The Putin and Buffett war on U.S. pipelines

Billionaires use secretive foundations to finance anti-pipeline protests – and get even richer from the files of Paul Driessen at CFACT.org.

A Paul Driessen Story at CFACT.org (Putin and Buffett

Abundant, reliable, affordable oil and natural gas empower people. They support job creation, mobility, modern agriculture, homes and hospitals, computers and communications, lights and refrigerators, life and study after sundown, indoor plumbing, safe drinking water, less disease and longer lives.

Hydrocarbons make plastics, pharmaceuticals and synthetic clothing. They create fertilizers and pesticides, to improve crop yields, reduce food prices and improve nutrition.

But Sierra Club, 350.org and other radicals want to keep America’s oil and natural gas bounties in the ground. They block leasing, drilling and fracking. They block pipelines that transport oil and gas to refineries, power plants, factories and homes. And the more their “dangerous manmade climate change” mantras fall on deaf ears, the more absurd their anti-energy campaigns are getting.

Hydraulic fracturing and Canadian oil sands development made North American petroleum production soar, created millions of jobs, sent oil, gasoline and natural gas prices plunging, and provided some of the few bright spots in the 2008-14 Obama economy.

New pipelines were approved and constructed, including the Keystone system’s first three phases. They augmented 2.5 million miles of liquid petroleum, gas transmission and gas distribution pipelines that already crisscross the United States.

But when the Keystone XL segment was proposed, intense opposition suddenly materialized. Protesters railed that habitat disturbance, potential leaks, climate change and ending fossil fuel use necessitated “no more pipelines.” Now the Sandpiper Pipeline from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region across Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin is meeting similar resistance.

As with Keystone, the protesters say they’re just concerned student, hiker and Native American grassroots activists: average citizens who just care about their environment. The facts do not support their claims.

In reality, they are being bankrolled by billionaires, fat-cat foundations and foreign oil interests.

Putin-allied Russian oil billionaires laundered $23 million through the Bermuda-based Wakefield Quin law firm to the Sea Change Foundation and thence to anti-fracking and anti-Keystone groups, the Environmental Policy Alliance found.

Sandpiper opponents are also being funded and coordinated by wealthy financiers and shadowy foundations, researcher Ron Arnold discovered.

It’s true that several small groups are involved in the anti-Sandpiper protests. However, the campaign is coordinated by Honor the Earth, a Native American group that is actually a Tides Foundation “project,” with the Tides Center as its “fiscal sponsor.” They’ve contributed $700,000 and extensive in-kind aid. Out-of-state donors provide 99% of Honor’s funding.

The Indigenous Environmental Network also funds Honor the Earth. Minnesota corporate records show no incorporation entry for the Network, and 95% of its money comes from outside Minnesota. Tides gave IEN $670,000 to oppose pipelines.

Indeed, $25 billion in left-wing foundation investment portfolios support the anti-Sandpiper effort. Vastly more backing makes the $13-billion-per-year U.S. environmentalist movement a power to be reckoned with, Arnold and I document in our book, Cracking Big Green.

These tax-exempt foundations do not simply give money to pressure groups. They serve as puppeteers, telling protesters what campaigns to conduct, what tactics to use. Meanwhile, donors enjoy deductions for “charitable giving” to “education, conservation and other social change” programs.

Tides Foundation combined cash flows exceed $200 million annually, Canadian investigative journalist Cory Morningstar reported (here and here). Like Arnold, she and fellow Canadian sleuth Vivian Krause have delved deeply into troubling arrangements among Big Green, Big Government and Big Finance.

Morningstar calls the San Francisco-based Tides operation “a priceless, magical, money funneling machine of epic proportions.” It enables über-rich donors to distribute funds to specific organizations and campaigns of their choice, without disclosing their identities.

Even more interesting, among Tides’ biggest donors is Obama friend and advisor Warren Buffett. Beginning in 2004, Buffett funneled $30.5 million through his family’s NoVo Foundation to Tides. The cash ultimately went to selected pressure groups that led campaigns against Keystone, Sandpiper and other projects, Morningstar and Arnold found.

By donating the market value of greatly appreciated Berkshire Hathaway shares to NoVo, the Omaha billionaire avoided income taxes on his gains. Even more important, while public, media and political attention was riveted on Keystone, Berkshire Hathaway quietly bought the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and Union Tank Car manufacturing company – with no notice, dissent or interference, Morningstar observed.

When Keystone XL et al. were blocked, more oil was shipped by rail – much of it via Buffett companies. In fact, oil-by-rail skyrocketed from 9,500 carloads in 2009 to 450,000 carloads in 2014. Mr. Buffett’s “investment” in anti-pipeline activism garnered billions in rail revenues.

The anti-pipeline campaigns blocked thousands of jobs and increased risks of tank car derailments, like the Lac Megantic, Quebec spill that destroyed much of the town and incinerated 47 people.

That may help explain why Mr. Buffett recently criticized President Obama’s veto of Keystone XL legislation. He now says the pipeline would be good for both Canada and the United States, and it is a mistake to jeopardize trade relationships with our northern neighbor.

But the campaigns rage on. Mr. Buffett helped unleash a beast he cannot control. The campaigns are not grassroots, or even Astroturf. Their “green” tint is the color of unfathomable behind-the-scenes wealth.

The clandestine Buffett-Berkshire-NoVo-Putin-Tides-activist-railroad arrangement reflects “a devious strategy on the part of both benefactor and recipient,” Morningstar concludes. “At minimum, it demonstrates an almost criminal conflict of interest.” Legislative investigations are needed, especially since the Justice Department is hardly likely to look into what its key allies are doing.

Meanwhile, pro-Sandpiper students from the Collegians For A Constructive Tomorrow presented these inconvenient financial truths to pipeline protesters at a recent University of Minnesota rally. “Buffet’s Puppets,” the CFACT students called the protesters.

How did the Buffett-Tides-Putin allies react, when they learned they are being used by billionaires? They dug in their ideological heels and shouted insults.

One red-faced protester walked away. Others intensified their chants or shouted racially tinged epithets at the multi-ethnic CFACT students. None wanted to discuss funding issues, America’s need for oil and jobs, or how best to transport fuels safely.

This is what passes for “environmental studies,” “robust debate,” “higher education” and compassion for blue-collar families on campuses and picket lines today. No wonder “environmentalism” and “liberalism” have become such pathetic political philosophies.

