To hear the White House and President Obama tell it, high gasoline prices are here to stay and we better get used to them. If Americans would quiet down and accept $4.00 a gallon gas, it would certainly make the President and his environmentalist allies happy—but it would also require us to forget everything we know about American energy.

During the years I was speaker the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.13, and when President Obama took office in January 2009 the average price nationwide was $1.89 a gallon. Three years into the Obama presidency, the average is $3.47 a gallon.

Today, prices like those we enjoyed three years ago seem like a fantasy, and under the president’s current policies, they are. But these were prices Americans paid in the recent past. We can achieve $2.50 a gallon gasoline if we want to.

Read More →

To hear the White House and President Obama tell it, high gasoline prices are here to stay and we better get used to them. If Americans would quiet down and accept $4.00 a gallon gas, it would certainly make the President and his environmentalist allies happy—but it would also require us to forget everything we know about American energy.

During the years I was speaker the average price for a gallon of gasoline was $1.13, and when President Obama took office in January 2009 the average price nationwide was $1.89 a gallon. Three years into the Obama presidency, the average is $3.47 a gallon.

Today, prices like those we enjoyed three years ago seem like a fantasy, and under the president’s current policies, they are. But these were prices Americans paid in the recent past. We can achieve $2.50 a gallon gasoline if we want to.

Read More →

By Matt Rooney | Cross-posted at SaveJersey.com

Here’s your daily dose of political levity, Save Jerseyans.

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator and the former New Jersey Deptartment of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner under Jon Corzine (quite a resume, huh?), Lisa Jackson, is returning to New Jersey later this month. She has openly accused Congressional Republicans of endangering millions of lives for opposing her draconian measures.

For what, pray tell?

The answer is in today’s AC Press…

Read More →

Immediately prior to the congressional recess in December, Congress passed an inefficacious two-month extension of the Social Security tax cut.  Additionally, they reauthorized another two months of unprecedented long-term unemployment benefits, along with more spending for Medicare ‘doc fix.’  None of it, including the entitlement spending, was paid for in any meaningful way.

Nevertheless, you might ask, didn’t we get the Keystone pipeline as part of the deal?  Well, in reality we got nothing.

Last week, Obama announced that he will deny the requisite permit to TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, a decision that will cost thousands of jobs, billions in revenue from royalties, and cheaper products for all consumers.  Even though Obama was required to issue the permit within 60 days of passage of the payroll tax deal last December, the text of the amendment (Title V) offered Obama the following loophole:

(b) Exception.–

(1) IN GENERAL.–The President shall not be required to grant the permit under subsection (a) if the President determines that the Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the national interest.

(2) REPORT.–If the President determines that the Keystone XL pipeline is not in the national interest under paragraph (1), the President shall, not later than 15 days after the date of the determination, submit to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, the majority leader of the Senate, the minority leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the minority leader of the House of Representatives a report that provides a justification for determination, including consideration of economic, employment, energy security, foreign policy, trade, and environmental factors.

Despite the fact that TransCanada has spent over three years complying with regulations and sundry environmental impact studies, Obama still has the power to issue a faux report deeming the pipeline a risk to our environment.  That is exactly what he will do this week.

Read More →

Immediately prior to the congressional recess in December, Congress passed an inefficacious two-month extension of the Social Security tax cut.  Additionally, they reauthorized another two months of unprecedented long-term unemployment benefits, along with more spending for Medicare ‘doc fix.’  None of it, including the entitlement spending, was paid for in any meaningful way.

Nevertheless, you might ask, didn’t we get the Keystone pipeline as part of the deal?  Well, in reality we got nothing.

Last week, Obama announced that he will deny the requisite permit to TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, a decision that will cost thousands of jobs, billions in revenue from royalties, and cheaper products for all consumers.  Even though Obama was required to issue the permit within 60 days of passage of the payroll tax deal last December, the text of the amendment (Title V) offered Obama the following loophole:

(b) Exception.–

(1) IN GENERAL.–The President shall not be required to grant the permit under subsection (a) if the President determines that the Keystone XL pipeline would not serve the national interest.

