Doc Hastings wants Interior Watchdog to go after Obama.  Or be replaced.  And for someone new to go after Obama.

Maybe because there’s something serious that needs to be gotten to the bottom at with Obama and the Environment.  But Probably more because of about this spot…

The environment used to be a bipartisan cause, particularly in Washington — witness the state’s million-acre 1984  wilderness bill — but Republicans have bailed here and across the country, according to the 2012 National Environmental Scorecard compiled by the League of Conservation Voters. […]

But Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the powerful House Natural Resources Committee scores a rock-bottom rating of 3. He cast just one pro-environment vote during the 112th Congress.

Two notes that are not that noteworthy:

Almost all of the anti-environmental legislation and amendments passed by the Republican-run House of Representatives was stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and would have faced President Obama’s veto pen if passed.

Curiously, many House efforts to weaken environmental statutes — e.g. the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Air Act — were directed at laws passed under the Nixon Administration or signed into law by President George H.W. (“I want to be the environmental President”) Bush.

Yes, Nixon.  Yes Bush the First.  But really, they just thought domestic politics were a bunch of outhouses out in the sticks, and had their eyes on the International Scene.  And yes, House passes, Senate doesn’t, nothing happens after that.  But I want to know…  What the hell did Doc Hastings vote for to mar his nearly impeccable record?  Was there, like, something Hanford related or was there something like a “remove maggots from government cheese” bill out there?

The one thing you can say is nothing has changed… he is consistent, with a lifetime average of 3.

Hm.  Just looking up Doc Hastings to see what the news and commentary are all about with him, what I’m getting is a bunch of conservative sites (Michele Malkin, Pajama Media, “The Right Reason”) railing against an Obama Administration decision involving protecting the habitat for the Spotted Owl.

One:  What is this — 1991?
Two:  As always, the big  news story on Doc Hastings is what animal can be stood for down-sizing.  Or, goes into the loop of counter-intuitive protection by habitat exploitation.

Hastings has his studies — and it goes into circulation as de facts — showing bringing the habitat down will be good for the Owls.
… So it goes.

Yes, I was too damned cynical in assessing Doc Hastings’s opponents’ motives.

Jan Smith.  I thought Mary Baechler sold the Baby Jogger Company in 2004. How could she be doing this for a promotional attempt. This just shows how in tune Doc Hastings is in the 4th District.

I think I was musing over the remarks by a billionaire Republican Senate candidate running a campaign against an entrenched Democratic Incumbent who made remarks that running to promote your company is a good reason to run.  It doesn’t even matter if you lose.
This apparently isn’t  Mary Baechler’s reason.  Her company’s out of her hands.  But a while ago a sad “Dump Doc Hastings” blog had the entry noting the Democrats had failed to recruit its candidate.  A good reason to run is “stepping in the breach” — the void, even in a jungle primary of a heavily Republican district — the Democrat would still likely be the second candidate — that would otherwise fall to a Gordon Allen Pross type.

So… that cleared away… I guess it’s time for me to survey the latest on Congressman Hastings.

We see Hastings at the hustles…. Well then.

Doc shared that we got the same Paul Ryan as VP candidate that he has known and worked with for the last 14 years. He said Ryan is the “real deal”.

And a hyped up Pat Murray in the district (bringing up vote tally for Jay Inslee’s state-wide contest and beyond) , talking at the same time Hastings was… and I guess the answer from the Republican point of view It just does.

EDITOR’S NOTE — How exactly does holding middle-class tax cuts hostage to extending tax cuts to the wealthiest 1% address “the crushing burden of debt”?

In terms of big Legislative attempts… it looks like Hastings was defeated by Dennis Kucinich… who I guess has the luxury of offending Washington State by virtue of not jumping in to carpet-bag in the newly redrawn 10th district in the Seattle Suburbs.

In a vote that came up in the House of Representatives on September 20 during a “suspension of the rules,” the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Act (HR 5987) won a majority vote of 237/180, or 55% to 42%, but failed because the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass.

The suspension of the rules is typically used to pass non-controversial bills quickly with only 40 minutes of debate, but in this case, the bipartisan-sponsored bill turned out to be more controversial than anticipated. One hundred twelve Republicans voted against it, as did 68 Democrats.

