Category Archives: Election

Election

Sierra Club: Email – Last chance to stop Keystone XL?

Sierra Club: Email – Last chance to stop Keystone XL?

It’s time to pull out all the stops.

Big Oil is asking Congress to ram through the dirty, dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — and we have just 24 hours to stop them before the vote.

Together we have stopped Keystone XL before, and we can stop it again. Please take 30 seconds right now to let Congress know that you oppose the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

Keystone XL would be such a disaster for clean air and water that it could never pass on the merits alone. That’s why certain members of Congress, after taking Big Oil’s big donations, have attached it to "must-pass" transportation bills in both the House and Senate and are forcing a vote on them this week.

Sierra Club: Email – Last chance to stop Keystone XL?

Republicans know Obama will veto this (if only they had succeeded in passing line item veto for the president!). Then, they’ll blame him again and again and again.

Election, media

ABQJournal lays a guilt-trip on environmentalists? Greed motivates liars.

I find the following “reasoning” amazing: if we don’t let Keystone cross the US, the Canadians and the Chinese will wreck the environment in Canada. But the pipeline in the US would be absolutely safe. Huh?

The Journal repeats the lie (until it becomes truth) that this pipeline has anything to do with US energy independence. ALL of the product will be shipped overseas. This is ALL about who profits; screw the environment, screw the nation, screw everybody but the board and the shareholders (and don’t let them know you’re screwing them, too). Greed motivates liars.

ABQJournal Online » Editorial: Keystone XL Decision Impacts Energy Edge

Already in the permitting process is a proposal by another Canadian company — with investments from China — to build a pipeline from Alberta to a remote and culturally sensitive area on Canada’s west coast, home to the Gitga’at tribe. It also would go through the protected Great Bear Rainforest, one of the world’s largest remaining unspoiled temperate rainforests and home to the “spirit bear,” a rare white black bear. Some locals fear that giant tankers threading through narrow channels to Kitimat, the pipeline’s proposed destination, could result in an Exxon Valdez-like disaster.

The U.S. is the most logical market for oil sands crude. But the Obama administration, instead of coming down on the side of job creation and energy security, jilted one of our strongest allies in an apparent bid to curry election-year favor from environmentalists.

If Canada does develop a West Coast oil port, U.S. refineries and consumers will be left out of this energy independence game — and the oil will still be moved, refined and consumed. Who wins? [mjh: Who profits?]

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

ABQJournal Online » Editorial: Keystone XL Decision Impacts Energy Edge

Journal Acknowledges a Crack in the Keystone Jobs Argument By Denise Tessier, www.abqjournalwatch.com

Media Matters found that industry claims of the pipeline’s importance in terms of energy security was rarely questioned, either:

Print Media Frequently Touted Keystone XL As A Step Towards U.S. Energy Security. The purported contribution from the Keystone XL pipeline to American energy security was mentioned in 52% of print coverage, 22% of broadcast coverage, and 28% of cable coverage. USA Today, whose editorial board supports the pipeline, mentioned energy security in 67% of its coverage, more than any other print outlet. Fox News mentioned it more than all the other television networks combined. Only items in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times questioned the energy security benefits of the pipeline.

Journal Acknowledges a Crack in the Keystone Jobs Argument

Election

Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline supporters won’t ever give up – they love money first, and winning second

Democracy for New Mexico: ACTION ALERT: US Senate Is Considering Legislation That Would Resurrect The Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

If you haven’t heard of Keystone XL or don’t know about the tar sands, here’s the short summary: Keystone XL is a proposed 1700 mile pipeline connecting the Alberta tar sands with refineries on the Gulf Coast. The tar sands are North America’s largest pool of carbon, and NASA’s top scientist James Hansen says that exploiting them means ‘essentially game over’ for the climate. Keystone will ship tar sands oil across critical water supplies and sensitive ecosystems just so it can be exported to foreign markets from refineries in Texas. The job benefits are way overstated, and overall it is just a scam designed to line Big Oil’s pockets at our own expense.  …

Right now, the Senate is considering legislation that would resurrect the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. President Obama rejected this toxic disaster-in-the-making last month, and now Big Oil’s representatives in Congress are trying to force its approval.

It looks like a deal might be coming together in the next 24 hours. I’ve just joined a huge effort to blitz the Senate with messages opposing Keystone XL – the entire environmental movement is coming together to send over 500,000 messages to Congress in under 24 hours. Can you join me?

