yeah, doesn't seem like too many people are listening or liveblogging - it's sad. If this hearing doesn't make your blood boil, then you must be a reptile. This is so sad sad sad. Our government is under the control of complete douchebags. The EPA guy just said the EPA has come to "no conclusion" that global warming is a threat to human health.

These people are going to exterminate the human race for money.

The senator is amazed at what the EPA is doing and finds it gives her the vapors. The 400 other things done in violation of the laws of our country don't matter now? Where were you then?

what BS. The country doesn't matter, the law doesn't matter, but this issue comes front and center?

you know, it looks like all our reps are just full of hot air. Let's see if we have any real senators left today.

Please, more updates! I want to see where the Committee says that they're going to

"...take serious action against the EPA sometime in the future- really, we're gonna- and it's gonna be bad so you should feel really guilty about it and be scared and hire a lawyer, but actually nothing will happen to you so you can go off and wreck the country some more. Oh, by the way, thanks! Most people we subpoena don't even show up! Let's do this again, after you revoke the clean air act or something cool like that. Cheers."

Bush must be laughing his ass off.

What a bunch of whining pussies the Dems are.

Sen Boxer, we fell your pain.

But as many posters have already said, the remedies are available to you if you don't like the way you are being treated.

Telling us that Congress is being treated poorly and telling us we should be insulted is true enough. But WE don't have the power in a republic to do anything about it for another damn year.

If you want to make good on your outrage, you may have to do something outrageous.
Like your job.

You got the tools.

Use'm.

I don't think most of you get it. There is no firing there is only complaining. The Senate although they oversee the EPA do not have the power to remove anyone. Yes the Dem leadership could make a big stink, but they don't as they are in (BQAWTWE)mode (Being quiet and waiting to win the election) They FEAR doing anything that the Republicans can use in the elections. Sure it is spinless but that the Dem leadership for you. So what is boxer to do? Her leaders ignore her so she gets pissed and makes things as public as she can hoping some corporate media outlet picks it up and it becomes a public issue. It may be throwing SH*t in the fan but it is all she has.

Why do all the comments fault the senator ?

All the senate has is the authority given to it by the constitution. It has no men-at-arms, no means to fire anyone, no executive authority. It could cut off funds but chooses not to do so.

This adminisration has ditched the constitution. Are we a republic any more ? Is the president an elected despot now ? A monarch ? A dictator ?

Beware, beware, colleagues - this situation gets worse and it is headed nowhere you are going to like.

The administration never expected to undergo any oversight, and they have made it as hard as possible at every turn. And Congress has helped them. In the Tom DeLay years (Denny Hastert was a straw man, of course), the White House wasn't going to be asked to explain anything. In the Nancy Pelosi years, they have yet to go to the mats and insist on the normal checks and balances.

It's kinda like going to war. Once presidents figured out they could make war without a Declaration, and Congress didn't have the cojones to stop them (sorry Nancy), then they just did what they wanted to do.

Same principle here, and unless someone is made to pay for this, it's never going to stop.

More Pissypants-Politics from our beloved Dem Senate.

OMFG--Quit the F*****G whining and do something!

Just a precurser for the big fold on telcom immunity...

Reid's new strategy: "Pussyfooting will now be conducted by the Senate Dems collectively, on the same day, so as to lessen the impact of any one outrageous position or lack-thereof."

So the Capitol Police are rounding up EPA staff under inherent contempt citations and hauling them off to jail, right?

Oh, no, that's right--Barb and the rest of the DLC capitulators are still "keeping their powder dry."

I'm with Michael A. Stop whinning and being fascilitators to these ANTI-American's running ur government. The Dems are looking like a bunch of calculating pussies.
Get tough or get out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Favorite line:

"Finally, this administration has a way to use all that duck tape"

"cut funding for this jokester's agency"

Uhhh, I'm as outraged by this crap and the spinelessness of the Dems as anyone else, but the subject agency is the Environmental Protection Agency. Can anyone imagine something Bush and Cheney would like to see MORE than the EPA being shut down? It's like throwing Brer Bush into the briarpatch....

Andy Horn is exactly right about threats to cut EPA funding. All they would do is cut environmental enforcement even further than they already have. Do you think they are going to cut the boss's staff or perks?

Now cutting the White House budget- that might get some attention!

Is it any wonder that the public holds Congress in even lower esteem than the president? Lots of people who read TPM imagine that the Democrats are different than the Republicans, and that the post-Bush era is, somehow, going to be a relief. If the Democrats can't figure out how to deal with an issue like the EPA...right now! ... then why should anyone be eager to spend a dime or 10 minutes to elect more Democrats to Congress in November? Talk about your erectile dysfunction!!! Let's get some twin bathtubs into the Capitol post haste!

Just wanted to add my name to the "cut the whining and impeach their evil asses" list. We learned everything we needed to know about this administration during the 2001 "energy crisis."

How many felt as I that Nov. '06 elections put Democrats in charge in Congress? What a joke. It is obvious they haven't forgotten how to legislate, oversee and investigate, they NEVER knew how. It is embarrassing to watch the egregious, cretinous, political appointed heads of agencies sit before committees UNDER OATH and tell them politely and in some cases rudely to kiss their A$$es. This guy just wasted tons of money doing something he knew would be contested in court and knowing it would lose just to give the automobile companies more time to pollute. Of course that scientific genius Imhofe REALLY added to the discussion.

All of you commenting on this blog who characterize the Dems in Congress as a bunch of whiners with no intention of actually forcing Bushco lackeys to DO anything...at all...ever...might I suggest that you are ABSOLUTELY 100 PERCENT RIGHT DEAD ON.

**Stop electing people put forward by the DLC!! This constant jockeying by these clowns for "future" political advantage is driving me NUTZ!

I see that others have forestalled me on the Sternly Worded Letter solution.

Here's a solution that would, at least, make for better TV:

Boxer should put the bowl of tape down on the floor.

And the Republican should get down on all fours like a dog, crawl to the bowl, pick up a piece of tape in his mouth, and then crawl up to the dais and drop the piece of tape at his mistress's feet.

Repeat until bowl is empty. What's wrong with these people?

Don't cut the EPA's funding, cut the political appointee's funding, however you have to do it.

Better yet, have the Capital Police arrest Johnson and put him in jail until he's ready to do the right thing ( in this case falling on his sword, literally might be a good thought).

Then get yer butt over to Pelosi's office and tell her to put impeachment back on the table, RFN.

how could cutting EPA funding be the answer? most of agency's staff advised against the Administrator's decision - that's the whole point. the administration is corrupt, yes, but the bureaucrats are not - and in fact, they do good things every day.

For stonewalling and obstructing, he should be criticized, not for stating correctly that there is no conclusive evidence of direct harms to human health from global warming. Obviously this was not the response she wanted, however it is the only valid one. How will a few degree rise in temp lead to changes in human health? I just don't see it.

"anon wrote on January 24, 2008 6:08 PM:
how could cutting EPA funding be the answer? most of agency's staff advised against the Administrator's decision - that's the whole point. the administration is corrupt, yes, but the bureaucrats are not - and in fact, they do good things every day."

What a load of CRAP. What "good things" do they do, call their Moms every day?

Most of Johnson's staff advised against it, not the whole agency's. The Administrator, Johnson, is wiley and corrupt; playing Gonzales, judging by his behaviour. I wonder how much his off-shore account ballooned with this "decision"?
Unfortunately, no one in congress has the cojones or huevos to take on even this wuss. His arse should be fried! not fired. Put his boots to the fire Senator!