Posted on 12/17/2011 12:25:34 PM PST by SeekAndFind
So the rumblings about a cave-in were apparently true. Can’t find anything on the wires yet, but Guy Benson of Townhall hears from a “senior GOP source” that it’s a done deal and Fox News’s Chad Pergram quotes Lamar Alexander as saying, “We’re very pleased with the decision on the Keystone pipeline.” Benson:
Round one of this fight went to Obama. Round two, to the GOP. Round three? A TKO decision for Republicans. A senior GOP source tells me that Democrats have agreed to a two-month extension of the temporary payroll tax cuts — plus unemployment benefits and the “doc fix” — with some extra Christmas goodies for conservatives. Quote: “Two-month extension, PLUS Keystone. Fully paid for; no tax hikes. Hallelujah.”
Note that it’s not a comprehensive deal on the payroll tax, just a two-month extension, but that means there’ll be another opportunity for more goodies soon. Smells like victory, and yet … that possibility troubles my eeyorish mind. Let me throw you a pessimistic curveball cribbed from the comments in the other Keystone thread: What if Obama’s secretly been hoping for this outcome? His problem with the pipeline was that it forces him to choose between environmentalists and labor. He’d love to have those new jobs so that he has some teeny tiny economic accomplishment to tout next year, but he doesn’t want to tick off the greens by rubber-stamping approval of the pipeline. So instead he pretends to punt his decision until after the election, knowing full well that the GOP will take up the issue somehow in order to burnish their own jobs credentials. Now that they’ve done so and thrown it back in his lap, he can hug the greens and whisper a tender “I tried because I love you” in their ears before turning around and signing off on the pipeline in the name of economic recovery. In other words, the original punt was really just a fake punt and now he’s in the end zone. Dude, did we just get rolled by Obama?
I’m thinking no, we didn’t, because we get something out of this too on top of all those tasty jobs. Via Pew:
Do-nothing Congress = bad. Job-creating GOP-driven bipartisan achievements = good! Exit question via Tina, who sent this link to me in an e-mail: Everyone comfortable with the use of eminent domain to make this project happen?
Update (Tina): If Allahpundit’s eeyorish theory is right and the president planned this, his plan has already backfired. Environmentalists are still upset with him. From Politico Pro:
For greens, the fact that the Keystone pipeline was back on the table five weeks after Obama had seemingly punted it until 2013 is causing considerable heartburn with an administration that hasn’t been as green as they once wished.
Their initial win looked even better because it came just days after thousands circled the White House at a weekend protest that drew celebrity faces like actor Mark Ruffalo. But now Obama’s environmental allies again face the question of whether to withhold support for his reelection campaign.
“I think everyone will try to take a breath and see what the language is and what the State Department can do,” said Bill McKibben, the organizer of the November anti-Keystone protest. “But I think everyone will also feel really upset. Profoundly upset.”
“People literally put their bodies on the line and they thanked the president when they took him seriously,” McKibben added. “And the president said he was acting on principle and that it was important and if that resolve lasts five weeks and that’s it, if all it takes is Newt Gingrich getting up and expostulating San Francisco and environmental extremist for him to turn around, that’s really sad.”
Sierra Club president Michael Brune put it even more bluntly: “This is bulls–t,” he said. “This is no way to run a government.” Brune also hinted earlier this year that his group could shift money from the presidential race to congressional races if he’s not pleased with the president.
The more plausible theory for a cynic is the one Democrats themselves have openly stated: They’re hoping the two-month time frame for this deal is too short for the president to actually give the green light to the Keystone pipeline. After all, they say, the State Department is still in the midst of environmental reviews projected to take longer than 60 days. In other words, the president might approve the project in general now — but he and the State Department might yet step in to stop actual construction of the pipeline.
But even that seems like a stretch, desperate Democratic spin in the wake of a negotiation they clearly lost. As Guy’s senior GOP source also told me tonight, plenty of Dems are on record saying the pipeline won’t create as many jobs as projected — so, when it does, they’ll be hard put to share credit.
Last thought, regarding eminent domain: The same source reminds me state governments have a hand in approving the specific route of the pipeline. Nebraska, for example, has renegotiated the route with TransCanada. My own thought, then, is this: Savvy state governments should be able to work around the eminent domain issue.
Somewhere down the road, RATS will not fund it or Obama will kill it some other way.
Obama’s EPA will tie this up for the next year
Dems are fond of saying that the Republicans want the economy to stay bad so that Obama won’t be reelected. The Republicans should use this win to prove that they put America’s needs before the Party.
The pipeline will be a reality when we have a Conservative Congress, but until then, headlines that make libtard heads explode will have to do. Rat tinkering will only result in more rats leaving the sinking DemocRAT Party. Tinkering won’t fit on a bumper sticker and is therefore too complex for the average rat voter.
If this is true, he has made some promises to the enviromental nazis in the way of $ or other American killing legislation pending..... you can bet on it!
Lining up the ducks
Killed bin ladin, ended the war in Iraq, saved the country from a depression, healthcare for everyone, put stiff regulations on wallstreet so this will not happen again, has been a green president investing in Americas future, Has passed strict environmental laws to protect America for our children and grand children, supports the troops and thier families, supports the veterans, takes care of our seniors. GOP wants to bring us back to the days of policies that do not work. Who out of our guys can systematically break these things down and counter them viciously?
I agree that what might look promising for the pipeline initially is probably more akin to Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown at the last second.
I’m not holding my breath...
My understanding is that the pipeline provision could be rescinded at the end of the 2 month period. In any case, I’m sure the Progressives will find a way to delay it ad infinitum. If it’s not re-newable they are not interested no matter what the cost.
Who do you think? I know one who can.
Btw you summed up the probable obama campaign extremely well, imo.
thanks for the correction...
Thanks SeekAndFind.
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387985468
Actually, oil is a renewable resource. The link takes you to a book explaining why and how. Oil is not produced, as we were taught in school, by fossils. It is produced by bacteria that live in the crust and core. If you don’t believe this is possible, how do you explain tube worms that live miles below the ocean’s surface in thermal vents producing water at several hundred degrees C? These life forms breath a variety of sulfur based compounds.
How do you explain that wells supposedly pumped dry in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s are pumping oil again?
The last thing liberals would like to know is that oil is a renewable resource. When I was in school in the ‘60’s we were told that by 1970 there would be no oil. Then in 1970 it became 1975, then 1980, then…The objective of a liberal is to keep the panic going, whether it’s peak oil or climate catastrophe. The ongoing panic is supposed to take us to some simpler time so we can all live in hippie communes and compost our snot.
And be the Albatross around his neck.
No argument here. Yeah it’s kind of interesting if fossils made oil and gas, how did they ever get thousands of feet underground. If I remember right, in Worlds in Collision, a book written by Immanuel Velikovsy, the earth’s petroleum deposits occurred when Venus passed close to Earth which was bathed in a cloud of petroleum liquid/gas from Venus. The petroleum then somehow seep deep into the Earth. Because of this close encounter, the Earth’s orbit became very eccentric for a while and passed close enough to Mars that huge lightening bolts passed between them. One of his “proofs” was how did the Romans know and name the moons of Mars without telescopes? Not many people subscribe to his theories but many of them are intriguing.
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