Free Republic

Hillary Rodham Clinton brings a quarter-century of public service to her potential presidential campaign, but it’s her most recent job as secretary of state for President Obama — overseeing relations with Russia, handling the terrorist attack in Benghazi and negotiating over the war on terrorism — that could come back to haunt her. Many of Mr. Obama’s current political problems also could affect Mrs. Clinton, including the handling of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the decision not to slap the terrorist label on Boko Haram, a group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls last month. Even the Keystone XL...

Oil was seen shooting upward in the sky and onto the nearby Gentleman’s Club.... "This oil comes from the Bakersfield area, this is a pumping transfer station and pumping transfer station then transfers the oil to a storage facility in Long Beach," Batallion Chief David Spence said.

The Keystone XL Pipeline got another nail in its coffin Monday, in the form of a Senate energy vote that excluded the pipeline issue. But Keystone was already near death thanks to the Obama's administration's recent decision to ignore the evidence of a definitive government study—and instead keep listening to environmentalists' dubious claims. The upshot will be more political fires in Washington caused by train derailments in the absence of a pipeline to transport oil more safely. After the derailment in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, approximately 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil burned or spilled into the James...

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy has become something of a folk hero among the anti-government, pro-property rights crowd, thanks to his recent standoff with the federal Bureau of Land Management. Some landowners in the path of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline want to know where the support for them has been, since their private property will actually be taken away without their approval. Bundy and his supporters don’t recognize federal ownership of the land where his cattle have been grazing illegally for more than two decades. He refuses to pay grazing fees, arguing that he has “ancestral rights” to the land...

A bipartisan Senate effort to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline collapsed Monday making it unlikely a politically potent vote on the project will take place before November’s midterm election. A vote on Keystone was tied to the fate of an unrelated energy efficiency bill that has support in both parties. But that measure failed to get the 60 votes it needed to move forward after getting bogged down in partisan fighting over whether GOP amendments would be allowed.

Dear Comrade Obama, Thanks for nothing. Really. No website, no stimulus, no green energy-- no real energy-- no healthcare, no foreign policy, no jobs, no security, no recovery. If Comrade Obama isn’t going to use our domestic energy supply, can the rest of us borrow it for a while? --A. Lincoln (paraphrased) During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was plagued by generals who wouldn’t act, who wouldn’t fight battles, develop plans, or win victories despite his reliance on the some of the best students of war the country had produced thus far. The United States military academy produced for the...

Senate Democrats are refusing to let supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to use an energy efficiency bill as a vehicle to attempt winning congressional approval for the controversial project. Majority Leader Harry Reid used a parliamentary move Wednesday to block a Republican amendment on the pipeline as well as a measure to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing new greenhouse gas regulations on coal-burning power plants.

Canadian oil prices are now just $18 below the price of U.S. crude thanks to a series of new U.S. pipelines, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning. This means the Keystone XL Pipeline is already obsolete. "Higher oil prices in Canada ... are a sign that oil-sands crude is finding its way to the U.S. even without the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline," Journal reporters Nicole Friedman and Chester Dawson said. "The resurgence in Canadian oil prices and energy stocks is further confirmation that the transportation problems that have prevented both Canada and the U.S. from enjoying...

Mark Udall, D-Colo., is facing calls on both sides to clarify his position on the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline wouldn't run through Colorado, but it's about to take center stage in the state's politics. The Senate is near certain to vote this week on legislation that would approve the oil-sands pipeline, and that's leaving Sen. Mark Udall—a Democrat facing a tough reelection challenge—with an unenviable choice to make. If Udall votes yes, he'll anger a liberal base that has put blocking the pipeline at the head of its environmental charge. But if he votes no, his opponent...

The vote to authorize immediate construction of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline may come to a crucial head next week, as two Senators introduced a bill on Thursday calling for binding legislation.

On Good Friday the White House announced the administration was indefinitely delaying a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the construction project that will bring crude oil from Alberta, Canada to American refiners in Oklahoma and Texas. It has been more than 2000 days since TransCanada TRP -0.41% first submitted its paperwork to build Keystone. Since then, America has laid 10,000 miles of pipeline, over 4,000 miles of which transport crude oil. While this number may seem shocking given the hyperbolic debate surrounding Keystone, America is literally covered in pipelines. 185,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipelines and 320,000...