_____________________________

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-earth money machine ~ both books available on Amazon.com

_____________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

A real climate threat to our national security

National security, the Seattle oil rig, hypocrisy, and Greenpeace’s dirty money from the files of Ron Arnold at The Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise

President Obama had it all wrong in his recent commencement address at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He warned that climate change “deniers” endanger our national security – insisting that denial “undermines the readiness of our forces.”

In fact, climate change true believers are the real threat to our national security. That includes the notorious Seattle mob of Greenpeace “kayaktivists” who were recently paddling around Puget Sound, in kayaks made from petroleum, trying to stop Shell Oil’s Polar Pioneer Arctic drilling rig from making a layover at the Port of Seattle to gear up for Alaskan waters.

When thwarted by the Coast Guard’s 500-foot no-approach cordon, the Greenpeace canoe crowd left the harbor and took to the streets, where they blocked supplier access to the rig until city police dispersed them.

These angry picketers are the threat. They undermine America’s share of the Arctic Ocean’s estimated 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its oil reserves. That fuel could power the military as well as civilians.

How can slogan shouters endanger America’s national security when their targets are civilian oil rigs? Shell’s rigs will draw needed attention to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in an ocean filling with Russia’s growing Arctic supremacy. This month, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a Senate appropriations committee hearing that the U.S. military Arctic defense policy is falling short.

The United States lacks ships able to operate in or near Arctic ice. We have only two medium icebreakers, one of which is nearly a decade past pull date. Russia has 40 big icecap-crunchers, 25 of them nuclear-powered, including one battleship-size beast ominously named 50 Years of Victory (but it takes tourists to the North Pole for 15-day cruises at $30,000 and up).

Our entire Alaskan Arctic coast has no U.S. military base, not one. Russian jets make nearly monthly incursions to the Air Defense Identification Zones off the coast of Alaska. Interceptors have to fly to the north coast from Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks (500 miles) or all the way from Elemendorf AFB in Anchorage (725 miles).

President Putin strategically laid claim to great swaths of Arctic oil and gas with deployed rigs. He has activated the Northern Fleet – two-thirds of the entire Russian Navy – as a strategic military command. And he has assigned a 6,000-soldier Russian Arctic warfare unit to the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, with next generation fighter aircraft in addition to advanced S400 Triumf anti-aircraft systems. An Arctic military reconnaissance drone base 420 miles off mainland Alaska is operational.

In February, President Obama seemed to have adopted the Greenpeace strategy of roll over and play dead, when he stripped Alaska of vast stores of its oil and gas wealth, by reducing offshore drilling and declaring most of the 19.6-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits to oil production. Yet his administration approved a conditional permit for Shell’s Arctic oil exploration.

The United States “may be 40 years behind” Russia, Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski told Defense Secretary Carter. This spring, the U.S. Northern Command is supposed to release a report that is expected to militarize the existing 2013 National Strategy for the Arctic Region. However, according to the strategy, as reported by Foreign Policy Journal, “the Navy’s role will primarily be in support of search and rescue, law enforcement, and civil support operations.”

Shell’s oil rigs provide peaceful reasons for our warships and planes to patrol the Arctic in counterbalance to Russia. Carter told Murkowski, “The Arctic is going to be a major area of importance to the United States strategically and economically to the future.”

Research by Chicago-area Heartland Institute found a secret beneath Greenpeace’s anti-oil ruckus: it is funded by oil-drenched millions from investments in ExxonMobil, Chevron, PetroChina and dozens of other fossil fuel firms, ironically including shares of Royal Dutch Shell, owner of the rig docked in Seattle.

According to Foundation Search, the top Greenpeace donor is the leftist-run David and Lucile Packard Foundation, which paid them a total of $2,146,690 since 2000. The deceased electronics mogul’s foundation managers boast 2013 assets of $6.9 billion.

They have invested enormous working capital into Anadarko Petroleum, Apache Corporation, Arch Coal, Carrizo Oil and Gas, Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Devon Energy, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, Phillips66, Questar, Tesoro, Valero Energy, World Fuel Service (a defendant in lawsuits over the 2013 oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec that killed 47 people), and many others. They pay Greenpeace from the profits.

Second-ranked Greenpeace donor is the leftist-funding Arcus Foundation, which gave the Rainbow Warrior security threats $1,055,651 since 2007. Established by ultra-green billionaire Jon Stryker, Arcus’ 2013 assets totaled $169,472,585 – with working capital injected into China Petroleum, ExxonMobil, PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell and TransCanada (the “tar” sands pipeline company). It also paid Greenpeace from its fossil fuel profits.

The list of foundations giving oil profits to Greenpeace goes on and on – and Greenpeace goes on and on hypocritically taking those oil profits to undermine America’s real energy future.

This cabal could redeem itself instantly: they could just stop using any fossil fuels right now.

_____________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Name your enemy

Name Your Enemy by Marita k. Noon at Energy Makes America Great, Inc.

Meet Marita K. Noon at Energy Make America Great

“If you don’t call it something, you can’t connect the dots,” said Rudy Giuliani talking about ISIS. “If you can’t connect the dots, you can’t really combat it ... you can’t have the battle of ideas … If you are going to debate it, you have to call it what it is.”

The same can be said about the organized attack on fossil fuel development and use in America. If you don’t acknowledge a battle of ideas exists, you can’t connect the dots, and you can’t really combat it.

It has recently been revealed that Russia is laundering tens of millions of dollars through Bermuda, which the California-based Sea Change Foundation doles out to some of the most prominent and politically active anti-fossil fuel groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resource Defense Council.

Reports indicate that OPEC countries funded the anti-fracking movies Gasland and Promise Land. Of course, we know that billionaire activist Tom Steyer—with no guile—announced $100 million in the 2014 election cycle for candidates who opposed the Keystone pipeline.

Not only does the anti-fossil movement exist, it is organized and well-funded. It can also resort to extreme tactics—even violent ones known as “civil disobedience.”

According to the Huffington Post (HP), the FBI has been looking into activists’ involvement in highway blockades that delayed northbound shipments of equipment to Canada’s oilsands.

The report claims that, for example, an FBI agent and a local detective called on Herb Goodwin in Bellingham, WA, telling him: “We’re here to ask whether you’ll answer some questions for us about Deep Green Resistance”—a radical environmental movement that believes the biggest problem with the planet is human civilization itself and calls for “decisive ecological warfare” and “direct attacks against infrastructure.”

Despite the possible intimidation, Goodwin says he won’t stop protesting. “He’s among the nearly 100,000 people who have signed a pledge to engage in civil disobedience, should the Obama administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline.”

