Big Sky Cairn

Our very own senior Senator has decided to jump ahead of the American people and tackle healthcare before it becomes a crisis.

I almost wrote that with a straight face. Seriously, who does he think he is kidding with lines like this?

“I want the Finance Committee to be ready, to be ahead of the curve,” he said. “That’s why I’ve begun hearings, getting the facts out, pushing the edge of the envelope.”

Moving on, in other news, Max promised to spend all that hard earned money from California and New York on down ticket races this fall in Montana.

But Baucus’ written statement read to the crowd may have been the most important message for Montana Democratic candidates.

“Whether it’s man-hours or money, I’m going to make sure that Democrats are elected across the state,” Baucus said.

Baucus had $6.4 million in his campaign war chest at the end of March, the last funding period reported.

This fall just remember only 91% of the Montana Democratic Party will owe allegiance to out of state interests.

If you’ve been reading over the past week, I am confident that you’ve been waiting with baited breath to learn the sources and origins of the Name The Decade trivia quotes from last Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

As the clever among you may have guessed, each and every one of the quotes provided was from an article published in the 1970s - when the climatic disaster was the pending global ice age and the havoc it would wreak on global food production. Each of the quotes comes from one of the following stories:

“The Enigma of Climate.” USA Today Magazine. March 1979.

“There’s a Big Glacier Coming.” Boston Magazine. February 1976.

“A Mini Ice Age Could Begin in Decade.” Boston Globe. November 2, 1975.

“The Threat of a New Ice Age and Some Possible Defenses.” Science Forum. April 1975.

“The Cooling World.” Newsweek. April 28, 1975.

“Another Ice Age?” Time. June 24, 1974.

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On Friday, Jay Stevens spent the majority of a blog post exploring Rep. Denny Rehberg’s alleged vote against mothers. On Saturday, I responded to Stevens post by explaining how parliamentary procedure works and pointing out that the bill in question passed unanimously. Now, Stevens has taken to his blog to claim that I missed the point of his original post. But his newest argument doesn’t hold much water.

Stevens’ Friday post was 247 words long. (Yes, I counted.) The majority of his post, 224 words of it (a full 91%), was spent criticizing Rehberg for a supposed vote against mothers. The last 23 words expressed this rhetorical gem:

“Yes, I realize this was just a gambit to delay a vote on mortgage relief for homeowners…but that’s not much better, is it?”

Stevens is now using that measly 23 word phrase to argue that his original post was about homeownership and the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. Talk about burying the lede.

If you want to write a post discussing homeownership and the subprime crisis, feel free. There’s plenty to talk about. Like how the bill in question would allow bankruptcy judges to renegotiate the terms of individual mortgages. Or how according to the Congressional Budget Office H.R. 3221 will increase direct spending by $4.8 billion over a 10 year period and decrease revenues by $21.5 billion during the same time frame. Let’s talk about the effect this crisis is having on the economy and how everyone from the homeowners, to the banks, to the government needs to shoulder their fair share of the blame.

But Stevens didn’t talk about any of that. Instead he spent over 90% of his post berating Rehberg for a non-existent vote against mothers and then when the fallaciousness of his argument was exposed, he claimed that the post was really about homeownership. A post cannot be defined by 10 percent of it’s content, and therein lies the “truthiness.”

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed their yearly resolution honoring mothers and Mother’s Day. A noble gesture meant to signify the love and appreciation that all Americans feel toward the women who bore us. But this year’s resolution is wrapped in a little bit of controversy and a whole lot of distortion.

It started when the Washington Post’s Dana Millbank published a story entitled “Republican’s Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies and Kittens.” This article was then picked up by two of Montana’s lefty bloggers who used it’s finer points to argue that Montana Representative Denny Rehberg didn’t vote to support mothers. But their argument leaves a lot to be desired.

First off, the bill honoring Mother’s Day was H. Res. 1113. According to the Library of Congress, Rehberg voted for H. Res. 1113. In fact, the resolution passed 412-0. Which would suggest that every Member who voted, supported the Mother’s Day resolution.

So, where did the Montana bloggers and Millbank get the idea that House Republicans didn’t support the resolution? Because after the vote was complete, Rep. Tiahrt (R-Kans.) moved for a “motion to reconsider.” A motion supported by 178 House Republicans. But despite the motion’s name, Rehberg’s support for the motion doesn’t undo his support for the Mother’s Day resolution.

According to the House Rules Committee’s website, a motion to reconsider:

Under Rule XVIII, the motion to reconsider is available to any Member who votes on the prevailing side of a question and who wishes to move reconsideration on the same or succeeding legislative day. This normally only occurs when Members (usually Minority party Members) determine there is a need to slow down the legislative process.

So, why would Millbank and the lefty bloggers insinuate that this motion showed the Republicans disdain for mothers and Mother’s Day? Because it makes Rehberg sound like the Big Bad Wolf. Nevermind the fact that the motion to reconsider doesn’t change the fact that H. Res. 1113 passed unanimously.

Rehberg is on the record supporting Mother’s Day, as are 411 of his House Colleagues. His vote for the motion to reconsider doesn’t change that. But why let a little thing like the facts get in the way of a catchy headline?