(2) REPORT.–If the President determines that the Keystone XL pipeline is not in the national interest under paragraph (1), the President shall, not later than 15 days after the date of the determination, submit to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, the majority leader of the Senate, the minority leader of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the minority leader of the House of Representatives a report that provides a justification for determination, including consideration of economic, employment, energy security, foreign policy, trade, and environmental factors.

Despite the fact that TransCanada has spent over three years complying with regulations and sundry environmental impact studies, Obama still has the power to issue a faux report deeming the pipeline a risk to our environment.  That is exactly what he will do this week.

Read More →

I’ve been called a fascist by communists and a communist by fascists.  I’ve been called a pagan by Christians and a Christian by pagans.  I’ve been called an optimist by pessimists and a pessimist by optimists.  All of us have been labeled by others.  We’ve all been called this by that and that by this, we’ve all had people try to insult us by how they refer to us, but when people insult our intelligence they are usually showing their ignorance. 

The actions of the second-stringers, stand-ins, and understudies from the theater of the absurd who now pass for leadership in our Republic not only insult our intelligence, they act as if the American people have the IQ of a potted plant and the attention span of someone riddled with ADD.  There is one good thing about people who insult our intelligence; they’re probably misunderestimating the true level of our understanding. 

Our President tells us that killing the Keystone Pipeline is no big deal.  Instead he tells us “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline, they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”  Making decisions that kill the opportunity to create real jobs is offset by the jobs created by extending payments made to those who are unemployed.  That doesn’t make sense to anyone outside the beltway 

At the same time this oxymoronic newspeak pours from the White House, the valiant leaders of the loyal opposition in the House vote to deny our spendaholic President another trillion all the while knowing that they already gave him the money last year.   

You see, according to the debt increase law which was supported by all of the Republican Congressional leaders, the debt limit is automatically raised fifteen days after the president officially notifies lawmakers that the government is close to the current $15.2 trillion cap.  That is unless Congress votes to deny the borrowing increase and the President signs the bill.  This is where the Republican leaders add insult to injury by staging a symbolic vote to hold the line against an ever rising debt they already approved.  Their powerless measure passed the House with ease. Yet they knew all along it was DOA in Harry Reid’s Democratic-controlled Senate.  And even if by some miracle it was voted on and passed by the Senate, President Obama would veto it guaranteeing the increase will go through as planed and the debt will grow by another 1.2 trillion. 

While Mr. Obama may work day and night to kill projects that might actually provide some work for the rest of us he has no problem investing billions of our dollars in green energy boondoggles that turn a profit for his donors and cronies.  Then when the flimflams are about to be exposed as the money pits they are, on the eve of an election, the Energy Department which turned a blind eye to the initial foolish investment suddenly becomes involved and the announcement is delayed until after the marks, I mean voters, have cast their ballots. 

In foreign policy our Commander-in-Chief announced the date for our withdrawal from Afghanistan at the same time he announced the same type of surge he was against in Iraq.  Now he decides it’s time to negotiate with the Taliban.  Are we supposed to believe these highly dedicated, highly motivated, and religiously fanatic battle hardened warriors will rush to make concessions?  Won’t they instead hang tough, demand concessions, and pick up the pieces as our leader leads our valiant, though under-cut warriors, for the door?  Does anyone doubt that Karzai, our creature in Kabul, will be on a jumbo jet filled with American dollars before our last soldier gets home?  All this is presented as a rational settlement instead of an abject surrender and jaded political maneuver. 

There’s no inflation.  At least that’s what the Federal Government wants us to believe.   Everyone who goes to the supermarket buys gas or pays to heat their home can evaluate the reliability of that piece of government information for themselves. 

How could anyone ever see through any of this unless of course they have at least the IQ of that potted plant mentioned earlier?  This may be insulting, it may show us what the perpetually re-elected think of their constituents, but it also shows that they’re giving us an advantage.  We’re smarter than they think we are so we should be able to blind side them with organizational skills and motivational abilities far beyond what they’ll expect. 

They are counting the Tea Party out because we aren’t holding mass rallies.  They believe they’ve won the organizational battle because they were able to mobilize the occupy everywhere crowd to gather for a street party and pollute some major cities.  They believe that since the conservative vote is currently split in the GOP they will manage to nominate the next Bob Dole/John McCain moderate to play the part of the Washington Generals in a Harlem Globe Trotter game: good but never quite good enough.  In 2012 they see the Republicans, like the Washington Generals, there to provide a platform for the chosen winner to shine.   