A week after the HP story was published; Canada’s February 17 Globe and Mail featured this headline: “‘Anti-petroleum’ movement a growing security threat to Canada, RCMP say.” The article references a January 2014 leaked report put together to support Canada’s “strategy to ensure critical infrastructure (CI)” and to “be used to assist in the protection of Canada’s CI.”

Amongst the report’s “key findings” are these points:

• A growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels;
• The anti-petroleum movement focuses on challenging the energy and environmental policies that promote the development of Canada’s vast petroleum resources;
• Violent anti-petroleum extremists will continue to engage in criminal activity to promote their anti-petroleum ideology;
• These extremists pose a realistic criminal threat to Canada’s petroleum industry, its workers and assets, and to first responders.

While the above was written about Canada, the same could be said about the anti-petroleum movement in AMERICA—but we’ll never see a similar report. As Desmog Canada posted in response to the RCMP document: “The striking thing is that the U.S. has identified climate change as one of the greatest threats to national security, yet here in Stephen Harper’s Canada it is the people trying to stop climate change that are identified as the threat.”

Perhaps ISIS learned from the anti-petroleum movement. The report states: “The use of social media, including the use of live-streaming, provides the anti-petroleum movement the ability to bypass the traditional news media, to control and craft its message, and to promote a one-sided version of the actual events, leading to broadly based anti-petroleum opposition.” And, “the issues within the anti-petroleum movement are complex, divisive, controversial, and polarizing.”

Sound familiar?

Obviously, you can find some ideologically driven, violent-extremist factions of the anti-petroleum movement, but you have to question why they do this, to reach what goal.

With Russia and the OPEC countries—which appear to be funding much of the activity—the answer is easy. They want to protect their turf, their market share. The new American energy abundance threatens their dominance—especially as we begin to repeal the crude-oil export ban, which will give our allies a friendly alternative for fuel.

But what about the others?

Each week as I write my weekly column, I call my mother—a former English teacher, a professional speaker, the author of more than forty books—and read her my draft. Early on, she’d repeatedly ask: “Why are they doing this? They are going to ruin America.” I’d have to concede that was the only answer you could conclude—especially for me, who focuses on this every single day.

But then the People’s Climate March took place in New York City and around the country. The marchers carried placards with slogans such as: “Fracking is a crime,” “Capitalism is the disease, socialism is the cure,” and “System change, not climate change.” Suddenly, the motives became perfectly clear. Because energy and freedom connect so closely, the anti’s attack fossil fuels first.

We see the fight playing out in the manmade climate-change debate, the anti-coal protests, the efforts to ban fracking, and the Keystone pipeline controversy.

Addressing the Keystone pipeline, Dave Barnett, special representative for the Pipeline and Gas Distribution Department of the United Association, told me that he has sat at the negotiating table across from representatives from the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council—just to name two.

He was told: “We know that your Members at the United Association have the proper training to build safe pipelines and it’s not the safety of the pipelines we are really concerned about. It’s building an infrastructure project that will tie us to oil usage for the next 50 years that we oppose.” Then they went on to say: “It never was about the pipeline, it’s about the use of fossil fuels. Stopping the pipeline was just a way to stop the flow of oil.”

Due to the well-funded and organized anti-petroleum movement, aided by the media, the entire “green” narrative has become so embedded into the collective psyche, it may seem like America as we know it, is on the way to being brought down.

But it is not as dire as it may seem.

First, while vocal, the anti-petroleum movement represents a small percentage of the general population that self-identifies as “strongly liberal.”

Second, they are not as successful as they appear. While they have gotten some fracking/drilling bans passed, for example, state supreme courts continue to overturn those bans. We’ve seen this happen last year in Colorado, last month in New Mexico, and last week in Ohio. We will likely see the same results in Texas, regarding the local ban in Denton.

Undaunted, those opposed to pteroleum will now try to get their way by use of ballot measures. The automatic votes will come from the “strongly liberal”—who likely do not read this column. Readers of this column also represent a small percentage of the general population: those who care enough about what happens in America to educate themselves and be engaged in the issues.

Most people sit in the middle—unaware and unengaged. But many of them will vote. The messaging they hear will influence who they vote for and how they vote.

Will voters hear the messages of the “strongly liberal” anti-fossil fuel movement—or, that of their educated and engaged friends who think more like they do? We fight in a battle of ideas that we can win.

Each week, I “connect the dots” through this news-based column. By using current news, I offer you talking points that you can use to share with your friends. For example, you can ask: Did you know that:

• Foreign countries are funding the anti-fossil fuel campaigns of environmentalists?
• Last week a third state shot down local fracking and/or drilling bans?
• The Keystone pipeline has support of the majority of the population, except those who self-identify as “strongly liberal?”
• Canada has identified the anti-petroleum movement as a violent threat to its security?

From there, you can share what you’ve learned. Each week I provide links to the research so you can back up your position with facts. This isn’t just a battle for fossil fuels, it is an ideological fight for America that must be turned around.

First, we have to name the enemy. Then, in this battle of ideas, we must commit to reaching out to family members, neighbors, and friends to educate and engage them. In this debate, let’s call it what it is.

_____________________________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy - which expands on the content of her weekly column.

_____________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

What's next for the Keystone Pipeline?

What's Next for the Keystone Pipeline? from Marita K. Noon at Energy Makes America Great, Inc.

Read Marita Noon's Column at Energy Makes America Great

After six years of dithering, the Keystone pipeline project has finally cleared both the Senate and the House with strong bipartisan support—mere percentage points away from a veto-proof majority. Now it goes to the White House where President Obama has vowed to veto it.

The Keystone pipeline should have never been an issue in Congress. Because it crosses an international border, the pipeline requires the approval of the State Department—not the president. However, since the secretary of state—first Hillary Clinton and now John Kerry—serves at the pleasure of the president, neither would buck a dictate from the White House (even if she or he had a mind to).

With millions of miles of pipeline already traversing the country and dozens already crossing the U.S.-Canada border—not to mention the “almost universal” support of the American public, the Keystone pipeline should never have made news, except that Obama’s environmental base (made up, according to Pew Research, of “solid liberals”) has made it the literal line in the sand, by which he can burnish his environmental legacy.

Within the President’s base, only two groups feel strongly about the Keystone pipeline—the unions want it, the environmentalists don’t. Each has pressured him to take its side.

I’ve likened the conflict to the classic cartoon image of a devil on one shoulder prodding an activity saying, “Oh it will be fun, everyone is doing it,” vs. the angel on the other warning, “be careful, you’ll get into trouble.”

