Barbara Boxer's All-Nighter on. . . Climate Change?

US Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Source: NGerda

Senator Barbara Boxer has been up to something in the US Senate, although her legislation goes nowhere, often missing the bigger problem beneath the issue, or worse she stumps small issues, which trump the major concerns which worry Americans heading into the new year.

Regarding legislation of some merit, Boxer sent out an e-release, in which she described her efforts to pass a bill dealing with the rising perversion of sexual assault in the United States military:

This week, the Senate filibustered the Military Justice Improvement Act, legislation I introduced with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that would help address the epidemic of sexual assault in the military.

First, Boxer neglects to explain the specific contents of the legislation, which would have stripped senior commanders of their authority to prosecute rape cases. In a way, the legislation makes sense. If military commanders are ignoring many assault cases, if one of them does choose to prosecute, one has to wonder if they can zealously represent the best interests of the country, as well as seek justice for the victim.

Next, Boxer neglected to mention that Democrats as well as Republicans filibustered this bill, and the measure died on the floor of the US Senate, including US Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) and Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island), who will be facing a real challenge this year from his right. Who supported the legislation? Republican-Tea Party members Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, along with fifty-three other Democrats and Republicans demonstrating rare bipartisanship.

Then, Boxer and colleagues neglected to point out the abject neglect and disarray of the current military leadership, in which President Obama has done more to put our troops in harm's way rather than quelling disturbances or at least picking military engagements from a strategic mindset.

I applaud every effort on the part of our legislators to investigate the corruption and abuse of our military personnel. The Christian Science Monitor submitted that women need to be treated as equally capable members who can take up arms and fight for the country along the same firing lines as men. Stanford Professor Thomas Sowell offered a different, compelling as well as controversial take on the military-sexual assault issue:

For thousands of years, people around the world had the common sense to realize that putting young men and young women together in military operations was asking for trouble, not only for these young people of both sexes, but for the effectiveness of military forces entrusted with the fate of nations.

 I am inclined to agree with Sowell on this issue. At the risk of sounding biased or chauvinist, the sexual assault epidemic would not exist if our leaders recognized that the military is not for social engineering.. Requiring gender equity in the United States military, sadly, has enabled this rising incidence of assault. Not at all because women in the military are subjecting themselves or "asking for it", but the proximity of women and men, and the inappropriate reactions which can occur in such cases, simply cannot be ignored. Ironically enough, the Democratic Party in Congress has contributed to the War on Women by requiring the military to enlist women.

Still, our Senators deserve some applause for ensuring that all crimes are prosecuted, and sexual assault is punished to the fullest extent of the law. One week later, the US Senate unanimously passed legislation which would:

 [P]rohibit the "good soldier defense" could encompass a defendant's military record of reliability, dependability, professionalism and reputation as an individual who could be counted on in war and peacetime.

Her efforts to protect victims of sexual assault and prosecute predators should not be ignored.

Yet how can one take these efforts seriously when one accounts for the next major venture she participated in?

After taking on military sexual assault, Boxer leaped from the improbable legislation to the outrageous Climate Change All-Nighter.

Climate Change is a serious issue? From the polar vertex which covered the greater North American continent, not once but twice, plus the unprecedented cold temperatures which lashed the country during the early part of 2013, climate change has become a discredited gimmick for rallying the left, in their attempt to leave behind the indefensible failures of the Obama Administration on the economy, domestic security, foreign policy, and above health care (Obamacare).

Writing an "op-ed" for the Huffington Post (which does not amount to much more than huff-and-puff happenstance, lowering its standards to print anything left-leaning, whether substantial or substantiated), Boxer commented:

When my colleagues and I finished our all-nighter on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning, we had spoken for more than 14 hours to draw attention to the threat posed by climate change. As we had hoped, we engaged the American people in our efforts to wake up the Congress to the threat of climate change.

Was anyone really paying attention? Probably not, as more likely the American People were reeling from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hollow charge that the Obamacare horror stories were "all untrue." From Obamacare to anemic job growth, voters are tired of a Senate which spends more time bickering on how to spend more taxpayer dollars without offsetting the debt, with finding ways to score political points with the Left, while making a point of leaving the average American behind with fewer options, less opportunity, and more reasons to hope for less and remain hopeless.

While Boxer cites that a majority of Americans recognize that climate change is real, they do not necessarily agree that humans are causing it, nor do they believe that the US Congress' highest priority should be combatting the issue. Leading conservative majorities in the United States, and even other countries, like Australia, have debunked and rejected the climate change alarmism, pressing for repeal of carbon taxes and inviting industry growth, in spite of green extremism.

Hoping to avoid the heat on Obamacare,
Dems like Boxer are clamoring about climate change.
(Source: Neon Tommy)

Following a litany of Senators' comments about the terrible impacts of climate change on different states in the union, Boxer gives the impression that a lot of politicians pontificating on the issue will gain any attention or credibility on the matter. For the record, the same Senators bleating about the dangers of climate change also voted for Obamacare, with the understanding, repeated over and over, that Americans who like their doctor, their health insurance, and even their hospital, would be able to keep them. The consequences have turned out to be quite the opposite, and the economic climate change hitting the unemployed and even fully-employed Americans is turning for the worse.


There are two other things which we can learn about the fourteen hour talk-a-thon on climate change, which Boxer left out. Climate change comrade Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island announced that their "mini-filibuster" was not about any particular bill. The Washington Post read past the "engagement rhetoric" of the liberal climate change caucus, and spelled out plainly what all the hot air was really all about:

But, there is another more political reason for the decision by Senate Democrats to devote their time to the issue right now. And that issue is campaign cash.

Every senator who shows up and gives off their own carbon dioxide on the floor of the US Senate would help raise green as in money for their campaigns. Environmentalist donors like Thomas Steyer have pressed Democrats to get serious about making climate change a key issue. If they refuse to talk up the green as in environment, then can say good-by to the green as in campaign (pun intended) donations.

Interestingly enough, if anyone is worried about climate change, particularly the political climate, it would be the Democrats in reds states which Romney carried in  2012, senators who must back away from the climate change cacophony in order to stand any chance of retaining their seats. One red state senator, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, faces her toughest fight yet, and the only cause which has kept her in office rests on her staunch yet slick support for Big Oil, which is a big deal in the Big Easy.

Boxer's bombast about climate change is an unserious weather pattern, to say the least, since the real climate change which her Democratic colleagues are worried about, the political climate, and the environment which most Americans are focused on, the job market, are looking bleaker by the day.

Barbara Boxer is putting her own colleagues into the "climate change" box. Does she really want to lose the US Senate that badly?! The economic climate is bad, the political climate for Dems is worse, and the health care climate is the worst of all. Forecast, nothing but storms and a complete flood of GOP in 2014!