My god, the idiocy. Anyway, let these people rant and rave and spout their right-wing/Fox “News” buzz phrases, which is pretty much what they know how to do best. LOL
Typical #FAIL from the national political media: 1) lots of “horse race” and “process” crap; 2) trying to provoke Webb to say negative things about Hillary Clinton via simplistic/idiotic questions (to his credit, Webb didn’t take the bait); 3) trying to get a scoop by asking about the hot-button Confederate flag issue (that one prompted a lengthy answer by Webb about how “complicated” the South was, how most whites didn’t own slaves but were manipulated by wealthy slaveowners, blah blah); and worst of all 4) ZERO questions about the most important issues that will face the next president — climate change, economic inequality and sustainable prosperity, America’s crumbling infrastructure, education, trade, foreign policy (although they did ask about Iran, it’s a question Webb’s answered before so nothing new there), health care, criminal justice reform, racism, guns, etc, etc., etc. So lame; why are these people national political reporters at all if they won’t ask pertinent, important, substantive questions of the people they interview?
If you listen to the gloom-and-doom, sky-is-falling stories by the fossil fuel industry (the same Big Lie guys who have had a “deliberate campaign to deceive the public” on climate change going for several decades now, and obviously should never be believed or listened to on ANYTHING they say), the upcoming EPA Clean Power Plan will cause electric rates to skyrocket, devastate our economy, crush Western Civilization as we know it…ok, slight exaggeration on that latter point, but not much based on the fossil fuel industry and climate science deniers’ wildly over-the-top rhetoric In short, it’s akin to the tobacco industry, but far more dangerous in this case, and also to the auto industry, which for years claimed (utterly falsely) that every new innovation – seat belts, air bags, catalytic converters, fuel economy standards, you name it – would devastate their industry. Again, the question is why does anyone listen to industries which have strong economic incentives to lie through their teeth? The expressiong, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” comes to mind.
Anyway, right now the battle is over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, a modest effort (far too modest based on the urgency of what needs to be done) to increase energy efficiency and clean energy, while cutting carbon pollution from existing coal-fired power plants. You’d think this would be utterly noncontroversial, other than among scientists and people who care about the environment who demand much STRONGER, more AMBITIOUS standards. But noooooo. Instead, we are subjected to propagandistic trash like this from Virginia’s corporate-owned-and-operated State Corporation Commission (SCC) – one of the most powerful Virginia “regulatory” bodies (in theory, at least) most people have never heard of – attacking the Clean Power Plan in hysterical language that insults all of our intelligence, not to mention calling into question why any SCC commissioner (or staffer who participated in pushing out fossil fuel industry talking points while pretending their report was apolitical, policy neutral, blah blah blah lie lie lie) is still employed at the SCC.
Fortunately, a new report by Public Citizen, “CLEAN POWER, CLEAR SAVINGS,” is out this morning, and its top conclusion completely demolishes one of the Big Lies put out by the fossil fuel folks and their allies at the SCC, etc. That Big Lie, of course, is that the CPP will raise Virginia power consumers’ bills. To the stark contrary, as this report finds, “by 2030, electricity bills will be 7.7 to 8.4 percent lower under the Clean Power Plan, saving the average Virginia household $135 to $147 annually.” That’s right, SAVING us money…all while moving us to a cleaner, more prosperous, more sustainable energy economy.
But wait, you ask, how can switching to clean energy save us money on our power bills? Several reasons.
1. “Improving energy efficiency means using less electricity to do the same or more work… For this reason, even if the retail price of electricity increases modestly under the Clean Power Plan, households and businesses will use substantially less electricity due to efficiency measures, and their bills will still decline.” I’d add that energy efficiency is by far the cheapest form of energy out there – “negawatts,” or the energy you never have to use in the first place, being a LOT cheaper than building new power plants (particularly super-expensive nuclear power plants), transmission lines, pipelines, etc.
2. “The net effect is that thanks to efficiency
measures, electricity bills will rise in 2020 by just 1.4 to 1.5 percent and then decline going forward. In 2025, they will be 3.8 to 4.4 percent lower than business as usual. By 2030, electricity bills will be 7.7 to 8.4 percent lower than they would be in the absence of the Clean Power Plan”
3. Actually, “this report likely underestimates the potential savings under the Clean Power Plan” because “it relies on EPA’s excessively high estimates of the cost of efficiency programs” (the EPA, for whatever reason, “starts its analysis by treating efficiency measures as 60 to 100 percent more expensive than the evidence indicates”).
