal” power plants in favor of more expensive “clean-coal” and natural-gas-fired combined cycle generating systems. We’ll be paying for that transition whether Cap and Trade is enacted or not.

As for Jesus already saving the planet, I guess Bachmann should also tell Israel to stand down and chill out since He’s got them covered, too—well, 144,000 of them, anyway.

There’s every possibility that this will die in the Senate, but hopefully not because anyone thinks that’s going to keep their utility bills down.

Nah, if it dies, it’s because a few old men from coal and/or corn states want to keep their jobs and their desperate, comely interns.  The rhetoric is silly—what’s next, “holocaust” and “nuclear armageddon?”—but this a shining example of “screw you, I’ve got mine” as a theory of governance.

1. the offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
2. a violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.
3. the betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.

3 allows Krugman to just b a r e l y get away with it, although most people think of definitions 1 & 2 so he gets a D+. Faux, the Teabagging channel can’t even use 3 because that would imply the Majikal Free Market relies on the stupid doody head gubbermint. F for fail. And fap.

Once we get control of the water, pushing the rest of the agenda through is going to be a snap.

Stay frosty, and don’t be distracted.

What’s curious about the “narrow” vote is that I got the impression that most of the nay voters were from traditional industrial/energy regions, while the “aye” voters were not.  I hope Nate Silver does a comprehensive breakdown of who cast what votes; in spite of what is being said on Capitol Hill and in the media, I’m getting the impression that, behind closed doors, this was truly a bipartisan bill.

Professional pearl-clutchers like Casper Milquetoast, er I mean David Gergen, are whimpering that this single bill fails to completely save the entire planet forever and thus proves that Obama is making a horrible mistake by allowing the legislature to perform its actual function by crafting and passing legislation instead of writing it all for them and telling them to pass what he wrote or feel the wrath of his atom bombs like the previous guys who weren’t constitutional law professors did.

Remind me to breathe deeper before beginning sentences because I’m going to lose consciousness now…