EconomicsCanada/USA: Oilsands Pipeline: Enviro issue used by USA State Dept to permanentize dirty Saudi oil

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Huffington Post (December 12, 2k11)
by Joshua Hersh
Reposted here by Politicarp
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refWrite comment:  Keystone XL Pipeline woud pump 'ethical oil' to help break USA dependency on 'conflict oil' from Saudi Arabia and other negative funders of totalitarian Islamicist projects in the USA.

It woud be better for Canada to sell the new oil from the tar sands to China.

Here's what Hersh says:

The State Department has hit the brakes on a congressional plan to revive the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, signaling Monday that it would not be willing to authorize the project under an "arbitrary deadline." 

"Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision, its actions would not only compromise the process, it would prohibit the Department from acting consistently with National Environmental Policy Act requirements," the State Department said in a statement. "In the absence of properly completing the process, the Department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project." 

The Keystone XL pipeline would have delivered tar sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada to refineries in the American Midwest. 

But after months of mounting controversy over the project's environmental impact, and scrutiny of the State Department's original regulatory review, the project was indefinitely delayed in early November. Many believed it to have been scrapped entirely. 

But in recent weeks, citing a dubious claim [all claims are dubious in the mundane world] that the project would create 20,000 jobs, congressional Republicans have attempted to force the administration's hand on the pipeline by including a provision in a tax relief bill that would compel the White House to approve the project within 60 days {a crafty but good move that does expose Obama's pretensions]. 

A White House official stressed to HuffPost that although Obama earlier said he would make the final decision on Keystone XL, authority for permitting the project remains with the State Department. Monday's statement reflected the administration's view that the project would not be forced through on a short deadline. 

Sam Stein contributed reporting.

My view: What all this propaganda from Hersh entails is that Republican efforts to exact one clear international trade deal that woud create American jobs thru Canadian-USA free-enterprise partnerships has been denied the green light in the name of extreme Green Leftist politics.  Prez Obama plays exclusively to job-killing environmentalism of the worst kind, becaws he prefers his state monopolies, crony-capitalist waivers to corporations supporting his regime, and bureaucratic obfuscation over his pretended goal of creating jobs.  Sad.

Enviro: Politics, Juridics, Activism: Top 10 environmental issues this year and ahead

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VT Digger (December12,2k11)  Read the entire h+ly analytical article!
Stripped and reposted here by Politicarp and Lawt
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Vermont Law School publishes top 10 environmental watch list for 2012

Top 10 Environmental Watch List 2011-12

#1 With Republicans Bashing the EPA, 2012 Could Be 
a Turning Point for Environmental Regulation

Summary: House Republicans and Republican presidential candidates have launched unprecedented attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency, saying environmental regulations are hurting the economy.

#2 EPA and White House Clash Over Ozone Standards

Summary: President Obama’s rejection of a controversial new air pollution rule pleased industry but angered environmental and public health advocates heading into the presidential election season.

# 3 Powder River Basin’s Mother Lode of Coal 
at the Epicenter of Energy Development

Summary: The federal leasing of the Powder River Basin’s massive coal deposits opens the door to big profits, plentiful electricity, and environmental degradation in a place both remote and central to the world’s energy future.

# 4 Activists Claim Victory, Temporarily, 
on Disputed Keystone XL Pipeline

Summary: The State Department has postponed a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, a controversial proposal to carry [Canadian] tar sands ['ethical'] oil across the U.S. heartland. While opponents of the project view this as a major victory, the fate of the pipeline remains unclear.  [My emendations in brackets— Lawt]

Read more ... click the time-stamp below ...

PoliticsUSA: Political Parties: Republican party structures in crisis — why?

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Notes from a Byzantine Rite Calvinist (December 2m 2k11)
by Prof. David Koyzis, Political Science, Redeemer University College
— Reposted here by Politicarp
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US party reform needed

David Frum, former speech writer for George W. Bush, wonders aloud: When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality? The German weekly Der Spiegel carries this article in its English-language edition: A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses. Even if this is rhetorical overkill, the Republican Party's range of would-be presidential nominees is rather less than impressive. Those who were sceptical of Obama's deliberate cultivation of messianic expectations in 2008 hoped he would face a credible opponent in 2012. But thus far the GOP has yet to deliver and shows no signs of doing so any time soon.