4. It’s also worth emphasizing that “actual outcomes will depend on Virginia’s policy choices.” In other words, if Virginia’s Dominion-owned-and-operated General Assembly were to declare independence from their paymasters and put in place smart energy policies (decoupling, net metering, a strong/mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standard, a price on carbon and other pollution, etc.), the benefits to Virginia could be far, far greater than if they keep mindlessly doing what Dominion et al want them to do.
Finally, I’d toss in the charts by Lazard indicating how cheap clean energy (particularly efficiency and onshore wind, but increasing utility-scale solar as well; see Buffett strikes cheapest electricity price in US with Nevada solar farm — an amazing 3.87 cents per kilowatthour, vs. about 9 cents per kilowatthour in Virginia). And remember, the price of fossil fuels and fossil-generated electricity does not include the enormous health and environmental costs stemming from their production, processing, transportation and combustion. On the other hand, the price of fossil fuels and fossil-generated electricity DOES benefit from huge implicit and explicit federal and state taxpayer-funded corporate welfare (aka, “subsidies”) to those fuels, far greater by orders of magnitude than anything clean energy has received over the decades. In sum, the Clean Power Plan is not nearly as ambitious as it should or could be, but it’s at least moving in the right direction for Virginia’s economy and environment. As this study shows, it even ends up lowering Virginians’ power bills.
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Thursday, July 9.
*More Work Hours? Jeb Bush, Try Talking to the Employers (Bush is utterly clueless, simply no understanding whatsoever, when it comes to the economy.)
*We’ve Met the Doofus. And He is Jeb.
*Jeb Bush: People Need to Work Longer Hours
*Jeb Bush walks back ‘hours’ gaffe (How on earth were his idiotic remarks “taken out of context?”)
*Donald Trump is the monster the GOP created (“Anti-immigrant? Against Common Core education standards? For repealing Obamacare? Against same-sex marriage? Antiabortion? Anti-tax? Anti-China? Virulent in questioning President Obama’s legitimacy? Check, check, check, check, check, check, check and check.”)
*Trump leads GOP field in North Carolina
*The GOP’s Two Latino Problems (“Republicans aren’t just alienating Latinos. They are turning off some white voters along the way.”)
*GOP leaders fear damage to party’s image as Donald Trump doubles down
*S.C. House backs removing the Confederate flag
*Why the Stock Meltdown Doesn’t Spell Doom for China
*To avoid a government shutdown in the fall, Congress needs to act now
*Editorial: Supreme Court ruling on congressional districts has Virginia impact
*New study examines possible Va. health provider tax to increase U.S. funding
*GOP Delegate Jones defends 2011 House redistricting (Of course he’s going to defend his incumbent protection districts, what else would we expect?)
*Editorial: Not The Onion – Gilmore to run for president (It IS funny though! LOL)
*Gov. McAuliffe warns of sequestration: ‘I have no idea what this Congress will do’
*McAuliffe Lagging in Fundraising Compared to McDonnell
*McAuliffe’s PAC raises $1.35 million in six months, but lags McDonnell’s
*Bucci: Supreme Court ruling has no impact on EPA’s Clean Power Plan
*21st District Senate candidates speak at Virginia Tech event
*Our view: Is Webb the Democrats’ Donald Trump? (No, not in that way) (“Let’s state the obvious right off: Webb will not win the Democratic nomination.”)
*Richmond School Board member convicted (Worth noting: this person, Tichi Pinkney Eppes, endorsed Ken Cuccinelli in 2013.)
*Proposal would spur eugenics reparations
*Federal judge orders cancellation of Redskins’ trademark registrations
*D.C. area forecast: A sultry day sets us up for some gusty evening storms
Just like his brother, and to a lesser extent his father, Jeb Bush has utterly zero clue about how the economy works, what working class people are going through, etc, etc. Pathetic.
