What to expect from a GOP senate #1

"Elections have consequences"    President Obama gave that phrase a place in history when he used it to Republic congressional leaders in a meeting to address budget issues and the threatened shut-down of the government.

We Democrats have to acknowledge that there are going to be consequences of the Republicans having won control of the Senate (for the next two years, at least).

The one I'm most worried about is getting federal judges confirmed, especially if there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court in the next two years.

But there is also the envionment.   Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is going to be the new chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.   Described by Timothy Cama in The Hill as "an established enemy of Obama's EPA and skeptic of the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change," Inhofe published a book two years ago titled "The Greatest Hoax:  How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future."

It's one thing to have the embarrassment of the likes of Georgia's noisy but ineffectual Rep. Paul Braun ("evolution is a lie straight from the pits of hell") as a member of the Science Committee;   it's another to put an anti-science, climate-change denier as chair of the committee that has oversight of what he denies.   Especially when he is a major figure in the 
Republican causus.

Republicans in the House have already passed a whole slate of bills to roll back EPA regulations, but the Senate under Democratic control has not taken them up.   Now they have Inhofe and McConnell to open the doors for them.

It's going to be a dark two years.    But remember, in 2016 all those Tea Party zealots who came into the Senate in 2016 will be up for re-election.    And the balance will be reverse from what it was this year, because Republicans will have to defend almost twice as many seats as Democrats in 2016.

Ralph