Carolina Politics Online

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that for years has been tracking and monitoring the wasteful spending being undertaken by our members of Congress. When I say waste I mean real waste, things that most all of us regardless of political ideology and views could likely agree on. Wasted spending like $1,454,000 for mosquito trapping research or $2,573,000 for potato research. Better yet, right here in our own backyard, UNC Charlotte received $762,000 for interactive dance software.

CAGW has a searchable database containing the 9,129 pork-barrel projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book. They also do a ranking of every member of Congress with a score of 100 indicating a taxpayer superhero and a score of 0 being a wasteful taxpayer abuser. Unfortunately, here in the Carolinas we have several big fat zeros. That list is below:

No, I am not back from vacation. I’m still in Boston, but I’m breaking my pledge to myself not to post while I’m away because, well, this was just too good to pass up.

By a vote of 63 – 37 the U.S. Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court Justice.  Kay Hagan and Lindsey Graham voted in favor of the nomination.  Richard Burr and Jim DeMint voted against confirmation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday night that he is considering introducing a constitutional amendment that would change existing law to no longer grant citizenship to the children of immigrants born in the United States.

Currently, the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born in the United States.

But with 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., Graham said it may be time to restrict the ability of immigrants to have children who become citizens just because they are born in the country.

“I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake … We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”

Asked how intent Graham is on introducing the amendment, the South Carolina Republican responded: “I got to.”

“People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It’s called “drop and leave.” To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child’s automatically an American citizen. That shouldn’t be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”

Read more: Politico

I am very open to this idea.  Illegal immigration has simply become too much of a problem and it’s getting out of hand.  Illegals are coming here and abusing our laws by taking advantage of loopholes such as anchor babies.  They come here and have their child, their child becomes a citizen, and then they collect social services for the child, get them free public education, etc. all paid for by everyone but them.

Citizenship should be determined upon having at least one of your parents being an American citizen.  That would resolve the anchor baby issue.

Mount Pleasant — A group of 10 rallied Monday morning on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard to denounce Sen. Lindsey Graham for his support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Staff members from Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex, an organization that wants to make abortion illegal, stood outside in the heat for the “Beating, Burning and Hanging Lindsey ‘Benedict Arnold’ Graham in Effigy” protest.

“Lindsey Graham claims he’s a Christian, but he’s a traitor,” said Randall Terry, the group’s director. The protesters said Graham is using babies as part of his political game.

Graham’s office would not comment on the protests but said in a prepared statement that although he does not agree with Kagan’s legal or judiciary philosophies, Graham does think she is qualified, has good character and understands the difference between being a judge and politician.

The Post and Courier

An entire ten people?  Oh yeah, that must have really rattled ole Lindsey.  They sound like a bunch of kooks to me.  Graham is using babies as a political game?  Uh, how about looking at yourself in the mirror Mr Terry.  You sound like an idiot.

As I said before, there are certain battles you fight and others you don’t.  The Kagan nomination isn’t one of them.  The Democrats have 59 seats in the Senate, plus a few of the moderate Yankees who have already given Kagan their blessing, so the numbers are more than there for confirmation and they have enough to break a filibuster.  Attempting to filibuster Kagan would be absurd and it would only backfire on the Republican Party and the Democrats would undoubtedly return the favor the next time a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court justice.  If they want to vote against her in an up and down vote, that’s fine.

Kagan’s appointment to the court does not shift the balance.  She won’t be any more or less radical than her predecessor.  Those ten people have a right to have their protest, but they are just wasting their time.  They have zero chance of stopping the Kagan confirmation and Lindsey Graham doesn’t give a crap about their complaints.

A few days ago opponents of the climate change legislation affectionately known as Cap and Trade were rejoicing at the announcement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that the job killing, economy destroying proposal had been shelved.  Good news, yes?  Overall, sure.  Stagnation is certainly better than inching forward, however, for those who think it won’t be resurrected, think again.