Read more ... click the time-stamp below ...

PoliticsUSA: Presidential campaign: Gingrich closes the gap between himself and Obama

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Christian Science Monitor (December9,2k11)
— Reposted here by Politicarp

refWrite comment:  I found this article by Linda Feldman in regard to current polling numbers rather astounding, largely due to the fact that Republican and former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, hasn't yet won anything — except by very inexact imputations to the effect that he had won such and such a debate among the array of want-to-be candidates for that party's nomination to the h+est political office of the USA.

Notice:  no mention thru-out the article of Ron Paul, some of whose very vocal followers have been spue-ing out anti-Newt polemic, focusing upon Newt's personal foibles (sins) along the course of his professional and more personal life (the line is that he is unforgivable).  And around his role as a "war-monger," especially his support of Israel against the Palestinians (Paul feeds this line of polemic himself as he did in a recent YouTube video).

Where Gingrich's conservatism is seen as too pragmatic, Paul is seen as a rigid libertarian and isolationist.  The polls indicate that Gingrich is regarded more h+ly by most Republican voters, while Paul is often credited with having the "most intense" supporters, albeit in smaller numbers.  I have yet to see any article that poses Congressman Ron Paul vs President Obama, asking which of the two will win were they, respectively, the final Republican and Democratic candidates.

As for me, I said long ago that, in my humble opinion, Gingrich, Donald Trump, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, etc, were all too fat to run for the office and do well in it.  Their personal bodily-health standard is just not up to the strains of that office. How woud each (be able to) respond in the most unwelcome case of a physical attack?  The answer affects my personal estimate.  Undoubtedly, Prez Obama has raised the standard of Presidential physical health and fitness.  But the Republicans, so far anyway, are selecting a candidate out of a partisan voter demographic known for its older-age and its pot-bellies.

— Politicarp
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A Gingrich-Obama matchup? 

It's getting tighter, polls show

Newt Gingrich looks increasingly competitive against President Obama in three key battleground states, new polls show. And registered Republicans in those states prefer him to Mitt Romney.

By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer / December 8, 2011

Maybe Newt Gingrich isn’t so unelectable after all. New Quinnipiac polls of general election voters in three key battleground states released Thursday show the former House speaker increasingly competitive against President Obama next November, if Mr. Gingrich wins the Republican nomination.

In Florida, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romneybeats Mr. Obama 45 percent to 42 percent, but Gingrich isn’t too far off the mark. He trails Obama with 44 percent of the Florida vote, compared with 46 percent for Obama, within the margin of error, according to the Quinnipiac University Poll, based in Hamden, Conn.

In Ohio, Romney and Gingrich pull down the exact same numbers against Obama. Each Republican gets 43 percent versus 42 for Obama.

Pennsylvania is Obama’s strongest state of the three, narrowly beating Romney 46 percent to 43 percent, and beating Gingrich handily, 48 percent to 40 percent.

Election 101: Ten questions about Newt Gingrich as a presidential candidate

Those three states, all rich in electoral votes, comprise the trifecta of modern presidential politics. Since 1960, no one has won the White House without winning at least two of them.

In those three states, Gingrich beats Romney handily for the GOP nomination, though only Florida holds its primary early in the nominating calendar. Florida Republicans vote on Jan. 31, after Iowa (Jan. 3), New Hampshire (Jan. 10), and South Carolina (Jan. 21). In Florida, Gingrich beats Romney 35 percent to 22 percent. In Ohio, Gingrich beats him 36 to 18 percent. And in Pennsylvania, the former speaker is up 31-17. No other candidate scores in double digits.

Read more of Linda Feldmann's Christian Science Monitor article here.

PoliticsUSA: Debt Ceiling Legislation: The impasse according to Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post (July30,1940)

Krauthammer:  "Obama faces two massive problems — jobs and debt. They’re both the result of his spectacularly failed Keynesian gamble: massive spending that left us a stagnant economy with high and chronic unemployment — and a staggering debt burden. Obama is desperate to share ownership of this failure. Economic dislocation from a debt-ceiling crisis nicely serves that purpose — if the Republicans play along. The perfect out: Those crazy Tea Partyers ruined the recovery!