The parties of power treat us with such disdain it’s obvious they believe we’re the sheep they work so hard to make us.  They believe Americans have been dumbed down enough and fattened with enough entitlements that we’ll barely bah bah bah as they lead us to the shearing shed one more time.  Our Progressive leaders in both parties see that election is the one that counts.  This is the election that will either drive us over the cliff into the shabby abyss of collectivist conformity or the one that will give us one last opportunity to return to limited government, personal liberty, and economic freedom.  

We may not be demonstrating in the streets.  We may not be organizing boycotts.  We may not be united behind one candidate.  However, we are awake.  We are educating ourselves.  We are determined that this great experiment in human freedom shall not perish from the face of the earth.  Vote for the Constitution.  Vote for personal liberty.  Vote for economic freedom.  If we all do what we can do we will accomplish what must be done.  We will keep the faith.  We will keep the peace.  We shall overcome! 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College.  He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com  Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens

Just in case you thought Barack Obama would change his political tactics from 2008, you were wrong. He’s hell bent on spewing lies on the campaign trail, totally forgetting that Americans remember the “hope and change” bit. There is a difference in his 2011 and 2012 campaign though, he is extremely angry with many of the Democrats and Liberals and his campaign messages are quite toxic.

Here’s what Americans can expect in 2012. Plouffe, Axelrod and Messina have been handed an X-rated President who doesn’t have a clean record to run on – in fact his past three years could be likened to a sewer rat who hides out in the daytime and slinks around at night stealing our “Cheese.”

His most recent punch line can be seen on one of the first Presidential ads in 2012 – he’s defending his record on energy. This would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. Plouffee and Axelrod aren’t stupid and they want to sweep the Solyndra, Sun Power, Tesla and Fisker under the rug, but there’s more problems coming our way and this ad will haunt them in 2012.

This ad is a perfect example of what we’ll be seeing in 2012 and it is a “FULL BLOWN LIE.” Obama’s energy policies are costly and they reek of illegal loans, grants misusing taxpayers’ money and a way to pay off his big bundlers. Solyndra 585 million down the drain, Sun Power at least 1.2 billion of our money gobbled up and the Fisker and Tesla problems just keep hitting us below the belt daily.

Talk about slinky lousy energy policies – we’re talking about a Commander in Chief who just nixed the Keystone Pipeline which would give us a big boost in energy independence and create thousands of jobs.

Many Democrats support the Keystone Pipeline – Senate Democrats who like the project are Claire McCaskill, D-Mo, Mary Landrieu, D-La, Mark Begich, D-Alaska, , Jon Tester D-Mont., Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Max Baucus D-Mont and there’s many more who support the Keystone Pipeline. The reason for stopping the Keystone Pipeline is just a bunch of political trash – he’s buying off the environmentalists and surfing for votes?

His latest and greatest campaign punch line, “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero.” Obama takes everything out of context and puts a spin on it hoping to capture a few more votes here and there.

Not one of these Candidates said they were zeroing out aid to foreign Countries they were applying “zero based budgeting” which doesn’t mean Countries won’t receive money from the USA, nor does it mean that Israel foreign aid is being cut. So the smooth talking Obama with his trusty teleprompter either can’t hear or English isn’t his language.

The construction Unions are adamant about Obama nixing the Keystone Pipeline saying, “We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst,” LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan said. “Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue collar construction workers across the U.S. will not forget this.” Jobs at our fingertips and Obama won’t let Americans go back to work.

Obama has two things in mind for the remainder of 2012; (1) Borrowing more money, which we don’t have for his “redistribution” agenda, and (2) Dividing our Nation via class warfare, which will leave us totally dependent on the Government.

Obama will continue following the “Rules for Radicals” trying to distract and divide the Country. He obviously is using the Cloward/Piven strategy for he has created an economic crisis in the past three years and now Obama and Democrats are managing the crisis by asking for more money and overwhelming our Government with entitlement demands.