Sadly, this isn’t at all surprising. The bottom line, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ “Climate Deception Dossiers”: 1) “For nearly three decades, many of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change;” 2) “Fossil fuel companies have almost certainly been aware of the underlying climate science for decades.”; 3) Evidence of point #2 includes “a 1995 internal memo written by a team headed by a Mobil Corporation scientist and distributed to many major fossil fuel companies,” which “warned unequivocally that burning the companies’ products was causing climate change and that the relevant science “is well established and cannot be denied”; 4) Now, it’s long past time for these companies to stop “funding climate contrarian scientists or front groups that distort or deny the science,” as well as to “take immediate action to cut emissions from their current operations, update their business models to reflect the risks of unabated burning of fossil fuels, and map out the pathway they plan to take in the next 20 years to ensure we achieve a low-carbon energy future.” And it’s long past time that we, the people, demand that they do so.
P.S. This includes Virginia-based companies like Dominion “Global Warming Starts Here” Power, Alpha Natural Resources, Appalachian Power Co., etc.
Apparently, Rep. Bob BADlatte Goodlatte (R, of course) either didn’t read Raking in donations, shoveling bad policy or didn’t care.
U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s long campaign to inflict damage on both Virginia’s economy and infrastructure is also taking aim at the commonwealth’s environment. Again.
The 6th District representative, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, appears poised to push legislation that would cripple the Environmental Protection Agency’s cleanup efforts in the Chesapeake Bay.
Why would a congressman from Virginia, which surrounds the lower Chesapeake, do such a thing?
Perhaps an explanation can be found in the $2,014,628 Goodlatte has received during his long career in Washington from individuals and organizations connected to agribusiness, according to OpenSecrets.org, the donation-tracking clearinghouse of The Center for Responsive Politics.
In other words, the guy’s a corporate tool and an anti-environmental sociopath. Meanwhile, between his constant attacks on the environment, his obstructionism regarding comprehensive immigration reform, his assault on the Voting Rights Act, and much much more, Bob BADlatteBob Goodlatte is now vying for the lead in the “worst Congresscritter from Virginia” category with Dave Brat, Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt, Randy Forbes and Barbara Comstock (not saying Scott Rigell or Rob Wittman are good, they’re just not quite as heinous as the ones I listed). Sad to say, but BADlatte’s district is gerrymandered for his incumbency protection, which means unless/until the courts intervene and force Virginia to redraw its Congressional districts, we’re probably stuck with this embarrassment to our state.
Given Ayn Rand afficionado Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA07)’s Facebook post yesterday (see below) attacking “corporate welfare programs” and patting himself on the back for supposedly being a “free-market economist,” I’ve got a couple simple questions for the fine Congressman.
1. Since you’re against “corporate welfare programs,” would you support getting rid of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare by “U.S. federal and state governments [that] gave away $21.6 billion in subsidies for oil, gas, and coal exploration and production” in 2013 (and every year)?
2. OK, Mr. “Free Market,” would you favor getting rid of the massive indirect subsidies we provide to the fossil fuel industry, including massive sums of money to encourage petroleum-based transportation choices; subsidization – in a wide variety of ways – of suburban/exurban sprawl; huge national security costs related to defense of oil fields and shipping lanes; and last but certainly not least the enormous health care and environmental costs that are not currently “internalized” in the cost of fossil fuels, simply because the government has not done so by putting a price on fossil fuel pollution? If you don’t support getting rid of direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels, and also incorporating negative “externalities” into the price of fossil fuels (e.g., through a revenue-neutral carbon tax), why don’t you?
And no, I’m not holding my breath waiting for an honest answer from you, because I know you don’t have one.
Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, July 8.
*Obama Plan Would Give Poor Easier Access to Solar Energy
*Increasing Solar Access for All Americans
*Europe gives Greece 5 days to avoid bankruptcy
*Will Europe’s leaders come to their senses about Greece?
*Placating the right-wing Clinton haters (“Congress is seriously abusing its power.” By the way, I can’t believe Richard Cohen is actually right about something.)
*Polarized South Carolina House Takes Up Fate of Battle Flag
*Giuliani Defends Trump’s Mexican Comments: They Do ‘Rape People’ (Ah, Republicans…gotta love ’em. Or something.)
*Gingrich-Connected PR Firm Issues Baffling Response To WSJ Disclosure Failure
*Schapiro: GOP infighting is about control not process (“The fuss among Virginia Republicans over primaries and conventions has more to do with controlling the party than picking candidates.”)
