Thanks for Commenting
Good comments, I enjoy reading your Blog. It gives me the opportunity to hear different views.
Hope you are well.
Susan
You are a mouthpiece of one of the groups that keeps America reliant on foreign oil - the Republican party. The GOP has made no serious effort to wean the US off of its oil addiction (and for someone who claims to be such a fiscal conservative, you apparently don't understand that oil is a fungible commodity.) The GOP has continuously refused to raise CAFE standards and continually advocates military adventures aimed at securing more sources of artificially cheap oil - and its finally come back to bite all of us in the ass.
I like how you refuse to even discuss the *indisputable fact* that domestic oil sources, even if fully exploited to the rapacious degree that your lunatic fringe wants, couldn't decrease our dependence on the oh so dreaded "foreign oil" by even 10%.
Also, it is absolutely hilarious to me that someone like you, who openly advocates stacking the supreme court with partisan lunatics like Antonin Scalia, is complaining about an environmental group that tries to push its agenda through legal action and lobbying. Meanwhile you have no problem whatsoever with corporations pushing their agendas through... legal action and lobbying. Could you possibly be a bigger hypocrite?
It's pretty quiet around here, so I'd like to abuse Mario's hospitality by asking a question. Apologies for the intrusion, but I think I might get a more honest answer around here.
I went to an Obama campaign training session. I learned of it in an email from the NM Obama campaign director, I signed up on the Obama web site, it was run by Obama paid staffers.
The handout was titled "Obama's Campaign for Change Neighborhood Teams Training Guide" and appears to have been written at the national level, and slightly adapted for NM. The staffers followed it fairly closely as an outline.
At the bottom it says "Paid for by Campaign for Change, a project of the New Mexico Democratic Party, www.NMDemocrats.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee."
That last statement, 'not authorized', strikes me as patently false. Is this just the usual incompetence of the DPNM, is it an attempt to evade the campaign finance limits, or does federal law require campaigns to make patently false statements? Or, in some mystical fashion that's beyond my understanding, was it really not authorized by a candidate or candidate's committee?
So wait, lobbying "is to try and disrupt the underlying fundamentals of our Democratic system."
Really? If so, it would seem there are far more "radicals" in Washington than just this "Earthjustice" outfit, to say nothing of the dangerous, un-American radicals running the McCain campaign.
Your concern seems rather suspiciously selective...
No, I don't have any problem with lobbying. You can find at least a handful of posts over the years where I've written that I think that lobbyists get a bad rap.
That said, I think judicial activism (i.e. creating laws through the court system) is wrong and contrary to our Democratic process. And, I believe that then lobbying in Washington to keep those wrongs from being corrected is simply adding insult to injury.
If Earthjustice was just another organization lobbying Congress, I really wouldn't care. But, they are not.
OK, but in the excerpt you provide there are 2 activities mentioned" litigating (bringing cases to court) and lobbying.
It is my understanding that "judicial activism" as popularly understood by conservatives can only be practiced by, you know, judges and not by special interest groups and / or lobbyists.
Additionally you say you think lobbyists get a bad rap, but you find it "insulting" when Earthjustice employs them. That would seem to indicate your problem is with the policy and not, as you claim, the process. Indeed, I can find nothing whatsoever remarkable about lawsuits and lobbyists. One struggles to see how they, in this one particular instance comprise a radical, dangerous threat to our system of government.
I'm sorry, I don't follow your fool's logic. Because Earth Justice supported an amendment made by Udall, that means he champions their cause? I bet a quick google search would find out that the KKK supports many amendments made by Republicans on immigration. By your logic, the Republicans are racists that would like to see the American government toppled.
See how I did that? Isn't Burgos logic wonderful?
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