As for Chuck’s ‘this Congress’ comment I think he was referring to the highly partisan (0 Congressional Republican votes for Stimulus as an example) and fractured nature of the Democratic side, rather than Congress as a 2-year time period.

Finally, for someone who understands the value of rhetoric and public perception, I would have thought that you could do better than meticulously critiquing a very popular and talented MSNBC Political Director. This sort of sarcastic, acerbic blog-post is probably what turns a lot of mainstream folks off the ultra-activists.

[JR: Your entire argument applies to Todd's blog post itself. By blogging on relatively trivial political matters, Todd is I think hurting his "brand." That's his choice, but you don't get a free ride in the blogosphere just because you're "popular and talented." I can't imagine you believe that.]

If you’ll let me respond. All I need to know is that W-M is a terribly wrong approach. So far, your only criticism of a carbon tax is that it is not politically possible. That is no argument. Was President Obama politically possible? Don’t be afraid of a thoughtful comparison of Flake – Lipinski and Waxman – Markey.

Here are two criteria.
Simplicity:
A carbon tax is easily assessed and collected. In fact, we already have a carbon tax in the form of gasoline, natural gas, heating oil and electrical utility taxes. The infrastructure of a carbon tax is already in place. It can be implemented immediately.
Wax – Mar won’t go into effect for several years, requires the establishment of a bureaucratically regulated market, and, among other complexities, adds burdensome paperwork to both the private sector and governments at all levels.
A carbon tax is easily understood. Parts of W – M are undecipherable.

Security from favoritism, cronyism, graft, fraud, manipulation and other abuses:
Have we learned nothing from Enron, Fannie Mae, hedge funds and ethanol subsidies? Waxman – Markey is an open door to corruption. Already, the bill is filled with special favors and exception doled out to special interests and their lobbyist. A carbon tax avoids these problems.

[JR: This is getting tiresome and I'm not going to let you just keep posting arguments that have been thoroughly debunked. It is only your imaginary carbon tax that is simple. Jeez, have you ever looked at the US tax code? Do you pay U.S. taxes? the carbon tax that could pass the U.S. Congress -- which is an oxymoron since a carbon tax could not pass the U.S. Congress, but let's jump part way into your imaginary world -- would be just as complicated as the cap-and-trade. It is the issue and the politics that are complicated, not the policy.]

[JR: "Even"? The fact that it has any should tell you all you need to know.]

Climate change is in no way whatsoever an “ideological” issue. The fact that climate change denialism and obstructionism has become an article of faith for so-called “conservatives” merely demonstrates the obvious — that so-called “conservatism” in America today is a fake, phony, trumped-up, scripted, focus-group-tested, teleprompted, corporate-sponsored pseudo-ideology that is deployed to bamboozle weak-minded, ignorant Ditto-Heads into parroting whatever propaganda America’s ultra-rich corporate oligarchs want to pay Rush Limbaugh to spew to his zombie audience.

The so-called “conservative” Republicans and so-called “moderate” Democrats who are busily denying climate change or obstructing or watering down action to deal with it, don’t have an “ideological” bone in their bodies. They are simply bought-and-paid for shills for the fossil fuel and/or automobile corporations, doing what they are told to do by their corporate owners.