U.S. Senator John Kerry said Democrats may take up his comprehensive climate-change bill in a lame-duck session after the November elections, while calling on President Barack Obama to escalate his advocacy for the measure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday introduced a more limited energy bill that doesn’t include a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, citing the lack of support for a broader bill.

The bigger measure “is not dead,” Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “If it is after the election, it may well be that some members are free and liberated and feeling that they can take a risk or do something.”

Bloomberg

Ta-dah!  This year’s lame duck session has long been a fear of mine and I’m afraid that Senator Kerry (D-MA) is correct.  They could very well pass the bill after the November elections if they manage to peel away one Republican in the Senate to join them and give them the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster.  Our own Lindsey Graham right here in South Carolina has had his nose planted firmly up the behinds of Senators Kerry and Lieberman (I-CT) over this proposal.  Multiple polling of the issue has shown that the American people are pretty firmly against Cap and Trade, but the majority also opposed ObamaCare and that didn’t stop them from ramming it down our throats.

A poll recently commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute shows that 67% of North Carolinians oppose new taxes on the oil and natural gas industry. Of that 67%, 46% strongly opposed the idea.  That’s a solid rejection of what is trying to be pushed on us by those in the Federal government all in the name of a theory compromised by lies and distortions.

“Voters know raising taxes on an industry that provides most of their energy and supports more than 9.2 million jobs would hurt them and damage the economy,” said API President and CEO Jack Gerard. “Raising taxes doesn’t address their major concern, which is putting people back to work.”

Energy Tomorrow

It’s a boneheaded time to be pushing this kind of proposal onto the American people when unemployment is in the teens around the country.  Even if unemployment were at historic lows, Cap and Trade is a bad idea because it would have negative economical effects on our nation in order to satiate the appetites of those who believe in man made global warming, which I firmly believe is nothing but junk science.

Americans want a robust economy and replenished jobs and this is part of the reason why this current Congress is taking such a beating right now.  Instead of addressing the needs of their constituents, they are too busy quenching their own ideological thirsts.

Predictably, two amendments of Senator DeMint’s voted on in the U.S. Senate yesterday were rejected.  One would have barred the Obama administration’s ability to sue the State of Arizona over their illegal immigration crackdown law and the other would have permanently repealed the Estate Tax.

The illegal immigration amendment was defeated 55 to 43.  It would have barred funding for the Federal government to prosecute the law.  Democrat Kay Hagan voted against the amendment, while Republicans Lindsey Graham and Richard Burr, along with DeMint, voted for it.  A few Democrats from other states crossed over to support DeMint’s efforts, but not nearly enough and that was expected.  The left has been particularly outspoken against Arizona’s efforts to protect their state from the harm caused by mass illegal immigration.

Permanent repeal of the Estate Tax was nothing but a pipe dream and only 39 Senators voted in favor of it, about what I would expect.

The repeal movement has lost some steam in recent years as former enthusiasts in the business community have sought compromise with the Democratic majority on a plan that would lower the tax, not eliminate it.

But a core of groups representing small businesses and conservatives continue to push repeal, arguing that the tax is an unfair government intrusion and that it serves as a disincentive for individuals to build family businesses.

“What right does a government have to take someone’s property because they die?” DeMint said on the Senate floor.

NASDAQ

Great question, huh?  That is the one that has always rankled me.  Why is the government entitled to anybody’s property simply because they die?  It’s absurd.  The property should stay in the family where it rightfully belongs.  Family business owners and family farms get clobbered by this.  Just because one’s estate is valued at a few million dollars does not mean they are millionaires bathing in golden bathtub of 100 dollar bills.  Pieces of farm equipment can cost a few hundred grand alone and that is all added into the value of the estate.  It’s not uncommon for the children of a family farmer to have to sell off the farm in order to pay the inheritance taxes on the estate.

The Estate Tax is nothing more than another weapon used in the Marxist tactic of class warfare.  It was established by politicians seething with envy, jealousy, and greed.