"Why would any conservative collaborate with that ploy? November 2012 constitutes the new conservatism’s one chance to restructure government and change the ideological course of the country. Why risk forfeiting that outcome by offering to share ownership of Obama’s wreckage?"

— I recommend that you read the entire WaPo article by Krauthammer.  And while you're at it, you mite want to read also Todd Zywicki's item in Volokh Conspiracy (July30,2k11), "Charles Krauthammer on the Debt Ceiling Debate," a short comment and a different quote from The Hammer (he always hits the nail on its head!).


— Politicarp

PoliticsUSA: Info freedom online: Draconian impostion of copywright curtailment of USA constiution for bloggers

Voplokh Conspiracy (Mar16,2k11) David Post has done every blogger and many others a great service by alerting us to the latest development in regard to American copyright-law developments.  The Obama  admin's latest transgression -- against info distribution in the age of computers, wifis, handheld devices, blogging -- woud block the right to spread news effectively outside government and corporate permissions.   These permissions, the gaining of which eats time and negates the blogger's alertness, are also obstacles in that they with-hold maximal timeliness from the bloggers and blog-readers of blogged news and opinion, timely news and comment with-held on the basis of prior "ownership," a legislative and regulatory move that is repulsive and inquitous.  Of course, the govt agencies involved or the Presidency itself will be able to issue waivers to its cronies, as it has done even in regard to the Obama Healthcare scheme, for instance. refWrite has long practiced civil disobedience against this tyrannical practice of the USA government and news corporations.  Already, as I post my blog-entry that will digitally reproduce David Post's on Volokh Conspiracy, so as to connect and more effectively explain our stance, there are 23 responses to him, mostly by law professionals.  I'm deeply curious about what his colleagues in the legal professions, especially the scholars and law professors, are saying about the present draconian measures against us in the wide embrace of Obama's savage blackout proposals, violating the first amendment of the USA constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press, as well as religion. -- Lawt Update for reformationals:  This is important for those who see web, internet, and blogging as a means for the reformational movement to produce news and comment that is timely.  We are a penurious movement, given the riches we have to offer to our neibors.  We are buried as far as effective communications among ourselves and to the larger world are concerned, because we don't have the capital to deploy, given for what our movement advocates from its historical roots in regard to faith-specificity, Christian organization and all of life redeemed.   See my comments (once they're moderated favourably by VC) that play peekaboo with the latest statist nincompoopery of the Obama establishment.

The Copyright Tail Wags the Internet Dog: Episode 39 Posted: 16 Mar 2011 12:36 PM PDT (David Post)I haven’t had time to examine this in detail, but the Administration’s just-released “White Paper on Intellectual Property Enforcement” looks like a real horror show of major proportions. It contains the Administration’s legislative recommendations regarding a series of Intellectual Property matters, including recommendations to: “Increase the U.S. Sentencing Guideline range for repeat intellectual property offenders“ “Clarify that, in appropriate circumstances, infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony“ “Create a right of public performance for copyright owners for sound recordings transmitted by over-the-air broadcast stations which, in part, will allow copyright owners to obtain overseas royalties that are now denied to them” [Yes, just what we need — more copyright rights!!] “Providing a two-level enhancement for defendants with a previous conviction for an intellec-tual property offense.” and, last but not least “Give law enforcement authority to seek a wiretap for criminal copyright and offenses“

PoliticsUSA: WikiLeaks: Reuters reporters finger Saudi King Abdullah vs Iran

Reuters reporters Arshad Mohammed and Ross Colvin (I geezered them via Yahoo! Nooz), they filed a story with their editors on the latest intrusion of WikiLeaks 'Hole, the guy who has stolen and assembled huge files of digital documents, from the USA govt.

The cables are the third huge release of classified U.S. data by WikiLeaks. U.S. officials believe they were passed to WikiLeaks by a disgruntled Army private, Bradley Manning, who had access to classified computer networks as a junior intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning is now in a military jail, but authorities believe he provided the classified data before he was arrested. WikiLeaks has been parceling it out at intervals.

