The House Republican cave-in and Keystone XL

Part of the payroll tax cut extension deal (that the House GOP came to their senses on last night) is that Obama must fast-track the decision on the tar sands pipeline. It would be on the same deadline -- 60 days -- as the tax cut extension itself. The good news is that this gives the president a golden opportunity to kill Keystone XL. For now, and perhaps for good.

Which may be exactly what the GOP wants: a bat to beat Obama with in 2012 over the economy. But that apparently isn't going to work, either.

House Republicans keep trying to give President Obama a political black eye by wielding the 36-inch diameter Keystone XL pipeline as a cudgel just before Christmas.

Instead, they could end up severely maiming only themselves if they persist with end-of-year legislative theatrics at what some are referring to as the "Capitol Hill Playhouse" this week.

"It's quite a sandbox, isn't it?" Pat Parenteau, a Vermont Law School professor who specializes in Congress and environmental issues, told InsideClimate News. "I think their strategy has backfired and that they've roped themselves with this political gambit. This idea that you have to keep introducing ideology into every issue, that will be their undoing." [...]

This angle developed last week on 'Countdown', but the House GOP's Epic Fail Follies drowned it out.



(skip to the 2:20 mark if you don't need the background, current at the time of this video just to last week, with the Senate's passage of the payroll tax bill)

More on the scam that is Keystone XL with respect to jobs, where the refined oil is going, how it will raise oil prices on the world market AND avoid paying US taxes (bold emphasis is mine):

One of the most important facts that is missing in the national debate surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is this – Keystone XL will not bring any more oil into the United State for decades to come. Canada doesn’t have nearly enough oil to fill existing pipelines going to the United States. However, existing Canadian oil pipelines all go to the Midwest, where the only buyer for their crude is the United States. Keystone XL would divert Canadian oil from refineries in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it can be refined and exported. Many of these refineries are in free trade zones where they may be exported to the international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. And that is exactly what Valero, one of the largest potential buyers of Keystone XL's oil, has told its investors it will do. The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil and its friends in Washington DC.

Canada's excess pipeline capacity is well known. In a Department of Energy report evaluating Keystone XL's impacts on U.S. energy supply over the next twenty years, the agency found that it will take decades for Canada to produce enough oil to fill existing pipelines. On page 90, the report concludes that the United States will import the same amount of crude from Canada through 2030 whether or not Keystone XL is built.

From Canada's perspective, the problem with existing pipelines is they all end in the U.S. Midwest and only allow one buyer - the United States. As Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently said, "we export 97 percent of our energy to the U.S. and we would like to diversify that." However, the Canadian government has put the breaks on the two pipeline proposals to export tar sands through its provinces due to the need to take more time to listen to its own public's concerns about water and safety. Keystone XL would be Canada’s first step in diversifying its energy market. The pipeline would divert large volumes of Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be available for the first time to buyers on the world market. To sweeten the deal, many of the refineries on the Gulf Coast happen to be located in foreign trade zones, where they can export Canadian oil to the world market without paying U.S. taxes.

Oil Change International investigated this issue in a report that found the Keystone XL pipeline was part of a larger strategy to sell increasing volumes of Canadian crude on the international diesel market.When Canadian regulators at the National Energy Board (NEB) considered the Keystone XL proposal in 2008, they asked TransCanada to justify another pipeline when there was already so much spare capacity. TransCanada conceded that Keystone XL would take oil from existing pipelines, increasing shipping costs. However, TransCanada argued that this cost would be more than offset as shifting Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf would increase the price that Americans paid for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.

So let's review: Keystone XL will raise oil prices, dodge paying taxes, create only a handful of temporary construction jobs and further destroy the environment. What's not to like (if you're a Republican)? If Obama can't win this debate with the GOP in the court of public opinion... well, he deserves to lose.

For the first time in a long time, I am hopeful that Keystone XL is not going to happen.

Look! The GOP finally found some voter fraud!

Unfortunately, they found it in the Indiana Secretary of State's office. Who happens to be a Republican.

Separately, (IN SOS Charlie) White still faces seven criminal felony charges, including three of them for voter fraud, related to the fact that he did not live at the address where he was registered to vote in the 2010 election. As he was not a properly registered Indiana voter, he was not eligible to be a candidate on the ballot, Rosenberg has ruled. Moreover, at the time of his election, White was a member of the Fishers Town Council --- a town in which he no longer lived since separating from his wife and moving out of her house, where he remained registered to vote, several years earlier. Democrats charge he retained his registration at the house so that he could continue to collect his salary as a Council Member.

Since divorcing his wife White had remarried and purchased a condominium in a different town, but claimed the reason he stayed registered at his former wife's house was because he had hoped to move back some day. The Indiana Recount Commission accepted that explanation. The Marion County Circuit judge, apparently, did not.

Earlier this week, in the criminal case, White also received bad news. according to the Indiana Star, "A Hamilton County judge Monday denied a motion by White to dismiss his felony charges, which were filed against him earlier this year. His criminal trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 30. Felons are ineligible to serve as Secretary of State." Merry Christmas, Mr. White.

