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Better fat than fascist

~ Considerations into the failures of over goverance & the successes of freedom

Tag Archives: Republican

“Yeah, eh!” Canada Among Midterm Winners

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by BetterFatThanFascist.com in Canada, Keystone XL, oil sands, Putin, Republicans, Russia, Senate

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Canada, eh, GOP, Keystone XL, midterm, oil sands, Putin, rail, Republican, Senate, train

By Greg Smith

There must have been a wave of cheers across Canada last week as Republicans won a majority of the U.S. Senate because the logjam over approval for the Keystone XL Pipeline may finally be over.

The Obama administration’s blockage of approval for construction of the proposed pipeline from Alberta to Texas sums up six years of his presidency: a feel-good strategy that was both doomed to fail at its intended environmental goals while certain to antagonize a key ally in the process. Stopping the pipeline from being constructed offers no benefit to anyone, including the environmentalists who form the heart of the opposition.

The crux of the matter is whether the lack of a new pipeline to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that can process the heavy crude oil coming from the Canadian oil sands will cause Canada to simply stop extracting the oil. During the 2012 presidential debates, Obama pointed out the U.S. is increasing oil production. Due to concerns about pollution and fears of global warming opponents don’t want oil extracted from the tar sands of Alberta.

It seems rather hypocritical for the U.S. to be in an oil boom while telling a neighbor their oil should stay in the ground. It is the usual argument made by too many comfortable, well-heeled environmentalists to save the planet others need to ditch their car and each winter set the thermostat to “Mother Earth thanks you.”

Canada has made it clear it will continue extracting the oil. Without Keystone oil will travel by rail – which requires more fuel and is more dangerous — to the U.S. refineries able to process it, or be sent via a proposed pipeline built to Canada’s east or west coast. In that scenario the oil can be refined in Canada and shipped elsewhere in the world, or sent abroad as crude to be refined elsewhere with lesser environmental regulations. U.S. refineries and oil companies can be cut out of the process with less energy available to the American consumer, and greater pollution in the atmosphere.

With Keystone there is a large construction project employing thousands of Americans, added business for American refineries on a permanent basis and more energy available to the American market. This will mean lower prices and encourage other business and commerce in the U.S.

Without Keystone U.S. companies and consumers could be completely shut out of access to the benefits of Canadian oil, while the oil continues to flow, but at greater economic and environmental cost, and we have jerked around a close ally for years for no good reason.

Forgoing the benefits of Keystone is still less maddening than a sitting president unable to muster the courage to just make a damn decision and live with the consequences. Obama’s unwillingness for a verdict on the pipeline permit may have actually come into the calculations Vladimir Putin made when Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s a pretty easy bet that a man afraid to make a choice on a proposed pipeline probably isn’t much of an adversary in realpolitik with a former KGB colonel.

As Soviet leaders saw decisiveness in Ronald Reagan’s willingness to fire air traffic controllers during an illegal strike in 1981, Obama has shown himself unwilling to ascend the ramparts in a fight. In short order such vacillation moves from farcical to dangerous.   ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

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The One-Party State: Incubator of Corruption

30 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by BetterFatThanFascist.com in Corruption

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Connecticut, Democratic, Dodd, Leland Yee, Republican

By Greg Smith

The Democratic-dominated California state senate better wrap up business for the year, it’s just a couple FBI stings away from not being able to muster a quorum. Republican candidates in Connecticut should point voters’ attention across the continent as they try to end the Democratic grip on every statewide office, as well as majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

The California state senate on Friday suspended three lawmakers, all Democrats, for varying charges of corruption. The most fascinating were the international arms trafficking charges against state Senator Leland Yee, who is – make that was – the point man in the state’s full-court press for more gun control. Yee was also running for secretary of state, where he would have overseen elections in the state. Oh joy. Imagine the fair shake challengers would have gotten from a Democratic secretary of state who was willing to deal in shoulder-fired missiles in his spare time.

With only 40 senate seats, three senators suspended – with pay — for corruption charges and/or bribery is a high number even if the assumption is all government corruption is caught by law enforcement, which seems pretty unlikely.

What is far more unlikely is no one in the state senate had any inkling about bribery, voter fraud or any of the illicit extracurriculars in which these three were charged or convicted. There aren’t many complete secrets in state houses, too many eyes and ears surround higher public officials. And political parties are completely aware that some people go into ‘public service’ to line their own pockets, legally or otherwise.

Obviously, any Democrats in California who knew or suspected illegal activity were not overly concerned because their party has a stranglehold on power in the state. California has become so blue Democrats weren’t worried about a stray scandal here or there. They just timed the scandals poorly.

“One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence. Three? That’s not what this senate is about,” said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, according to KTVU.com.

Steinberg is wrong. Any organization that doesn’t have to compete, without exception, rots from within. In the 1950s and 1960s the three major American automakers had the domestic market to themselves. Management was somewhat intertwined and all three had basically the same labor agreements so their largest expenses were inflexible and in line with each other. By the early 1970s the Big Three, and AMC with the Pacer, Gremlin, Javelin — got used to turning out junk they believed Americans had to buy if they didn’t want to walk. The only reason American cars began to improve in the 1990s was competition from Japan. The Big Three learned the hard way Americans didn’t have to buy a Pinto when they could get a Corolla.

This is by no means a claim Republican officeholders are more honest. The ideology of smaller government does provide fewer opportunities for corruption, but no matter how small and well lit the town some will still find a dark alley in which to prostitute themselves.

Senate Democrats in California seem to have moved the dark alley right into their chamber. At least the shorter commute will save them on carbon credits. According to the Washington Post senate Republicans last week put up a resolution to expel Sen. Roderick Wright, one of the three suspended Friday. Democrats defeated the resolution so Wright, convicted in January of eight felonies involving perjury and voter fraud, gets to keep drawing his $95,000 annual salary.

Friday’s vote to suspend the three passed 28-1. The lone dissenter was Republican Senator Joel Anderson who said, “What we’re doing is incentivizing bad behavior with this resolution,” and wanted the three expelled instead.

The three suspensions only cost Democrats their supermajority in the Senate, so they still control both chambers of the legislature and all other statewide offices. They have so little concern about the scandals, the senator who is expected to become the next senate president pro tem, Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, rated the body quite highly.

“This is the best legislative institution in the country, hands down, and we’re going to get past it,” he said.

Maybe de Leon has never golfed and doesn’t realize sometimes a lower score, like in the number of felony counts against sitting senators, would be considered the “best.” In any case there should be no surprise at the charges and convictions. Government will always involve some corruption, and one-party rule will always breed greater corruption than would have existed otherwise because legislators feel their jobs are much less vulnerable.

Republicans need only point to California and ask Connecticut voters if they think Chris Dodd’s shenanigans occurred in a vacuum. ©

Greg Smith is a freelance writer and political consultant who lives in Bantam, CT. His blog is found at http://www.betterfatthanfascist.com.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/28/us-usa-california-lawmakers-idUSBREA2R1K420140328

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/state-senate-set-vote-yee-suspension/nfM3F/

http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/crime-law/state-senate-set-vote-yee-suspension/nfM3F/

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