In the round I most remember the world's star info-blackmailer (said Leaker mentioned above) endangers l+vz of USA intelligence operatives a/o contacts in warzones (I've seen this possiblity impugned on fuzzy-evangelical s+t Jesus Creed, a spirituality + politics blog. The Leaker, l+k the nuke plants in Iran, shoud have been taken out long ago.

Instead, we are made privy to exchanges between Saudi Arabia (home of Islam's holiest shrines upon which country and king  is, therefore, incumbent the task  of the religiously-necessitated hosting of the annual Hajj from everywhere, including Iran, to Mecca, Saudi Arabia > ) hence Saudiland's King is exposed in the latest WikLleaks for using colourful langwij in regard to the status of Iran, and supplying inc+siveness of analysis and adv+ce to the USA -- that's what had happened.  But, the bigger question is What has since happened to his now-revealed adv+s ?   

Both Israel and Saudi Arabia, and now apparently the potentate of Bahrain, at the t+m, thawt the USA shoud do the bombing.  After all, the Saudi Monarch's decision that it was t+m to take out nuke-monger Iran fell on the deaf ears of the American political establishment, not least of all the Presidency.  Neither President Bush of the previous t+m, nor President Obana since, have deterred Iran.  Nor have they deterred the Saudi-financed expansion of Muslim mosques and schools in the USA where Saudiland's creepy Wahhhist state-religionists of the established Muslim sect control curriculum and textbooks, some of them qu+t nefarious to American values, whether secularist, or Christian.  Or Judaic.  Or Shi'ite for that matter (Shi'a compose 15% of Saudi Arabia's population, who feel they are maltreated as 2nd-class citizens). Or the United Arab Emirites (several of which have Sh'ite minorities, even a majority in one emirate with a Sunni monarach).  Or Alawite (Syria's elite minority, with Sunni, Shi'ite, and Christian subcurrents).  

WASHINGTON – Saudi King Abdullah has repeatedy urged the United States to attack Iran's nuclear program and [counter-attack] China-directed cyberattacks on the United States, according to a vast cache of diplomatic cables [cabled documents] released on Sunday in an embarrassing leak that undermines U.S. diplomacy. 

The more than 250,000 documents, given to five media groups by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, provide candid and at times critical views of foreign leaders as well as sensitive information on terrorism and nuclear proliferation filed by U.S. diplomats, according to New York T+mz.

The White House condemned the release by WikiLeaks and said the disclosures may endanger U.S. informants abroad. WikiLeaks said its website was under attack and none of the underlying [cabled documents] was visible there Sunday night, though some were posted by news organizations.

Among the revelations in Britain's Guardian newspaper, which also received an advance look at the documents along with France's Le Monde, Germany's Der Spiegel and Spain's El Pais, King Abdullah is reported to have "frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program."

First, the term "whistle-blowing webs+t WikiLeaks" hardly seems appropriate.  


Here's the longer version of the Mohammed and Colvin story that appears on an unofficial webs+t  section with many pages, a webpage devoted to the Royalty of Saudiland Royalty.nu -- The World of Royalty, carrying a version of  Mohammed-Colvin, Saudi King urged U.S. to attack Iran: WikiLeaks.


The story of the leak itself may be found here: Cables obtained by Wikileaks sh+n l+t into secret diplomatic worlds by Scott Shane and Andrew W. Lehren, NYT (Nov28,2k10)

Some of the cables [cabled documents], made available to New York T+mz and several other nooz organizations, were written as recently as late February [2k10],  revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks posted 220 cables, some redacted to protect diplomatic sources, in the first installment of the archive on its Web site on Sunday.

The author of this perfidy shoud be treated like the uncommon criminal he is, and shoud be taken out by a rogue CIA guy, or somebody, just as they do it in the movies.

