U.S.-China pact is an accord the planet needed – The Washington Post

The incoming head of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma — a state where coal is not a big industry — has called climate change a “hoax” and a conspiracy to “shut down this machine called America.”

“God’s still up there,” Inhofe said on a radio program in 2012. “The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is, to me, outrageous.”

Inhofe’s view is theologically questionable and scientifically absurd, but there you have it: The senator with the most power to affect U.S. environmental policy does not believe climate change is conceivable, let alone real.

The problem for Republicans who want to stall climate action is that Obama can carry out his agenda without them.

U.S.-China pact is an accord the planet needed – The Washington Post

It’s possible that Inhofe isn’t the IDIOT he appears to be. If that’s true, he is an immoral bastard. Pick one.

Kiss the Gila River good-bye, my friends. The Profiteers never give up. The Profiteers never have enough. The Profiteers will take everything and sell you the waste before they move on.

A few ranchers will kill all the wolves again and raise their beef on our public land with the last of our wild water. If any water remains unpoisoned by fracking, it will be bottled and sold to slaves.

It’s going to be a very profitable End-of-Days. Invest now. Put aside food, water, and guns, because the Profiteers are shaping the World to their liking.

Opposition to the Affordable Care Act is often ironic | Albuquerque Journal News by Winthrop Quigley

I have long found it amusing that so many people describe the Affordable Care Act as socialism. It is a law that is designed to secure 40 million new customers for the for-profit insurance industry so that the bills of many thousands of for-profit health care providers can be paid.

A single-payer system whereby tax dollars cover every citizen’s medical costs is a government takeover of health care. Obamacare is no such thing.

Opposition to the Affordable Care Act is often ironic | Albuquerque Journal News

Will Obamacare separate Scalia from his principles? – The Washington Post by E.J. Dionne

Here’s a hypothetical for you: First, the Supreme Court issues a ruling that installs a conservative president. Then, he appoints two conservative Supreme Court justices who then join with three of their colleagues to make mincemeat of the greatest achievement of a progressive president elected by a clear majority. If such a thing happened in any other country, would we still call it a democratic republic?

Will Obamacare separate Scalia from his principles? – The Washington Post

Don’t govern on fantasies – The Washington Post By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer November 9 at 7:42 PM

“A prove-you-can-govern strategy will inevitably divide the party on the same tea-party-vs.-establishment lines that Republicans have just succeeded in overcoming,” the National Review argued. Also: “If voters come to believe that a Republican Congress and a Democratic president are doing a fine job of governing together, why wouldn’t they vote to continue the arrangement in 2016?”

They’re saying, in other words, that spending two more years making Obama look bad should remain the GOP’s central goal, lest Republicans make the whole country ready for Hillary Clinton. This is the prevailing view among conservatives. McConnell’s main argument with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and his followers is not about ends but means. McConnell is no less focused than Cruz on bringing down Obama and discrediting Democratic governance, but McConnell needs to be more subtle about it.

Don’t govern on fantasies – The Washington Post

The Governing Trap | National Review Online

If Republicans proclaim that they have to govern now that they run Congress, they maximize the incentive for the Democrats to filibuster everything they can — and for President Obama to veto the remainder. Then the Democrats will explain that the Republicans are too extreme to get anything done. …

Not much progress is possible until we have a better president. Getting one ought to be conservatism’s main political goal over the next two years.

The Governing Trap | National Review Online

Fuck you, Nation Review. Go to hell.

After we’ve all spent a few days of rationalizing and denying the real significance of the midterms, a hardcore progressive yells “wake up!” Read it all at the link.

Where the Democrats went wrong – The Washington Post By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer November 6 at 8:47 PM

You’re telling me that Anthony Brown, an uncontroversial if unexciting candidate, couldn’t win the governor’s race in Maryland, usually a Democratic fortress? That Sen. Mark Udall couldn’t squeak to reelection in Colorado, a state that has seemed to be trending blue? That Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina could run what the political cognoscenti called a nearly flawless campaign and still lose? That Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, who had been expected to win his race easily, managed to survive — pending a final vote count — only by the grace of a few precincts in the Washington suburbs?

Democrats may be tempted to say, relax, we’ve got this. Voter turnout was low even for a midterm. Two years from now, we’ll have a presidential election — the Democratic Party knows how to win those, having taken the popular vote in five of the last six — and the Senate seats at risks will mostly be GOP-held.

This kind of magical thinking would be a terrible mistake.

Where the Democrats went wrong – The Washington Post