#Hypocrisy alert from Jerry Brown on California water

Gov Edmund G. Brown Jr.,
California water whore.
(Wikipedia photo)

Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., to rightfully name him, has imposed the first-ever mandatory statewide water restrictions.

So, why is this hypocrtical?

Because he is known to want to build the Edmund G. Brown Jr. Delta Peripheral Canal, among other things. If Wikipedia's description of likely environmental damage:

A peripheral canal would reduce the overall freshwater flow into the Delta and move the freshwater-saltwater interface further inland, causing damage to Delta agriculture and ecosystems.

Put another way? A peripheral canal, with the new water realities, is just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. And, it ignores that the desert always wins on water issues.

Then there's more.

Try Friends of the River, which notes it would severely draw down reservoirs in northern California. You know, the ones that already have almost no water this year.

As for the name I mention?

No, it's not on record. But surely Junior wants his "legacy" as Cal governor to be a follow-up to Daddy's California State Water Project, which includes the Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct. He's as thirsty for it as an almond orchard south of Fresno. Given that agricultural users aren't required to make further cuts, as Mother Jones notes, this isn't hyperbole. And, as the Daily Beast notes, including describing how California is the Texas of California on groundwater, and as Cadillac Desert explains in much more detail, that agricultural water is often subsidized by not just urban Californians but the rest of the nation.

Remember that whenever you hear Western farmers and ranchers, or politicians that mouth their views, tout free enterprise and bitch about the federal government. One of the biggest hypocrites in US political history, beyond the Brown family franchise, was Barry Goldwater.

So, Californians? The answer is simple.

Hold on to a metaphorical 10 gallons of water and flush Jerry Brown. Just like Gray Davis. Recall him. But not to be replaced by an Ahhhnold.

Get somebody real. Maybe Barbara Boxer, since she's not running for the Senate again.

Because Jerry Brown is full of it, starting with the claims of 25 percent water use reduction, if agriculture doesn't face anything mandatory at all, and neither does the oil and gas industry.

Senate Dems fail to offer right #KeystoneXL amendment

Yes, one of the two failed amendments to Senate Republicans' pushing of a KeystoneXL pipeline bill were both nice — use of US components only, although I really can't conceive of that much heavy steel being imported from China. The one that got OKed, about boosting energy efficiency, is also nice, but seems fairly toothless. The one about restricting tar sands oil coming through the pipeline to US use only? Meh.

None of these hit the right angle, though.

I've said before that, if nothing else, Alberta tar sands oil is better by pipeline than by rail.

That said, a better amendment would have forced the Department of Transportation to make its push for railroad companies to do a voluntary upgrade of their tanker cars into a mandated replacement with new models.

But, even that's only the second-best option Senate Dems had.

The best?

Link KeystoneXL approval to a carbon tax at home along with a carbon tariff on imports.

First, the domestic tax needs to be linked with the tariff on imports anyway; just a domestic tax is not sensical either environmentally or economically.

Second, to the degree that that Alberta tar sands oil is "dirtier" than US conventional oils, it would have a heavier tariff vs the domestic tax.

Sure, this amendment likely would have had zero chance. It probably would only get 20 Democratic votes.

But, it surely could have gotten at least two.

Hello, Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Ed Markey and other real "green" types. That's more than two of you — enough for an amendment's motion and seconding.

Harry Reid, the man who makes Obama look 'manly'

The one Democrat with even fewer cojones than Barack Obama? (Not counting Blue Dogs in the House, who actually have cojones, but, they have deliberately parked them on the other side of the party line divide.)

You and I both know it’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Now, with Obama, he sold one of his nuts to Wall Street for neoliberal Democratic “purposes” and campaign cash that let him snooker John McCain and run for president without public campaign dollars, and he sold the other to Rahm Emanuel, the same “mastermind” of recruiting all those Blue Dogs.

That, at least, we know.

Harry Reid? I’m not even sure he sold his anywhere. I think they just shriveled.

That said, it’s not 100 percent his fault. The Batman-and-Robin duo of ObamNuel put Reid’s cojones in a vice on previous issues, including the stimulus and, above all, health care “reform.”

But, then, if Reid wins, but Senate numbers sink low enough, who would challenge him, and how good of a replacement would they be? Whip Dick Durbin, for better or worse, would theoretically be more attuned to Obama, but perhaps a bit more able to “push” him, at least on the edges. Policy chair Byron Dorgan may not get re-elected. Conference secretary Patty Murray’s never been talked up as a leadership type. I could see Chuck Schumer angling for the job, and he’d be worse than Reid in kowtowing to Wall Street, but, given that he pushed for a tax vote, and can be feisty overall, he wouldn’t be the worst. Feinstein might be interested, but Californians running both houses probably wouldn’t fly, and ugh on Sen. Betty Crocker anyway.

Her stance on the tax vote? Tone deaf:

Feinstein, whose home-state Democratic colleague, Barbara Boxer , is locked in a battle for re-election, said she opposes taking a tax cut vote before the election. “I actually believe taking a vote on taxes right before the election is a mistake — and I’m not up,” she said. “Because the message can be manipulated.”

Dooooohhhhhh, you cabeza de vaca! YOUR PARTY can be the one manipulating the message! I agree with a blogger who said every Democrat who was in office before 1994 but has spent the majority of his or her career, or nearly that, in the post-Gingrich House/Senate, acts like they’ve been pistol-whipped or something.

That said, back to possible Reid challengers.

Jim Webb is the one other Democrat I could see making a leadership move, and he doesn’t thrill me either.

And, what’s with the claim that Barbara Boxer, of all people, was among those who pushed to push back any tax cut vote? Sounds like her ovaries shrank.

Boxer wants to undo EPA’s California CO2 theft

California Democrat Barbara Boxer has just proposed a bill that would undo the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent refusal to grant California, and more than a dozen other piggybacking states, the right to set tough new standards on automotive carbon dioxide emissions. She’s got 17 cosponsors so far, all Democrats except Joe Lieberman (I-Neocon).