#rsrh Obama, Democrats cave on Keystone ethical oil pipeline?

That’s the buzz over at Hot Air; and certainly the Greenies are screaming that special scream that accompanies a victim being fed to OBAMABUS.  The word is that the White House gave up Keystone in exchange for a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits, and doc fix.

Because, hey, elections have consequences.

Moe Lane

PS: I would like to take this time to remind the environmental movement that it’s coming up towards the end of 2011, and that the Democrats want to thank you in advance for your continuing generosity.  If you have any problems, questions, or concerns, the Democrats are of course deeply committed to providing you with the very best in proactive conflict resolution analysis; they will be more than happy to fully document your action item or items, and do their best to provide you with a comprehensive and timely response to them.  It’s just all part of the commitment to awareness that the Democratic party offers to its loyal base supporters.

Obama, Reid facing revolt over Keystone ethical oil pipeline?

(Via @davidhauptmann) Background: the House of Representatives, understandably upset that the Obama administration would rather please foreign conflict oil despots and radical progressives than provide manufacturing and construction jobs to good Americans – to say nothing of cheaper energy – has passed a bill that would expedite the construction of the Keystone ethical oil pipeline.  More specifically, the House passed a bill that would extend the payroll tax cut for a time; given the estimated costs of such a cut, the Keystone language was added in order to get enough Republicans to sign off on the whole thing.  In other words: no energy jobs, no overall bill.

The Senate version has yet to be voted on, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in a bind.  There are at least four Democratic Senators who publicly have come out in favor of the pipeline (Baucus & Tester of Montana, Conrad of North Dakota, and Landrieu of Lousiana); this means that Reid would lose a regular vote 51/49.  Worse, the GOP is claiming at least nine more Democratic Senators support it (Begich, Casey, Hagen, Manchin, McCaskill, Ben Nelson, Pryor, Stabenow, and Warner).  If true, that puts the total up to 60, which is not coincidentally the number that you need to win a cloture vote.  Which means that if Harry Reid puts the bill up for consideration, it’s probably going to pass; and the President has already (and in my opinion, foolishly) threatened a veto, despite the fact that his own private sector union allies support both the cut and the pipeline.

Continue reading Obama, Reid facing revolt over Keystone ethical oil pipeline?

Scene from the Conflict Oil Wars: Austan Goolsbee v. the Naive Greens

Quick background: there’s a lot of oil in Canada. Quite a bit of it is tied up in the form of oil sands, which radical Greenies hate with the same passion that normal people reserve for ax murderers or child rapists. Despite this hatred, the Canadians have noticed that the price of oil makes oil sand development highly cost effective, which is why they were planning to build the Keystone Pipeline to ship the stuff from Canada to American refineries and distribution centers. This promised to make both America and Canada quite a bit of cash and make our energy costs significantly cheaper, which is why the Greenies successfully pressured President Obama to ‘temporarily’ delay the project.

Anyway: strictly speaking, it is not quite accurate to say that former White House Council of Economic Advisors Chair (and Obama mouthpiece) Austan Goolsbee called opponents of the proposed Keystone Pipeline “naive.” It’s more accurate to say that he called the idea of opposing it ‘naive’ – in fact, that’s pretty much explicitly what Goolsbee said: “It’s a bit naïve to think the tar sands would not be developed if they don’t build that pipeline.” And it is a bit naive, of course.

But then, opposing the pipeline is also homophobic.

And misogynistic.

And anti-Semitic.

Not to mention straight-up racist.

Commie-loving, too.

Continue reading Scene from the Conflict Oil Wars: Austan Goolsbee v. the Naive Greens