The “global warming will cause a chocolate shortage” scare tactic isn’t entirely new, but apparently spreading the rumor that a Whitman’s Sampler will cost as much as a Chevy Volt within a decade if developed countries don’t give trillions of dollars to the United Nations wasn’t causing sufficient truffle panic among the general public. Now, a slightly altered tactic: Do it Al Gore’s way or Valentine’s Day as we know it might cease to exist:

A new mini-report from the environmental group Climate Nexus points out that climate change is poised to wreck Valentine’s Day, or at least change it significantly, by threatening chocolate production.

That’s right. Global warming is very bad for chocolate.

As reported by The Times, research from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture found last year that as temperatures rise, the principal growing regions for cocoa could shrink, especially in Ghana and Ivory Coast, the sources of half the world’s supply. Production could fall off dramatically by 2050, making cocoa less available and more expensive.

Cupid’s lament.

The story doesn’t say this, but if you notice your chocolates starting to melt, take them to the Himalayas — there’s still plenty of ice there.

Isn’t chocolate high in calories and fat? If anything, global warming should be endorsed by the “Let’s Move” campaign and everybody should be encouraged to fire up their SUVs and gas powered leaf blowers to help win the battle against obesity.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

For a long time I wasn’t convinced that glacier shrinkage was part of a natural earth-sun cycle and not caused by anything man was doing, but I stand corrected:

Police in Chile have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing five tonnes of ice from the Jorge Montt glacier in the Patagonia region to sell as designer ice cubes in bars and restaurants.

Local media reported that last Friday police intercepted a refrigerated truck with an estimated £3,900 worth of illicit ice allegedly bound for whiskies, rums and cocktails in the capital Santiago.

Authorities have accused the driver of theft and are considering adding violation of national monuments to the charge sheet.

Scientists say Jorge Montt, part of the Bernardo O’Higgins national park, is retreating by half a mile a year, making it one of the world’s fastest shrinking glaciers.

Add that to the list of causes.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

For some reason, Senate Republican EPW communications director Matt Dempsey with GOP Sen. James Inhofe’s office also ended up cc’ed on the e-mail.

Ooops.

Their mistake is our gained insight (or rather, confirmation of what we already assumed).

Read on:

From: Emilee Pierce [mailto:epierce@mediamatters.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 09:11 PM
To: Kerr, Mary (EPW); Dempsey, Matt (EPW)
Subject: Heads up – MMFA study on media coverage of KXL out tomorrow

–
————————————–
Emilee Pierce
External Affairs Director for Climate and Environment
Media Matters for America

Matt Dempsey e-mails: “It’s not often that Senator Inhofe’s office receives emails of a heads up to promote the Media Matters agenda! So I will do my part and share with you tonight to help them get the ‘favorable coverage’ they want from their ‘allies’ on Capitol Hill.”

We know at least one Democrat recycling the Media Matters talking points: Chicago Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), who tried arguing today that 20,000 jobs “is not that many.”

Chicago Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) drew fire from Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) on Wednesday when she dismissed the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, suggesting the 20,000 jobs it could create were relatively insignificant in the scheme of the greater economy.

“Twenty thousand jobs is really not that many jobs, and investing in green technologies will produce that and more,” she said on Chicago’s WLS Radio Don Wade and Roma Show on Wednesday morning. “But I’ll tell you what, you know it seems to me that the Republicans would rather have an issue than a pipeline.”

Coats, a vocal proponent of the project, which would transport oil from Alberta, Canada, to America’s Gulf Coast, swiftly responded in a separate interview on the same show later on Wednesday morning, suggesting Schakowsky has spoken insensitively.

“Tell that to the 20,000 people that woke up this morning and didn’t have a job to go to,” said Coats. “ ‘Well, these don’t really matter’ — I mean, this not only is jobs, this is less dependence on Middle East oil.”

“And here we have, you know, the president talking about becoming energy independent, but he turns down the easiest way to do that,” the freshman senator continued.

