Last week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) brought attention to the deadly scourge of severe weather fueled by climate change, and the federal government’s troubling lack of readiness. In an appropriations subcommittee hearing on budgeting for federal disaster assistance attended only by himself — Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) appeared only to give an opening statement, but left without asking witnesses questions — Durbin interviewed top climate scientist Donald Wuebles, NOAA deputy administrator Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, and representatives from the Small Business Administration and the private re-insurance industry. Durbin discussed the extraordinary damage to the nation from climate disasters in the first seven months of 2011, before asking whether the federal government is actually ready:

We’ve seen droughts in Texas, wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico, flooding in Tennessee, and according to Sen. Moran, both in his state, drought and flooding. Today, there are excessive heat warnings in twenty communities throughout Kansas, Sen. Moran’s home state, and flood warnings along the Missouri River. In 2011, almost $28 billion in damages have already been caused by catastrophic events, and the hurricane season is just starting. The economic impact of severe weather events is only projected to grow in future years as the frequency and intensity of weather events continues to grow.

The weather is getting worse and more violent. Catastrophic, in fact. The federal government needs to do more to be ready to protect federal assets and provide disaster assistance on an increasing frequency. Are we ready?

Watch it:

“I’m not sure the federal government is thinking ahead when it comes to our preparedness for disasters,” Durbin continued, with extreme understatement. Dr. Wuebles explained that because oceans can store vast amounts of heat, the changes in climate we are now seeing are the result of the pollution added twenty years ago — which means that failure to act now will doom future generations to an unimaginably deadly world.

“We’ve stopped talking about this on Capitol Hill,” Durbin concluded. “We’ve decided that the debate over global warming is too contentious. I think it’s a big mistake.”

Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate hierarchy, seems open to filibuster reform judging by his remarks to TPM DC’s Brian Beutler:

“Here we were with amendments on Wall Street reform. 28 amendments by majority vote. I want to offer an amendment on credit card fees, and they say, ‘Oh that’ll be 60.’ Well where did that come from?” Durbin said.

Durbin’s amendment ultimately passed, but, he said, “the 60 was designed for me to lose. I won instead.”

“But the point is, if you can just out of the blue say, ‘Uh that’s not a majority, that’s 60,’ and not have any basis other than if you don’t we’ll filibuster, it really reaches the point where this place isn’t on the square. And I think it should be.”

Leadership offices don’t “matter” in the vain & egomaniacal Senate the same way they do in the House of Representatives, so Durbin’s thinking won’t necessarily have a ton of pull. But it does show that there’s some momentum behind this idea.

I think that if you want to talk about the counterproductive nature of progressive apathy then you have to talk about this filibuster reform effort. It’s 100 percent true that progressive policy becomes less likely, rather than more likely, if progressives become cynical, apathetic, disillusioned, and blind to the very real achievements of the 111th Congress. But at the same time, there’s an iterative relationship between political leaders and their supporters. Leaders can’t just point to the policy accomplishments of yore and say “stop whining” they need to join with activists in fighting for further change. Appointing Elizabeth Warren would boost morale, and beginning to organize for reform of Senate procedure would as well. If you tell people “we did the best we could, but the structure of the Senate hemmed us in” then people get depressed. If you say “we did the best we could but the structure of the Senate hemmed us in and that’s why I’m fighting to reform the Senate and deliver the reforms we all believe in” then people have something to hang on to.

It’s really remarkable how much political clout the big banks retain notwithstanding everything that’s happened. And it certainly makes you pessimistic that regulatory changes currently being contemplated are going to stick. How much clout are these guys going to have once the financial crisis is a few years in the rearview?

I met Mike Huckabee once, briefly, and he was extremely charming. He offered up more of what I’d seen in the best of Mike Huckabee on television—a charismatic, friendly guy who laced his conservatism with real Christian values like generosity and humility. And then there’s this guy:

“The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead,” said Huckabee, “but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born.” Democrats, according to Huckabee, were packing 40 years of pet projects like “health care rationing” into spending bills. “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”

Steve Benen says “I suspect that if a prominent Democratic office holder, in 2005, delivered a speech referring to George W. Bush’s agenda as “fascism,” comparing his administration to totalitarian regimes, and casually throwing in a reference to Hitler, that Democrat would have a very difficult time being taken seriously by the political establishment moving forward.” Indeed, recall that when Dick Durbin compared American mistreatment of detainees to maltreatment of prisons in the Gulag, we was pressured into offering a groveling apology. In Durbin’s case, though, one could see the point of the comparison.

Why Huckabee thinks that federally funded research into determining which medical treatments are effective is similar to being a totalitarian mass-murderer is a bit beyond me. But it’s par for the course in the uglier corners of conservatism, they’re just not corners Huckabee’s been known for dwelling in.

I would say something a bit more literal: The growth in consumption inequality has been much smaller than the growth in income inequality. In general, increasing access to credit has done a lot to help compensate for sluggish or nonexistent income growth for the middle class. And make no mistake — access to credit is a real benefit. But insofar as that increased access to credit was built on something of a house of cards, as now seems to be the case, we won’t be able to rely on that in the future to provide people with a decent standard of living. We need to do something to boost the real fundamentals of our economy — the wages available to ordinary Americans (more on this from Durbin in a later video clip).