House Passes Keystone Bill, Prospects Unclear in the Senate
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives approved the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, but a similar measure struggled to get enough support in the Senate and President Barack Obama indicated he might use his veto if the bill does get through Congress.
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Well, now that Mary Landreau from the Bayou is for it how could any reasonable Democrat senator refuse to add his or her support??????
Good pass it and send it to the white house if he veto's do it again.
Quote:Well, now that Mary Landreau from the Bayou is for it how could any reasonable Democrat senator refuse to add his or her support??????
It will be interesting to see if that lame duck steaming pile of excrement will even call it to vote. It will probably have to wait on McConnell, like the majority of the last 6 years of legislation has had to wait.
Quote:Good pass it and send it to the white house if he veto's do it again.
After January, if Obama still vetoes it the Congress can get a 2/3rd's majority and pass it anyways.
Honestly though, with the ever increasing reliance on the Presidency and the EO's to get legislation passed, it makes me think that in the future we could be setting ourselves up for a very autocratic Government.
Quote:Honestly though, with the ever increasing reliance on the Presidency and the EO's to get legislation passed, it makes me think that in the future we could be setting ourselves up for a very autocratic Government.
That was the entire intent of the Obama presidency, an imperial leader.
Quote:That was the entire intent of the Obama presidency, an imperial leader.
Come on - that's been said about every President since FDR.
Quote:Come on - that's been said about every President since FDR.
And it's become more true with every presidency since. Obama is just the icing on the cake. The move to consiladate power to the executive branch has been a consistent push to the point now the executive branch is creating law not just enforcing it.
Quote:It will be interesting to see if that lame duck steaming pile of excrement will even call it to vote. It will probably have to wait on McConnell, like the majority of the last 6 years of legislation has had to wait.
They will. It's all political. They'll have a vote on it Tuesday or Wednesday and it'll pass with all the repubs joined by a few dems.
It's all political theater, though. Mary Landreau wants it done to appease toothless backwater morons in LA in hopes she can get reelected and the bill will be pocket vetoed by Obama, but that procedural result will be after her election.
After this the dems will say they did everything they could to help her get reelected, but really they didn't. If they wanted to be reelected they should have skipped obamacare 5 years ago and passed medicare for all. Would have been a real simple bill.
"Medicare now covers all American citizens of any age"
Quote:They will. It's all political. They'll have a vote on it Tuesday or Wednesday and it'll pass with all the repubs joined by a few dems.
It's all political theater, though. Mary Landreau wants it done to appease toothless backwater morons in LA in hopes she can get reelected and the bill will be pocket vetoed by Obama, but that procedural result will be after her election.
After this the dems will say they did everything they could to help her get reelected, but really they didn't. If they wanted to be reelected they should have skipped obamacare 5 years ago and passed medicare for all. Would have been a real simple bill.
"Medicare now covers all American citizens of any age"
.gif "Laughing")
Nothing about Medicare is simple, Nothing.
Quote:And it's become more true with every presidency since. Obama is just the icing on the cake. The move to consiladate power to the executive branch has been a consistent push to the point now the executive branch is creating law not just enforcing it.
It's a known fact that Progressives like Woodrow "Stinking" Wilson (as my US history teacher refers to him), wanted to make Congress function more along the lines of British Parliament. Obama wants to take it a step further and be more like the Venezuelan National Assembly. Where the President of Venezuela can remove, or even arrest assembly members for gross incompetence and stagnation.
Now I think everyone here agrees that Congress frankly sucks right now and has been very ineffective over the last few years, but we still have a Constitution to abide to.
Quote:It's a known fact that Progressives like Woodrow "Stinking" Wilson (as my US history teacher refers to him), wanted to make Congress function more along the lines of British Parliament. Obama wants to take it a step further and be more like the Venezuelan National Assembly. Where the President of Venezuela can remove, or even arrest assembly members for gross incompetence and stagnation.
Now I think everyone here agrees that Congress frankly sucks right now and has been very ineffective over the last few years, but we still have a Constitution to abide to.
Wow - that was pretty much an ignorant post. But keep making stuff up if it fulfills some sort of fantasy.
And anytime I see "it's a known fact" I can be pretty much assured that it's not known and not a fact.
I am wondering if the drop in crude oil prices will render this pipeline moot. We awash in cheaper and cheaper oil, and the tar sand oil that is produced up in Canada and would be carried by that pipeline costs some say $65 to $75 per barrel to produce, some say as high as $85 to $110.. Right now oil prices are trending down in the mid $70s, and some people have predicted it will continue to drop.
