Political hypocrisy, or why doesn’t this surprise me?

Here is an interesting letter from the North Jersey Tea Party group that cuts to the chase on the filibuster issue.

Pointing out Democratic politicians’ hypocrisy remains easy sport. Today, the Democrats threaten to use the nuclear option in order to enact a move toward much more socialized medicine. But in 2005, when the Democrats were out of power, they hated the nuclear option. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the use of this power a “constitutional crisis,” and wailed against its “evaporation” of the government’s “checks and balances.” Then-Senator (and current Vice President) Joe Biden (D-DE) considered using the nuclear option “a naked power grab” and “an example of the arrogance of power.” Then-Senator (and current President) Barack Obama (D-IL) worried against the “absolute power” involved in such a move, noting that it was “not what the Founders intended.” Funny how these supposedly strident concerns completely disappear now that those who voiced them are in power.

Mark Kalinowski
Clifton, N.J.

As I’ve been writing since 2005, when I had my filibuster epiphany, the supermajority requirement in the (already unrepresentative) Senate cuts against the one-man-one-vote concept that is supposed to be at the heart of our democracy. I said at the time that the Democrats’ opposition to the so-called “nuclear option” would come back to haunt them. And now it has.

Of course, the very same Republicans who were ready to pull the plug on the filibuster back then are now its most ardent supporters.

The level of hypocrisy on the issue is not surprising, of course. We are talking about politicians and political power.

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Nuclear reality

The Vermont legislature hasn’t ended our growing national obsession with nuclear power, but it may toss some sand in the engine.

Consider this story in The New York Times:

In an unusual state foray into nuclear regulation, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 Wednesday to block operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after 2012, citing radioactive leaks, misstatements in testimony by plant officials and other problems.

Unless the chamber reverses itself, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that the public or its representatives has decided to close a reactor.

The vote came just more than a week after President Obama declared a new era of rebirth for the nation’s nuclear industry, announcing federal loan guarantees of $8.3 billion to assure the construction of a twin-reactor plant near Augusta, Ga.

While it is unclear how Vermont Yankee’s fate could influence the future of nuclear power nationally, the reactor’s recent troubles are viewed by some as a challenge to arguments that such plants are clean, well run and worth building.

The Vermont decision is unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere because of the specifics of this situation — as the Times points out, Vermont had power at the state level to deal with the plant because of some unusual circumstances — but it offers a more blemished view, if you will, of the nuclear industry than what we have been getting lately.

Nuke plants are not the sleek and clean providers of power that the industry wants us to believe they are. There are security issues, waste disposal issues and the reality that should a plant fail the consequences will be massive. And the Vermont plant, with its slew of troubles, should remind us of this.

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Convincing argument on climate

The deniers are wrong about climate change — it is happening and it’s happening more quickly and with more pwerfully than our political will can stand.

But the deniers — and big business — have enough traction on this to keep things stalled.

So we need a more effective argument to make sure we move ahead with efforts to control carbon emmission — such as this one offered by Robert Frank in his column in the Business section of Sunday’s issue of The New York Times:

WE don’t know how much hotter the planet will become by 2100. But the fact that we face “only” a 10 percent chance of a catastrophic 12-degree climb surely does not argue for inaction. It calls for immediate, decisive steps.

Most people would pay a substantial share of their wealth — much more, certainly, than the modest cost of a carbon tax — to avoid having someone pull the trigger on a gun pointed at their head with one bullet and nine empty chambers. Yet that’s the kind of risk that some people think we should take.

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