The Wages of Citizens United: The $$$.

“The Chamber spent much of its money in 2009 on campaigns that worked — it scared the Senate away from considering a version of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, and an argument can be made that its cutting ads on health care (with money taken from some insurance companies) helped to undercut support for the legislation.” You think? In a shape-of-things-to-come moment even before Citizens United goes into effect, the Chamber of Commerce outspent both political parties in 2009.

“According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its national subsidiaries spent $144.5 million in 2009, far more than the RNC and more than double the expenditures by the DNC.” But corporate spending isn’t a problem or anything.

A Matter of Minutes.

“According to the board, the looming dangers included: the perils of 27,000 nuclear weapons, 2,000 of them ready to launch within minutes; and the destruction of human habitats from climate change.” Paging Dr. Manhattan: Tomorrow at 3pm, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will move the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock, currently set (since 2007) at five minutes to midnight. (The official site is here.)

No word yet on which way we’re headed, but I presume they wouldn’t be going to all this media-event trouble if the news is good. Update: I stand corrected. We’re at six minutes to midnight now. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

Blue Sky Mining.

“One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), said: ‘The American people wanted change in our energy and climate policy. And this is the change that the people are overwhelmingly asking for.’ He called it ‘the most important energy and environment bill in the history of our country.‘” After much wrangling and a half-hearted GOP attempt at filibuster (which is only a prerogative of the Senate), the House passes the Waxman-Markey climate bill, 219-212. (Eight Republicans voted for it, 44 Dems opposed.) The “cap-and-trade” bill “would establish national limits on greenhouse gases, create a complex trading system for emission permits and provide incentives to alter how individuals and corporations use energy.” [Key provisions.]

There is some concern that the bill has been watered down too much out of political necessity: “While the bill’s targets may seem dramatic, they are in fact less than what the science tells us is required to avoid catastrophic warming. The 2020 target in particular is far too weak and quite easy and cheap for the country to meet with efficiency, conservation, renewables and fuel-switching from coal to natural gas.“

Still, environmentalists remain hopeful. “It is worth noting that the original Clean Air Act — first passed in 1963 — also didn’t do enough and was subsequently strengthened many times.” And, while the bill — which (sigh) gives away 85% of the new emission allowances (the heart of the “cap-and-trade” market hopefully soon to emerge) to interested parties — looks to “set off a lobbying feeding frenzy,” groups like the NRDC seem to agree that “[t]his is the best bill that can actually get through committee.”

Of course, now the bill has to get through the Senate, where the usual lions lie in wait. “”Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma said ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he declared flatly, ‘because we’ll kill it in the Senate anyway.'” And even some Dems are fatalistic about its prospects. “Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor (D) voted against the measure that he says will die in the Senate. ‘A lot of people walked the plank on a bill that will never become law,’ Taylor told The Hill after the gavel came down.” Looks like Sen. Reid has his work cut out for him.

Howard’s End.

“Today the Australian people have decided that we as a nation will move forward.” Dubya loses an important conservative ally on the international front as long-standing Australian PM John Howard is voted out of office, to be replaced by Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party. “Rudd, a Chinese-speaking former diplomat, has also promised to sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, leaving the U.S. as the only industrialized country not to have joined it…Rudd promised to pull Australia’s 550 combat troops from Iraq in a phased withdrawal, and to quickly sign Kyoto. Howard had rejected withdrawal plans for Australia’s troops in Iraq, and refused to ratify the pact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” Ozzie ozzie ozzie! Welcome back to the reality-based community, y’all (and here’s hoping we catch up with you next year.)

Leafy at Grinnell.

“‘As a young person,’ said the well-spoken Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, ‘I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change? ‘Well, you should be worried,’ Clinton replied. ‘You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.’ There’s a good reason for that, too. The question was a plant, totally rigged in advance, like a late-night infomercial.” And you thought Planty McPlants only posted over at AICN…Compounding their bad run of late, the Clinton campaign gets caught planting questions in an Iowa audience. Well, in her defense, this is considered presidential behavior these days. (2nd link via Supercres.) Update: CNN interviews the student in question: “‘The top one was planned specifically for a college student,’ she added. ‘It said “college student” in brackets and then the question.’…’I don’t know whether Hillary knew what my question was going to be, but it seemed like she knew to call on me because…I was the only college student in that area.’”