The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday gave their approval to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. The vote in favor was 12-7 with every Democrat giving her the nod along with Lindsey Graham, the only Republican on the committee to do so. Graham is already getting massacred by the conservatives for his decision. He explains himself in the video below and I agree with him. Barack Obama is the president and he has the authority to pick whoever he wants. Personally, I don’t think Kagan should be on the court. She will not uphold the principles of limited government which were the foundation of the Constitution, but when people elected Obama that isn’t what they chose.

Furthermore, it makes no sense for Republicans to vote against Kagan or filibuster her. Even if they were to be successful in blocking her nomination, which they wouldn’t, Obama’s next nominee would be someone just as radical and we’d be playing through this whole political football all over again. Conservatives who also support a filibuster of Kagan should bear this in mind. If the GOP filibusters her, the Democrats will most certainly return the favor for the next Republican president.

Naturally, the financial “reform” bill passed the Senate this afternoon.  There was no expectation for it not to once they had enough votes for cloture.  As I wrote earlier today, it’s a bad bill overall and contained many provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the financial markets, but promoting a leftist social agenda.

Kay Hagan (D) of North Carolina voted for the bill.  The three Republican Senators in the Carolinas:  Richard Burr, Lindsey Graham, and Jim DeMint voted against it.

Speaking from Afghanistan, GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina lambasted Michael Steele for the comments, which McCain called “wildly inaccurate” and Graham characterized as “uninformed, unnecessary, unwise, untimely,” while follow Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said Steele should apologize to the military.

Both McCain and Graham questioned Steele’s ability to keep his job, but said it was up to Steele and the RNC to make that decision.

“I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee,” McCain said on the ABC program “This Week.” Graham said in a separate interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that Steele’s comments did not represent mainstream GOP thinking.

“It’s not the Republican Party’s position, my Republican Party’s position,” Graham said.

At the same time, Graham joked that “the good news is Michael Steele is backtracking so fast he’s going to be in Kabul fighting here pretty soon.”

DeMint, in an interview on “FOX News Sunday,” called Steele’s comments unacceptable.

Steele “needs to apologize to our military, all the men and women who’ve been fighting in Afghanistan,” DeMint said, adding: “This is a war we can win and we must win.”

CNN

If you haven’t seen the video yet, here it is. Steele was speaking at a fund raiser in Connecticut and while there referred to the war in Afghanistan as a “war of Obama’s choosing” and suggested that it is not winnable.

I think anyone with an ounce of common sense agrees that claiming that Afghanistan was Obama’s war of choice is utterly asinine. Being that this is one of many gaffes Steele has made since his election as RNC Chairman, several prominent Republicans are calling for his resignation, though DeMint and Graham have stopped short of that. Steele has since backtracked on his remarks. He is becoming the Republicans’ Joe Biden.

I don’t believe Afghanistan was a war of choice, but I don’t find it unacceptable to question exactly how effective we are being over there these days. We’re going on nine years now that we’ve been spending billions of dollars and losing American lives trying to stabilize that country. I am certainly no military strategist, but is nine years not enough to form a stable government and an effective law enforcement for the Afghan people to keep the Taliban and other terrorists at bay without so much investment from us?

“Everything I’m doing now in terms of talking about climate, talking about immigration, talking about Gitmo is completely opposite of where the Tea Party movement’s at,” Graham said as Cato drove him to the city of Greenwood, where he was to give a commencement address at Lander University later that morning. On four occasions, Graham met with Tea Party groups. The first, in his Senate office, was “very, very contentious,” he recalled. During a later meeting, in Charleston, Graham said he challenged them: “ ‘What do you want to do? You take back your country — and do what with it?’ . . . Everybody went from being kind of hostile to just dead silent.”

In a previous conversation, Graham told me: “The problem with the Tea Party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country. It will die out.” Now he said, in a tone of casual lament: “We don’t have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.” Chortling, he added, “Ronald Reagan would have a hard time getting elected as a Republican today.”