The place to go to send a message is here: act.350.org/sign/kxl/

Thanks a bunch. Lora

Democracy for New Mexico: ACTION ALERT: US Senate Is Considering Legislation That Would Resurrect The Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline

Election

Establishment Republicans have only themselves to blame: “The GOP is brain-dead.” — Richard Cohen

Establishment Republicans have only themselves to blame – The Washington Post By Richard Cohen, Published: January 30

The Republican establishment acts as if this season’s goon squad of presidential candidates has come out of nowhere, an act of God — a tsunami that hit the party and receded, leaving nothing but nitwits standing. In column after column, conservative commentators lament the present condition, but not their past acquiescence as their party turned hostile to thought, reason and the two most important words in the English language: It depends. …

This rampant anti-intellectualism is worrisome. The world is a complex place, but to deal with it, the GOP presented a parade of hopefuls who proposed nostrums or, in the case of Michele Bachmann, peddled false rumors about vaccinations. When this started I cannot say — the late Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize for his “Anti-intellectualism in American Life” in 1964 — but the embrace of Sarah Palin by the GOP establishment has got to be noted. The lady has the gift of demagoguery and the required anti-elitism, but she knows next to nothing about almost anything — and revels in her ignorance. …

Subtlety is banished. Yahoos stride the stage. …

The Republican Party has veered so far from reality that Gingrich is lambasting Romney as a “Massachusetts moderate” — moderation being, as it was with the clueless Barry Goldwater, an epithet. Romney, who has all but collapsed his rib cage to conform to conservative dogma, must be perplexed. Others have prudently stayed out of the race.

The Republican establishment that has now risen up to smite the bratty Gingrich has only itself to blame. For too long it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city. The endorsement of Gingrich by Cain was not a bulletin. It was a feeble blip on a scope. The GOP is brain-dead.

Establishment Republicans have only themselves to blame – The Washington Post

Election, QOTD

“The party that once sold hope has become instead the party of grouchy codgers yelling at the future to get off their lawn.” — Leonard Pitts Jr. [amen] #qotd

Looking for morning in America – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

It reminds us that Republicans are no longer about sunshine and can-do. These days, they simply seem cranky and dyspeptic. As in Herman Cain vowing to build a fence to electrocute Mexicans, Newt Gingrich verbally punching out the media and debate audiences cheering for record executions and the death of the uninsured. As in Jan Brewer poking her finger in the president’s face.

Under Reagan, optimism about the future was the Republican brand. But that brand has curdled in the ensuing 30 years and the party that once sold hope has become instead the party of grouchy codgers yelling at the future to get off their lawn.

Thus, it has become the party of resentment and resistance, the last stand against ongoing racial, religious, cultural and sexual upheaval, the Alamo in the fight to forestall change. …Ronald Reagan would not recognize his party today. Morning in America is almost 30 years gone. It’s high noon now.

Looking for morning in America – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

Election

Does Newty Gingrinch’s ascendance suggest Republicans are tired of being stupid on purpose?

Before DUHbya, Republicans called themselves “The Party of Ideas.” They were the Vulcans, and liberals were “emotional.” Granted, it was a small part of the party that had such hubris, but they also had the limelight. For at least 10 years, Republicans have been the Party of No, for whom every subject is judged by some stark litmus: no taxes, period. No negotiations. Government is always wrong/evil. “Main stream media” is liberal (hah!). Democrats hate America. Global warming is a hoax. Evolution is a lie. Obama is a foreign-born Muslim socialist. Michelle Obama is an “angry” black woman. Simple, inflexible – and patently false – views, echoed endlessly by angry, red-faced brutes on Fox. Republicans have been anti-thought, anti-intellectual, mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers and proudly, defiantly so. “Take yer nuance and shove it, dirty Liberals.”

Does the sudden appeal of the bloviating Perfessor indicate a change is afoot? Are Republicans simply cowed by big words and desperation for Anybody but Mitt (the one guy who could threaten Obama – at least, until Newty gutted him)? 

Could ideas matter again, someday? Are Republicans ready for thought and debate, to be persuaded, to negotiate and – gasp! – to compromise? No way. Not this year.

Election

Gingrinch as consensus-builder: Left and Right agree he’s mad

Gingrich’s restless mind could push Obama forward – The Washington Post

Gingrich is a Rorschach test: If you don’t think he’s nuts, you are. …

Gingrich channels George C. Wallace, the four-time Alabama governor who ran as many times for president. …

Mitt Romney adds nothing to the national debate, not so far anyway. If he’s the GOP nominee, we will get more of his nonsense about running a business — tell me what great president ever ran a successful business — and how he’s a job creator. With Gingrich, it would be different. He might actually challenge Obama to think hard, to be creative, to come out of his shell …

Of course, if Gingrich becomes the Republican nominee, it’s incumbent upon him to lose. He’s an unscrupulous man, a one-car demolition derby, but if he goads Obama to unaccustomed bravery and other Democrats to rethink outdated liberal dogma (affirmative action, etc.), then he will have done his nation a great service. Take a bow, Newt. Then take a powder too.

Gingrich’s restless mind could push Obama forward – The Washington Post

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – It’s complicated

A longtime conservative friend sent me an email after reading something positive I had written about Newt Gingrich: “Whoever votes (for) or supports Newt for president is out of their mind.”

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called crazy.

He continued: “You can believe in redemption, as I do, but you are not thinking seriously if you support a person for president with the baggage he is carrying. What an example for our children and future generations when we dismiss character as the foundation for leadership.”

There’s more, but I get his point.

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – It’s complicated