The Great Derangement - Matt Taibbi [26]
A moment later McGovern jumped back in, noting that Barton’s bill contained a maximum fine for price gouging of $11,000 per day, which of course was meaningless to a billion-dollar oil company but significant to an independent service-station owner. All the bill did was force independent operators to keep their prices low, which you had to figure was really more of a favor to the oil companies than to the customer. Beyond that, it did nothing whatsoever to lower gas prices in the wake of the hurricane or to lower heating-oil prices in the northern states, which were staring at a long winter of shortages.
“In New England we are headed for a cold winter, and people need relief now,” McGovern said. “Your bill does nothing that I can see now or in the near future, and that is why it puzzles me why this bill had to be rushed here, why there couldn’t have been extensive hearings, and why there couldn’t have been more input leading up to this.”
Barton shrugged at all this. He shrugged more when there were more complaints from Dingell and Slaughter about the Clean Air rollbacks and the failure of the committee to allow Democratic substitutes and the failure of the bill, in general, to do anything that could be classified as a legislative response to a natural disaster. Finally Barton seemed to get fed up with all of this criticism and took a stand. He noted again that people at the pump in Texas were bugging him about gas prices.
“They say, What are you going to do about this? And I say, We’re going to start this process,” he said. “And they say, What are you going to do this week? I’m paying fifty dollars twice a week. And I understand that. But in a market economy you’ve got to start somewhere.”
He cleared his throat, smiled slightly at the corners of his mouth, and pressed on.
“You know, there was a famous British scientist named Faraday,” he said. “And he was once showing Queen Victoria one of the first electric lamps in Great Britain…”
“Where’s he going with this?” the blogger whispered.
I shrugged. Barton continued:
“And she looked at it and said, Well, that is a novelty, but of what use is it? And he said, Your Highness, of what use is a newborn baby?”
Barton made an emphatic gesture, half throwing up his hands, as if to say, You feel me? And then he abruptly stopped talking.
The room fell silent; a few gasped.
“Wait,” the blogger said. “I missed that.”
“It’s a newborn baby,” I whispered.
“What is?” he asked.
“The bill,” I said. “It’s a useless piece of shit, but so is a newborn baby.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Wow.”
“Wow,” I agreed.
A few minutes later, Barton folded up his stuff and left the room. Not long after, the hearing adjourned. The Dems waddled out the front door, like a bunch of sad baby ducks without a mother. Diaz-Balart disappeared through a back door, the Republicans following him, to hammer out the final product.
THREE
THE LONGEST THREE DAYS OF MY LIFE
Do you seek to live a “more abundant life”? Are you tired of dealing with emotions and pain that seem to plague your daily interactions—especially with those you love? Are you looking for resolutions to relational issues in your family?
Through the Government of Twelve Encounter Weekends conducted by the Ministry of Reconciliation Department you can find answers to these questions. The wounds of our past will dictate the quality of our life today.
—CORNERSTONE CHURCH WEB SITE
I pulled into the church parking lot a little after 6:00 p.m., at more or less the last possible minute. The previous half hour or so I’d spent dawdling in my car outside a Goodwill department store off Route 410, clinging to some inane sports talk show piping over my car radio—anything to hold off my plunge into Religion.
But there was no turning back now. Besides, where would I go? Back to Washington? The whole purpose of that exercise had been to see exactly how little our national politicians gave a shit about the People, a group whom I presumably felt sympathy for. That shouldn’t change now, despite the fact that I was currently feeling like I’d rather