In particular, a statement on Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) website gives him credit for leading “a bipartisan coalition of 180 Members of Congress to stand for veterans, for fiscal responsibility and friendship with the Japanese people” to defeat this bill.

“The technology which created the bomb cannot be separated from the horror the bomb created,” Kucinich’s statement continues. “We should not celebrate the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians or the destruction of two major Japanese cities no matter how proud we are of our ability to innovate.”

I’m neutral on this matter, but I don’t quite get Kucinich’s logic.  Also I very much  But … I gather commemoration seems in order, doesn’t it Kucinich?  And I very much doubt this is the reason for the no votes, especially amongst the 112 Republicans — who would be more along the lines of the “fiscal responsibility” card that would likely have Doc Hastings opposing the bill if it weren’t in his backyard.

Yeah, Doc Hastings came in first, and the Democrat came in second.  After that we get this…

Kennewick Republican Jamie Wheeler picked up 7,368 votes, or 11 percent, while Ephrata Democrat Mohammad H. Said received 2,012 votes, or 3 percent.

Time to look over Washington State’s primary voters guide.  Why?  Why not?
It’s pretty user-friendly, the online version.  I can just go down the list and graze.  And find… A Reform Candidate for Senator.

Will Baker.  As a direct result of Will’s community service, Will believes the number one issue in the 2012 U.S. Senate election should be the illegal and unethical election practices used by Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed.  Hm.  Interesting definition of community service.  Except then we get this:   I believe the number one issue in the 2012 U.S. Senate election should be impeaching President Barack Obama specifically for Obama’s decision to give America’s state of art military spy drone technology to Iran  … The man needs to prioritize.  What’s number one, what’s number two?

Glen (Stocky) R. Stockwell for a Republican.  I have taken “My Project Proposal” to Senator Cantwell for “nearly 3 years”. I believe without doubt I am the only person who has proclaimed “I know how to pay for this Project without any new Taxes and at the lowest Cost Per Acre”! “Aggressive Leadership is Needed Now to Change Our State’s Future Destiny” followed by immediate action!
“Thousands of Real Washington Jobs” and a “2 Billion Dollar State Construction Project”! What our State needs now is funding! Currently 1.7 Trillion is available in already Allocated for National Economic Development Stimulus Projects! Washington State 2013 Congressional leaders will have a historical opportunity to lead our Nation by completing the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Columbia Basin Project”!
Kind of an over-sales job on this one?

I don’t see any moderately amusing Senate candidates.  So now let’s see the Republicans running against Doc Hastings in the 4th district.

 Jamie Wheeler is not a ladder climbing politician, but rather an American boldly exercising her Constitutional Right to run for office as the Founding Fathers had intended. She is Constitutionally Qualified
Sigh.  Yes.  You can run for office.

Mohammad H Said.  Yeah.  This isn’t going anywhere…
He is pro cannabis as an alternative medicine for patients who are qualified, particularly edible, not legalization or recreational  Hm.  I’d prefer my pro-cannabis to go all the way.
He is pro business to market products, training, technology to the Arab Spring countries, which are similar to our district’s climate, landscape, etc, as we helped some achieve democracy.
No clue what that means.

There is a Democrat, and I suppose that means she will probably be the one to make the primary round against Hastings.  And Mary Baechler is better than Gordon Allen Pross, I would say, though I imagine her campaign as essentially a promotional attempt for her Baby Jogger company.

It looks like Goodspaceguy is running again.  In the 7th district.  I say go for him so that we can bat him around for another few months until you re-elect McDermott.
To learn about my thrifty, recycling, orbital space colonization program, visit my second blog at http://colonizeorbitalspace.blogspot.com  With the mass-of-money we have already spent, we should already have our beginning, orbital space colonies, but we don’t because our leaders have not been educated in orbital space colonization.

… Looking down the list, I have one last question.  Is there a pension that goes with serving for a month in Congress?  Because there’s just a lot of people running for a special election to serve out a single month in the 1st Congressional district.  There are seven running for a whole term; eleven for a month term.  Only 3 of them are running for both.  Yeah, go with Ruth Morrison who charges head first.
As an hourly employee I have developed the skills to lead and plan. The future will have many challenges and respect for many cultures is a part of my life and our communities. For a month the privilege to severe, would be a great honor, I sincerely would appreciate your vote

Though I do have an affinity for the sheer galls of just tossing up a whole mass of platitudes.  So maybe Bob Champion can be your Champion?