President Obama chose Good Friday to announce another delay in the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring crude oil from Canada to our refineries near the Gulf. If the pipeline is not approved, Alberta's oil will go to Asia-and the United States will be the big loser. According to Terry O'Sullivan, general president of the Laborers International Union of North America, writing in the Washington Post on April 25, "Despite efforts by an environmental fringe to hijack the mantle of progressivism or attempts by the far right to make Keystone a wedge issue, energy development is not a right-wing or...

A coalition of ranchers, farmers and native tribes are staging protests against the Keystone XL pipeline on the National Mall this week with teepees, horses and a sacred fire that will burn for days The National Mall in Washington, D.C., will look like a scene out of an Old Western this week, as the Cowboy and Indian Alliance holds a multi-day protest against the Keystone XL pipeline complete with teepees, horses and religious ceremonies. The confederation of ranchers, farmers and members of Native American tribes kicks off the week of protest and civil disobedience Tuesday, Earth Day, with a horse...

I’m going to go ahead and add their ongoing insouciance toward Canada on the Keystone XL pipeline to the Obama administration’s already impressively long list of foreign-policy blunders and undervaluations; sure, administration officials will readily affirm that Canada is “one of our closest partners” and “greatest friends” and whatever else, but just saying the words isn’t quite the same thing as actually helping a brother out on strengthening their economy and building up their natural resource production. Canada is our largest commercial trading partner and the country from which we import the most oil by far (followed by Saudi Arabia,...

The psychiatric world defines "projection" as the act of denying unpleasant qualities in yourself, while attributing them to others. Consider liberal billionaire Tom Steyer's riff this week about the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers. Mr. Steyer took exception in a C-SPAN interview to comparisons between his big-dollar funding of Democrats with the Koch brothers' big-dollar funding of Republicans. The Kochs' priorities "line up perfectly with their pocketbooks—and that's not true for us," said Mr. Steyer, who is fighting against the Keystone XL pipeline. Moreover, he insisted, his politicking is "completely open," whereas the Kochs have "not been huge embracers of transparency."...

If you didn't realize it, yesterday was Earth Day. Founded back in 1970, this event was created to foster support for environmental protection. (Coincidentally, it's also the day communists celebrate the birthday of Vladimir Lenin.) Chances are you saw some news reports on the joys of recycling and other such fluff. Personally, I find such Earth Day nonsense quite tiresome as the environmental movement went from wanting to stop pollution to full-tilt insane in a few decades. One of the Earth Day consequences that we have is the EPA, which liberals and eco-nuts will gleefully remind us was signed into...

Since word broke on Thursday night that Chelsea Clinton will be having a baby, ABC has fixated over the news, devoting 12 minutes and 47 seconds of coverage to the arrival of America's new "royal" child. Yet, the same network totally ignored the latest delay of the Kyestone XL pipeline by the Obama administration (and the political ramifications that go with it). On Friday morning, ABC reporter Bianna Golodryga hyped, "Move over, Prince George, though. This morning, Americans have their own royal, or, rather, presidential baby, to look forward to." On Sunday, This Week avoided Keystone, yet the ABC program...

The latest delay to a final decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline will reinforce a White House strategy to energize President Barack Obama's liberal-leaning base before fall elections in which Democrats risk losing control of the U.S. Senate. Environmentalists, worried about the project's effect on climate change, have put enormous pressure on the president to reject the pipeline from Canada's oil sands, staging demonstrations outside the White House and protests in states where he travels. A decision to approve it now could have prompted that vocal group, which was instrumental in electing Obama in 2008 and 2012, to sit...

...The announcement made it clear that Canadian pipeline backers will not get the answer they wanted in time for the summer construction season, pushing completion of the project until 2015 — at best. The State Department said it needs more time to prepare its recommendation to the president because the pipeline route is mired in uncertainty. A legal dispute is underway in Nebraska over the route and it is unlikely to be resolved before next year.... Speculation had been rampant about whether the Obama administration might try to punt the politically sensitive decision until after this year’s midterms. That’s because...

The man who oversaw an energy crisis has come out strongly against the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter with other Nobel laureates, former President Jimmy Carter urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the pipeline, claiming that allowing the project to move forward would worsen climate change.