My New Proposed Trigger

[Bleacher Creature]

As of today, all of my donations to the DNC, DCCC and DSCC will be subject to a trigger, which will be pulled subject to the following conditions:

1. Enactment of a robust public option -- regardless of the method used to enact it.

2. Passage of a strong cap and trade bill and evidence of a true commitment to fighting climate change.

3. Repeal of DADT and DOMA.

4. Closure of GITMO.

Any others??

[Clio the Leo]

1. Save yourself the trouble....

... and just send your money to these guys...

https://secure1.gop.com/site/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp?c=ouITL8MRJrE&b=5403197

If you donate now, you may be able to get one of their, "See! I told you Obama was a Commie!" bumper stickers.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Sorry, this isn't a team sport

This is the health of our nation, and frankly, judging from their performance in the Senate, I'd say that only about 1/3 of the House Dems and an even smaller percentage of the Senate Dems are actually doing their job of serving the people instead of corporate interests.

The good guys deserve to be rewarded, but I don't want a penny of my increasingly scarce money going to the DINOs. If they had actually gotten their act together (as the Republicans do) and used their much-desired filibuster-proof majority to push their own agenda with a resolute attitude instead of a tail-between-the-legs-crouching-on-the-floor-and-whimpering-and-peeing eagerness to compromise before it was necessary, I might think differently.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Cap-and-trade won't actually do anything--it's a bit of "greenwashing"

Companies will still be allowed to pollute if they buy the rights. There is already a futures market in such rights in Europe.

Across the board LAWS would be more effective: vehicles must get x miles per gallon by such-and-such-a-year, discontinuing all foreign military ventures that do not involve directly defending the country from attack and using the savings to build mass transit and intercity high-speed rail, carbon emissions from manufacturing must be reduced by x% every year, etc.

Japanese companies brag about how much they have reduced emissions, reduced overall energy use, increased the amount of recycled and reused materials, neutralized potentially toxic waste, and reduced waste in general, and they talk about achieving even higher goals in the coming years. This has been a major part of every Japanese corporate report I have translated in the past ten years.

Maybe they're more aware of this than we are because they know they live on a set of islands with few natural resources.