When running for reelection, Mr. Obama often claimed he was for developing all forms of energy, including coal and oil so American could be energy independent. Careful observers might recall that prior to the election, Mr. Obama stood before a section of pipeline to announce that he would not allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. They might also recall that those hoping to build the pipeline—in Canada and America—have jumped through every bureaucratic hoop imaginable, including Mr. Obama’s latest delaying excuse regarding rerouting the pipeline to address the never-ending objections of environmentalists.
Photo Credit: solarstorms.com
Now comes Hot Air’s Erika Johnsen who reports:
In a letter to the president, sent Friday, a group of 18 senators urged Obama to create thousands of jobs by approving the pipeline, which would transport oil from North Dakota and Montana through the United States for processing at refineries in Texas and Louisiana.
Setting politics aside: Nothing has changed about the thousands of jobs that Keystone XL will create,” the letter stated. “Nothing has changed about the energy security to be gained through an important addition to the existing pipeline network built with sound environmental stewardship and the best modern technology. Nothing has changed about the security to be gained from using more fuel produced at home and by a close and stable ally. And nothing has changed about the need for America to remain a place where businesses can still build things.’ …
‘The election is over, people want us to work together to create jobs, and one sure way we can create jobs right now is by moving forward with construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline,’ Baucus said in a statement Friday. ‘We’ve spent more than four years producing studies and addressing environmental and property concerns — there’s no excuse to keep Keystone jobs on hold any longer.
No excuse indeed, Senator Baucus. Johnson asks:
Can the Obama administration really afford to let such an opportunity for jobs, economic growth, and energy security to pass them by? It’ll be amazing to see what kind of excuses they try to throw at us if they do.
There are two possibilities:
(1) Building the pipeline will not only create thousands of high-paying jobs, it will materially contribute to American energy independence and economic recovery while posing no real threat to the environment. Any rational president facing looming economic oblivion should be delighted to have a project that is a winner—in every way and for everyone.
(2) Mr. Obama truly is a Marxist demagogue determined to cause the maximum damage to America. As such, he absolutely will prevent the construction of the pipeline, which is a losing proposition in every way and for everyone, except enemies of capitalism, democracy and America.
Sadly, I don’t think Mr. Obama will waste a moment announcing his predetermined decision. He may even decide to be photographed near pipes—yet again–while announcing it. I fear under Barack Obama, America can’t win, and Mr. Obama absolutely can afford to throw away the opportunity for jobs, economic growth and energy security. That’s the point, you see.
His decision on this issue will tell us precisely where we’re heading for the next four years. I hope I’m wrong; I doubt I’m wrong.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
I still do not understand why Americans who do not like President Obama refuse to call him President. He is not Mr. Obama (you and I are Misters) He is PRESIDENT Obama. I always called President Bush, President Bush even though he started 2 unfunded wars, took away our constitutional rights to privacy and due process, ran up 10 trillion dollars in debt while cutting taxes on the wealthy and destroyed our economy! If you have no respect for the highest ELECTED office in the United States of America then how can you complain about anything that happens here? Are you also saying that 51% of Americans unwittingly elected a Marxist… TWICE just so he could destroy us all? Really? You think President Obama is doing a worse job then President Bush did? REALLY?
Dear gpicone:
Thanks for your comment. If you’d browse my writings under the politics archive, you’ll find I regularly use the following titles/names: Barack Obama, Mr. Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, President Obama, President of the United States Obama, President of the United States, POTUS, etc.. You’ll also find that I write similarly regarding Mr. Bush, Mr. Reagan and a variety of others. Generally speaking, One should always use an appropriate title when first mentioning someone, particularly someone not well known. On those occasions that I chose not to Place “president” before Mr. Obama’s name, it is done only for variety and no other reason, conscious or subconscious.
I am not saying that 51% of the nation unwittingly elected a Marxist, though a substantial percentage did knowing exactly what he is. The media, even in the most recent election, have labored ceaselessly to cover up Mr. Obama’s Marxist/socialist/radical beliefs, actions and affiliations. You might want to read Stanley Kurtz’s book “Radical In Chief” which clearly reveals Mr. Obama’s Marxist upbringing, mentoring, associations, beliefs and actions. Even in his two (?!) autobiographies, he admits that in college he purposely associated with the Marxist, radical and anti-American students, a practice he maintained until he threw Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the bus in his first presidential campaign (Wright is a proponent of Black Liberation Theology, which is essentially Marxism with a black supremacist, racist face).
