Lobbyists spent nearly $1 billion in first quarter of 2010

By GottaLaff

We the people can barely afford lunch:

The first quarter of 2010 marked another frenzy for Washington lobbyists as corporations, unions and other interest groups spent nearly $1 billion in their attempts to sway Congress and the Obama administration.

I wish I could see it put another way.

To look at it another way: Interest groups spent $19 million for every day that the House or Senate was in session.

Be careful what you wish for.

Guess who took the lead... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other Big Biz. They spent $139 million. I'm sure they were looking out for interests. They're such softies.

Big Health, Big Energy, and Big Finance were the other Big Spenders.

For more details, go here.

Thee-Thaw: Obama and U.S. Chamber of Commerce patch it up

By GottaLaff

Aww, Prez O and the Chamber are dating again. See? You reach out and touch someone, and once in awhile, they reach out and touch back:

After publicly sparring in the fall, the White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are trying to make up.

In an extraordinary exchange of letters written after last week’s State of the Union address, Chamber President Tom Donohue and President Barack Obama agreed to disagree on some issues and work together where they can.

What-oh-what will the GOP say about this? I bet they're jealous.

Here's the letter (click on it to enlarge):

Like Donahue, Obama acknowledged that the White House and the Chamber will disagree on some issues or on “ how to achieve the goals we all share,” but the president appealed to the Chamber to “work together wherever possible to build an economy in which businesses and jobs are growing.”

Being a little thawtful can pay off.

This is so Carville-Matalin, isn't it?

Now if only we could trust them.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce: GOP's sugar daddy

By GottaLaff

Click on images to enlarge:

It's self-explanatory, but there are more details and another chart here.

This should be their logo. I'm sure most of them resemble Homer in some way:

How Obama Marginalizes Critics

By GottaLaff

Here's the plan: First, be the nicest guy ever and try to reach out to your adversaries, over and over and over again. Not getting results? Gee, these bullies are starting to look awfully petty and nasty. So, after being repeatedly rebuffed and ridiculed by The Meanies, turn the tables and smack 'em down hard, because, hey, they asked for it:

President Obama "is working systematically to marginalize the most powerful forces behind the Republican Party, setting loose top White House officials to undermine conservatives in the media, business and lobbying worlds," Politico reports.

Among the White House targets: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rush Limbaugh, the insurance industry, Wall Street executives and Fox News.

"Obama aides are using their powerful White House platform, combined with techniques honed in the 2008 campaign, to cast some of the most powerful adversaries as out of the mainstream and their criticism as unworthy of serious discussion."

Mmmm, dee-lish.

By the way, as was pointed out to me by Joshua of The Joshua Blog, ClusterFox, conservatives, and religious zealots spent 8 years being the only ones invited to the White House, and now they're upset?

VIDEO: Reich says public option can happen + Obama to rally grassroots on HCR

By GottaLaff



Keep up the pressure, make calls, send e-mails... you know, fight!

President Obama will rally grassroots Organizing for America volunteers next week with the goal of making 100,000 calls to Congress in support of health care.

Prez O is back in "pumping up supporters" mode. Why, I feel pumped already!

A Democratic source told TPMDC that Obama will ask volunteers to call Congress to support health care and tell them, "It's up to you to close the deal." He'll also reprise the talking point from the last few days that it's historic and this is the farthest Congress has ever come in the health care fight.

Go here to read the letter from Organizing for America.

And remember: When you rev up your activism, make sure words like "single payer" and "public option" are LOUD and CLEAR. Why bother to mention single payer when it has no chance? Because they need to know what we really want, and that a public option is the compromise.

AUDIO- Energy Sec. Chu: "It’s Wonderful’ Companies Leaving Chamber Over Global Warming Denial

By GottaLaff

See, Chamber of Commerce, this is what happens when you want a "Scopes-like" hearing on global warming (original posts here, here, and here):




Zing!

Yesterday, during a solar energy event at the National Mall, Energy Secretary Steven Chu was asked by a Reuters reporter what he thought about the exodus of businesses from the Chamber. He replied by telling the reporter that he thinks it’s “wonderful” that companies are leaving.

The Chamber's been Chu'd out.

VIDEO: Apple quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce over global warming denial

By GottaLaff



It must not be easy living in the past when so many of us are doing just fine right here in 2009:

The New York Times reports today that the latest company to join this backlash is Apple, which wrote in a letter to the Chamber that it has been “frustrating” that the business federation has been fighting efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions:

“We strongly object to the chamber’s recent comments opposing the E.P.A.’s effort to limit greenhouse gases,” wrote Catherine A. Novelli, the vice-president of worldwide government affairs at Apple, in a letter dated today and addressed to Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive of the chamber. Click here to read the letter.

“Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the chamber at odds with us in this effort,” Ms. Novelli continued.

Apple’s resignation was effective immediately, the letter said. The move comes a few weeks after Apple expanded the environmental disclosures on its products.

Apple joins Pacific Gas & Energy, Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Exelon in an ever-growing list of companies who are leaving the Chamber over its ideological opposition to any serious action over climate change.

Pacific Gas & Electric to U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Global Warming is Real. Buh-bye.

By GottaLaff

My earlier Chamber of Commerce post here.

Saddle up your dinosaurs, things seem to be heating up in the global warming arena:

Today, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that it is quitting the Chamber over its “extreme position” on climate change:

PG&E Corp. (PCG) said Tuesday it is leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over objections to what its top executive called the chamber’s “extreme position on climate change.”