Only in the battle of the pipeline, the opposing sides have been in his pockets—environmental groups threatened to pull support from Obama’s 2012 re-election bid if he had approved Keystone. (Remember, billionaire activist Tom Steyer promised $100 million to candidates in the 2014 midterms who opposed Keystone.)

Trying to appease both sides, the president resisted taking a stand. Instead of a firm “yes” or “no,” he has avoided a decision that would ultimately anger one side or the other. First, the problem arose of the pipeline crossing over the aquifer—so it was re-routed. Next, it was held up in the Nebraska Supreme Court—but, that received a favorable resolution.

Waiting for the State Department’s fifth Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) provided another delay. When the EIS finally came out, it declared the project would have minimal environmental impact and that it would produce the least amount of greenhouse gasses of any other alternative transportation method. Now Obama says Congress needs to let the State Department’s approval process play out—though no one knows when that might occur.

The labor unions, which want some of the 42,000 jobs the State Department projects grow increasingly impatient.

In 2012, the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) broke ranks from a long-standing relationship with green groups over the Keystone pipeline and pulled out of the BlueGreen Alliance. LIUNA President Terry O’Sullivan said of his fellow union leadership: “We’re repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women.”

Having its epiphany later, after the 2014 midterms, the AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, according to the Washington Examiner, cited economic benefits and “urged the new Republican-controlled Congress and the White House to get together and approve the controversial, long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project.”

Finally, last month, James P. Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, penned an op-ed pushing the president to approve the pipeline. In it, he calls the administration’s Keystone pipeline veto threat “passing on an opportunity to create jobs.”

Representative Donald Norcross (D-NJ), citing “the economic woes he heard about from voters while campaigning,” voted with the Republicans for the third time in the February 11 House vote. In a column for The Record, Herb Jackson explained: “One reason some Democrats broke with environmentalists on the project is its support from organized labor.”

Prior to running for Congress, Norcross was assistant business manager of Local 351 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Jackson reports: “Building trades unions were the most generous group contributing to his [Norcross] campaign.”

Norcoss’ crossing over exhibits the divide in the Democrat Party: unions vs. environmentalists. When it comes to lawmakers for whom the union vote is important, Keystone wins.

Once the bill is vetoed, it goes back to Congress where it must be “reconsidered”—which means it can be voted on again or can go back to committee where some adjustments may be made that will make it more attractive to members, who didn’t vote on it the first time around.

Because the Senate and the House have both voted, which Democrats voted against the bill is also well known—many of those Democrats represent heavily unionized districts.

To override the presidential veto, 5 more votes are needed in the Senate (Marco Rubio wasn’t present during the January 29 vote and would be assumed to be a “yes” vote, meaning only 4 Democrats need to be swayed.), in the House, about 12.

With some arm twisting from the unions, those additional votes shouldn’t be all that difficult to come by and the Keystone XL pipeline can finally move forward—providing Americans with thousands of good-paying jobs and increased energy security. Meanwhile, President Obama will have made his position perfectly clear.

This story originally appeared at Brietbart.com

___________________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

_____________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

President Obama disses Alaska

Obama Disses Alaska from the Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Alaska's Pristine Wildlife Refuge

Fifty million Americans who live in the northeast will experience what is predicted to be a historic blizzard from Monday evening through Tuesday. Cities and towns will virtually or literally close down. People will be told to stay indoors for their safety and to facilitate the crews that will labor to clear the roads of snow.

In other words, welcome to Alaska, a place that is plenty cold most of the year and which is no stranger to snow and ice.

Alaska, however, has something that the whole world considers very valuable; oil and natural gas. Lots of it. In 1980 a U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the Coastal Plain could contain up to 17 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

In 1987, the U.S Department of Interior confirmed the earlier estimate, saying that “in place resources” ranged from 4.8 billion to 29.4 billion barrels of oil. Recoverable oil estimates ranged from 600 million barrels at the low end to 9.2 billion barrels at the high end.

A nation with an $18 trillion debt might be expected to want to take advantage of this source of revenue, but no, not if that debt was driven up by the idiotic policies of President Barack Obama and not if it could be reduced by the same energy industry that has tapped similar oil and natural gas reserves in the lower 48 states by drilling on private, not public lands.

Instead, on Sunday President Obama referred to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as “an incredible place—pristine, undisturbed. It supports caribou and polar bears” and other species and, guess what, tapping its vast oil and natural gas reserves would not interfere in any way with those species despite the whopping lie that “it’s very fragile.”

At Obama’s direction, the Interior Department announced it was proposing to preserve as wilderness nearly 13 million acres of land in ANWR’s 19.8 million-acre area. That would include 1.5 million acres of coastal plains that Wall Street Journal reported to be “believed to have rich oil and natural gas reserves.”

Not a whole lot of people choose ANWR as a place to vacation. It is a harsh, though often beautiful, area that only the most experienced visitor might want to spend some time. I would want to make every environmentalist who thinks any drilling would harm the area have to take up residence in its “pristine” wilderness to confirm that idiotic notion.

They would find plenty of caribou, polar bears and other species hanging out amidst the oil and gas rigs, and along the pipe line. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that migrates through the Prudhoe Bay oil field, just next to ANWR has increased from 5,000 animals in the 1970s to more than 50,000 today.

There is no evidence than any of the animal species have experienced any decline.

The Coastal Plain lies between known major discovery areas and the Prudhoe Bay, Lisburne, Endicott, Milne Point and Kuparuk oil fields are currently in production.

In 1996, the North Slope oil fields produced about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day or approximately 25% of the U.S. domestic production.

Alaska is permitted to export its oil because of its high levels of productivity.

So why has Obama’s Department of the Interior decided it wants to shut off energy exploration and extraction in a whopping 13-million acres of what is already designated as a wildlife refuge and along its coastlines on the Beaufort and Chukchi seas?

The answer is consistent with Obama’s six years of policies to deny Americans the benefits of the nation's vast energy reserves, whether it is the coal that has previously provided 50% of our electrical energy—now down by 10%--or access to reserves of oil and natural gas that would make our nation energy independent as well as a major exporter.

The good news is that only Congress has the authority to declare an area as wilderness. It has debated the issue for more than 30 years and in 12 votes in the House and 3 votes in the Senate it has passed legislation supporting development and opposing the wilderness designation.

And guess who is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee? Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaskan Republican. She also heads up the appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the Interior Department!

This latest Obama ANWR gambit is going to go nowhere. It does, however, offer the Republican Congress an opportunity to demonstrate its pro-energy credentials.

