Senate Passes Public Lands Bill-- Grand Obstructionist Party Shakes Its Fist And Spits

DeMint & Coburn of the Senate Pro-Pollution Caucus

For the past three days, while the rest of the country was thinking about nothing but AIG's taxpayer rip-off, the Senate has been doing almost nothing but arguing about H.R. 146, a bill that started out, innocently enough, as Rush Holt's Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act but morphed into the Omnibus Lands bill that will protect government lands and fund water conservation.

On Monday they shut down the de facto Republican filibuster, 73-21, with only the most hard-core obstructionists joining Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, Richard Burr and Johnny Isakson trying to make sure that we'd all die from toxic water. They've been arguing about amendments ever since but yesterday it passed 77-20, all Democrats voting yes and, again, only the worst of the reflexive obstructionists voting no, a veritable pro-pollution caucus:

Sam Brownback (R-KS)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Richard Burr (R-NC)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Tom Coburn (R-OK)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Jim DeMint (R-SC)
John Ensign (R-NV)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Mike Johanns (R-NE)
Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
John McCain (R-AZ)
Miss McConnell (R-KY)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
John Thune (R-SD)
David Diapers Vitter (R-LA)

The House has already moved on to the next step, the Water Quality Investment Act of 2009, which passed 317-101, fully 73 Republicans abandoning their anti-environmental leaders to vote with the Democrats. In case you were wondering who the some of the most anti-environmental fanatics in the House are (to go along with the list of senators above) look no further than:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Spencer Bachus (R-AL)
Roy Blunt (R-MO)
Mary Bono-Mack (R-CA)
Eric Cantor (R-VA)
David Dreier (R-CA)
Elton Gallegly (R-CA)
Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Steve King (R-IA)
Dan Lungren (R-CA)
Tom McClintock (R-CA)
Patty McHenry (R-NC)
Buck McKeon (R-CA)
Paul Ryan (R-WI)
John Shadegg (R-AZ)
Frank Wolf (R-VA)

What-- no Democrats? Nope, not even the worst of the developers' bought-and-paid-for shills with "D"s next to their names voted against this one. All the opponents were corrupt and/or sociopathic Republicans.