Barton and Inhofe

PZ Myers is being a bit “the glass is half empty”, but Joe Barton will no longer chair the Committee on Energy and Commerce and James Inhofe will no longer chair the Environment and Public Works Committee. That’s good news for science.

And I can’t resist sharing John Lott’s predictions:

The Republicans are going to keep the House and the Senate. My guess is that the Republicans will lose 12 seats in the House and no more than 1 in the Senate. I would not be surprised that Republicans break even or even pick up one seat in the Senate. I think that Republicans will lose Ohio, but could pick up Michigan and even more likely Maryland. A Steele in Maryland win will make the evening a great one all by itself.

Comments

#1 coturnix
November 8, 2006

A sorry Lott…
#2 Mark [Section 15]
November 9, 2006

More errant number crunching from Lott… Maybe not enough GOP candidates were packing conceal and carry weapons? They deter Dems from voting don’t you know.
#3 duggie
November 9, 2006

well, a lot of people were predicting republican victory. lott’s post is only notable for schadenfreude purposes.

your post is missing a few words after “Inhofe” *[Oops. Fixed Tim]*
#4 Carl Christensen
November 9, 2006

HAHA, such vermin should be first up against the wall!
#5 Jack Lacton
November 9, 2006

Lott missed by a lott and was not in step with GOP analysts who predicted a loss of the House in the order of 28 seats and a narrow victory in the Senate, which was a narrow loss. A few thousand votes either way and they’re on the money. Bush seems to be playing along with people at the moment saying things like he thought they’d win so it “shows what I know.”

However, once the euphoria of victory dies down there are going to be some serious issues to face. Firstly, the Democratic leadership is completely out of step with the American public, which voted in a large number of ‘conservative’ Democrats that don’t agree with Pelosi, Rangel etc. Second up, for a so-called referendum on the Iraq War the cut and run brigade were soundly defeated with the success of Joe Lieberman and the loss of Maryland for the Republicans. In fact, a very telling survey was done by the NYT last week showing that people were overwhelmingly unhappy with the war, which was the lead story from that paper, of course. What was fascinating was that only 20% of respondents believed that pulling out of Iraq was the correct strategy and that what the vast majority wanted was MORE troops in Iraq in order to get the job done!

The Democrats have a large number of very narrow margin seats in the House that will be at risk in 2008 if they can’t present as a united front.
#6 Abe G.
November 9, 2006

Please. The only people who were expecting a Republican victory were ideologues who had convinced themselves–without any evidence whatsoever–that the polls were a bunch of junk. They ignored the evidence that they were losing, just as they ignore the evidence that Iraq is a de facto civil war.

They didn’t believe in the science of polling and they woke up to reality Tuesday night.

As to Jack’s post, pure and utter nonsense. First, while a few moderate Republicans were elected, Webb, Schuler and a couple of others, lots of progressive made inroads. Sherrod Brown kicked out Dewine–Mckaskill booted Talent (where the science of embryonic stem cells helped propel her to victory).

As for Jack’s Iraq poll, I believe he misread it. A majority of Americans want to begin a withrdrawal. This has been confirmed by multiple polls for a long time now.

Republicans have to defend 22 senate seats in 2008. There could be real bloodshed if president Bush doesn’t get something positive done.

In the end, science will bite Republicans. And it is all so well deserved.
#7 John Lott
November 9, 2006

I have rechecked the numbers and stand by my original predictions as being 100% correct.
#8 Jeff Harvey
November 9, 2006

Jack, and what about Iraqis? What do they want? Or does that matter? I am sure that polls conducted in Nazi Germany during the Second World War would have found a majority of Germans supporting the German occupations of France, Holland, Norway, Belgium etc. But what would polls in the occupied countries have revealed? Probably that huge majorities wanted the Germans out immediately. A recent poll in Iraq suggested that, with the exception of the Kurds, the vast majority (> 70%) of Shias and Sunnis want the US-UK forces out of their country asap. Heck, the majority of Shias and Sunnis also supported attacks on coalition troops.

But Jack, like all imperial apologists, doesn’t care what the people under occupation want. They are ‘untermenschen’. It is what the imperial occupiers want that matters.
#9 John l. McCormick
November 9, 2006

Just in case you are reading this thread, John Lott, I want to say what a pleasure it was to vote for now-Senator Jim Webb. And, I also had the sublime pleasure of watching George Allen destroy his political life in one macacca moment.
#10 Carl Christensen
November 9, 2006

I hear Inhofe & McIntyre are currently “auditing” the Republican vote counts!
#11 Mary Rosh
November 9, 2006

I want all of you to stop picking on John Lott right now!
#12 JB
November 9, 2006

Jack Lacton said: “Bush seems to be playing along with people at the moment saying things like he thought they’d win so it “shows what I know.”

Yes, Bush has adopted quite the conciliatory tone, falling back on his tried and true “Dumb old me” routine.

But I suspect it ain’t going to work this time. For the first time in his life, Bush may actually have to face the music for the gigantic mess that he has wrought.

…unless, that is, Daddy manages to bail him out yet again (something Daddy is actually working on with James Baker at this very moment).
#13 Abe G
November 9, 2006

I hear Inhofe & McIntyre are currently “auditing” the Republican vote counts!

Addition is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.
#14 Jack Lacton
November 9, 2006

Hi Abe & Jeff,

Thanks for your responses.