“I cannot understand why this administration is willing to negotiate with Iran, but not Alaska,” said Sen. Murkowski when informed of Obama’s latest attack.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Saudis betray the U.S. with double edged sword

Saudi betrays the United States with a double edged sword from the files of Ken LaRive at the Examiner.com

Time to Take My Slice of the Pie

The year 1983 is still remembered here in Louisiana. It was the year that Saudi opened the oil valves of OPEC, flooding the world with cheap oil.

Our President Reagan used that well-designed opportunity to send the USSR economy into a tailspin, who struggled with totalitarian communism that ended in a total collective default.

In the middle of their own Vietnam in Afghanistan, trying to secure a pipeline there, and up to their necks in debt trying to keep up in an escalating cold war, the combination was lethal... and as they defaulted on their dept to our Western Banks, their country, along with a bound social system, disintegrated...

In the middle of that well-orchestrated process, our American Oilfields were devastated. Here in Lafayette, Louisiana, seven out of nine local banks went belly up, and it took six years to get back a little over 50 percent. With that year as a benchmark, we never have... And the dreams to become energy independent, also dissolved...


The sword slices Russia...

The USSR, is not the Russia of today...

All of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, but planned for decades, the banking cartels and the MIC, (military industrial complex), war corporations and bankers are now promoting another economic cold war with Russia, and OPEC/Saudi seems to be stepping up to again destroy Russia. Why, and how?

And ISIS, the perfect distraction, an enemy unheard of just a few months ago, is driving around in US Humvees and flashing brand new weapons seemingly made for our military, and the complexity and convoluted truth of this matter leaves the American Spirit fearful, and confused... But profits are escalating, and the military industrial complex gun-running is staying busy fighting another faceless enemy, supplying both sides.

And in the middle of this new Banker orchestration, Mr. Putin is warning them to release their strangle hold on his country with threats of another European War... And as the Russian Economy sinks, and the Ukraine just can't make up its mind who to pay tribute to, opportunity is rifle... and as the Carpet Baggar laughs, another resounding milestone goes virtually unnoticed by the common people... that we are now well over 18 trillion in debt.

And some of us are tired of fear, and of being a sacrificial lamb for a One World Government... we want our country back.

And the sword slashes ...

Today, the American Oilfield is facing another devastating blow as Saudi is again flooding the market with oil, sending prices below $50 US. Too cheep to drill, the layoffs in the oil-patch are beginning in earnest.

Amazingly, we were posed for another boom by speculators just last year, not only to become energy independent, but with our new (so called) American technology in Fracking, we now have a 100 year surplus of that product. The transition from oil to gas promises to usher in a new age of clean and abundant fuel.

It could be a long standing and viable economic boom for America, but the valves are open, and instead of managing the flow, they are attempting to destroy both America and Russia, for profit.

And the sword slashes...

This year, in 2015, for the first time in 45 years... where an LNG terminal in Alaska supplies Japan with LNG, we will be exporting natural gas all around the world from a terminal that costs billions to build, right here in Louisiana.

So amazingly viable, they are widening the Panama Canal to accommodate the new giant LNG transport ships, with unlimited financing from around the world, and have in-hand signed contracts that blue-lines that industry for years to come.

A second project has recently been approved to build, and that will double the previous export opportunities of Cheniere Energy, the first one up and running this very year...

Slash!

As it seems most everything in this world, especially when it is about power, control, and fear that oils that great war machine... the world is not the same as 1983. There are new names, new enemies, but the controlling power is the same... Similarly, we were just about to become energy independent again, here in America, and our previous suppliers, who have made trillions... do not want to see western dependence end.

We must look closely at why we are being force-fed low-quality oil from Canada with the attempt to take up the slack, carving up our country with another pipeline? They want to send that oil to our own Cancer Ally to refine, because they have the pressure of environmentalist to contend with, same as those who do not want the pipeline here. Think about that for just a moment! Is it the environment, or is it some company's bottom line?

I'll bet that it is a profit margin every time...And though it is promoted by media to be American oil, North America is not the United States of America. It is a ruse... When we say “Drill here. Drill now!” we are not talking about Canada, Mexico, or the dying Venezuela, but the United States of America. That sir, is energy independence... And as I am a Libertarian, I say, America First. Put America first. Drill in the United States of America!

Slash!

OPEC/Saudi does not like Russia because they are considered competition, along with all BLOC countries. Just a few years ago the Jewish Communist Oligarch that had the country by the throat since the Bolshevik Revolution, was disbanded, and a new Capitalistic government has emerged from the ciaos of rogue power structures that some have called Mafia.

Fortunately, however, out of the fray, both civil liberties and Christianity is on the rise, just as ours are dissolving. Orthodox Christianity, in Russia, is vying to become the national religion, and though Mr. Putin is reluctant to accept this ideology of Church State, he has come forward with a public statement that he considers himself a Christian.

This has caused a national furor, a new love of country, where just sixty years ago all religions were dismantled or went underground. The horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution is still remembered, and they do not want that to return.

Indeed, OPEC/Saudi, the country where our new President bowed to their Murderous Oil Prince, has a great manipulative power over our Congress, and together with AIPAC, now controls our country from the inside out... Our Congress is the best money can buy, and it seems evident that they do not care one iota for our civil liberties, our economy, our constitution, our sovereignty, our natural God-given rights, and are bought and paid to promote their corporate sponsors.

They are traitors... And they should be fired. Term limits would help, but only an informed populous could have any hope in achieving that lofty ideal... Individual responsibility seeks truth, and both are in short supply.

_______________________________________

Author's Note: Yesterday I picked up my new Christmas shotgun at my local shooting range. Parked in front I saw several State Police cars with one that had SUPERVISOR printed on the door in silver letters.
On my way out I noticed him looking at some leather holsters, and with a spur-of-the-moment decision walked up to him, trying to project calmness... “Sir,” I said, “may I ask you a question?” I tried to smile.

“Sure.” he said, and he looked at me right in the eyes.

“Well, I know this is out of the blue, but I'd like to ask you if you are an Oath Keeper.”

His mind clicked, and I could see the wheels turning...”Yes, yes I am sir, and why do you ask?”

I could feel the blood moving to my face, with a lump in my throat too, just like the thirty other times I have done this...“Well, you took an oath to protect the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies both domestic and foreign.” I said, “Do you read the Constitution?”

“Yes I do read the Constitution, and yes I take my oath very seriously.”