The New York Times

Is Graham correct?  A lot of pundits have compared 2010 to 1994 when the Republicans took over Congress for the first time in 40 years, but running up to the 1994 elections the party was coalesced around a leader, that being Newt Gingrich.  There really is no such coalition among the tea party groups, but that may also be because they really are a grassroots movement starting from the bottom up.  There really is no one “tea party,” but several tea party organizations all around the country sprouting up on their own and doing their own organizing.

Furthermore, are some of the candidates too radical for mainstream America?

Graham’s political cunning may not in the end produce a lasting legacy, but as high-wire theater it rivals the parallel antics of his denouncers on the far right. “If you look at the Republicans who are likely to come into the Senate in 2010,” he said during our last meeting, “they’re gonna be more like me, not less like me.”

Catching himself, he added with a toothy grin, “Now, this lady from Nevada?” — referring to Sharron Angle, the Tea Party’s Republican favorite who will face Harry Reid in November. “Probably not.”

Democrats were breathing a sigh of relief when Sharron Angle got the Republican nomination to run against Harry Reid.  While Angle still out polls Reid by double digits, some think that gap is going to close as more people hear about some of her more extreme positions.  For instance, she opposes abortion even in the case of rape, which is not a mainstream American view.  My impression of the tea party is that they were starting up to combat the massive spending and encroachment of freedom by the Federal government, but they have been backing some candidates with some very extreme conservative cultural opinions.

I think Graham made a good point about Reagan too.  When Ronald Reagan was governor of California he raised taxes and loosened abortion restrictions, not to mention that as president he ran up the national debt pretty high.  He would be deemed impure by many conservatives and tea party members today, yet I often hear many conservatives stating that we need another Ronald Reagan.

As far as Graham goes, it’s not a surprise that tea partiers don’t like him and libertarian fellows like myself despise the man.  He’s a neocon hold out from the Bush years.  His push for amnesty for illegals and his support of Cap and Trade are considerably out of touch with the electorate of this state.  He has no qualms participating in the appropriations pork fest with our tax dollars.  I posted a poll about a month ago that showed if Graham were to be up for reelection this year, he’d lose.  He isn’t up again until 2014 and that’s a long time for people to hold angst against the man.

If Lindsey Graham were up for reelection to the U.S. Senate this year, he’d be riding down a rocky road. According to the poll taken by Public Policy Polling, Graham would be in line to follow the same fate as his colleagues, Senators Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Arlen Specter (D-PA) who were both defeated in their state’s primaries within the past month. Only 40% of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina approve of Graham’s job performance, while 45% disapprove. 64% of conservative Republicans and 18% of moderates think Graham is too liberal.

Gee, can’t imagine why. Maybe it’s his unabashed support of Cap and Fraud and his dedication to amnesty for illegal immigrants? The only real mystery here is where in the hell all of these disenfranchised Republicans were two years ago when Graham was actually up for reelection.

Who would have thought that something as disastrous as the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could yield something positive?  Lindsey Grahamnesty claims that there is now not enough support for a climate bill because of the oil spill.  You see, there are incentives in the Tax and Fraud bill that Graham has been working on with Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to expand offshore drilling.  Since the oil spill the environmental crowd is now crowing louder and many members of Congress are shying away from supporting more drilling, as if we have never had an oil spill before nor will in the future.

Yes, the oil spill is bad and I am as disturbed by it as the next guy, but it’s not a reason for us to once again put off embracing the use of our own resources.  The bottom line is we can cast aside offshore drilling for another 20 years all over again, but China and Russia aren’t going to stop extracting oil from the Gulf and their record on safety when it comes to just about anything aren’t exactly stellar.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the sole Republican who was working on a bill to legalize illegal immigrants, in effect put the bill on the shelf on Tuesday, saying a debate now would destroy any prospects for passage and saying the issue needs to wait until 2012.

The remarks likely signal the end of any serious chance for broad immigration legislation to pass this year, since Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, was the best hope for a partnership with President Obama and Democrats who want to write a bill.