You need to check the polls because the majority are not favouring withdrawal when you look at the nuts and bolts and not the headlines and major articles written by interested papers like the NYT. The majority wants to win, not withdraw. If you look at who was selected to represent the Democrats in this election, and who won to the House, you’ll see many that are ex-military (served in Iraq) and law enforcement. These people were deliberately chosen by the Democratic heirachy and are not in favour of withdrawal from Iraq. It will be interesting to see how Nancy Pelosi, whose politics are very far from mainstream America, can control the different factions in her party. She’s a tough and pragmatic lady so I wouldn’t underestimate her ability to get the job done.

I apologise for not having the source but I’m sure you can find it yourself. A poll taken only in the last few weeks of the Iraqi people showed that something like 80% did not want the US to leave before calm had been restored to the country. They’re not stupid. They know that the suicide bombings are being carried out by foreigners and not Iraqis and they don’t want to end up like Afghanistan, as a puppet regime, if the insurgents win.

Jeff – I congratulate whoever your professors/teachers are that indoctrinated you with the view that the US is an imperialist nation and removed from you the ability to think for yourself. An Imperialist nation controls, in absolute terms, other countries, extracts their wealth and sends it home. The Phillipines is the only example of US imperialism in history. Contrast with France, Britain, Italy, Portugal etc etc. Influence is an entirely different matter and it is axiomatic that those people that do not allow rational thought to swim around in their head for more than a nanosecond will substitute it for imperialism as far as the US is concerned. All countries seek influence over countries and geographical areas in order to enhance trading ability, security etc etc. That’s what the Great Game was all about; you should read up on that because the lessons learned from 19th century shenanigans beteen Russia and Great Britain apply today.
#15 Abe G
November 9, 2006

Jack:

Most Iraqis Favor Immediate U.S. Pullout, Polls Show
Leaders’ Views Out of Step With Public

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 27, 2006; Page A22

BAGHDAD, Sept. 26 — A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers.

In Baghdad, for example, nearly three-quarters of residents polled said they would feel safer if U.S. and other foreign forces left Iraq, with 65 percent of those asked favoring an immediate pullout, according to State Department polling results obtained by The Washington Post.

Now, as to your point about a majority of U. S. citizns not wanting a withdrawal, a recent Pew poll asking about bringing troops home “as soon as possible” was split at 47-47. Setting a timetable for withdrawal has been over 50 percent in the Pew poll since Sep 2005 (latest 57-39). I don’t know what nuts and bolts you are talking about. Your assertion about the majority wanting to win and not withdraw is bogus because they are not mutually exclusive. For instance, I want us to win, and I want us to begin to withdraw.
#16 Jeff Harvey
November 10, 2006

Jack said, “An Imperialist nation controls, in absolute terms, other countries, extracts their wealth and sends it home”. And what has the US beeen doing via the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America since 1823? “Controlling, in almost absolute terms, other countries, extracting their wealth and sending it home”. Jack, don’t even try to lecture me on history. Read NSC document 5432 (1954) and you’ll see it details exactly what US imperialism is all about: ensuirng that the resources of other countries can be exploited to ‘repatriate a reasonable return’ and that they remain in the proper hands. You might learn why Woodrow Wilson sent the marines into Haiti in 1915 (killing several thousand) to dissolve the parliament after the country refused to allow US corporations in, because the US wnated effectively to turn the country into a plantation. You might learn why Thomas Carothers, a neo-Reaganite in charge of democracy promotion under Reagan, admitted that the US ‘downplays or ignores democracy when it is not in US interests’ and supports ‘top-down power structures [elites] traditionally allied with US power’. General Smedley Butler was correct when in 1935 he said that he spent 34 years in the US Marine Corps acting effectively as a ‘muscleman for big business, a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism’ who helped in the ‘rape of half a dozen central American countries’ for the benefits of Wall Street. John Perkins sums it up well in his book, ‘Confessions of an Economic Hit Man’, as does Greg Grandin in ‘Empire’s Workshop’, John Carroll in ‘House of War’, Andrew Bacivich in ‘The New American Militarism’ and Lawrence Stroup in ‘Imperial Brain Trust’. In other words, Jack is speaking utter nonsense, simplified and sanitized propaganda gleaned from the mainstream corporate-media apparatus. Jack, read up on the words of Kennan, Nitzke, Acheson, Rusk, McNamara, along with declassified planning documents, material from the Council on Foreign Relations and other stuff that is freely available and you’ll learn something other than the crap you incessantly wheel out here.
#17 dhogaza
November 10, 2006

Inhofe’s replacement as chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee will be Senator Boxer from California.

As she’s put it … “[Inhofe] thinks global warming is a myth, while I think it’s one of the most important problems we face”. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of her comment, as quoted today in the NY Times.

I rather doubt we’ll be seeing Michael Crichton called as an expert witness by the committee for the next couple of years.
#18 Eli Rabett
November 10, 2006

Oh please, let them call Michael. Life needs a bit of hilarity.
#19 mndean
November 11, 2006

Eli,
Yes, but he must testify under oath and have citations for his factual assertions. If there are any. And after being grilled by the senators, then have the REAL climatologists skewer his fantastic drivel.
#20 DocAmazing
November 12, 2006

Mr. Lacton–

1. If you think the Philippines(proper spelling) is the only example of US imperialism, I’ve got some Hawaiians, American Indians, Panamanians and Haitians to introduce you to. Take a trip to the library rather than insulting Mr. Harvey’s intellect or playing word games with “imperialism” vs. “hegemony”; you’ll find it enlightening. The US has been in a fight to control global resources for some time. End of story. Many of us are fairly disgusted with that, given that noble aims like “spreading democracy” are cited as reasons for this theft of resources, this financing of death squads, and this propping up of dictators.

I’d have thought that it was all fairly obvious. Apparently, I was wrong.
#21 Eli Rabett
November 13, 2006

Cuba