Boxer and Kerry fight bad Republicans on the floor of the Senate yesterday

[karynnj]

Both Boxer and Kerry did a great job rebutting an unannounced Inhofe speech on Climate Change. Then Kerry had to deal with the equally illogical Cornyn on the State Department Legal Counsel confirmation. So, here it goes.

First, Inhofe went on his usual rant on how the science isn't there, and how it would hurt our economy and China and the rest of the world won't follow - and they would get lots of our jobs because it would raise our costs.

(Fortunately they have the text - because quickly scanning it gets as much as watching it.)
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id...

Boxer and Kerry then perfectly complimented each other - with Boxer beautifully explaining that CA kept per capita energy usage flat for 20 years without damaging quality of life. http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id...

Then Kerry addressed both the science and the fact that other countries are committing and spoke of what he saw in China, where they are working on this already. (Here there are 3 segments because Reid interrupted for some management things and then the second part is split in two.)
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id...
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id...
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id... (this has the text.)

Kerry in his part is addressing both Inhofe's idiocy and speaking in favor of Howard Koh as legal counsel for the state department. Here the Republican, who wins the Inhofe prize for logic is Cornyn. One objection to Koh is he claimed that Koh equated the Iranian crackdown to the US actions against counter-terrorism. The Koh statement offered as proof was from 2007!
(believe it or not, Cornyn defends that - http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id...
and shows he doesn't understand the word primary and doesn't like international law:

When the Senator from Massachusetts
says he (Koh - added for clarity) believes the U.S. Constitution is primary, I would have felt much better if he had said it was the exclusive source of American law, together with the laws that we ourselves pass as representatives of the people; not just a consideration but the consideration when it comes to determining the obligations and rights of America's citizens, rather than subjecting those to international opinion and vague international norms which I heard the Senator refer to.

It is true Professor Koh is an advocate of what he calls transnational jurisprudence. He believes Federal judges--these are U.S. judges--should use their power to ``vertically enforce'' or ``domesticate'' American law with international norms and foreign law. As I mentioned, this means judges using treaties and ``customary international law'' to override a wide variety of American laws, whether they be State or Federal. Of course, we understand treaties that have been ratified by the Senate are
the law of the land, but Professor Koh believes that even treaties that the United States has not ratified can be evidence of customary international law and given legal effect as such.

So, while minions of someone were creating havoc with a false story on Huffington Post, Kerry was fighting Inhofe and Cornyn. Koh, by the way, was confirmed 62 - 35.