“It is impossible for me and any other serious Democrat to get this body to move forward until we prove to the American people we can secure our borders,” Mr. Graham told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who was testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“I believe we can do it by 2012 if we’re smart,” he said.

The Washington Times

Oh, I don’t think Lindsey’s handlers at the White House are going to go for that.  The Big O is plenty peeved with Arizona’s new illegal immigration law and he wants something done immediately.  The Democrats only need one Republican to cross over and support cloture for a bill and Maine Republican Olympia Snowe is usually good for that.

Bear in mind that Graham hasn’t changed his position on amnesty either.  He is still for allowing these 12 to 20 million illegals to become American citizens, just not this year.  If this does push off until 2012 that will make one hell of a presidential election cycle.

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) decision to walk away from Senate talks on climate change and energy legislation – at least for now – has prompted the measure’s remaining architects to scuttle Monday’s planned unveiling of the bill.

Graham is upset over Democratic plans to take up immigration legislation this year – he accuses Democratic leaders of pushing forward immigration “haphazardly” and calls it an election-year political gambit.

Kerry praised Graham’s work on the climate effort and expressed hope that he would rejoin the initiative “once the politics of immigration are resolved,” but vowed to press ahead one way or the other.

The Hill

Graham is such a fraud.  Who does he think he is fooling?  He has as much of a hard on for giving away citizenship to millions of illegal immigrant lawbreakers as he does for destroying our nation’s economy with Cap and Trade.  Are we really supposed to believe he is going to walk away from Tax and Fraud just because the White House wants to try and jam amnesty through as a knee jerk reaction to Arizona’s new law cracking down on illegals?  Graham has bought the whole junk climate science hook, line, and sinker and he’ll be right there with his nose up John Kerry’s behind when they’re ready to push forward with it.  That’s after he surrenders our nation to the Mexican invasion, of course.

Oh brother….

The “gay-baiting” begins at 6:20. Gheen comes out with this “revelation” the Lindsey Graham is homosexual. Of course, Gheen is a bit late to the game. That rumor has bounced around Washington and South Carolina political circles for a long time because naturally any man over the age of 40 who has never been married must surely be gay, right?

So two things come to mind. One, if Graham is gay, who gives a damn? I know, dumb question. We’re in the Bible Belt. The second thing is that for argument’s sake say Graham is gay, what the hell does that half to do with his support for illegal immigration? Well Gheen has jumped feet first into the endless ocean of what are Washington conspiracy theories and has concluded that Graham’s support for granting amnesty to illegal immigrants is due to his secret homosexual lifestyle being held over his head. It’s blackmail by President Obama and Janet Napolitano and any other bogeyman or woman you can conjure up.

Now, I think Mr. Gheen makes some very good points in regards to why we should oppose this resurrected push for amnesty, but he relegates himself to “kookdome” and World Nut Daily lunacy when he makes unsubstantiated allegations like this. Furthermore, in making these comments at the Greenville tea party he fuels the leftist media’s fire that the tea party movement is full of bigoted hateful neanderthals.

So William Gheen would be wise to heed Bane Windlow’s words of wisdom, those being, “Dude, for the love of Versace, shut the hell up.”

Appearing before Graham on ABC’s “This Week,” Axelrod had brushed off Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) criticism of healthcare reform, saying that Brown had voted for a very similar package for his home state of Massachusetts.

“Senator Brown comes from a state that has a healthcare plan that’s similar to the one we’re trying to enact here,” Axelrod said. “We’re just trying to give the rest of America the same opportunities that the people of Massachusetts have.”

That argument rubbed Graham the wrong way.

“The American people are getting tired of this crap,” Graham said of Axelrod’s comments. “No way in the world is what they did in Massachusetts like what we’re about to do in Washington.”

The Hill

While it is true that America has grown tired of the lies and deception of the Obama administration, it is ironic that Senator Graham is tuned into that frequency, yet he cannot see that many of us here in South Carolina are as equally tired of Senator Graham’s crap.