-- Politicarp


More Info:


•  WikiLeaks on Iran: Arab world in fear of Iran, Borzou Daragahi (Nov28,2k10; updated Nov29,2k10) Los Angeles T+mz (original: "Iran must be stopped: Arab leaders implored U.S. to attack, WikiLeakes disclosures show by Borzou Daragahi and Paul Richter, via Daily Caller

•  Wikileaks and the Demise of the Diplomatic Cable Posted: 28 Nov 2010 08:22 PM PST (Kenneth Anderson posted to Volokh Conspiracy email newsletter) I think my Opinio Juris co-blogger Peter Spiro is probably right that one of the collateral consequences of Wikileaks is the demise, or anyway acceleration toward the demise, of the traditional diplomatic cable [cabled document]. But this episode will surely make cables look less attractive still. It’s one thing to understand that your work will come to light 25 years hence, when you (and your interlocutors) will either be dead or retired, too old much to care; or else flattered to see your handiwork become the stuff of history. It’s another to have to worry about something being disclosed that might affect your ability to function in your next post (or whether you’ll get one at all).    Wh+l you're on the email page, or on the webs+t, scroll down to: Saudis and Other Arab States Want U.S. to Attack Iran’s Nuclear Program Posted: 28 Nov 2010 04:28 PM PST (David Bernstein on Volokh Conspiracy)

•  perhaps more later ....


-- Politicarp

PoliticsUSA: Midterm Elections: Polling shifts, pointing to massive Republican gains at least in Representatives -- whatever happened to PropRep?

Reporting in Washington Post, Jon Cohen and Dan Baltz in "Voter unrest echoes that of 1994, poll shows" (Oct31,2k10) tell us that a "sour mood threatens the Democrat congressional majorities" becawz "seven in 10 voters see the country as off course." The very ruff balance sheet of pollsters assign opinion as s+ding with Republicans 49%, while Democrats get 45%.

 If true and if the ratio holds, that doesn't mean the shift of actual seats will reflect the actual voting numbers. Rather, since the USA has a winner-takes-all anti-proportionality voting system, the Repubs will take far more seats, I woud think, than the actual total votes presently indicate. Even were proportionality instituted state-by-state, still there woud remain an increment favoring the Big Parties. I coud go for that version of Proportional Representation in the USA, but at present I woudn't venture to suggest precisely how PropRep shoud be figured and formulated into law...

I just think the present system is unworthy of the Great Republic in the 21st Century, since the changes from the Founders' world when the Fed Constitution was effectuated or no longer just. Of course, the earlier provisions whereby state legislatures or state senates elected each states' two Senators, has long been attenuated. In other respects also, the earlier provisions have been updated. It's time for another update, state by state, I believe.

-- Politicarp

PoliticsUSA: Women's vote: Nov 2 Fed election will have women trending away from Dems toward Rplcns

Apparently a major trend has emerged in the current Federal election campaigns, a trend that evidences a shift of women voters from Dems to the Republicans.  In 2k06 women voted for Democrats nearly 60%, with Rpblcns trailing with only 36%.  This year with two weeks remaining before the major part of the balloting occurs (early voting with absentee ballots are also trending upwards this year), women are going 49% for the Republicans but only 46 percentage points for the Democrats. The USA Today chart is by Julie Snider; the text of the noozreport is by Mimi Hall (no date given).

As Snider's chart indicates, the net gains of the Repubs since 2k10 until now is 13%, while the net loss for Dems in the same period is 13%, just as in an accounting ledger.

The survey sample is superior this round, rising from 511 responses in 2k06 to 956 this year.  Repubs can't take any pleasure in the outcomes for this year as far as the raw stats are concerned.  They've pushed ahead of the Dems, but by only 3 percentage points and there's a 6+ % margin of error for these counts.

Neverrtheless, of course, overall the Repubs are doing so much better in among women in 2k10, as compared to 2k06.  The beautiful, elegant First Lady, Michelle Obama, has been sent out on the campaign trail to overcome the statistical advantage that the GOP has been registering.

-- Politicarp

PoliticsUSA: Primary Elections: Delaware, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin

Democrats who won their primaries in previous races are rarely these days pursuing ad campaigns that mention Obama not at all, distancing themselves from even the troika (Pelosi, Reid, Obama) healthcare legislation passed in the last Congress and signed by the President.  In the primaries yesterday, there weren't many Dem candidates wearing the mantle of ram-the-bill-thru-&-don't-waste-time-reading-it.

