IF a terrorist group found a way to poison the air and water millions of Americans depend on, IF they found a way to inflict long-lasting effects on health and well-being while simultaneously setting the stage for billions of dollars worth of damage to the nation's infrastructure and economy, they'd count it a marvelous victory and celebrate it for generations.
But you don't need a terrorist group to do this. You don't even need any particular malice towards America. All you need is Mitch McConnell and the coal industry.
Coral Davenport at the New York Times spells out the extraordinary efforts the Senate Majority Leader is making to ensure that there will be no restrictions on the ability of the coal industry to kill the planet. McConnell is going way beyond the bounds of his duties as Majority Leader. You have to wonder what motivates him. Greed and power hunger alone would not seem to be enough; it must also take huge amounts of self-deception. Or perhaps it is simple sociopathy.
President Obama and the EPA are on the verge of issuing regulations that will ultimately close a number of coal-burning power plants. It's part of an effort to deal with climate change, and it is more important than ever, while there is still time. McConnell's response:
In addition to stopping state-level enactment of the climate rules, Mr. McConnell’s strategy is intended to undercut Mr. Obama’s position internationally as he tries to negotiate a global climate change treaty to be signed in Paris in December. The idea is to create uncertainty in the minds of other world leaders as to whether the United States can follow through on its pledges to cut emissions.
“We’ve seen modern lobbying strategies that become a very large campaign, coordinated with states and localities, but we’ve never seen a Senate majority leader or House speaker in front of it,” said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. “It’s quite clever. It’s sophisticated and unusual.”
emphasis added
This is deliberate sabotage of the Federal Government - this is one more step to destroying the Union as Charles P. Pierce notes.
The modern Republican party has become an authentic mechanism for political subversion, and it's not just unknown crazy people from Texas who are driving the train. A rookie meathead submarines the president's foreign policy. Rick Perry is currently running for president on a platform more suited to a campaign conducted under the Articles of Confederation. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the United States Senate, has suggested that governors out in the several states ignore the Environmental Protection Agency. At every conservative gathering, from CPAC on down, there at least is one panel touting the benefits of nullification and old-school states rights politics. Yes, a lot of it is about how states rights got whipped over civil rights in the 1960's, but it's not all about race. It's about a deliberate, calculated attempt by one of the only two political parties we allow ourselves to dismantle the federal union. They want the country to come apart so they can sell off the pieces to the people who run their campaigns. They are free to prove to me that I'm wrong.
emphasis added
The deliberate intent of McConnell to undercut the Presidents' authority to negotiate with other countries in the service of his moneyed patrons borders on treason, further evidence, as Naomi Klein has noted, that:
...We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe – and would benefit the vast majority – are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets. That problem might not have been insurmountable had it presented itself at another point in our history. But it is our great collective misfortune that the scientific community made its decisive diagnosis of the climate threat at the precise moment when those elites were enjoying more unfettered political, cultural, and intellectual power than at any point since the 1920s.
emphasis added
If you want to gaze upon the modern face of evil, the willing servant of corrupt oligarchs and purveyor of a toxic political agenda, here's your poster boy.