This article from USA Today seems somewhat balanced in the issue:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/busi.../18994601/
This article thinks "economics no longer make Keystone viable."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/e...ar-BBdw1uK
"The so-called "heavy oil" extracted from sand in Alberta, which the proposed pipeline would carry to Nebraska, en route to refineries on the Gulf Coast, will cost between $85 and $110 to produce, depending on which drilling technology is used, according to a report in July by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a nonprofit whose work is often cited by Keystone proponents. West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded today at $76.67."
And here's a pretty balanced (in my opinion) article from Forbes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrick...-pipeline/
The author thinks the President should approve the project, but he also goes on to say,
"...as of today and for at least the near future, the ongoing fall in oil prices has to be a major concern to Canadian tar sands producers. At what price point will lower oil prices force them to cut back on production? Given the possibility that producing oil from tar sands may become uneconomical, would building the Keystone XL pipeline through the American heartland still make sense for American companies and investors?"
Quote: Nothing about Medicare is simple, Nothing.
A bill extending its coverage to all Americans would be.
The program wouldn't need any changing in itself, eligibility would have just needed to be set to cover any citizen regardless of any age or income.
Quote:A bill extending its coverage to all Americans would be.
The program wouldn't need any changing in itself, eligibility would have just needed to be set to cover any citizen regardless of any age or income.
Medicare is one of the worse ran federal programs, I know my wife had it for one of our children and finding a doctor that would accept it for anything other then the basics was near impossible. You had a problem, go to the ER, because no else is going to see you. They'll then refer you to a specialist but good luck finding one to take your coverage.
Quote:Medicare is one of the worse ran federal programs, I know my wife had it for one of our children and finding a doctor that would accept it for anything other then the basics was near impossible. You had a problem, go to the ER, because no else is going to see you. They'll then refer you to a specialist but good luck finding one to take your coverage.
That's not medicare, that's medicaid.
They're two totally different things.
Medicaid is run by the states and the Republicans have been allowed to make it absolutely terrible.
Medicare is run by the federal government and has consumer ratings higher than any private insurance organization.
edit: Also, remember 6 years ago when all the tea party morons were out screaming about keeping the government's hands out of their medicare? That's because those morons want to keep their free federally funded government health insurance but didn't even understand that it was federally funded single payer insurance.
The republicans would love to turn medicare completely into a government funded private insurance scheme because that would allow them to make trillions of dollars for their cronies, but they don't actually want to do what needs to be done, which is getting rid of the age restriction on the program and fixing the republican added subprogram, Part D, that makes the cost of the program so untenable.
Quote:That's not medicare, that's medicaid.
They're two totally different things.
Medicaid is run by the states and the Republicans have been allowed to make it absolutely terrible.
Medicare is run by the federal government and has consumer ratings higher than any private insurance organization.
edit: Also, remember 6 years ago when all the tea party morons were out screaming about keeping the government's hands out of their medicare? That's because those morons want to keep their free federally funded government health insurance but didn't even understand that it was federally funded single payer insurance.
The republicans would love to turn medicare completely into a government funded private insurance scheme because that would allow them to make trillions of dollars for their cronies, but they don't actually want to do what needs to be done, which is getting rid of the age restriction on the program and fixing the republican added subprogram, Part D, that makes the cost of the program so untenable.
People want Medicare because they've been forced to pay for it out of their paychecks for their entire careers. But keep blathering about how it's "free", everyone knows what that means to folks of your persuasion.
Quote:That's not medicare, that's medicaid.
They're two totally different things.
Medicaid is run by the states and the Republicans have been allowed to make it absolutely terrible.
Medicare is run by the federal government and has consumer ratings higher than any private insurance organization.
edit: Also, remember 6 years ago when all the tea party morons were out screaming about keeping the government's hands out of their medicare? That's because those morons want to keep their free federally funded government health insurance but didn't even understand that it was federally funded single payer insurance.
The republicans would love to turn medicare completely into a government funded private insurance scheme because that would allow them to make trillions of dollars for their cronies, but they don't actually want to do what needs to be done, which is getting rid of the age restriction on the program and fixing the republican added subprogram, Part D, that makes the cost of the program so untenable.
I always mix the two up medicare and medicaid.
Quote:People want Medicare because they've been forced to pay for it out of their paychecks for their entire careers. But keep blathering about how it's "free", everyone knows what that means to folks of your persuasion.
Everything in life and society has a cost.
Many of them go unrecognized by people of your ilk (carbon pollution, for example) but those costs still exist.
When I say "free" I mean "without a payment remitted at the time of service collected."
Quote:I always mix the two up medicare and medicaid.
You're hardly alone in that.
Just remember: MediCARE = for elderly = the federal government = rated the best by those under the plan by a country mile compared with the "not for profit" and for-profit private market alternatives.
MedicAID = for the poor = state government run with some federal funding = republican states like FL purposefully make it terrible and ineffective out of spiteful ideology intended to make sure people don't get help.