Republicans, contesting with one another the chance to represent their political party in the November general elections, were enshrouded in the new problems posed by the anti-incumbent wave that pits the throw-the-bums-out approach against that of the stand-pat incumbents like Sen John McCain (Arizona), the Republican establishment in several cases (including Karl Rove who blasted anti-incumbent Christine O'Donnell among last n+t's winners in Delaware), and rank-and-file members who rank party unity as the prime political virtue (unlike Fox News commentator, Sean Hannity, a conservative die-hard who ton+t harrassed a party-unity conservative, Dana Perino).

Were I a Republican, I woud not want to throw out moderates and liberals who persist in the party; were I a Democrat, I woud distinguish my loyalty to the party's leader from approval of the law-ramming illiteracy that pervades the overly legalistic legislation just passed, unreadable due to its sheer length as well as its head-spinning legalese.  There's something to be said for reporters, whether in mainstream media or bloggers / iPhoners, who don't join a party and try to keep an irenic spirit in the face of the seemingly-everlasting, special-pleading political warfare that saturates almost every corner of our society.

Tomorrow evening, I hope to review some of the contests and winners of primaries.  I've already seen most of the results, but I want a bit of time to assimilate the patterns that have emerged.

-- Politicarp

dictionary:

special pleadingnounargument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to his/her point of view• appeals to give a particular interest group special treatment :
    we heard his special pleading for his aging constituency.

PoliticsUSA: Banks: House of Representatives passes bill regulating banks and finance, Senate mum

MarketWatch's Ronald D. Orol sends out this Market Pulse alert, "House approves sweeping bank reform bill" (June 30, 2k10, 6:54 p.m. EDT):

After making changes to appease moderate Republicans in the Senate, the House on Wednesday approved the most significant shake-up of the regulation of U.S. banks since the Great Depression by placing new restrictions on the nation's biggest banks, reining in the Federal Reserve and crafting a major new consumer-protection division for mortgage and credit-card products. The mammoth legislative package -- which passed 237 to 192 - moves the Obama administration one step closer to having a significant triumph in its efforts to reign in Wall Street after a financial crisis that shook the economy to the brink in Sept. 2008. The legislation, which is a combination of House and Senate bank bills, must still receive a filibuster-proof 60 votes to pass in the Senate. A Senate vote isn't expected until the week of July 12. The bill had almost no GOP backers.

Americans need some reform of lax regulation immediately, so let's hope that the Senate confirms, as this House version simply ratifies the negotiation results of a joint committee of the two Houses of Congress.  The Senate now needs to adopt the same text approved by its delegates on the joint committee, after approval by the Senate the bill becomes ready for the Prez's signature.

Senate support for the far-reaching bill remained in flux, however. The Senate was forced to delay its vote to mid-July, denying President Barack Obama a victory before Independence Day. Democrats struggled to secure the votes of a handful of Republican senators even after meeting their demands and backing down on a $19 billion tax on big banks and hedge funds.   Read more ...

PoliticsUSA: Primary Votes: Women candidates win in key races, besides trending up they are also trending conserve

The enti-incumbent trend continues in the latest round of primary votes to select party-candidates in various states. The outstanding win among Democrats, to my mind, was nevertheless an incumbent in the USA Senate, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. She has for months stood out from her colleagues because of her accounting background, her role on the Senate Agriculture Committee, and hence her vigourous campaign to curb the wilder rampages of financial interests in the derivatives markets. They were --along with housing-mortage snake-oil lending by Fannie May, Freedie Mac and assorted sordid banks -- a chief cause of the Great Recession we hope to have begun shaking off (Greece!, Hungary?).