*Editorial: License plate tectonics (“The Sons of Confederate Veterans are fighting another lost cause. This time, they are resisting Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order to have their Confederate-flag logo removed from state license plates.”)
*Defense: Partisan politics, not race, drove map (“Lawyers for House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell are making a surprising argument to defend against an accusation of racial gerrymandering: Raw, partisan politics targeting Democrats fueled the 2011 redistricting process as much as race.” Niiiice.)
*Former Va. Gov. Jim Gilmore says he will run for president (The “clown car” becomes a clown minivan, then a clown bus, then a clown train?)
*Dominion makes changes to pipeline route in Southside Virginia
*Va. Republicans vow to protect religious rights after gay marriage ruling (Yeah, you guys keep focusing on that and see how it works out for ya…)
*Virginia needs to test its 2,369 rape kits
*In a talk on manufacturing, McAuliffe highlights Peninsula
*Warner calls for IRS inquiry into nonprofit Wounded Wheels
*Reds blank the Nationals, 5-0
*D.C. area forecast: More rain likely today, heating up toward weekend
Del. Alfonso Lopez had some interesting comments about The Health of State Democracies (or, in Virginia’s case, the lack thereof) on this CAP Action Fund panel earlier today. Here are a few highlights (Del. Lopez starts at around 25 minutes in):
*Del. Lopez noted that Virginia “prides itself on being #1 in everything,” but the “fact that we came in 50th out of 51” in the health of our democracy indicates that “we have a lot to do” in this area.
*Although Gov. McAuliffe has “vetoed some of the blatantly transparent anti-voter-access bills [put forward by Republicans]…we have only upwards to go.”
*Del. Lopez said that, in the end, he “really wasn’t” surprised at Virginia’s 50/51 ranking.
*Del. Lopez noted that in 2008, in South Arlington (“one of the poorer areas of Northern Virginia,” also very diverse), he waited 3 hours and 45 minutes to vote…lines went out the door.”
*Now, as if that’s not bad enough, add in the negative impact of Republican-sponsored voter ID laws, which are “transparent in their impact, they’re simply trying to make it harder for people living on the margins of society – new Americans, immigrants, the poor, the elderly – to vote, and the fact is that’s wrong.”
*The “sole purpose” of the Virginia House of Delegates Privileges and Elections Committee, in Del. Lopez’s view, “is to make it harder to vote as opposed to expand[ing] access.”
*Despite rapidly increasing population diversity in Virginia, “we’re still behind Mississippi in the number of women in the House of Delegates; I’m the first Latino Democrat ever elected to the Virginia General Assembly in 400 years…what does that say…we’re not truly represented.”
*”If you look at the Republican House caucus, it’s all white men, or nearly...we have a long way to go.”
*With regard to the influence of money in politics, Del. Lopez says it’s the “Wild West in Virginia…when we’re getting $25k, $100k checks…that skews democracy in some ways…We have a long way to go.”
*”There are several races that will cost around $1 million for us to match the Republicans’ efforts” this year in the House of Delegates.
*Del. Lopez raised the issue of gerrymandering, noting that Democrats have won all statewide elections, yet the House of Delegates is 68-32 Republican, and “that’s gerrymandering of the most calculating kind.”
*In addition, we have “off-off-off-year” elections for the Virginia General Assembly with extremely low turnout; this is “one of the last remnants of the segregationist Byrd machine, of actually trying to suppress turnout.”
*Del. Lopez also decried the fact that Virginia is one of only four states to not automatically restore ex-felons’ voting rights, yet another remnant of the “segregationist Byrd machine.”
*Del. Lopez said that Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) is “incredibly effective…I am a big proponent of IRV.” (I couldn’t agree more; this is a no brainer)
*In the end, Del. Lopez said “we are fighting the good fight” and “will win eventually,” but “we shouldn’t have to litigate healthy democracy” (as is actually happening right now in Virginia pertaining to gerrymandering of Congressional and Virginia House of Delegates districts). Del. Lopez adds that it’s possible we could have to redraw all of Virginia’s House of Delegates districts and elections in 2016. If that happens, Del. Lopez believes that Democrats could go from 32 seats in the House of Delegates to the “mid 40s,” given that there are 18 districts currently held by Republicans that were won twice by Barack Obama.