Obama’s Green Robber Barons
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Had enough of fat cat Barack Obama, his jet-setting wife and his multi-millionaire Chicago consigliere/real-estate mogul Valerie Jarrett attacking the “rich”? Well, brace yourselves. You’ll be hearing much more from the White House about the “wealthy few” who aren’t paying their “fair share” as Obama’s re-election campaign doubles down on class-war demagoguery.

As usual, there’s always a set of immunity charms for the privileged friends and family of the ruling class. When it comes to all the Green Robber Barons who’ve reaped an obscenely unfair share of billions of tax dollars from the Obama administration, the envy trumpeteers will be quieter than a nest of mute church mice.

Obama’s State of the Union address defiantly pitched a new round of clean energy spending orgies to help the “middle class.” But how have the serial bankruptcies and near-bankruptcies of several federally subsidized solar companies — all under Obama’s watch — helped anyone but an upper-crust elite of eco-crats and their lobbyists and consultants?

Bankrupt Solyndra, billionaire George Kaiser. In the wake of the half-billion-dollar Solyndra stimulus bust, company officials revealed plans to hand out hefty bonuses totaling $500,000. Months before the politically connected solar energy manufacturer went belly up, it was doling out bonus payments of between $40,000 and $60,000 to several executives. Last week, a local CBS News crew caught employees at the Silicon Valley headquarters trashing solar panel glass tubes worth an estimated $10 million.

The now-abandoned Taj Mahal complex cost ordinary Americans more than $733 million. But billionaire Democratic donor and frequent White House guest George Kaiser, whose nonprofit foundation was Solyndra’s biggest investor, is still sitting pretty. He and the other private investors of Solyndra will recoup their losses ahead of taxpayers. And while they blast their GOP opponents, double-standard Democrats will remain AWOL on the glaring tax-avoidance strategies of the wealthy Kaiser Family Foundation.

Bankrupt Beacon Power, fat Democratic coffers. This green energy storage plant filed for bankruptcy last fall after a $43 million injection of Obama Department of Energy loan guarantees. Federal election record filings show that CEO William Capp contributed to the 2008 Obama campaign, as well as several left-wing New England Democratic candidates. Beacon Power lobbyist Steve Wolfe was a former aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Beacon sought bankruptcy shelter two days after the White House responded to fiscal watchdogs’ demands for a review of the DOE’s shoddy loan monitoring programs.

Bankrupt SpectraWatt, red-faced Goldman Sachs. A solar cell company based in New York, SpectraWatt went belly up last August despite a half-million-dollar federal stimulus boost and lucrative backing from politically connected Goldman Sachs — whose ties reach deep into the Obama Treasury Department, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, White House National Economic Council and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. itself. The eco-failure was dumped in a fire sale for less than $5 million.

Teetering Nevada Geothermal, cheerleading Harry Reid. Despite $150 million in federal DOE and Treasury Department subsidies — not to mention personal lobbying by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — this alternative energy project is on the brink of failure. A Deloitte and Touche audit grimly concludes that the company “has incurred net losses over the past several years, has an accumulated deficit of $44.0 million and an anticipated inability to retire its long-term liabilities.” According to CBS News, the company’s latest SEC filings warn of multiple defaults.

My scouring of White House visitor logs shows nine visits from another Green Robber Baron, Illinois-based Exelon’s CEO John Rowe, who met with the president and former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel multiple times. As Forbes magazine reported: The clean energy company “has very deep ties to the Obama Administration. Frank M. Clark, who runs ComEd, helped advise Obama before he ran for president and is one of Obama’s largest fundraisers. Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, worked as a consultant to Exelon. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped create Exelon” — where he raked in more than $16 million over two years.

Remember: “Fairness” is in the eye of the wealth redistributors.

The Land of Obama Make-Believe
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Where did President Obama go after killing off thousands of Keystone XL pipeline construction and manufacturing jobs? Why, Disney World, of course. Sabotaging work is hard work for Goofy and his pals.