Nobel Warming.

So, as you probably know, the Nobel prizes, that century-long boon from a notorious arms manufacturer‘s deathbed pangs of guilt, were announced over the past few days. As the surprise winner of the literature prize, Doris Lessing, best known for The Golden Notebook. (Profoundly ungracious about the news was lit-critic Harold Bloom: “Although Ms. Lessing at the beginning of her writing career had a few admirable qualities, I find her work for the past 15 years quite unreadable…fourth-rate science fiction.” Snob much, Prof. Bloom?) And, following in the footsteps of such well-regarded peacemongers as Charles Dawes, Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat, and, of course, the inventor of dynamite himself, the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Al Gore, for his work in emphasizing the imminent catastrophe threatened by global climate change. “I want this prize to have everyone…every human being, asking what they should do.” Well, congratulations on the win, Mr. Vice-President. Hopefully, this will further encourage America and the world community to get serious about global warming. But please — please — don’t run.

Bizarro Dubya?

Some good news on the domestic policy front: Pushed forward by a veto-proof majority in Congress, Bush signs a Democratic Pell Grant increase into law. “The increase in financial aid is designed to come from cuts in subsidies that the government makes to banks, totaling roughly $20 billion…Bush at one point threatened to veto the bill on grounds that it included hidden costs and was an expensive expansion of federal programs.” In addition, an expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program is now on Dubya’s desk after passing the Senate 69-30 and House 265-159, and also looks to become law despite the White House’s original opposition. “Bush and GOP leaders said the measure would push children already covered by private health insurance into publicly financed health care, while creating an ‘entitlement’ whose costs ultimately would outstrip the money raised by the bill’s 61-cent increase in the federal tobacco tax. But Republican opposition is increasingly isolated.“

And if passage of affordable college education and child health care bills by Dubya — however reluctantly — isn’t through the looking glass enough for ya, check this out: “The world must cut emissions or sacrifice the planet, Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, told a meeting of governments on Thursday, in the most strongly worded statement on global warming yet made by the US administration….Her words reflected how far US rhetoric on climate change has moved in the past six months.”

Update: Ah, there’s the Dubya we know and…know. Despite its bipartisan backing, Bush vetoes the child health insurance bill, arguing that it was an attempt to “federalize” medicine. “‘I think that this is probably the most inexplicable veto in the history of the country. It is incomprehensible. It is intolerable. It’s unacceptable,’ said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, who pleaded with Republicans to help overturn the veto.”

The Revenge of Gore-bot?

“But what if he does? What if he could take who he is now, all that he’s learned, and carry it back into the maelstrom? Could he stay as he is or would he revert? What if he launched a new kind of campaign: no handlers, just the liberated Gore talking about what really matters to him? Would he seem too squishy?” No. He would seem like Al Gore. This week’s Time pushes the 2000 nominee as a potential 2008 Democratic dark horse, and, Lordy, I am so not feeling it. Anybody who argues Gore has “the grassroots appeal of Barack Obama” doesn’t remember the man on stage. Obama can be certifiably electric. Gore is…Gore, in all his stilted, sighing, pedantic glory. I’m thrilled the man has found a happy second career fighting global warming — It’s suited him ever since Earth in the Balance. But, please, by all that is good and holy, keep him out of the Democratic presidential field.

Getting Warmer.

“EPA has offered no reasoned explanation for its refusal to decide whether greenhouse gases cause or contribute to climate change.” By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court determines that the Dubya EPA violated the Clean Air Act when it refused to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, thus hopefully setting the stage for an (admittedly unlikely) reevaluation of global warming by the executive branch. “Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote one dissent, which was joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.” Yep, the usual suspects.

Inconvenient Truths | Convenient Gaming

And, while I’m snarfing links from other blogs, two choice entries from PlasticBag: (1) A rather lame “amateur” anti-Gore YouTube video turns out to be the work of GOP agit-prop artists, likely at the behest of Exxon; and (2) to keep up with the times, everyone’s favorite real estate robber baron simulation, Monopoly, is forsaking the multicolored cash for debit cards. “It is inserted into an electronic machine where the banker taps in cardholders’ earnings and payments.“