Mr. Bush is not the subject of national conversation. I have no misconception that he was perfect or that everything he did was wise, but on balance, yes, Mr. Obama is far worse in every measurable category. One need not wear out Google finding such evidence.
So. We shall see–and I believe much more rapidly than many think possible–that the electorate erred, and erred badly in electing Mr. Obama, and in reelecting him. Tragically, when this becomes obvious and inescapable, America may be unrecoverable.
apicone,
For one, I do not know that he actually was elected president in a fair election. As we have seen, an astounding number of precincts in swing states–under control of Democratic poll workers–reported absolutely no votes for Romney, a statistical improbability. Having no faith in the validity of voter rolls–all efforts to secure verified rolls were blocked in every attempt by Democratic functionaries–, I have no faith that my constitutional right to vote was not corrupted.
Second, the man has sullied the office he temporarily possesses–I hope he does see it as only temporary. Our image to the world is that of the man bowing, awkwardly with a posterior partly covered by a shiny jacket, before the Saudi king, with laughing heads of state looking on. This is the man who alluded to his wife, in a public speech,as “going down” on him. He is an embarrassment to the highest office of the land.
Third, this man is undermining the most successful economic system the world has seen. He promises and did promised to double and triple the cost of fuel in this country. He has not been fully successful yet in the ways that he did in fact declare, but my little family does pay at least $200 more per month for food, according to my penny pinching wife. My insurance costs $250 more per month since Obamacare was rammed down the American throat. He is impoverishing my family and is keeping millions others jobless while he enmeshes them in the tentacles of government dependency.
Fourth, this man has so refined demagoguery that Huey Long would be envious, and has brought America to a perilous new state: he has shown that a demagogue
can actually cobble together a majority of “voters” (scare quotes deriving from the above comment) based on payoffs. This man has made my country dangerously susceptible to the type of leadership that we went to war against in my father’s generation.
This is the man who, when his wife mouthed “All this for a flag?” to him at the 9/11 ceremony in New York City, returned her smirk.
So no, he is not my president, and I suspect that he is not for a great many people. We do, I assume to speak for others, respect the office, but not the man; the man will pass, we hope, and the office will endure, we hope. He is to be tolerated when possible and resisted where necessary. He is a danger to our country as we have known it. He should not push too hard, though, because I suspect that many will ready to push back twice as hard, as the man once urged his people to do.
You really need to calm down and find a new country.
You have outed yourself, I see. Have you been assigned to this particular blog? You have the standard line: if you don’t like what you see, leave the country because you are not an American if you don’t keep your mouth shut. You have revealed yourself, qpicone, as a real fascist.
Granted, I am not up on tradely/wordly affairs, but.. if my neighbor drops a well in his back yard, runs a pipe toting his water through MY back yard, and empties it into the local municipalities distribution… how exactly did that help MY water consumption and independence? To wit, if we are buying oil from a pipeline we built, how does that change anything other than how far we have to go to buy said oil from some one else? That isn’t independence.
Dear RuleofOrder:
Welcome back and thanks, as always, for your comment. You’re quite correct in that Americans will not own the oil coursing through the pipeline. However, they will benefit from refining it, and all will potentially benefit from lower fuel prices because that oil will cost far less than oil transported by ship from the opposite side of the world. In addition, Americans will benefit from the construction and maintenance jobs the pipeline will provide. There are other balance of trade and related issues that are decidedly in America’s favor, but having that supply of oil available from a stable ally is a national security benefit too. It’s a meaningful and important step toward energy independence, which will ultimately require drilling for, extracting and refining our own energy reserves.
By itself, the pipeline is indeed not independence, but as I noted in the article, refusing to do it at all is the opposite of independence and will serve to tell us precisely where President Obama intends to take the nation in the next four years. I fear it is not a good and welcoming, prosperous place.
Thanks again.
Yeah, I can’t argue the jobs part of it.
Were all the states this pipeline were to travel through onboard and “cool” with that idea?
Mike, your diplomacy and candor is truly impressive, to the point of envious. :)
Dear USAnaturalBorn:
You’re very kind. I try to keep this scruffy little blog a place where good will, rational thought and logic hold sway. Life is too short to engage in logical fallacies and hostility. We can disagree–and agree (come folks have difficulty taking yes for an answer)–amicably. Those who can’t find their comments vanishing. This is my wretched little blog and I can do what I like!
Thanks again!