Upton goes through the motions

Beltway Confidential spins for the RINO:

Upton flip-flops on the light bulb ban

Three bills have been introduced on the national level to repeal the ban on incandescent light bulbs in Congress’s 2007 energy bill.  That bill was co-sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., now the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.  Upton has now become the law's worst foe...

Suuure he has...

The Michigan View reports:

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., has finally agreed to support a bill this summer that means lights out on the looming 2012 ban on the common light bulb.  Upton himself co-sponsored 2007 legislation making light bulbs illegal, a ban that has become a symbol of bipartisan Big Government run amok.

Upton has come under increased pressure in recent weeks, sources say, after failing to follow up on a promise he made after assuming the committee chairmanship that he would hold hearings on reversing the ban.  After months of paralysis - and with the ban just six months from going into effect on January 1 - outrage was building among his own Republican committee colleagues and conservative activists...

Sooo... Beltway doesn’t get it: "Finally” agreed.  "Failing to follow up” on a promise (that he never intended to keep).  Doesn’t sound like someone who is "the ban’s worst foe” to me.  And if we read the rest of the View’s post (the part BC didn’t quote), we find that:

...Upton [initially] scheduled hearings ... featuring rent-seeking corporate fat cats that stood to benefit from the ban...

Which was the last straw for some members.

...Anger boiled over and the chairman agreed not only to cancel the hearings but to bring up a bill repealing the ban.

...after being dragged kicking and screaming.  But still laying traps:

The View’s source says that the bill will likely be brought up under "suspension,” which means no amendments will be allowed and passage requires a two-thirds majority.

Making it harder for anything to pass, while leaving Upton saying, "Hey, I sent it to the floor. I allowed a vote. Just too bad that it couldn’t make it.”

Just remember, RINOs, it’s all about results, not excuses.  And until we see an actual repeal pass the House, Upton’s no hero, he’s just another weasel.

Previously:
Via: Glenn Reynolds (in this case displaying a distressing naïveté about how Congress does things.)

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We knew that.

Glenn Reynolds:

...In the face of evidence that an armed populace prevents genocide, the "human rights community” has largely gotten behind a campaign to ensure that there will be no armed populaces anywhere in the world. [scare quotes added - o.g.]

Because the "human rights community” isn’t about human rights, it’s about control.

LATER, Related:

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“Yet another important reason that Dick Lugar should be sent packing...”

Scott Fuhr:

Here’s another brilliant idea from the (perhaps a little rusty) steel trap mind of Indiana’s senior senator... a bill that does away with the requirement that the Senate approve of hundreds of Presidential appointees.

If you thought Obama’s czars were bad, just wait until he can appoint all sorts of regular government officials to positions of authority without Senate approval.

Saint Dick apparently thought this was such a good idea that he signed on the dotted line to sponsor this legislation (known as S. 679) on the very first day it was filed, alongside Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chuck Schumer of New York, and Harry Reid himself.

...not to mention the 6 other Republicans on the list:

Just what America needs.  Less congressional supervision of the executive. 

WTF is wrong with these people?

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Lots of talk...

Jennifer Rubin:

[Obamacare,] the Democrats’ "historic achievement,” shocking as it seems, turns out to be an expensive, jobs-crippling monstrosity that is filled with unintended consequences...  And today, the Associated Press reports:

President Barack Obama’s health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor...

Up to 3 million people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s communications director e-mailed me in response to this report, "Nearly every week we find a new reason to say ‘repeal and replace.’ ”

But that’s all the Republicans have been doing- blathering endlessly.

Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds created a meme^[1] about the talk-vs-action hypocrisy of the global warming activists.  Well, Glenn has inspired me:  I will no longer believe the Republicans really want to do something about Obamacare until they actually do something– anything– about it.

Until then, it’s just empty talk.  Just like everything else the gentry GOP has "accomplished” since the 2010 election.”

Elsewhere:

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Democrats find God, film at 11

You know what they say about praying when all else fails...?
 
