Save The Eagles?

Leo Pusateri37 Comments

Remember how it was oh so important to save eagles? It was so important that the mosquito killing chemical DDT was banned, and as a result, millions upon millions of human beings died from mosquito-borne illnesses. Nearly 30 years later, it would seem that eagles aren’t that important after all:

A controversial wind farm proposed near Red Wing plans to ask for federal permission to legally kill eagles, making it one of the first in the nation to participate in a new federal strategy aimed at managing the often-lethal conflict between birds and turbine blades.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say they urged the developers of AWA Goodhue Wind to seek the new permit because the deaths of an unknown number of eagles and endangered golden eagles will be inevitable once the 50-turbine project is up and running.

The process for such “incidental take” permits was devised in 2009 as a compromise between the demand for clean energy from the growing number of wind farms and the rising concern over the estimated hundreds of thousands of birds and bats that they kill every year.

So, is it wrong to kill eagles? From an enviro-whacko perspective, it depends on who does the killing.

You see, it’s different when a lefty kills an eagle. Remember when DDT was banned because it was supposedly (never proven) making the egg shells of eagles too thin and brittle. As a result, literally 10s of MILLIONS of human beings died from mosquito borne illnesses– supposedly to save eagles. But it’s OK to kill a few eagles if it means that these monuments to stupidity and “green religion” are left intact.

Meanwhile, it was acceptable to kill tens of millions of human beings by banning DDT–to “save” eagles.

Ain’t it grand how liberal illogic works?

Obama: The American Dream is Unattainable without Abortion

Matt Margolis79 Comments

Believe it or not, that is essentially what he said.

Barack Obama says the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade is the chance to recognize the “fundamental constitutional right” to abortion and to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Really? Apparent children are not the future, they are obstacles.

Newt Debating Obama

Matt Margolis39 Comments

Those who don’t support Newt often point to his challenge to seven Lincoln/Douglas style debates, should Newt be the GOP nominee and note that Obama would never agree to that.

Hey, it’s a fair point. The last thing Obama wants to do is debate Newt Gingrich.

That said, does it matter? This election, no matter who Obama faces in November, is going to be about Obama’s record. Plain and simple. And these debates don’t necessarily have to happen for them to impact the race. If Obama goes on the record refusing to debate Newt Gingrich, who comes out looking better? The one asking Obama to defend his record, or the one who can’t defend his record?

It’s obvious Obama will “agree to the standard three debates” in formats established by past precedent. He will say that is enough, that it’s worked in the past, yada, yada, yada. But, if Newt wins the GOP nomination, you can bet that his performance in the debates will have had something (if not a lot) to do with it. If Obama were at all confident in his positions, and was able to defend his record and pat himself on the back for his accomplishments, these debates would be easy for him. Obama, you recall, was supposed to be a great communicator. If Mr. Harvard University can’t face Mr. West Georgia College, what does that say about him?

Newt’s debate challenge has been a prominent theme of his campaign, and it won’t go away the first time Obama cowers into the corner refusing. The big question will be “Obama doesn’t want to debate, why not?”

We know why not. That’s why we need Newt as the nominee. He’s the candidate who has best been able to articulate just how bad Obama has been for the country. If he spent even an hour debating Obama, Obama would probably be convinced that his tenure  has been a disaster.

EPA Threatens North Dakota Oil Boom

Amazona5 Comments

Oil production in North Dakota has boomed to the point that the state now produces nearly as much oil each day as OPEC member Ecuador.

But a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could bring a halt to the boom that has virtually eliminated unemployment in North Dakota.

The state now has 200 rigs pumping 440,000 barrels of oil daily in the Bakken shale formation, according to the Heartland Institute. The state’s unemployment rate is holding at just 3.5 percent, with many oil industry jobs paying more than $100,000 a year, and “we have 18,000 jobs looking for people,” North Dakota Republican Rep. Rick Berg told The Hill.

