Stop the Crazy

As Congress begins its new session, with the Republicans controlling both the House and Senate, they need to stop with the crazy. This article talks about how the House passed a bill that prohibits scientific experts from giving advice to the EPA. That's just crazy. It blurs the line between "facts" and "facts that benefit / oppose my position on an issue because of politics." For example, I don't know if there is global warming. Like most things, you can find people saying, "Of course there is" as well as people saying, "There's no scientific facts to back up a claim that it is." Someone much smarter than me said, "We only have one planet. If we want to be confident that our grandkids and their grandkids and their grandkids have a world, we should take care of it. Not because of wanting to extract money from corporations with additional fines or fees or anything remotely political, but because we have the opportunity to do so now. Inaction now could result in bad things for future generations. Take the Keystone XL pipeline. The House is going to pass it and send it to President Obama's desk. Without seeing the bill, he has promised to veto it. Someone (I can't find the source) said, "Why isn't the President working with the Congress to find a compromise?" Good question.

Erick Erickson asked a great question in this article about the Republican Party. He opens the article with "Whoever the next President is, he will seek a second term in the year 2020. For the Republicans, they should take advantage of 2020 and tell us with foresight, not with hindsight, what their vision for America is." And that's an awesome idea. What is the vision for America. He goes on to say, "Republicans running in 2016 need to spend less time blaming Barack Obama and more time telling the public how the country will look in 2020. They should avoid the platitudes and instead paint the picture." What are the specifics? And when laying out this vision, I sincerely hope it is not a single candidate's vision. There needs to be a compromise between the different groups within the Republican party - establishment & Tea Partyers, I'm talking to you - so that the vision is not tied to a single person.

Can that happen? Will that happen? I don't know. I really don't know. If the Republicans waste the opportunity to lead instead of simply complain, no, it won't happen.