CNBC:

If all the brightest minds in Harrisburg [Pennsylvania]’s government can’t solve the city’s financial problems, maybe God can.

That seems to be the thinking in Pennsylvania’s capital city, where Mayor Linda Thompson and a host of other religious leaders are about to embark on a three-day fast and prayer campaign to cure the city’s daunting money woes.
...
"Things that are above and beyond my control, I need God,” Thompson told WHTM TV, the region’s ABC news affiliate...

Chicago Sun-Times:

After a five-month post-mortem about the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco, Chicago’s top emergency officer was asked Monday how he intends to prevent another shutdown on Lake Shore Drive.
...
"We’re gonna pray a lot and hope that God doesn’t dump another 40 inches of snow on us,” said [Gary] Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

I guess "all else” must have failed.

Credits:  Harrisburg via Andy, Chicago via Second City Cop

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Choose carefully

So...
You’re facing down a band of terrorists. Which would be your best backup?

• Eric Holder and "hundreds of progressive lawyers, advocates, judges and students”
• SEAL Team 6

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Charred pizza

Ann Althouse reacts to a New York Times pizza recipe:

If you people really believed in global warming in the form that you would like to foist that belief on the common folk, that quoted line above would have sounded to you as something on the moral level of first, torture a small, cute kitten...

If the Times really believed there is a global warming crisis, they’d abolish their print edition.

Elsewhere:

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More climate corruption

Mark Lynas^[1]:

Had it been an oil industry intervention which led the IPCC to a particular conclusion, Greenpeace et al would have course have been screaming blue murder.

But instead, it was Greenpeace that "intervened”:

In a nutshell, the IPCC [press release] made yet another inflated claim that:

…80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century…

Unfortunately, it has been revealed that this claim is similar to the Himalayan glacier melt by 2035 fiasco, with nothing independent to back it up.  Worse, it isn’t the opinion of the IPCC per se, but rather that of Greenpeace.

Climate Audit’s Steve McIntyre has unpacked the process, concluding:

The basis for this claim is a Greenpeace scenario.  The Lead Author of the IPCC assessment of the Greenpeace scenario was the same Greenpeace employee who had prepared the Greenpeace scenarios...

The public and policy-makers are starving for independent and authoritative analysis of precisely how much weight can be placed on renewables in the energy future.  It expects more from IPCC WG3 than a karaoke version of Greenpeace scenario.

Those feeling fretful about putative rise of anti-intellectualism might begin by investigating the strong odor of rotten fish wafting from the "climate science” establishment and its intellectual” supporters.

Another Report (added 110618 17:32):
LATER, Related:
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Republicans fail again

Investors Business Daily:

How is it that the party loudly proclaiming how the government shouldn't "pick winners and losers” could only manage to get 34 senators to oppose one of the most egregious examples of federal industrial policy?

Because they’re a bunch of weasels?

On Tuesday, the Senate rejected an amendment sponsored by Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to end the $6 billion in tax subsidies plus the import tariffs that have given rise to Big Ethanol.  The measure got just 40 votes, six of them from Democrats.

The list (Republicans voting against cloture, for the subsidies):

Unsurprisingly, Indiana’s Bobbsey Twins are right there, front-n-center.

Related:

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Entirely TOO clever?

Glenn Reynolds:

ON FACEBOOK, Virginia Postrel writes that she thinks "there’s no chance the Republicans will even seriously try to repeal the light bulb ban, which would require actually bringing a bill to the floor (or at least having committee hearings).  They want the benefits of public anger without actually addressing it–even on this easy issue. Needless to say the budget is much harder.”

Careful guys: Excessive cleverness (as opposed to genuine results) can be hazardous for your careers.

If Republicans can’t understand the appeal of sparing Americans from the light bulb police, what are they good for? - The Wall Street Journal, editorial, June 7, 2011: "The Light Bulb Police” [link no longer available]

Elsewhere:
Previously:

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