“If our country’s GDP grew at 7 percent, as it does in [my] state, most of our problems would be over in two years.”

The North Dakota legislature is using some of the state’s oil revenue to fund $1.2 billion in infrastructure improvements, including roads and schools. Public schools will receive $340 million in oil-related revenues over the next two years, and oil money will pay for a disaster relief fund and a reduction in property taxes.

Also, the legislature has ordered that 30 percent of the funds from the state’s 6.5 percent oil extraction tax be sent to the state’s Legacy Fund, which cannot be touched until 2017, when accrued interest will become available for spending.

One reason for the boom: “The regulatory environment was already low in North Dakota, certainly better than California’s and some other oil-producing states,” said Brett Narloch, executive director of the North Dakota Policy Council.

“As we move forward with oil production, I expect the business environment to get better.”

Most of the Bakken shale production is occurring on private land, but analysts and state legislators fear the EPA may still seek to shut it down, the Institute reported.

The federal agency is currently investigating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) production techniques, which are used in shale oil production.

Narloch said: “If the EPA decides to ban fracking, that shuts down the entire industry since so many of the wells operate by that procedure. It would kill this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

*******************

Permatorium in the Gulf, driving rigs off to other countries
Ban on offshore drilling along nearly all of the Eastern Seaboard
Fracking banned in New Jersey (thank you, Governor Christie)
No drilling in ANWR
Keystone pipeline shut down

And now there is this new threat from the newly empowered EPA, which has been given, through presidential fiat, unlimited power and authority to (1) make a unilateral decision about what is or is not “pollution” and (2) the power and authority to do whatever they want to address the alleged problem.  Congress did not approve this power shift, and has no control over it unless they stand up to Obama and take that control back.

Gabrielle Giffords To Resign from Congress

Matt Margolis14 Comments

I guess the first thing to say is, “it’s about time.”

Regardless of politics, Giffords hasn’t exactly been doing the job that she was elected to do. Her injuries and recovery prevented it. And yes, it’s terrible that her career has to end (or be put on hold this way) but this was the right decision, but one made much too late.

Of course, her lateness to do the right thing for district is only part of the story.

Democratic officials had held out hope for months that the congresswoman might recover sufficiently to run for re-election or even become a candidate to replace retiring Republican Sen. Jon Kyl.

Really? The Democrats wanted to use Giffords as an untouchable candidate to run for U.S. Senate, even in her condition? That’s pretty low if you ask me. We can all agree that it was a miracle that she survived the shooting last year, but I think we can all agree that despite her tremendous recovery thus far, she probably won’t ever get to do the job she was elected to do at the same capacity. And for Democrats to want to use her to shame voters from supporting a Republican… that’s just shameless.

Obama Kills Keystone, Offers Lame Excuse and Touts Unemployment As the Best Job Creator

tiredoflibbs43 Comments

The obAMATEUR is at it again.   The least ObAMATEUR and his administration could do is be straight with the American people.  When it comes to the decision to kill the Keystone pipeline, it had nothing to do with the reasons they cited and everything to do with Barack Obama’s reelection campaign.  Why can’t he just say that the radical environmentalist vote is more important than 20,000 American jobs and a path toward energy independence?

Instead, what does ObAMATEUR do?  He has the gall to kill the pipeline and then blame the Republicans!

Obama says that the reason he had to kill the pipeline is because the Republicans imposed an “arbitrary” deadline for him to make a decision.  Here was Obama’s statement …

“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people.  I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision.”

Gathering the necessary information to approve the project?  The State Department has been reviewing this Keystone pipeline since 2008!  I’m told that even by federal standards, four years is a long time for a project like this to be in limbo.  As one Senator pointed out, “The Obama administration complains about a 60-day deadline, but in reality it has now had 1,217 days to make a decision.”

