INCREDIBLE - AT 5:50 P.M. ET:  Your elected representatives in action, on one of the most important, and expensive, pieces of legislation of our time:

The House neared a decisive vote on sweeping climate-change legislation Friday afternoon — with Democratic leaders racing to corral votes on a bill that Republicans said they hadn’t even seen yet.

Rep. Geoff Davis, a Republican from Kentucky, said the cap-and-trade bill represented the “economic colonization of the heartland” by New York and California. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) called the bill a “scam” that would do nothing but satisfy “the twisted desires of radical environmentalists.” Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Mich.) called it a “massive transfer of wealth” from the United States to foreign countries.

Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that, without the bill, the United States would remain energy-dependent on people who want to “fly planes into our buildings.”

Republican accused the Democrats of ramming the bill through the House. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) asked repeatedly if there was even a copy of the current version of the bill anywhere in the House chamber. Democratic Rep. Ellen Tauscher – sitting in the speaker’s chair although she’s already been confirmed as Obama’s undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security — repeatedly dodged the question.

COMMENT:  What strikes us is the arrogance of today's Democratic Party.  This bill is the product of people who believe that they're just a little bit better than the rest of us, just a little bit more intelligent, with better educations and party invitations. 

The bill, from what we know of it, is terribly flawed.  It rests on theories rather than facts, and does not seem actually to solve anything.  Expenses for all Americans will go up, but the "movement" people behind the bill are generally well off, and won't feel the pain.  There is, naturally, no press analysis of who will gain financially from the changes called for in the bill.

Fortunately, we have a United States Senate, where there's a chance this can be stopped, and reconsidered. 

Add this to the Obamacare bill coming up, and the changes to American life can be profound, with almost no real discussion going into those changes. 

In a way, I compare this to Vietnam, where an approved "narrative" was developed by the press and the intellectual elites, arguing that we could never win.  Once that narrative was accepted, the tragic result was predictable.  The narrative was wrong, but it's been maintained for more than a generation.  No, we don't always get the truth, even in a democracy.

June 26, 2009