I put my hand out to him, and he took it with a strong grip, and I said "Thank you for your service..." And for just a moment more we held eye contact, and what I saw there gave me hope, and a love too, for my country and this fine young man who is on the front lines. And as I turned and walked out, I heard him say:

"Thanks for asking."

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

House strips Obama of Keystone pipeline

House of Representative votes 266-153 to strip President Obama of authority over the Keystone XL pipeline

House Speaker Boehner Announced Approval of Keystone - On to the Senate

The House on Friday voted, 266-153, to yank President Obama's authority over Keystone XL and approve the $8 billion pipeline, bringing the new GOP Congress ever closer to its first showdown with the White House.

Twenty-eight Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the legislation that would immediately permit construction of the Alberta-to-Texas heavy oil line, a major priority for industry, the GOP and the Canadian government.

The White House made clear on Friday that a Nebraska Supreme Court ruling upholding the pipeline's route through that state would not alter its threat to veto the legislation.

The Senate is set to take its first votes on the bill Monday, though its passage could be prolonged by what GOP leaders have said will be a freewheeling, open amendment process.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Mr. Speaker: Is this a fork in the road?

Mr. Speaker: We've come to a fork in the road from the art studios of A.F. (Tony) Branco and featured at the Net Right Daily

Get Your Daily Dose of Humor from A.F. (Tony) Branco

Check out some of the websites listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

 

Obama: Kicks oil and gas while its down

Obama Administration kicks the oil-and-gas industry while it is down by Marita K. Noon and featured at Breibart.com

Marita Noon at Energy Makes America Great

For the past six years, the oil and gas industry has served as a savior to the Obama presidency by providing the near-lone bright spot in economic growth. Increased U.S. oil-and-gas production has created millions of well-paying jobs and given us a new energy security.

The president often peppers his speeches with braggadocio talk about our abundant supplies and decreased dependence on foreign oil.

So now that the economic powerhouse faces hard times, how does the Administration show its appreciation for the oil-and-gas industry boon to the economy over the past six years?

By introducing a series of regulations—at least nine in total, according to the Wall Street journal (WSJ)—that will put the brakes on the US energy boom through higher operating costs and fewer incentives to drill on public lands.

WSJ states: “Mr. Obama and his environmental backers say new regulations are needed to address the impacts of the surge in oil and gas drilling.”

U.S. oil production, according to the Financial Times:

“caught Saudi Arabia by surprise.”

The kingdom sees that US shale and Canadian oil-sand development “encroached on OPEC’s market share” and has responded with a challenge to high-cost sources of production by upping its output—adding to the global oil glut and, therefore, dropping prices.

Most oil-market watchers expect temporary low-priced oil, with prediction of an increase in the second half of 2015, and some saying 2016. North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness believes “We’re in an energy war.”

He sees “the price slump could last 16 months or even one to two years as U.S. supply stays strong, global demand remains weak and OPEC continues to challenge U.S. production.”

However, Ibrahim al-Assaf, Saudi Arabia’s finance minister, recently said:

“We have the ability to endure low oil prices over the medium term of up to five years, even if it means delving into fiscal reserves to cover a large deficit.”

While no one knows how long the low-price scenario will last—geopolitical risk is still a factor.

Many oil companies are already re-evaluating exploration, reining in costs, and cutting jobs and/or wages. “In the low price circumstance like today,” Jean-Marie Guillermou, the Asian head of the French oil giant Total, explained:

“you do the strict minimum required.”

In December, the WSJ reported:

“Some North American companies have said they plan to cut their capital spending next year and dial back on exploring for new oil.”

It quotes Tim Dove, President and COO for Pioneer Natural Resources Co.:

“We are seeking cost reductions from all our suppliers.”

Last month, Enbridge Energy Partners said:

“it has laid off some workers in the Houston area”—which the Houston Chronicle (HC) on December 12 called: “the latest in a string of energy companies to announce cutbacks.”

The HC continued:

“Other key energy companies have also announced layoffs in recent days as oil tumbles to its lowest price in years. Halliburton on Thursday said it would slash 1,000 jobs in the Eastern Hemisphere as part of a $75 million restructuring. BP on Wednesday revealed plans to accelerate job cuts and pare back its oil production business amid crumbling oil prices.”

Halliburton said:

“we believe these job eliminations are necessary in order to work through this market environment.”

Civeo, a lodging and workforce accommodation company for the oil-and-gas industry has cut 30 percent of its Canadian workforce and 45 percent of its U.S. workforce. President and CEO Bradley Dodson said:

“As it became evident during the fourth quarter that capital spending budgets among the major oil companies were going to be cut, we began taking steps to reduce marketed room capacity, control costs and curtail discretionary capital expenditures.”

I have warned the industry that while they have remained relatively unscathed by harsh regulations—such as those placed on electricity generation—their time would come. Now, it has arrived. The WSJ concurs:

“In its first six years, the administration released very few regulations directly affecting the oil-and-gas industry and instead rolled out several significant rules aimed at cutting air pollution from the coal and electric-utility sectors.”

According to the WSJ:

“Some of the rules have been in the works for months or even years.”

But that doesn’t mean the administration should introduce them now when the industry is already down—after all, the administration delayed Obamacare mandates due to the negative impact on jobs and the economy.

Greg Guidry, executive vice president at Shell, recently said that he doesn’t want the EPA to “impose unnecessary costs and burden on an industry challenged now by a sustained low-price environment.”

Different from Obama, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets it. Under pressure from the environmental lobby to increase regulations on the oil-and-gas industry, he, during a question session on the floor of the House of Commons in December, said:

“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy—it would be crazy economic policy—to do unilateral penalties on that sector.”

He added:

“We are not going to kill jobs and we are not going to impose a carbon tax.”

Introducing the new rules now kick the industry while it is down and shows that President Obama either doesn’t get it, or he cares more about burnishing his environmental legacy than he does about American jobs and economic growth.

______________________________________________

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy - which expands on the content of her weekly column.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Presidential education on oil and gas prices

A Presidential education on energy from the political art files of A.F. (Tony) Branco and featured at Comically Incorrect.com

Get Your Daily Dose of Humor from the A.F,. (Tony) Branco Files

Check out some of the websites listed below that publish the A.F. (Tony) Branco Political Cartoon features.

• Editorial cartoonist
• Net Right Daily
• Legal Insurrection
• Liberty Alliance
• ConservativeDailyNews.com

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

 

Fracking is fundamental

Fracking is Fundamental from Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know Caruba's Warning Signs

“It is a sad day when a state chooses to listen to the fear, uncertainty, and doubts spread by anti-fossil fuel agitators rather than making a decision for economic strength.