2012 will be a tough year for Americans but when making a decision next fall at the polls – ask yourself these questions: (1) Am I better off than I was in 2009, (2) Are my friends, family and neighbors better off, and (3) Will our Country be another Greece if we keep spending without paying our National Deficit off?

May God Bless America
As Always,
Little Tboca

How low can Obama go in his Presidential run for 2012? He resembles a lost soul who’s out at sea without a home to call his own. His latest smooth selling snake oil pitch is on “Insourcing” jobs – CNN as usual has a big problem comparing apples to apples.

They actually have egg on their face comparing Mitt Romney’s involvement with Bain Capital to Obama’s not so new “Insourcing” idea. They’re trying to throw Romney under the bus for doing what America has done for many moons and it’s called Venture Capitalism.

Venture Capitalism comes with inherent risks – some struggling companies actually get a new face lift and exceed all expectations in growth and profit. Some companies need more than a face lift; they need a total restructuring which often times requires firing the founder and founding teams.

Then there’s Obama who didn’t invest in our Country – he uses 787 billion dollars to pay off his many bundlers, Unions, Special Interest groups, defunct car companies and corrupt lenders. He misused our money! Not one of his schemes have created jobs or contributed to a healthy work environment.

Furthermore he hamstrung businesses insuring that they would not have the luxury of steady growth and hiring. He did this by slamming Obamacare down everyone’s throats and with the help of EPA placed such idiotic regulations on businesses that they are being held hostage by the Obama Administration.

Obama didn’t give our Nation a face lift; he performed a debilitating plastic surgery on us that has rendered our once beautiful America unrecognizable. He extracted jobs from our Country via deals like Telsa, using over a billion dollars of taxpayer’s money for a company located in Finland giving the Finish our jobs.

Look at money and jobs lost at Solyndra and Obama. Obama and the DOE gave 1.2 billion dollars to Sunpower a company a solar energy company that might offer 10 to 15 jobs in the future.

America’s corporate tax system is remains an octopus gobbling monster and is very anti-competitive. Mitt Romney used lower tax jurisdictions, which is what hundreds of American companies have had to do in order to survive.

Many Democrats are doing and have done the same thing that Mitt Romey did with Bain Capital. If you do your homework, you’ll be amazed that President Clinton, Peter Orszag, Richard Blumenthal just to mention a few used similar methods to avoid our disgraceful corporate tax system.

So this new “insourcing” tactic that Obama is starting to use in his speeches remains totally lifeless, because three years have passed since his inauguration and not once did he should any honest concern about businesses (big or small.) Never once in three years did he work proactively for any business on or off our turf.

He’s run out of ideas for the 2012 Presidential Campaign because he doesn’t have a track record worth “tidally.” So now we’re hearing about “Insourcing”, which isn’t unique or a new idea; just study the Chinese they have a monopoly on “insourcing.”

Donald Trump, Steve Wynn, Howard Schultz and other professional business people have told the Obama Administration why businesses are stagnant. It’s not a mystery, it’s easily fixed, but Obama doesn’t want our Nation to thrive. Here are three of the reasons; (1) EPA excessive regulations, (2) Obamacare, and (3) Taxes. All of these problems could be taken care of immediately, but Obama refuses to lead our Country; instead he opts to destroy our Nation.

Ten to twenty thousand Americans could be working today on the Keystone Pipeline. Thousands could be on the cost drilling for oil – instead he denies Americans what is rightfully theirs (jobs.)

If and when CNN stops pandering to the Radical left and until they learn how to compare “Apples to Apples” their political news remains pretty insignificant and lifeless.

May God Bless our Nation
As Always,
Little Tboca

Claiming fatigue from kicking cans down the road, Speaker of the House John Boehner engineered a rejection of a Democratic Party-controlled Senate-passed bill that would have cleared the way for the Canadian Keystone Pipeline project that President Barack Obama has delayed for three years of “study”.

The bill, which also extends unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut for 60 days, would have authorized construction on the oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf unless the President explicitly rejected the project before March 1, 2011.

Instead, not only may the Obama Administration play both sides of the debate while raking in campaign funds from unions and environmentalists, but the Republican Party will more easily be depicted as Scrooges raising taxes on the poor and middle class and killing 20,000 jobs.