And to all (Republicans who believe in the mythological Demon of Democratic voter fraud), a good night.

Two Christmas presents for the environment

Texas environmental regulators have rejected Valero Energy Corp.'s request for a tax break that cities, counties and school districts feared would lead to devastating cuts to their budgets.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality denied the request because the San Antonio-based oil giant could not show an environmental benefit at its six Texas refineries from the equipment at the center of its application for the tax break.

Texas law provides property tax exemptions for equipment that reduces pollution at the refinery. Valero, however, sought a tax break for hydrotreaters, which are used to produce low-sulfur fuels. In this case, the lower emissions come at the tailpipe.

If TCEQ had granted the exemption, Valero stood to gain up to $130 million a year in property tax relief from cities, counties and school districts, officials said. The company earned $1.2 billion in profits for the most recent quarter, its best quarterly results in four years.

"It's a nice Christmas gift to many cities, counties and school districts around the state that would have had to shell out millions to a rich oil company," said Matthew Tejada, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. "Justice and logic can still prevail in the state of Texas."

One more excerpt from that.

Hydrotreaters account for more than $1 billion of taxable property value in Harris County alone. That is nearly $7 million a year toward county services and about $2 million a year for the Houston Independent School District, according to the Harris County Appraisal District.

TCEQ is not renowned for doing the right thing in favor of our environment and against Big Oil, so they deserve credit here for a good call.

And there's this:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced (yesterday) an important new rule that finally sets limits on mercury, arsenic, and other toxins released into our air. For 21 years, coal-fired power plants were allowed to unleash unlimited mercury and other toxic pollution, poisoning the air. Today’s rule requires power plants to update their pollution-control technology to keep 90 percent of mercury produced by burning coal from being released.

Click that link and read more about the health impact...

Mercury especially endangers children and pregnant women, damaging young brain development. But children in communities of color suffer most from a delay in cleaner air — African-American and Latino children are 60 percent more likely to have asthma attacks than whites. Nationwide, mercury pollution alone causes up to 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks, and 130,000 asthma attacks annually, while coal power plants produce 2.5 pounds worth of airborne toxins for every American each year.

...and that the wailing about the lights going out from conservatives is, as usual, false:

Coal defenders like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have rallied around inaccurate assertions that the EPA rule is a threat to electric reliability because they claim it will force many existing power plants to close. An Associated Press survey of power plants has debunked this claim. AP could not find a single plant operator that solely blamed EPA rules for a plant closure. Instead, it found the average age of plants that could be mothballed is 51 years. A number of utilities executives agree there will be little impact on reliability as the industry moves to meet new standards.

A very Merry Christmas to Texans' -- and Americans' -- lungs.

A third party you can disregard: Americans Elect

I opened a conversation last week about third-party candidates, and lately it seems that everyone else is catching on (and catching up). Today's lesson is that there is one third-party movement to be avoided, and it's Americans Elect. First, some background.

Americans Elect is a collection of Republicans, Democrats and independents who say they are frustrated with the polarization that has caused U.S. politics to seize up and are looking for a unity ticket that would help the political process run more smoothly and responsively.

“It’s going to happen,” said Mark McKinnon, the Austin-based strategist who crafted the George W. Bush message in 2000 and 2004, but backed Barack Obama in 2008. “The system is completely paralyzed, and people have lost confidence in all the institutions of government and the political parties. And things are getting worse.”

McKinnon also is one of the founders of No Labels, a centrist organization that seeks to nurture the “politics of problem solving” and to create space so lawmakers can work with counterparts across the aisle.

No surprise; they want good old Dr. No. (Everybody wants that racist gasbag, except for those Americans of all political persuasions with the slightest remaining sanity).

The name most frequently connected to a third-party presidential effort is no centrist: It’s Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas.

Paul insists he has no intention of running for president as a third-party candidate. Now seeking the Republican nomination, he was the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.

Talking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week, however, he seemed to leave the door slightly ajar.

“I don’t like absolutes — I don’t like to say: ‘I absolutely will never do such and such’ — so I am just avoiding the absolute,” Paul said.

George Will ain't buyin' it -- and is scared shitless.

So, assume three things. That Obama is weaker in 2012 than he was when winning just 53 percent of the vote in 2008. That Paul could win between 5 percent and 7 percent of the vote nationally (much less than the 18 percent that a recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed were prepared to vote for Paul as an independent). And that at least 80 percent of Paul’s votes would come at the expense of the Republican nominee.

That link is worth reading start to finish; however let's move past this digression to Paul and return to Americans Elect.

What Americans Elect has done is fashion a new twist to the quadrennial quest for a credible third-party contender. Instead of an outside party, it has crafted a parallel nominating process: a nonpartisan online convention. Anyone with a valid ID and an Internet hookup is eligible to become a “delegate,” and candidates can either register by completing a questionnaire or be drafted by popular support. Through a series of online ballots, the slate of contenders will be whittled down to six in April, and then to a single winner in June. In keeping with the group’s shibboleths, the nominee must tap a member of a different party as a running mate, forming a “unity ticket” that will occupy the chasm in the political center.