A decision that would benefit schools, communities, and many of its poorest citizens ~ especially when the vilified technology, hydraulic fracturing, has been used safely and successfully for more than 60 years and has brought prosperity to other formerly struggling regions.”

Marita Noon
Executive Director, Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute

Responding to the announcement by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the state would ban fracking, Ms. Noon joined others, bringing their expertise to bear on a topic that remains a concern only because environmentalist enemies of energy in America continue to lie about it every chance they get.

Visit Facts-not-Fantasy

In his book, “The Fracking Truth--America’s Energy Revolution: The Inside, Untold Story”. Chris Faulkner wrote “Furthermore, it’s been commonplace for decades. Worldwide, it’s estimated that more than 2.5 million wells have been fracked and the U.S. accounted for about half of those.

Today, about 35,000 wells are fracked each year in all types of wells. And it’s impact on industry? It’s been estimated that 80% of production from unconventional sources such as shales would not be feasible without it.”

The Governor’s decision has everything to do with wooing the support of environmentalists in New York and nothing to do with the jobs and billions in tax revenue that fracking would have represented.

New York’s acting health commissioner, Howard Zucker, justified the decision saying that “cumulative concerns” about fracking “give me reason to pause.” Are we truly expected to believe that five years of study since the initial 2009 memorandum about fracking any provided reason to ban it? If the use of fracking technology dates back to 1947 without a single incident of pollution traced to it, what would it take to create “cumulative concerns” except ignorance or prejudice against the facts?

Even the Environmental Protection Agency has never found evidence of the chemicals used in fracking entering the nation’s groundwater. Moreover, fracking fluid is 99.5% water and sand. The rest is a mixture of chemicals similar to household products that could be found under the kitchen sink.

As Dr. Jay Lehr, Science Director of The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank, points out, “Today we only fracture wells that are drilled horizontally and that requires 1,500 feet of vertical depth for the well” and thus “all such wells are way below local water wells.”

How idiotic, then, is it to seal off some twelve million acres of the Marcellus Shale, an underground rock formation with natural gas reserves that have helped create energy production booms in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado, and Ohio?

A December 19th Wall Street Journal editorial noted that just across New York’s border with neighboring Pennsylvania, “A 2011 Manhattan Institute study estimated that each Marcellus Shale well in Pennsylvania generates $5 million in economic benefits and $2 million in tax revenue.”

Companies there have generated more than $2.1 billion in state and local taxes since the fracking boom began. As one observer noted, “The ban ignores New York’s “6% unemployment rate, a depressed upstate region, and the fourth highest electricity prices in the nation.”

I don’t know how long it will take for the vast majority of the U.S. population to conclude that everything the environmentalists and their propagandists in the nation’s schools and media have to say about energy is as vast a hoax as the now discredited “global warming”, since renamed “climate change.”

Energy is the master resource, the lifeblood of ours and the world’s economy, the basis for electricity, for the ability to travel vast distances, for machines that enable vast harvests of crops by barely 2% of the U.S. population, to power all manufacturing, and to heat or cool our living and workplaces.

Fracking is yet another technological miracle and, of course, the environmentalists oppose it.

_________________________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

The great renewable energy rip-off

The Great Renewable Energy Rip-Off from the Warning Signs by Alan Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

Know the Warning Signs from Caruba at Facts-not-Fantasy

One of the lesser known attempts to prove that renewable energy, wind and solar power, can replace traditional energy sources--coal, oil, and natural gas--went belly up in much the same way current wind and solar companies depend on tapping the taxpayer for government subsidies in order to stay in business. Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative begun in 2007 and shut down four years later.

Two members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Ross Koningstein and David Fork, worked on the project. Both men have excellent credentials in aerospace engineering and applied physicals, respectively, but neither had a clue about climatology. Expertise in one field rarely translates to another unless it is closely allied.

At the start of the project "we shared the attitude of many stalward environmentalists. We felt that with steady improvements to today's renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope, but that doesn't mean the planet is doomed."

Environmentalists start off with several thoroughly incorrect beliefs that are not supported by science. The first is that climate change has anything to do with human activity such as carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases.”

The Earth is not a greenhouse. It is always in the process of absorbing and discharging heat via the atmosphere and the oceans. If it retained heat all life on Earth would die. Even on a hot summer’s day, it will cool at night. Deserts, too, are often cooler at night. As for carbon dioxide, it is a trace gas in the atmosphere at barely 0.04%, but it is also the gas which all vegetation requires. In turn, vegetation gives off oxygen while we humans and other animals exhale carbon dioxide.

Secondly, environmentalists mistakenly believe that carbon dioxide emissions from the use of energy, particularly coal and oil, are so great that it affects the weather defined as what is happening now and the climate whose trends can only be determined decades and centuries from now. The constant claims about carbon dioxide emissions are blatantly false.

There is no basis in science for nations to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, more carbon dioxide would be a good thing for the planet’s vegetation, yielding healthier forests and greater crop yields on farms.

Thirdly, environmentalists believe that we shall run out of coal, oil, and natural gas at some point. The current estimates put that point very far in the future and, since new reserves are being found, they show no indication of not being available for a very long time to come.

Know the Warning Signs

“Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work,” said the two IEEE engineers. They’re right. Of all the forms of energy available wind and solar are so expensive and so unpredictable that they make no sense based on the false notion that humans can impact the Earth’s climate now or ever.

The public is never told that wind turbines and solar farms all require a traditional electrical energy producer—coal, oil, or natural gas-based—because they don’t function if the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. These days, we can add nuclear plants to those deemed traditional. Hydroelectrical plants are also traditional.

It is the American taxpayer who is paying the price for renewable energy that is more costly to produce than traditional coal-fired plants or those now benefitting from the reduced cost of natural gas thanks to fracking technology that Is securing more of it, as well as oil.

A Fox News headline recently reported that the “World’s largest solar plant applying for federal grant to pay off federal loan.” The wealthy investors in a California solar plant, the Ivanpah solar plant, owned by Google and the renewable energy giant, NRG, not only received a $1.6 billion construction loan from U.S. taxpayers, but they are now requesting a $539 million grant to pay off their loan!

William La Jeunesse of Fox News reported that “In 2013, the Obama administration handed out $18.5 billion in renewable energy grants, with $4.4 billion going to solar projects.” Now one of those projects wants the government to give them money to help pay off their construction loan.

La Jeunesse reported, “the plant produced only about a quarter of the power it’s supposed to, a disappointing 254,263 magawatt-hours of electricity from January through August, not the million megawatt-hours it promised.”