All because of a sudden ideological aversion to temporary tax measures that do nothing to provide incentives for job creators? How can this be when this same Speaker has had no trouble in kicking many such tax cut cans down the road over the past year. Other cans kicked down the road by the GOP House for fear of government shutdown ad campaigns have been refusing to remove ObamaCareimplementation funds from continuing resolutions; corporate welfare for food inflation-causing ethanol subsidies; and draconian debt ceiling “super-committee” defense sequestration cuts.

Before today’s action President Obama owned the killing of 20K good paying jobs at the behest of radical EPA regulators. Now, the mass-murderer of millions of jobs via non-stimuli, Dodd-Frank, Gulf Oil Moratoriums and ObamaCare bills gets a reprieve, courtesy of an early Christmas present from the most powerful Republican in America.

Is Boehner tired of being Speaker of the House of Representatives? Does he pine for the days of minority status and the resulting free time for more Marlborosand tee times?

How else to explain the rejection of the first gift from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats in over three years?

Mike DeVine

Atlanta Law & Politics columnist –  Examiner.com

Editor - Hillbilly Politics

Co-Founder and Editor - Political Daily

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

More DeVine Gamecock rooster crowings at Modern Conservative, Unified Patriots,  and Conservative Outlooks. All Charlotte Observer and Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-eds archived at Townhall.com.

Last week, House republicans passed the payroll tax cut for the middle class scheduled to go into effect on January 1.  The purpose of the cut is to prevent a tax increase of about 2% from every middle class American’s paycheck beginning on January 1.  Obviously republicans had to pass this the bill as a significant amount of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.  Republicans also performed a bit of political jujitsu by attaching a rider  to the measure that dealt with speeding up approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.  Approval of the pipeline would lead to cheap oil and lots of permanent jobs for Americans from the north to the south.  Win-win right?

No.

Republicans have Obama right where they want him.

The Obama administration will very likely oppose the pipeline.  If Obama is stupid enough to oppose this pipeline to jobs and energy, republicans could carve out ten percentage points from his approval ratings by the end of January.  Republicans could make this pipeline the seminal issue  of 2012.  Every Congressmen, every POTUS candidate should be hitting him over the head with this.  Republicans couldn’t have asked for a better narrative — is President Obama more concerned with getting America working again or pleasing his special interest groups.

The narrative has already been written this latest act is simply the slam-dunk nail-in-the-coffin.  When the economy was reeling two years ago Obama imposed a massive healthcare burden on America’s businesses.  As people try to get ahead, EPA has been quietly tightening regs that may serve to hamper the recovery.

Now, Obama would rather reject jobs, energy and good foreign policy than upset the environmental left.

Republicans need to make Obama choose between denying the Keystone Pipeline & re-election.  That is how bad this fiasco should hurt him if the House plays this right.  And he deserves it, he is a President trying to climb out of a recession for goodness sakes.  Republicans should make him bleed on this.

Conservatives are under no illusions, if Obama rejects the Pipeline in February, voters will have forgotten by November, but Republicans should hound him so hard on this that the support Obama loses at the beginning of the year will be too great to come back from.  It will be the basis for us to build the “he’s a nice guy, but has no idea how to bring the economy back” argument.

The bill

The practice of un-germane riders should not be employed with regularity.  However, in this instance, House Republicans have the right idea.  This President is going to be forced into making a presidential decision.  President Obama for purely political reasons, has put off his approval or disapproval of the pipeline until January 2013.  The left is claiming that it needs longer to evaluate whether the pipeline will be safe.  Conveniently, this timeline coincides with Obama’s re-election strategy.

The truth

Here are the facts: anyone who doesn’t think there is a risk of an oil spill when you send oil spewing across a continent is ignorant or lying.  There is a certain amount of danger that comes along with innovation and sometimes the BP oil spill happens.  We have to resolve to do better next time.  However, danger doesn’t stop us from innovating.  Danger can’t stop us from creating jobs or using energy.  On the climate change front, there has got to be a way to slow the effects of climate change that doesn’t force America to tie one hand behind its back in the most competitive economy of all time.  There has to be a better way.