I am running for this office because I believe in the future. I believe the future demands that we be brave enough to try something new. I believe the future requires that we change course, challenge the status quo, and seek discourse on the problems that unite us. By working together with a vision and a plan, that future is today’s reality.
We, the people, have a unique opportunity to voice our strong desire that the parties shun their partisan politics and demand that they work together. I know that by working together, we can accomplish great things. I know that by working together, we will lay the foundation for future generations to build upon.
Like Benjamin Franklin, I believe that words are worthless without demonstrated action. Congress needs to hear a voice that seeks to inspire change. As your voice, I will challenge each member to shed party politics. We must reach across the aisle, embrace each other, and resolve to work together. The future demands that we take that chance today. I urge you to take that chance and vote for me. I’ll get the job done.

Oh, that Doc Hastings.  What a kidder!

With Greenpeace activists planning to shadow Shell’s drillships in the Arctic this summer, some lawmakers want to know why the environmentalists’ vessels aren’t getting as much federal scrutiny as the energy giant’s fleet.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m thinking that Environmental Impact studies would be commiserate against how much impact something might have on the environment…  Like, one’s big and one’s small?

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Washington, on Friday pressed the heads of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to detail their plans for monitoring Greenpeace’s activities — and how they might affect marine life. “NOAA’s and BSEE’s analysis of (Shell’s) planned oil and gas exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas has devoted extraordinary and unprecedented attention to the potential impacts of vessels and other activities,” the Republicans wrote. “Though the potential for impacts is similar, there has been no such analysis or permitting of the planned protest activities or the operation of the vessels participating in them.”

Subpoena power.  It is what you’ve been waiting for when the Republican regained the House.

The House Natural Resources Committee is also investigating. Today, Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., demanded that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar make five high-ranking department officials — including his top adviser and a former White House liaison — available for interviews.
Hastings complained that the department has refused to turn over documents related to the moratorium report, telling Salazar the committee “is left with no choice other than to continue to pursue compliance with the subpoena.”
Spokesman Spencer Pederson said the chairman “is not taking anything off the table,” including a contempt of Congress charge, to enforce the subpoena.
Interior Department spokesman Adam Fetcher said the department turned over nearly 2,000 pages of documents and would “continue to cooperate with the committee’s legitimate oversight interests.” He also complained that the congressional investigation was “made up of an ever-changing and unsettled set of requests … to relitigate an issue that was resolved two years ago.”

The Excitement builds… everything is snow-balling and it’s one scandal after another…

And, uh, one Jobs Bill after another.  They’re all Jobs Bills right now… and, I suppose, Jobs Subpoenas.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder became the first cabinet member in American history to be cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to produce documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious.

That’s a joke, right?

The George Soros and Obama Government One Again Restricts our Natural resources.

At least this isn’t an instance of the George Soros and Obama Government trampelling on the Constitution, per image on that last blog.

In other Doc Hastings news:
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., powerful chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, wants the historical park in his district.  Usually, Hastings reacts with hostility when words like “park” or “monument” or “wild” or “conservation” get mentioned.

The idea is to turn Hanford (and Oak Ridge) into a new Disneyland.  Sounds like a plan every Congressional figure in the states of Washington and Tennessee can get behind, and everyone else can kind of shrug at.

But Cantwell and seatmate Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., ought to  negotiate a trade before bestowing this imprimateur on Tri-Cities history plus not-entirely happy memories of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and “Dr. Strangelove.”
They should trade a dead nuke for live bald eagles, orcas, a blue-green river and island bluffs.

Take that up with Occupy Hanford No Nukes Northwest.

