Bashing [insert candidate here] is More important than the ENERGY BILL

Despite all the internal gangfighting going on here there's some real garbage going down by the REAL ENEMY folks. The same "energy bill" concocted by secret meetings in Cheney's office is now slithering through congress. Move On's email describes it:

This week, Congress will consider final passage of the Bush-Cheney
energy bill. The bill was developed in secret -- first drafted by a
Cheney task force whose very participant list was kept secret, even
from Congress, and now finalized by Republican Senators and House
members who literally locked Democrats out of the final negotiations.

>Democrats and the public have been given just 48 hours to review the 1,000-page bill, released Saturday, before voting begins later today.
>
>This is outrageous and simply unacceptable. The last time President
>Bush forced something unknown down our throats like this, we got the USA PATRIOT act.

Do we want to let him do to the environment and
>our energy supply what he's already done to our constitutional rights?
>
>In the context of recent blackouts and the war in Iraq, all of our
>Senators will be under huge pressure to approve an energy bill.

The bill is littered with at least $20 billion in subsidies to the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries. Although the bill is still being analyzed as of this writing, one credible estimate puts the subsidy figure at well over $100 billion. >
>This bill won't solve America's urgent energy problems -- the need to reduce our dependence on oil by shifting to renewable energy sources, the need to make America's energy supply more reliable, and the need to protect all of us who pay utility bills from Enron-style fraud.
>Instead, it will make matters worse in most of these areas.
>
>In recent negotiations, it's also become a vehicle for massive attacks on clean air and clean water laws, which would risk our families' health and pollute the environment our children will inherit. As Anna Aurilio of U.S. PIRG put it, "The big winner is big oil. The big loser is anyone who breathes, pays a utility bill or drinks water." >

Someone posted the toll free congress line. PLease post it again?
Take a couple of minutes away from all the hand wringing over Howard Dean and Wesly Clark and call your representative's office and let them know how you feel.

seriously, who has the DC toll free #?

on this on and off today. It is outrageous. And Pete Domenici is just about foaming at the mouth over any question at all. What I don't understand is that this shithead in the White House represented himself as a great uniter. All kinds of polls say that this country is pretty evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Now, we Democrats don't get a voice in anything. They won't talk about amendments, they don't get Democratic input on anything, it's like we don't exist. Maybe I'm not explaining myself very well, but I feel like I don't even live in this country anymore. I guess what I really mean is that this is now some new scary country. I'm no kid and I don't ever remember the divisions ever being this bad, not even during Watergate. Don't these people realize what kind of irreparable harm they are doing? I feel sorry sometimes for the next President (unless it's W-then I feel sorry for all of us; imagine what he'll do when he realizes that he doesn't have to care about reelection!). What a mess he'll have to clean up, and it'll take a whole helluva lot more than four years to do it.

why aren't our folks talking the talk and walking the walk?

to make, but I was having trouble putting it into words. Thank you.

matter of fact, where's the Democratic bills on any of the important issues of the day? . . . seems that all these guys are capable of is reacting, and poorly at that . . .

...and so does Spencer Abraham.

Why did they allocate all that money to ethanol research? Ethanol is so last century.

Please follow Capn Sunshine's advice and speak out against this energy bill, which benefits mostly, well, the folks that have been benefitting the most from this adminstration's actions.

I can tell you that environmental protections have never been rolled back with such intensity and disregard for human health. The EPA was ordered to remove a chapter on Global Warming from their latest report. Hey, if there is no global warming, we can burn all the fossil fuels we want!

to your rep on this issue. please visit www.moveon.org

:nuke:

n/t

texas can be a lonely place sometimes...