And where’d he head after that? Why, up to Manhattan for more high-priced campaign fundraisers charging up to $38,500 per partier. The business of wining and dining politically connected donors ain’t child’s play, you know.

Obama touted a White House foreign tourism initiative on Thursday with Cinderella’s castle as his backdrop. “America is open for business,” he proclaimed chirpily to the rest of the globe.

Tell that to the Keystone managers in Canada whom Obama and his State Department rebuffed — after years of planning and review — in order to appease militant environmentalists and Hollywood celebs. The Animatronic Divider robotically lambasted Republicans for pushing him to make a decision this week. But Senate and House Democrats issued the sharpest rebukes to White House obstructionism:

“President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a major setback for the American economy, American workers, and America’s energy independence,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said.

“The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline permit is a missed opportunity to drastically turn this economy around. This pipeline would have created thousands of new jobs and helped to ensure our energy independence,” Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., lamented.

“This delay is just playing politics with American jobs and American energy security,” Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, pointed out.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle scratched their heads as the job-snuffer-in-chief bolted to Orlando’s fantasyland to promote economic growth. But there’s no more fitting place on Earth for the man whose escapist administration occupies the land of make-believe and no consequences. (Bonus moment: Obama got to shake hands with Mickey Mouse, who infamously turned up on a Florida ACORN voter registration form in 2008. Constituent outreach at its most surreal.)

On the very same day he quashed Keystone, Obama released his first campaign ad of 2012 — hyping his stellar record on energy jobs. It’s Opposite Day at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 365 days a year. Even more comically, the ad touted his exemplary ethics record by quoting a moldy three-year-old endorsement from left-leaning Politifact. And as bipartisan Capitol Hill outrage over the half-billion-dollar Solyndra solar stimulus bust mounts, Obama had the nerve to sprinkle his inaugural campaign spot with — wait for it — solar panels.

Instead of supporting new infrastructure jobs in America through an energy independence-enhancing project that has bipartisan legislative support on Capitol Hill, the president flew to Disney World to peddle looser visa restrictions in China and Brazil by executive order. He also will expand the Visa Waiver Program (a security loophole-ridden program that was suspended temporarily after the 9/11 terrorist attacks) to speed foreign travel.

In case anyone needs reminding, it was the relentless drive of the tourism industry and kowtowing State Department bureaucrats that led to the Bush-era Visa Express Program, which relaxed visa policies, eliminated in-person consulate interviews and opened the door to the 9/11 hijackers. Brazil is just the latest base for al-Qaida and other Islamic jihadi groups. It does not consider Hezbollah or Hamas terrorist groups, and it disbanded its anti-terrorism force in 2009.

The Visa Waiver Program and other efforts to expedite the tourist visa process also pose continuing security risks because — as the Government Accountability Office itself admitted last year — there is still no comprehensive, systematic way to track the 70 million-plus foreign visitors who enter the country on tourist and other short-term visas. Indeed, half of the nation’s estimated 20 million illegal aliens are visa overstayers.

How many of the new Disney foreign tourists whom Obama is touting as America’s economic salvation will fail to return to their home countries after their Obama World visas expire? We’ll likely never know. And Team Obama doesn’t care.

In his opening campaign ad salvo, Obama accuses his opponents of being “untethered to facts.” But this is an administration that believes lowering visa standards and risking homeland security to pump up Disney foreign tourism is a better path to economic recovery than supporting direct American job creation and enhancing energy security. Like the Disney characters he posed with this week, our cartoonish president is wholly untethered to reality.

Hot off the wire from the Washington Post:

The Obama administration will announce this afternoon it is rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate a massive oil pipeline across the U.S.-Canada border, according to sources who have been briefed on the matter.

However the administration will allow TransCanada to reapply after it develops an alternate route through the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns will make the announcement, which comes in response to a congressionally-mandated deadline of Feb. 21 for action on the proposed Keystone pipeline.

In other words, the Obama State Department is allowing TransCanada to reapply after they find a route for the pipeline that avoids the delicate habitat where the endangered 2012 election lives.