Renewable energy is a huge taxpayer and consumer rip-off.

Where solar leaves off, wind energy has been tapping taxpayers by means of the wind energy Production Tax Credit, (PTC) a form of welfare for wind energy companies. The Institute for Energy Research released a white paper in November noting that “A two-year extension will cost $13.35 billion, which is enough to pay 124 million Americans’ monthly electricity bills.”

The PTC “allows wind producers to pay the grid to take their power and still profit.” This “negative pricing” forced two nuclear plants to close their doors because they could not compete against the practice. This would be a good time to let your congressman know that you don’t want to have the PTC extended any further.

Still think wind energy is a good thing? Fully 65% of voters think that two decades of tax credits is enough! Wind energy, like solar, tends to produce more electricity when it is needed least. To top off reasons to stop throwing money at it, the Institute for Energy Research has found that “wind energy costs $109 per megawatt hour, which is twice as much as this year’s average wholesale electricity price of $54 per MWh.”

To wrap up this look at renewable energy the Obama administration’s “war on coal” is going to cause utility bills to surge. As reported on Bloomberg News, according to the Brattle Group, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting company, “the loss of the cheaper coal units will boast power prices by as much as 25% on grids that serve about a third of the nation’s population. The biggest impact may be in the Midwest and Northeast, where demand for gas for heating jumps during the cold-weather months.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has come up with more ways to shut down the provision of electrical power as its proposed Mercury and Air Toxics Standards go into effect, requiring coal-fired plants to install scrubbers or close their doors.

The EPA is not protecting anyone’s health. It is forcing them to pay more for what should be the most traditional and affordable sources of electricity in the world. It is putting people's lives at stake if the power is not available.

______________________________________________

Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

 

Landrieu thrown under the bus by Democrats

Landrieu Almost Certain to Lose Her Re-election Bid to Congressman Bil Cassidy

In a tight vote within the senate and with a change of support for Mary Landrieu (R-LA) within her own party, the Keystone XL bill went dow to defeat by a 59-41 votes.

The bill, known as KXL, needed 60 votes to go to the president's desk for signature.

Top level Whitehouse sources indicated to Political Truth Serum that the president was interested in seeing the bill and may have signed it as a good will gesture to its northern U.S. neighbors.

A variation of the legislation is expected to be reintroduced in the senate for another vote with the incoming 114th Congress in January.

The November 18th senate vote almost insures that Landrieu will lose her election run-off bid against Congressman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on December 6th and give the Republican Party 54 members in the new Senate.

(approved for reprint by PRonlineNews)

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Dems stop Keystone in the Senate

The Keystone XL bill failed the Senate by a vote of 59-41 and is likely to be brought back up to the Senate with the incoming 114th Congress in January.

As reported in our breaking story on Monday, October 17th, sources told Political Truth Serum that Keystone XL would pass the U.S. Senate by 1 or 2 votes.

A last minute change from 2 Senators toppled the chance for passage and will most likely cost Mary Landreiu her senate seat in a run-off election against Louisiana Republican, Bill Cassidy.

There was no immediate reaction from the whitehouse after sources indicated President Obama might be willing to sign the bill into law if it got through the Senate.

_____________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now

Barack Obama: The Anti-Clinton President

Obama is the Anti-Clinton President from the fie of Jeff Crouere at Ringside Politics in New Orleans, LA

Cut the Brother Some Slack - He's still Learning the Job (six years down the road)

Despite his horrible treatment of women, perjury and serious moral lapses, Bill Clinton was a very good politician. He was at heart a liberal Democrat who adjusted his principles to the shifting political winds.

In the red state of Arkansas, Clinton was elected five times as Governor. He flopped giving the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but returned four years later as the nominee and eventual President.

After losing badly in the 1994 mid-term elections, Clinton move to the ideological center and worked with the Republican Congress to pass welfare reform, capital gains tax cuts and the Defense of Marriage Act. The result was that he won an overwhelming re-election in 1996 and left his successor with a significant budget surplus.

Of course, his true agenda of higher taxes and socialized medicine was revealed in his first two years. He failed and the voters registered their disapproval, so he wisely moderated and became a political success. He was even able to withstand the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment.

Today, another Democrat President is facing an angry electorate, but, unlike Bill Clinton, Barack Obama will not be moving to the political center. He will be staying where he is most comfortable, in the far left lane of American politics.

Since his party’s stunning defeat in the mid-term elections, the President has nominated a staunch liberal as Attorney General, reaffirmed his opposition to the Keystone pipeline, signed a controversial “climate change” agreement with the Chinese, moved to increase government oversight of the Internet and, most aggressively, announced plans to issue Executive Amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Instead of getting a message and following the wishes of the voters, Obama is doing the opposite and provoking a political fight with the Republicans.

At this post-election news conference, President Obama displayed almost no desire in genuine compromise with the Republicans and seemed uninterested in meeting with GOP leadership unless incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could provide some “Kentucky bourbon.”

In the days since the mid-term election, the President has verified his firm adherence to liberalism and his belief in government solutions to almost every problem faced by the American people. For example, while polls show that “climate change” is very low on the priority list of Americans, the President is determined to place it at the forefront of his agenda.

In his questionable deal with the Chinese, the U.S. is mandated to curtail our economic growth in an effort to reduce carbon emissions, while the Chinese economy is allowed to grow unimpeded for another 15 years.

Furthermore, popular causes such as the building of the Keystone pipeline will not happen while Obama is President. Instead, he is about to announce Executive Amnesty, a deeply disliked measure. This unlawful plan to offer millions of lawbreakers’ amnesty is a direct challenge to the Republican Party. At the same time, it is a clear violation of the constitutional limits on his executive powers.

Once he follows through on his threat, Congress should forcefully respond. Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer believes that the amnesty measure is an “impeachable offense.” Others believe that Congress should remove funding from the program at a minimum.

The President will not back down on his cherished liberal agenda during the next two years. It is up to the Congress to take up the challenge and make their case to the American people. It will make for a confrontational final two years of his term, a very bumpy ride for America.

This drama will nicely set the stage for the 2016 presidential election as Hillary Clinton will try to distance herself from an unpopular President Obama and Republican candidates will run against his disastrous record.

_______________________________________________________

Jeff Crouere is a native of New Orleans, LA and he is the host of a Louisiana based program, “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and 10:00 p.m. Sunday on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore.

For more information, visit his web site at www.ringsidepolitics.com or email him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

________________________________________________________

Click Here - Become a Truth Serum Partner Now