This be the last day.  Full reveal tomorrow.  So… 1970s or 2000s?

____ “‘A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,’ warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

____ “Perhaps 10 or 20 per cent of the world’s land surface would remain within the agriculturally productive zone.”

____ “The first casualties would be populations of animals, wild and domestic, since the competition for productive land surface would be quickly felt by mankind.  The raising of food animals would be too inefficient in an era of land scarcity, and humanity would have to exist on a vegetarian and synthetic diet.”

____ “The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.”

____  “Even if temerature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries - the U.S., Canada, Australia - global food shores would be sharply reduced.  University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen.  Warns Hare: “I don’t believe that the world’s present population is sustainable”

Almost there. 1970’s or 2000’s? Can you tell?

____ “Meanwhile, the rest of the world has been enduring more serious and probably more significant changes.  The African drought, threatening to turn a wide swath of sub-Saharan Africa into an extended desert, has caused thousands of deaths by famine and related diseases, while millions are kept alive by emergency food alone.  Similar dry weather patterns have been observed in a heavily populated “drought belt,” extending through the Middle East to India, South Asia, and Northern China.”

____ “Without disciplined world-wide planning, half of the world’s population could die through war, fighting on smaller scale, starvation or cold.”

____ “The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.”

____ “If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.”

____ “But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies.”

In an effort to give Seventh String Hunt a fighting chance, Montana Democrats are going after Congressman Rehberg’s record in the House. In doing so, they appear to be willing to lie and distort the record at every turn.

First, they claimed that Rehberg is a puppet for President Bush, even though his voting record tells a different story.

Then they complained that he didn’t support an important and popular bill, even though he voted for it.

Now, Jack at Western Word points out that they are accusing him of not supporting the G.I. Bill even though he’s signed on as a cosponsor.

Of course, it did not take long for Montana Democrats to use veterans, once again, as a political tool. They sent out a “Demo Digest” e-mail telling folks that Rehberg did not support the bill “last year.” According to Senator Webb’s website, the bill in the House, H.R.5740, was only introduced in the House on April 9, 2008. Rehberg signed on as a co-sponsor April 24. Also, according to Senator Jim Webb’s website, the same bill in the senate, S-22, introduced on 01/04/07 was not co-sponsored by Senator Baucus until June 12, 2007, and by Senator Tester until March 22, 2007. So, it took Rehberg only 15 days to sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill, where it took Tester about 77 days and Baucus about 159 days.

Undoubtedly, Max Baucus’ army of campaign workers is digging through the thousands of votes looking for anything they can find to attack Rehberg. The best they can find so far, apparently, is that he doesn’t support the bills he votes for and cosponsors.

Attention Montana Democrats: Please stop lying to the people you hope to represent.

Hump day.  How do you think you’re doing?  Remember, each quote is from the decade between 1970 and 1979 or from 2000 to present. Keep guessing.  Answers will come.

____ “Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states.”

____ “But they are almost unanimous in teh view that the trends will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.”

____ “By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south.  Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones.”

____ “The probability of climatic change makes the concern for energy much greater than the ‘energy crisis’ has implied.”

____ “Consider the fact that the last 40 years have seen a rapid growth in world populations with a corresponding rise in the ability of farmers to feed the great mass of people.  Although relying heavily upon inputs of fertilizer, the highly productive food-producing areas are delicately adjusted to the prevailing climatic conditions.  The difference between a bumper crop and a meager one often rests on minimal weather differences.”

____ “Man, too, may be somewhat responsible.”

There are many accusations that could be levied against Governor Brian Schweitzer, but that he is not a shrewd politician is not among them. His actions are always well calculated - whether his goals are to get his smiling mug on TV, or to offer verbal support for things that he has no intention of supporting. Schweitzer is masterful with the media - and they swallow his BS hook-line-and-sinker.

Recently, the Governor’s compulsive need to get his likeness in the press overcame the pesky requirement to abide by Montana law. I’ve already blogged about this lapse in ethics, but there’s another aspect to this story that hasn’t been covered - one that’s even more revealing. A double-standard has emerged - one that seems to signify the presences of impropriety on another rather important matter.

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By now, you should get the gist. Some of these quotes were published in the decade between 1970 and 1979, while others are more contemporary ranging from 2000 to present. Test your knowledge of scientific discourse in the realm of politics:

____ “Given the amound of literature available concerning climates of the past, it is really quite startling to realize that it has been only a little more than 100 years since the enormity of climatic changes was first realized.”

____ “The relationship between food production and changing climates has recently been examined by a number of climatologists. Generally, they all reach the same conclusion - namely, that we should prepare now for the possible contingencies of climatic change and resulting food shortages.”

____ “In the past few years, odd and unpleasant weather has plagued New England and the world, as droughts, floods, heat waves, and bitter cold have hit unexpectedly with surprising power. Locally, weather-watchers have observed four unusually mild winters in a row, including last year’s, the warmest since 1948.”

____ “If the world populations of men and animals were large, a large proportion would have to die even if they were mobile. This is dictated by geography and climatic phenomena.”

____ “To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading.”