We should do all we can to make sure that the pipeline is installed safely.  The job of bringing the oil to the Alberta surface is a job that is outside our jurisdiction.  We can be responsible while moving quickly.  If Obama wanted the pipeline, he could ensure that tests for safety and appropriate regulations were  finished and expressed before Valentine’s Day.  The question isn’t whether we can finish testing soon, the question is whether the President wants the oil in the first place.

The Environmental Danger

Environmental opponents of the Pipeline cite the danger that always comes with the territory when society’s build and innovate.  They worry that if there was a spill, it could pollute the Ogallala Aquifer used for agriculture.  Like anything else, this is a legitimate danger and we are fortunate to have people holding businesses accountable for the dangers their actions present, but that doesn’t mean those people call the shots.

But oil spills isn’t the source of the real opposition to Keystone.  Their real opposition comes from their fear that building the pipeline would enable the Alberta tar sands in Canada to be usurped and that this could increase global warming.  Enviros argue that the extraction and transportation of the oil could produce up to three times more warming gases than traditional oil and therefore oppose it.  Essentially, they worry that they aren’t getting enough “bang for their buck” or that we won’t receive the amount of energy necessary to shoot this amount of carbon into the air.  The left is arguing that this one project could render global warming irreversible.

As with anything else, when two opposing parties are each claiming diametrically opposed results, the truth can be found somewhere in the middle.  Contrary to what some on the right would say, there is always the danger of an oil spill and burrowing deep into the Earth is likely to release long stored warming gases that could impact the climate.  Contrary to what the left would have us believe, not every environmental action is the end of society as we know it.  Responsibly moving forward should be the point we agree on.

Foreign Policy

The Keystone Pipeline will be bringing oil down from the third largest oil field in the world to America to be refined.  It is located in North America.  This is a win-win situation for Americans.  When we buy oil from Canada, we bolster a friend as well as our own economy.  Conversely, by not buying oil from Middle Eastern and South American countries we “dis-enable” dictators to stay in power by drying up their constant flow of income.  This is what happens all too often.  Oil producing countries do little to grow their economies but accept oil royalties while their people suffer.  The sale of oil simply gives these regimes enough money to stave off revolution, allowing dictators to live lavishly, while leaving nothing for their people.

But the most important point cannot be highlighted enough.  Canada has not pledged to sell the oil to the U.S. only.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper has warned President Obama that if we don’t buy the oil, China and Russia will.  One way or another, intelligent countries use their black gold to prosper.  By buying cheap oil here at home, we deprive the Chinese and Russians of the bargain that we ourselves are receiving.  Overall, building this pipeline is a win-win-win on the foreign policy front.  We can help slightly relieve our reliance on foreign oil, deprive OPEC nations of the proceeds, build up at home and help our allies to the north.

If that weren’t bad enough, sending the oil across the ocean will use a lot more energy than funneling it down to Texas.  Once one comes to grips with the fact that the world is not going to leave perfectly good oil in the ground, adopting the pipeline is the responsible environmental position to take as it will release less GHS’s if continents use their resources at home rather than importing and exporting them.

A winning issue dropped in our laps

The Keystone Pipeline is set to create 13,000 private sector American jobs.  It wasn’t until recently that Obama stopped crowing about his jobs plan known as stimulus 2.0.  The “jobs” plan included a bevy of pet projects and stimulus projects to supposedly create jobs, now Obama is faced with the opportunity and he instead bows to a small but powerful interest group within his own party.

It seems like many environmentalists still don’t get it on this issue.  Oil becomes scarcer by the day.  It is going to be used.  Canada holds a valuable commodity.  If Obama refuses to allow the pipeline it is a lose-lose situation for America.  Canada’s conservative government and profit driven businesses want to grow their economy.  And they are going to do it with or without us.

During a recession when most people can’t afford to fill up their gas tanks all the way to Full, due to constantly rising prices, opposition to this pipeline is unreasonable.

Either way, republicans may get their pipeline.  Either this year or in 2013 with a Republican President.  I smell blood in the water, I only hope republicans have enough sense to buckle down on this one it is a very thoughtful Christmas gift from the White House to Republicans.

The question we should be aiming to answer is not economic growth and stability OR a clean environment.  The question we should be asking is how do we do both.  That is the way to a permanent majority for either political party.