For a political start-up, Americans Elect has Establishment-grade cash and credentials. Its roster is dotted with veterans of Washington warfare, both Democrats and Republicans, who have grown weary of both parties’ penchant for pandering to their fringes. Schoen recently authored a column that cast Occupy Wall Street as a “radical” uprising that was “dangerously out of touch” with American values. Another adviser, Mark McKinnon, served as George W. Bush’s media strategist but declined to reprise the role in 2008 out of respect for Obama. Also on the group’s board are a battery of business executives; Dennis Blair, Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence; and Christine Todd Whitman, the moderate former Republican governor of New Jersey. A framed column by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, which predicted that the group would do to politics “what Amazon.com did to books,” hangs in the hallway of its airy 10th-floor suite, from which you can glimpse a sliver of the White House three blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.

And there's the problem with AE: moneyed power brokers are behind the movement. And in the spirit of this cycle's Super PACs and Citizens United, you don't get to know who they are.

The dingbats behind “Americans Elect,” a shadowy centrist third-party effort to get an Internet petition onto actual presidential ballots, refuse to reveal who’s funding their efforts, because their donors are very worried that someone might call them dingbats.

That’s what reporters on an Americans Elect press call learned today, according to Dave Weigel. When Politico’s Ken Vogel began asking difficult questions about why the group hides its donors, a spokesperson said it was because of “fear of retribution.”

Americans Elect COO (and son of the group’s chairman) Elliot Ackerman explained what this “retribution” might look like:

But hang on: What sort of retribution were we talking about? “My father, Peter Ackerman,” offered the group’s COO Elliot Ackerman. “He’s been mischaracterized in the press frequently.”

Sragow wasn’t about to let this suggestion fly — this idea that working with AE wasn’t dangerous. “Don’t suggest that there is no retribution,” he said. “Nobody who’s spent 10 minutes in politics could think that.” He’d been vilified for participating in the group. He’d been attacked and insulted. “Fortunately, in this country, we don’t use molotov cocktails literally,” he said. “We use them figuratively.”

So! Random unknown billionaires will fix our politics by paying an unknown third-party candidate’s way onto our ballots, but we must never know who did this or why, because someone might “mischaracterize” them, with figurative Molotov cocktails. Yes, that makes perfect sense.

As with every other link here: follow it, read the whole thing, and follow the links there.

Now if this does sound like your bag, then just know that besides Ron Paul you'll likely have 'man of the people' choices like Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump to pick from.

The only way you'd be wasting your vote on a third-party candidate is if you paid any attention at all to whatever Americans Elect comes up with.

Something reeks in the Harris Co. DA's office

And no, it's not the immanent smell of spilled beer and cigarette smoke.

A prosecutor who last week refused to answer questions from a grand jury said Monday she is the target of political forces aligned against her and her boss, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos.

"The fix is in," Rachel Palmer said from the witness stand. "It's really clear to anyone who is not already affected by bias."

Palmer asserted in a hastily called recusal hearing that state District Judge Susan Brown, her husband state District Judge Marc Brown and a special prosecutor appointed by the former were working together to unseat Lykos in a plot that has ensnared Palmer.

Parker Palmer appears to be something more than just a victim here IMHO. All of this grinning and smirking seems out of round.

Thursday's hearing was postponed until Monday when Palmer's attorneys moved to have Brown recused from the proceedings.

An administrative judge quickly appointed civil district judge Al Bennett to preside over a hearing on the request that is scheduled to continue early Tuesday.

In the wide-ranging motion, Palmer alleged a far-flung whisper campaign that included St. Martin's political support of one of Lykos's 2008 Republican primary opponents and interactions among Palmer, her politically active husband Don Hooper and the Browns.

"I'm afraid of Judge Brown," Palmer said on the stand.

Though in Palmer's defense, there is almost surely something fishy going on.

The man challenging Lycos in the Republican primary for district attorney happens to be married to the woman who performed the swearing-in of the grand jury forewoman (scroll about halfway down, and note that my style preference is to keep titles like these gender-specific) who wishes to compel Parker Palmer's testimony. And one of the special prosecutors appointed by Judge Brown at the grand jury's request, Stephen St. Martin, was a supporter of Lycos' challenger Kelly Siegler in 2008.

St. Martin donated a healthy $3,000 to Siegler’s campaign when she was fighting Lykos for the Republican nomination. Also, Lykos kicked him out of the Special Crimes Division of the DA’s Office, and then publicly snubbed him when the FBI gave him an award.

Talk about a bad Grisham novel. Sure, it's a stretch even for the conspiracy-inclined but if Big Jolly is scared, then you ought to be too. Unless you're not a Republican, in which case you need to go pop some more corn.

And just think: all this could have been avoided if Democrats had managed a few more votes for C.O. Bradford for DA in 2008.

Update: For those who have inquired... yes, that last was total sarcasm.