Sen. Lincoln has her own natural interest: to protect the agricultural derivatives markets from the worst abuses that undermine the smaller farms, often family farms, that are plentiful in her state. This has given her, as well, a national concern for the overall agricultural policy of the USA, and ins+t into the difference between farmers and large farming corporations. From this centerpoint, she has worked hard to achieve as much as is presently possible to her and like-minded Senators, a fair and effective Financial Regulation law -- especially its section on Derivatives and its subsection on Agricultural Derivatives. You may recognize these financial zones as related to the futures markets in agricultural commodities -- corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. Futures markets focussed not on the usual food commodities but instead on financial instruments, however, have distorted the already-existing dangers of destabilization by excesses in selling and buying the outcomes anticipated in farming and coporate agriculture. It always has had and will have a speculative edge, due to the need to know what size and quantity can be expected from future harvests of foodstuffs. But with experienced commodity-futures speculators eyeing and shifting in part to participate in the wider deployment of derivatives investment, there's a stituation where food futures are impacted by the feedback loop from lucrative financial futures, based on paper and digital obfuscations. That's the impact dynamics of financial sector spill-over into the once-ordinary ho-hum trading in food commodities. The newer kind of speculation sets the tone too much for the time-worn speculation on what food will be on hand for American tables several months from now.

read more ...

Politics USA: Economy: Prez signs hugenormous Spending law in political-economic experiment

USA President Obama has responded to the spending/stimulus law written by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"I do think that the possibilities of thinking inwardly are very great," he said. "And you see it happening. You see it happening to presidents. You see it happening to members of Congress and the Senate."

The president has also learned quickly that achieving a spirit of bipartisanship in Washington may be easier said than done. Obama's economic stimulus bill, which passed the Senate today in a vote of 61-37, has been widely criticized by Republicans.

Obama stressed that, given the current economic climate, "not doing anything is simply not an option."

"I think there are a number of different arguments that have been leveled at, at this recovery package," he said. "There are a set of folks who just don't believe in government intervening in the marketplace, period. ... I think that fight's already been won; the American people certainly think so. That's not the argument that makes much sense to them."

The tiny datestamp on the article cited and livelinked says Feb18,2k9; so I'll go with that. "Obama: 'There is no easy way out' for Wall Street," ABC News in assocation with USA Today, unsigned interview. So it's much like an editorial.

Demurring from the logic of the presidential criticism, here I just want to point out that the law, tho written at the President's behest by the Democratic Congressional leadership, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority leader Reid with their in-place Democrat-led committees, willynilly produced a "package" that may or may not lead to or achieve "economic recovery," a law the text of which inherently depends upon the validity of certain unarticulated assumptions--not least regarding overall presuppositions about the USA political economy. The nature of the law's confectioning requires acknowledgement of its quality as an experiment in whether the Pelosi-Reid law's newly-instituted expenses, grants, and porkupiney delicacies will actually work well together to buy the envisioned recovery of the economy.

Politicarp

Politics: USA: Plame-Wilson cell's bizarre civl suit against Cheney, Libby, Rove, Armitage

Washington Post carries a news report by Carol D. Leonnig, "Judge Told Leak Was Part of 'Policy Dispute'" (May18,2k7).

Attorneys for Vice President Cheney and top White House officials told a federal judge yesterday that they cannot be held liable for anything they disclosed to reporters about covert CIA officer Valerie Plame [Plame was no longer covert--P] or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

The officials, who include senior White House adviser Karl Rove and Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, argued that the judge should dismiss a lawsuit filed by the couple that stemmed from the disclosure of Plame's identity to the media.

Joseph C. Wilson IV and Valerie Plame say revealing Plame's job endangered their family. They are suing administration officials.

The perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff calls up high-profile witnesses.

The suit claims that Cheney, Libby, Rove and former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage violated the couple's privacy and constitutional rights by publicly revealing Plame's identity in an effort to retaliate against Wilson. Plame's identity was disclosed in a syndicated column in July 2003, days after Wilson publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate Iraq's nuclear threat and justify an invasion.

Libby was convicted in March of lying to a grand jury investigating the leak.

Valerie Plame was not undercover when she was exposed. The Plame-Wilson cell worked to advance John Kerry's campaign for President; after Kerry's defeat, the cell continued to use their positions in government to undermine the elected government.

Enviro: Carbon: American govt tries to quantify, regulate, legislate use of carbon and its emissions into our atmosphere?