So that puts this asinine “arbitrary deadline” argument to bed.  Now on to the next one … its environmental impact.  Chief dog washer Jay Carney wants you to believe that if the pipeline were built, it could affect “the air that our children breathe” and the water they drink.  Seriously!

Jay Carney: [It] would severely hamper their ability to review an alternate route and a new pipeline route in the proper way, a way that has long been established by precedent and that would take into consideration all the criteria that are so important in decisions like this. Economic impact, national security impact, environmental impact, the effect on the water that our children breathe — rather, the water our children drink and the air that they breathe.

This is what you would call a bunch of politi-scare horsesqueeze.  TransCanada, the company looking to build the pipeline, has spent a full three years and $1.9 billion studying the environmental impact of this project.  The State Department itself has already done an entire Environmental Impact Statement.  Why they need another one is beyond me.

At one point, environmentalists complained that the pipeline would threaten the Ogallala Aquifer.  Researchers at the Conservation and Survey Division of the University of Nebraska have been studying this one stinking aquifer for 40 years.  Even they determined that “the pipeline would pose a minimal risk to the Ogallala aquifer.”  But the environmentalists bitched and moaned and so the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality came up with a new route for the pipeline.  But that didn’t matter.  These environmentalists didn’t really care about the Ogallala Aquifer, they just cared about killing the pipeline altogether.  So they continued to push.

Meanwhile, Obama’s own jobs council on Tuesday said that the administration needs an “all-in approach” to energy policy, including oil and gas drilling and projects like the Keystone pipeline.  The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness writes, “[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands.”

Instead, ObAMATEUR is insistent that jobless benefits and temporary payroll tax cuts will do more for jobs in this nation than actual jobs.  Back in December while battling over the extension of the payroll tax cut, ObAMATEUR said: “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline,” he said, “they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”  The point, ObAMATEUR, is that you would rather have people on the government dole (keep the poor, poor) than allow them to work for a paycheck.  This ensures growing the dependent class and creating and keeping more Democrat voters in November.

Another lie perpetuated by the obAMATEUR and his fellow Democrat minions and looters is that the 1700 mile pipeline will in all likelihood not create the 22,000 jobs projected.   But, in another project in San Francisco they tout a 1.7 mile extension of the subway to create 43,000 jobs (is that with the additional unemployment benefits?).  The lies from the left keep growing and growing.

With much fanfare early in his administration, this “leader” appointed a jobs council.  This panel recommended that the rookie Executive support “policies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects.”  Further, the jobs council said that failure to promote these facilities would “stall the engine that could become a prime driver of U.S. jobs and growth in the decades ahead.”

The result is that obAMATEUR ignored his much touted panel because it encouraged oil exploration and tax cuts (gasp!).  Now the drones will regurgitate the talking point that oil production is up since 2003.  Yesterday Press Secretary Jay Carney said this: “The fact of the matter is, on oil and gas production, we have higher oil production in this country in 2010 than we’ve had since 2003.”  When he made his announcement yesterday Obama said that under his administration “domestic oil and natural gas production is up.”

I heard the same thing from Juan Williams on Fox … repeating the “domestic oil production is up” line.

So … what’s the truth?  First, let’s differentiate between private and public lands. ObAMATEUR has a great deal of control over the exploration for and recovery of oil from public – government – lands.  When it comes to privately held property his degree of control (thank God) is somewhat less.  Now … KNOW THIS.  Listen up, because you won’t hear this from Juan Williams or the mainstream media.  Gas and oil production from federal lands is down by 40% over the last ten years.  The vast majority of increases in gas and oil production is taking place on private property … with North Dakota leading the way.  Also … obAMATEUR has issued the LOWEST number of offshore oil leases since 1984.  To top things off obAMATEUR just issued a 20-year ban on uranium mining on 1,000,000 acres of federal land in Arizona.

Get the picture?  It’s the private sector on private lands that is responsible for any increase in oil and gas production.  The obAMATEUR is working hard to move in the other direction.