Republicans to the world: We don't want or need you.

It takes a lot to make a progressive hero out of Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) but between Oklahoma's Sen. Inhofe and the climate change blatherings of a couple of ex-junkies named Beck and Limbaugh, they have managed to to just that. But, they also had some help from our own Senator Boxer and Obama Administration, as I wrote before.

The delay of Boxer and the Obama administration in dealing with climate change have put the world at risk. Those countries with whom we should be working toward some solutions to the problems of climate change are, in fact, looking at the United States's failure to come to grips with reality and beginning to wonder just how much change with got when Obama swept into office.

At climate talks in Barcelona, the last UN sponsored meeting before Copenhagen, some 50 African countries walked out.

African delegates walked out of meetings during United Nations climate change talks in Barcelona, Spain this week, claiming that developed countries were not making solid commitments to cut their emissions of climate-warming gases.

Americans, in their usual arrogant manner, might dismiss this a bunch of poor countries whining about their status after centuries of exploitation. However these same countries are going to face the brunt of problems and have started to find ways of dealing with it. Already, we are seeing climate change refugees moving from country to country in Africa and  governments were forced to act now in light of what was sure to come.

African nations adopt refugee convention

Kampala / Agence France-Presse
African leaders on Friday ratified a convention on the protection of the continent's internally-displaced people, refugees and returnees, billed as the first of its kind worldwide.

The number of refugees in Africa is now close to 20 million. I wonder what America's Minute Man organization will say about illegals when climate refugees start to demand entry to the US because our arrogance devastated their homeland.

But back to the US and Senate Republicans. All but Graham have walked out of the mark up of the Boxer led committee meetings that were supposed to be marking up the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (Kerry - Boxer). As one Democratic Senator quipped, the Party of No has become the Party of No Show.

This act of (not sure what word to use… arrogance? stupidity?) makes US participation in the Copenhagen talks problematic. European leaders are aiming their messages directly at the US Congress.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Congress and the Obama administration Tuesday to take bold steps to address global warming, even as Senate Democrats and Republicans feuded over whether to press ahead with a climate bill.

I hope that Sen. Inhofe had someone read that Washington Post article for him.

The view from the British press is even bleaker.

The US has given up hope of reaching a global climate change treaty at Copenhagen and is working towards a deal late next year, the Obama administration said today. The decision ends hopes of a legally binding deal being sealed next month.

Through all of this, the failures of Congress to act will follow one after one until catastrophe forces action and then it will be too little. Shall we call this the New Orleans Syndrome, naming it after a city where, like climate change, the catastrophe was foretold, action was delayed, and even now is being buried in rhetoric like ruin of the 9th Ward was carted away, buried out of sight and the lessons forgotten.

We can no longer afford to leave the Senate in the hands of Republicans in a state of perpetual denial and Democrats in a state of perpetual compromise. The world is looking to the United States for leadership. Republicans would lead by mooning the world.

Cheney Sleeps During Wildfires Meeting

Think Progress has a brief Flash Media video of a CNN report of Vice President Dick Cheney falling asleep on camera while President Bush was discussing wildfires in California. A Cheney spokeswoman told CNN that the Veep was "practicing meditation."



But hey! If it ain't about profits for oil companies and you can't fix the problem by "nuking" it, then there's no reason for "neoconservatives" to get involved.

Political choices:

I find it interesting to see where people end up when they leave the Republican Party. The motivations are varied and the actions of those who leave are somewhat more limited by virtue of the way our political system is structured. Here are a few examples:

The political columnist of the Orange County Register made a fairly public statement of his rationale for leaving the Republican Party. As might be expected for an OC Register columnist, he has said that he will let his cantankerous nature determine his action.

But I'll hang around the GOP long enough to vote in the Republican primary for Rep. Ron Paul, the only consistent defender of freedom in Congress. Then I'll probably re-register as a big "L" Libertarian, if they don't mind having me. I've got some issues with the Libertarian Party – i.e., I wish it were more serious about fielding winnable candidates in local races, and it has sported some weird candidates on the ballot at times. But it's filled with good, albeit cantankerous folks who love freedom. So I should fit in pretty well.

Former Republican Congressman, Pete McCloskey, also made a very public parting of the ways with the Republicans. I don't think that was an easy decision.

McCloskeys have been Republicans in California since 1859, the year before Lincoln's election. My great grandfather, John Henry McCloskey, orphaned in the great Irish potato famine of 1843, came to California in 1853 as a boy of 16, and joined the party just before the Civil War.

McCloskey was much more articulate than Greenhut in explaining what drove him to this decision.

What finally turned me to despair, however, was listening to the reports, or watching on C-Span, a whole series of congressional oversight hearings on C-Span, held by old friends and colleagues like Pat Leahy, Henry Waxman, Norm Dicks, Nick Rahall, Danny Akaka and others, trying to learn the truth on the misdeeds and incompetence of the Bush Administration. Time after time I saw Republican Members of the House and Senate. speak out in scorn or derision about these exercises of Congress oversight responsibility being "witch-hunts" or partisan attempts to distort the actions of people like the head of the General Service Administration and the top political appointees in the Justice and Interior Departments. Disagreement turned into disgust.

I have documented my own reasons both here and on another blog that I started a long time ago.
One major difference is that I ended up in the Green Party.

The most surprising change for me is that of Markos Moulitsas (Kos of Daily Kos). In a discussion with Charlie Rose, he admitted that he was once a Republican... being so because of the libertarian beliefs. I used a small "l" because he was talking about a philosophical viewpoint, not the specifics of the Libertarian Party. (As a side note, one should really read the comments posted at the Charlie Rose site as they are evidence of the good and bad of internet political blogging.)

What I find most striking about this admission of libertarian leanings is that it is not practiced, either in policy or in practice, on his dailykos blog.

It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory.

I have posted there, most often on the issue of corruption and the basic idea that it is the money that corrupts and money knows no party. It will corrupt Democrats as easily as it does Republicans. But, corruption is not the issue that Markos recognizes. He has become another Karl Rove, Dick Morris, James Carvill, willing to spin anything in any way to make his partisan point.

There are still some worthy ideals held by traditional Republican, ideas involving personal responsibility, local government, economic fairness, ecological common sense. These have been lost in the Republican Party of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove. They were well hidden in the rhetoric of Newt Gingrich. It would seem that there are well intentioned Republicans who could find a welcome home in the Green Party.