Wikipedia.  Par for the course for some of these politicians:
The whole article smacks of having been written by Hastings himself or one of his staff lackeys. The following paragraph has no supporting documentation and is extremely offensive and I feel full of false information:
The line about Jay Inslee’s “dishonest campaign” is particularly humourous.  (And wikipedia watchers of this ilk should watch the Hastings article as Jay Inslee makes his run for governor).  But this editor doesn’t do himself any favors with
I have made comments above. I will rewrite the thing if you want but I suggest you find an objective person. Hastings is a corrupt right wing fanatic who hopefully will soon be out of congress.)  [As well…]
Further is to the right of practically every other congressman in Congress and holds sacred to the principles of the Tea Party
Actually the most “offending” part of this bunch is the “hopefully will soon be out of congress”.  It looks as though the Democrats aren’t fielding a candidate, and that he will end up facing a Tea Party candidate in the General election (which, whatever else he is, he isn’t “to the right” of “every other Congressman” and holds principles sacred to the Tea Party in as much as the Republican Establishment does.)

Doc Hastings News item
Doc Hastings Wants to Improve Endangered Species Act.
A long time goal of his, I suppose.  That and … um…

Sigh.

But here’s the big controversy Hastings is tangently parts of.

When award-winning West Virginia anti-coal activist Maria Gunnoe went to Washington, D.C. last week, she was prepared for obstructionist tactics. She was prepared to face icy stares and hard questions from Republican lawmakers. She was not prepared to be branded a pedophile.

On Friday, Gunnoe testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources in a hearing on the Obama administration’s contentious relationship with the coal mining industry. She had prepared a slideshow presentation that included a photograph by the photojournalist Katie Falkenberg depicting a nude young girl sitting in a bathtub filled with murky brown water. The photo was meant as a salient statement to legislators on the impact of coal mining on society’s most vulnerable. “We are forced to bathe our children in polluted water,” she said. “Or not bathe them.” […]

It was a point she never got to make: Shortly before she testified, Gunnoe was approached by staffers for Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and told she had to remove the photo from her presentation. She complied, but after testifying was escorted into an empty side room by Capitol Police Special Agent Randall Hayden and questioned for nearly an hour about the photo, which she had gotten the approval of the photographer, the child’s parents, and Democratic committee members to use. Gunnoe said Hayden, whom she described as kind and professional, told her the committee believed the photo to be suggestive of child pornography, and that he would be following up on the possibility of her being involved in such illegal activity.

[…]

Committee Republican spokesperson Spencer Pederson said after Lamborn decided the photo was “inappropriate for committee use,” his staff, with the blessing of committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), contacted police to “apprise them of the situation.”

I’m pretty sure the idea is along the lines of a Vietnam War supporters crying foul at the photograph of the young Napalm victim
… or if you’re sympathetic to the the Hastings lead committee, perhaps some tactics by abortion protesters and PETA activists…

… except that the specific charge becomes more aligned with… oh… Tom Coburn’s objection to Schindler’s List broadcast.  Naked equals smut.  Even in grotesque situations.  The mind boggles.

Big Tea Party rally in Eastern Washington, I see.  And this is a booby prize if there ever was one.

As an incentive toward attendance, organizers have said that a participant at the rally will announce a run against incumbent nine-term Congressman Doc Hastings of Pasco at today’s rally, also in John Dam Plaza.
Wait.  We get to find out someone running for Congress against an entrenched incumbent?

Organizers aren’t publicizing the candidate’s name ahead of the announcement, but the hope is that the announcement will generate the kind of local political buzz seen in late 2009 when former pro football player Clint Didier, now a farmer and businessman in Eltopia, announced his bid for Sen. Patty Murray’s seat at a Tea Party rally.
Somebody like former professional football player Clint Didier, you say?  Who is it?

Apparently just some guy or other.   Tea Party member to run against Doc Hastings.  A National Sales Tax Advocate.  “Ugh” indeed.

At least we get the entertainment value of reading Tea Party activist reactions to Doc Hastings shilling for Mitt Romney.

So, you know.  As this is what we will get in the General Election, in the vacuum where there is no Democratic Party… I will reiterate from my previous post.  Draft Dennis Kucinich!  Yes.  I know Dennis Kucinich would win about as much percentage of the vote as Gordon Allen Pross, but since he’s looking around for a district…

(Yes, I’m kidding.  Mostly.  Hm.  Ready to knock around Jay Inslee a bit?)

