Great moments in the history of raging centrism

This is for all you extreme right-wing tea-partyers who fail to acknowledge the moderate path chosen by this administration.

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending in Congress, not replace it.

"This is not an 'either-or' moment. It's a 'both-and' moment," she said.

Or as we like to say around here at BwD, “If the thunder don’t get you, the lightning will.” Or as the convential energy industry would say: "We're completely hosed either way."

We will give the administration credit, though, for making no pretense about their desire to ruin jobs with their picking-winners-and-losers crony capitalism approach to “handling” the economy.

When the EPA decided to bestow upon itself the dubious powers to regulate green house emissions earlier this week, we wondered if this effectively rendered cap and trade moot. If you weren’t going to be able regulate bad stuff like what is coming out of your mouth in gaseous form as you read this, then regulate it by fiat, right?

Well, as Ms. Jackson (pictured), a priestess in the administration’s faith-based AGW cabal, indicates, they’re covering their bases.

So, forgive us if we correct that anonymous official: that's not "command and control", that’s just effective airtight governance.

"Thanks but No"

strong-arm (v): 1. To compel by pressure or threats. 2. To domineer or drive into compliance by the use of threats or force.

From the euphemistically-titled article in yesterday’s U-T, Bof, Citigroup prodded by regulators:

With a crucial deadline looming in the federal bank bailout program, Washington regulators are pressing some unwelcome prescriptions upon two of the nation's largest lenders.

One by one, allies of Ken Lewis, the embattled leader of Bank of America, are bowing to pressure from the Federal Reserve and leaving the board. The bank named four new directors with financial experience yesterday, a shake-up that could further weaken Lewis' hold on the company. More board changes are expected.

On the same day at Citigroup, anxious executives moved to quell talk that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was pushing to replace the chief executive, Vikram Pandit. Citigroup's board discussed how to cope with the situation in a series of meetings this week.

Whether Lewis and Pandit can hold on is uncertain, and even regulators are at odds about what should be done. But as banks prepare to report to regulators on Monday about their progress in strengthening their finances, and in some cases their managements and boards, it is increasingly clear that officials are trying to exert some control over Bank of America and Citigroup.

Gee, do you think the situation described above may have anything to do with the fact that a) banks want to get the hell out of the TARP program as soon as possible and b) these same banks are reluctant to enter into an FDIC-sponsored program to help sell-off the toxic assets they currently hold… especially when the banks appear to be raising sufficient capital on their own without more government money?

According to linked article, that the free market is able to outperform a government program has baffled many experts, especially those in the goverment. Wait a minute... can they really do this without us?