In a letter to the U.S. Chamber published on PG&E’s blog, www next100.com, PG& E Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Darbee wrote that company employees “find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored.”

[...] Yesterday, Nike, one of the co-founders of the climate change action coalition Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy (BICEP), circulated a statement denouncing the Chamber’s efforts to attack the science surrounding climate change:

Nike fundamentally disagrees with the US Chamber of Commerce’s position on climate change and is concerned and deeply disappointed with the US Chamber’s recently filed petition challenging the EPA’s administrative authority and action on this critically important issue.

Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber’s recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue.

The right-wing trade organization National Association of Manufacturers has similarly experienced a disbandment of its membership over the climate change issue.

On behalf of the Marxist Commie Climate Czar, I welcome the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the 21st century. Here's hoping we make it to the 22nd.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeks "Scopes-like" hearing on global warming

By GottaLaff

Okay, okay, I have to admit, I've had my doubts about evolution. Why? Why would a liberal Commie pinko Marxist Socialist Fascist such as myself say something like that? George W. Bush, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin... you get the idea. With specimens like those, the theory of evolution is pretty easily disputed.

However, despite my misgivings, and as much as I long--no, desperately and tearfully yearn-- for a universal group hug with all those well-meaning, patriotic, even-handed, open-minded, scientifically oriented, intellectual Rushpublic mental giants [please note the dripping sarcasm here], I draw the line at this:

The nation's largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

Chamber officials say it would be "the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" -- complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who would rule, essentially, on whether humans are warming the planet to dangerous effect.

"It would be evolution versus creationism," said William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs. "It would be the science of climate change on trial."

How can such clear-thinking, sensible, unbiased, America-First, family values Rushpublic folks meander so easily into the Land of Wrong? Why, I may now have to rethink my inclusive bipartisan outreach efforts.

The goal of the chamber, which represents 3 million large and small businesses, is to fend off potential emissions regulations by undercutting the scientific consensus over climate change. If the EPA denies the request, as expected, the chamber plans to take the fight to federal court.

The EPA is having none of it, calling a hearing a "waste of time" and saying that a threatened lawsuit by the chamber would be "frivolous."

EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said the agency based its proposed finding that global warming is a danger to public health "on the soundest peer-reviewed science available, which overwhelmingly indicates that climate change presents a threat to human health and welfare."

Environmentalists say the chamber's strategy is an attempt to sow political discord by challenging settled science -- and note that in the famed 1925 Scopes trial, which pitted lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan in a courtroom battle over a Tennessee science teacher accused of teaching evolution illegally, the scientists won in the end.

The chamber proposal "brings to mind for me the Salem witch trials, based on myth," said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist for the environmental group Union of Concerned Scientists. "In this case, it would be ignoring decades of publicly accessible evidence."

The Chamber of Comatose has also gotten just a tad defensive over Henry Waxman's efforts to "get large amounts of potentially embarrassing financial information from health insurance companies." What a touchy bunch they are.

The proposed finding has drawn more than 300,000 public comments. Many of them question scientists' projections that rising temperatures will lead to increased mortality rates, harmful pollution and extreme weather events such as hurricanes.

Gaa! Is nobody properly educated any more? Or aware of satellite photos like these?

"The need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable," said a recent letter to world leaders by the heads of the top science agencies in 13 of the world's largest countries, including the head of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

And to add insult to Arctic melting, they have the temerity to say global warming is-- wait for it-- good for us:

Critics of the finding say it's far from certain that warming will cause any harm at all. The Chamber of Commerce cites studies that predict higher temperatures will reduce mortality rates in the United States.

Sadly, the collective pants of the Chamber of Corporate Crackpots won't be the only thing on fire if the current climate crisis is ignored.

Chamber of Commerce Slams Waxman’s Requests for Insurer Information

By GottaLaff

Defensive much, Tom? Hitting a nerve, are they?

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue on Friday pushed back on the effort of two senior House Democrats to get large amounts of potentially embarrassing financial information from health insurance companies.

In a Friday letter, Donohue told House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of that panel’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, that he was “deeply troubled” by lawmakers’ request for the information and asked that they withdraw it immediately.

Waxman and Stupak on Monday sent letters to more than 50 health insurers asking them to hand over by early September details of their executive compensation packages, conferences and retreats they sponsored, and the profitability of their products.

Donohue blasted the request as “ill-advised and economically destructive.”

“No citizen — individual or corporate — should be singled out for harassment and intimidation by the government simply because they disagree with powerful committee chairmen or seek to persuade others to embrace their viewpoint,” he wrote.

Where to even begin? The Mustache of Justice is getting in the way of Big Insurance's, um, "business practices", huh? Hey Tom, if they have nothing to hide, then what's the problem? Isn't that what the rest of us are always told?

And speaking of harassment and intimidation... how about cancer patients who get their health insurance pulled? Think they don't feel a little harassed and intimidated? How about those of us who pay through the nose to maintain ours? Or those who can't afford any to begin with...?

Yeah, "retreats" and bonuses are a real priority. Pass that on to a child whose mother just died because she couldn't get treatment, okay, Donohue? Then have a nice, relaxing retreat. With any luck, you'll need it by the time Waxman and Co. are done with you.

Much more here.