Go with the Tea Party candidate, for no other reason than to bump his position of power to some other Republican waging the same environmental wars.

To the other side of the ledger, Portlanders (mostly) flooded in for an “Occupy Hanford” rally.  They probably hate the local write-up.

Speakers repeatedly reminded the crowd that they were there because Richland is next to the most radiologically contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere, the Hanford nuclear reservation where weapons plutonium was produced during World War II and the Cold War.
“It’s the belly of the beast,” activist Dr. Helen Caldicott said.
But the sun shone, children and dogs played, people danced to the music of Portland bands, tribal members beat drums and good food was eaten.
Along George Washington Way, demonstrators in anti-contamination suits waved signs at passing traffic.
“Go home you damn hippies,” yelled one person from a passing pickup.  (always gotta get that one into the story.)
But another man stopped in the center lane to have a shouted conversation across two lanes of traffic with the demonstrators.
He tests water at Hanford, and environmental cleanup progress is being made there, he said. He thanked the demonstrators for caring, but said they needed to get their facts straight.
The rally was part theater. One woman in a flowing cape and gas mask waved a rubber salmon and other people blew bubbles because, as their sign said, “Radiation travels thru the air like these bubbles blowing in the air.” A veterans for peace group from Eugene, Ore., flew an American flag upside down on the stage.

This is one of those odd semi-quasi controversies from last year.  Doc Hastings quotes Daniel Webster — as all politicians do when fingering “Greats”, sort of shamelessly.

Today we move to this as your basic template for the current Doc Hastings news of any moment in time.

Yeah, the GOP, they’re really, really angry…at Obama and the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOERME) with it’s new (kind-of) safety regulations and (kind-of) oversight.
GOP Rep. Doc Hastings is beside himself pissed, issuing subpoena’s every chance he gets…

Yeah.  What… huh…

Nearly two years after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, it’s true that the spill hasn’t been the economic and environmental catastrophe that many were predicting. (Credit goes to writers like TIME’s own Michael Grunwald, who suspected early on that the region would bounce back from the disaster.) But the impact is still being felt—a study last month showed that oil spill had damaged sea floor coral as far as 7 miles away from the wellhead site. Tar balls—old, weathered oil from the spill—are still washing up along the beaches, while scientists are worried about the unusually high number of dolphins dying in the Gulf of Mexico, for reasons that still aren’t clear.

Meanwhile conservatives are still angry over the deepwater drilling moratorium that the Administration put into place for several months after the spill, as the Interior Department—and later, the reformed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOERME)—overhauled safety oversight. Doc Hastings, the Republican chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee yesterday issued a subpoena for Interior Department documents over the moratorium, with some critics claiming that the Administration had twisted advice from technical experts to support a long moratorium. “The moratorium directly caused thousands of lost jobs, economic pain throughout the Gulf region and a decline in American energy production,” said Hastings. “It’s important to clearly understand what happened.”

Interesting cause and effect relations here.  An oil spill.  Affects the economy.  A moratorium and some regulatory tightening to avoid an oil spill.  Affects the economy.
Yeah, well.  You get what you vote for.   Surely gas will go down to 2 bucks any day now.

In election news:
Now that Jay Clough has dropped out of the race, Doc Hastings will be running unopposed. While this does guarantee a disappointing victory for Hastings, we still will remain active with what we have been doing, in order to raise awareness and understanding about the issues.

Clough has moved on to slightly greener pastures — he’ll get killed in the race in the 5th district, sure, but by a few fewer percentage votes.  Meantime, for the fourth, Washington’s “anywhere in the state” and top two primary system guarantees that there will be someone on the ballot against him in November.

You got this guy.
Dr. Mohammad H. Said announced his candidacy as a third-party candidate for the American Centrist Movement, which Said says he founded.

American Centrist Movement, huh?  Actually down the list it’s a hodge-podge of sorts, but never mind…  We’ll see if, like last election, a Tea Party candidate from Prosser chimes in.
Other ideas:  Maybe Gordon Allen Pross can switch parties again, and win by being the only Democratic candidate in the race.  Or, you know, Dennis Kucinich is in the hunt for a district.  Hey!  That’d be an interesting race!  Doc Hastings versus Dennis Kucinich!