That will be a cold day in Hell.  This man is becoming more incredible by the day.

I can say with the utmost certainty right now that I will not be fingerprinted by the Federal government and treated like a common criminal just so I can have a job and if Lindsey Graham thinks that the people of this state are going to stand for this he is sorely mistaken.

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past.

The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card.

“It’s the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking,” Mr. Schumer said in an interview. The card, he said, would directly answer concerns that after legislation is signed, another wave of illegal immigrants would arrive. “If you say they can’t get a job when they come here, you’ll stop it.”

The biggest objections to the biometric cards may come from privacy advocates, who fear they would become de facto national ID cards that enable the government to track citizens.

“It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people’s privacy,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “We’re not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We’re also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification.”

The Wall Street Journal

Damn right it will. That’s the same thing that happened with Social Security. Your Social Security number was only supposed to be used within the parameters of that program and it ended up turning into a national identifier for just about every aspect of our lives, credit, employment, loans, etc. This proposal is a back door to the National ID that people have been pushing back against.

We don’t need an Orwellian government tracking program to stop illegal immigration. We just need to enforce the existing laws on the books.

Lindsey Graham needs to be stopped.  He is morphing into an oppressive fascist who no longer has any respect for our Constitution nor the freedom of the American people.

He’s at it again.

Reporting from Washington – Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.

Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.

In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who have spent months trying to craft a bill.

According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.

The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.

Los Angeles Times

This sounds like the same stupid idea Bush trotted out a few years back.  Who is going to register and pay all of these penalties when they can just stay here under the radar and milk the system?  Notice that there is no definitive punishment for not complying.  It says who do not may get deported, not will.

With 16.8% unemployment nation wide and South Carolina’s unemployment rate over 12%, why in the hell is Lindsey Graham trying to legalize another 10 million people and bring them into the mainstream work force?  American citizens can’t even find a job right now.

Additionally, with all the problems the Obama administration has had with health care, Cap and Trade, spending, and everything else they’ve tried to do, why would Obama even want to go anywhere near this political hot potato?  Does he not remember the backlash that occurred around this country when Bush brought up his amnesty bill?  People are already seriously pissed off at this administration and the overall government in general.  The Democrats are already plenty damaged over the health care bill.  Can you imagine what is going to happen once they start pushing forward with amnesty again?  Sometimes I am convinced this man wants his party to get obliterated in November.  Is he really this obtuse?

But Senator Joseph Lieberman, an independent working with Graham and Kerry, said a detailed outline of a bill could come within days and that it will have to include a ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions that drops in future years.

Last June, the House narrowly passed a climate change bill with cap-and-trade as its centerpiece and a carbon-reduction target of 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

But the initiative has stalled in the Senate, despite Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approval of a similar bill.

But, as a result of work in the past few months, Kerry said he was feeling “more confident” that a climate change bill could be presented to the Senate for passage this year.

“We’re looking at a new way of coming at this that we think can attract greater support,” Kerry said.

Environmentalists have speculated the bill the senators will produce could take a “sectoral approach” by imposing a new carbon-pricing mechanism on utilities, which account for about 40 percent of the emissions blamed for global warming.

Sources also have said there is talk of a transportation tax. Pollution controls on manufacturers could be put off for a few years to give time for more affordable alternative energy sources to come on line, they have said.

Reuters

I would really like to wonder exactly when it was that someone beat Lindsey Graham with the stupid stick because that guy has nothing but shit for brains.  A transportation tax?  It’s not clear as to what exactly that would entail, but one thing is for certain.  The result will not be good for South Carolina.  Any tax on transportation, but whether its an increase in the gas tax, a tax on transportation companies, on the airlines, etc is going to smack everyone in this state in their back pocket.  A tax on truckers transporting goods would be absolutely criminal because it would cause prices to rise in just about every sector, socking the poor and the middle class harder than anyone.

And yet Graham can’t figure out why he keeps getting booed when he speaks around his own state, oblivious to the fact he is alienating his own constituents in the name of junk science.