Christian Science Monitor in a difficult article by Mark Clayton
"Key climate question: What's the cost of carbon? Current offset prices vary from 50 cents to $30 a ton. But the US Congress will have to find the optimum rate." (Apr12,2k7). Disregard the 'climate' rhetoric, and any 'warming' verbiage, and just concentrate on pollution for a moment. Along that line, years back, economist Bob Goudzwaard wrote his doctoral dissertation in Dutch on Unpriced Scarcity. Now in North America, our leadership is trying to determine how to price an unpriced super-surplus of carbon emissions (carbon dioxide, CO2) coming into our North American atmosphere from many sources (in San Fransisco, for instance, some of it comes on the wind across the Pacific from China's over-heated industrialization).

Now, the economics of it all is apparently going to be determined in dollars and nonsense by the politics of it all. Various schemes are being devised, but what price is / will be fair? It seems to me that before we try to price CO2 and determine who's got to pay for it? How quotas can be set, the exceeding of which means a company (for instance) has to buy a credit from a non-emitter (like a farmer who's not plowing his acres and thus not releasing emission from the soil), that are fair to all and actually do make a difference for the better, is the technical pricing question for the economic aspect of our society/ies

North America > Economics/Enviro

But before that question is addressed, it's important to focus on the pre-monetary economics where an endangering exchange goes on massively between sources and our common air, water, and dynamics of the entire atmosphere (it isn't raining rain, you know, it's raining sulphuric acid). You've got the idea. So from Clayton's article I've selected just one item for quotation, the pre-price pre-monetary optimatics of carbon and CO2 exchange as such and in the raw. I do so hoping you'll click-up and read his entire article:

Who's the emitter? Producers of oil, gas, and coal are considered upstream sources of carbon emissions. Downstream sources include buildings [including your workplace, your place of worship, your home-E], automobiles [including your car, but don't forget your lawnmower, motorboat, skidoo, etc-E], electric utilities, and refineries to name a few. Choosing whom to regulate is a critical question that could mean billions of dollars in costs to the industries [car-owners, and home-owners] affected. Power companies are the focal point of some legislation, while most economists argue the focus should be on the entire economy to spread the cost around.

The prospect of political fury arising from all quarters at once seems very much on the agenda as the apparently-necessary process of pricing takes place. It doesn't put politicans, companies, home-owners, or car-owners in an enviable position, to be sure.

Politics: USA: Republican Tancredo officially enters race for his party's nomination as President, Nov 2008

Associated Press reporter Henry C. Jackson inform us via Washington Post that American's leading Republican opponent of illegal immigration has announced he is entering the primaries to win his party's nomination for President. "Tancredo Enters 2008 Presidential Race" (Apr2,2k7). The outspoken Congressman (R, Colorado) made his announcement "during a radio talk show appearance at the studios of WHO Newsradio 1040 in Des Moines, Iowa.

Des Moines, Iowa -- Criticizing other GOP candidates as weak in their efforts to stop illegal immigration, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo announced Monday he would seek the Republican presidential nomination.

"The political elite in Washington have chosen to ignore this phenomenon," he said.

The U.S.-Mexico border is at the forefront of a growing debate over U.S. immigration and border security reform.

Tancredo, a congressman who has gained prominence in recent years for his staunch stance against illegal immigration, said immigration would be the primary focus of his campaign.

He said he would not enter the race if he thought one of the leading candidates was sufficiently conservative on the issue.

It's, "the field, the field," he said when asked why he was entering the race. "You look and you see no one is going to make this the primary issue of their campaign." ...

Tancredo's goal for the Iowa caucuses are fairly modest. He said he would like to finish third or fourth in Iowa, a placement he contends would be enough to help launch him to the GOP nomination. ...

"We have something they don't have _ a group of people out there who are there because of an issue," Tancredo said. "And they're never going to have that. They can use their 100 million to try and buy constituency. I have it. It's natural. It's there."

Tancredo's entry adds a volatile dimension to the campaign within the GOP, a factor that could put the financial leader Mitt Romney, and the second-place former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Guiliani, and third-place Sen. John McCain, all in tailspin. The movement to stem the flow of illegals and to constrain the illegals already in the USA, penalizing the sleazy employers who exploit their situations, is a quite strong one. The constitute a bloc that could well stay home during the actual election should Tancredo's case not be heard and become part of the party's election platform with clear support from the candidate nominated at the Republican convention in the summer of 2k7.