Oh well, extending unemployment will create more jobs anyway according to the White House.

At this point, the “alternate route” for the Keystone project’s oil appears to lead to China.

Update: In a report released just yesterday, Obama’s own jobs council recommended increasing US energy independence in various ways, including pipelines:

President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil-and-gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines.

“[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

The report does not specifically mention the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it endorses moving forward quickly with projects that “deliver electricity and fuel,” including pipelines.

Update II: Obama’s statement is here. This part was interesting:

This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.

A commitment to reducing our dependence on oil. Not foreign oil, but oil. That certainly sounds like a judgment on the merits of the pipeline.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Gird your coins, video gamers — the Goracle is making a foray into another industry:

Now he’s collaborating with the creatives of PSFK on “Gaming For Good”, challenging companies to create new games that address the same issues facing his Climate Reality Project – and also being fun to play.

After receiving 60 game proposals from around the world, the entries have been narrowed down to the 10 top finalists, which was then whittled down to four by Gore himself. Among the finalists are Greensquare, “a gaming platform that gives you and your friends a new, greener way to explore local retail store, restaurants and businesses”. Gore was particularly taken with REALiTREE, “a digital representation of our local environment and the role we are playing in sustaining its wellbeing.”

“Games are fun,” Gore told an audience at a “Gaming For Good” event in New York. “I am not saying this as an expert. But looking at the enormous amount of time people are spending playing games, I can see that social games for good represent a fantastic opportunity for encouraging change in political and social spaces.”

Here’s an idea for a game: “Condition Hypocritical”: The goal is to get Al from his mansion to his limo to his private jet so he can fly halfway around the world to an emergency conference on how to eliminate greenhouse gases before everybody on the planet perishes from anthropogenic global warming.

Other games Gore is said to have in the works include…

–Modern Gorefare: Carbon Credit of Duty
–Grand Theft Economy
–Taxpayer-Subsidized Electric Mario Kart
–Angry Deniers
–Guitar Hero: Gibson Terminator

(h/t Weasel Zippers)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. Technically a “call back” is a notch below a recall, and it only affects 8,000 vehicles — which is a mere, um, 100% of all Volts sold in 2011. Lucky sales didn’t catch fire or the fixes would have been a more massive undertaking:

General Motors plans to ask Volt owners to bring their electric cars into dealers to strengthen the structure around the batteries.

The automaker said Thursday it plans enhancements to the vehicle’s structure and battery coolant system to further protect the battery from the possibility of an electrical fire occurring days or weeks after a severe crash.

The enhancements come in response to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Preliminary Evaluation to examine post-severe crash battery performance.

Has there ever been a year where an automobile has been named Motor Trend’s Car of the Year and also a Flop of the Year? They should have called it the Paradox. You certainly can’t argue with the value though — it isn’t often you can buy a $250,000 car for just $41,000.

In other Volt news, in spite of there being only 8,000 Volts sold in 2011 (1,529 in December alone, meaning either sales picked up or Al Gore used them as Christmas stocking stuffers), Michigan Rep. John Dingell thinks they’re flying off the lots:

Following Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s claim that the Chevrolet Volt is an “idea whose time has not come,” Dingell apparently issued a press release that said, in part:

Romney is the only fellow in the United States who appears to think that the Volt is an idea whose time has not come. Clearly it has not come to him. The Volt is selling like hotcakes.

For a car being called back to repair a possible fire hazard, “hot cakes” probably isn’t the best choice of metaphor, and it certainly isn’t the most accurate one.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

A measure attached to a one-year spending bill passed early in December prevents the Department of Energy from enforcing light bulb efficiency standards through September 2012. The standards themselves, however, will still be phased in. Until the funding kicks in that will allow the Department of Energy to police our artificial illumination methods to ensure we’re all doing our part, enforcement of those standards will be on the honor system:

New light bulb efficiency standards will begin phasing in on Jan. 1 despite intense opposition from conservatives, who have blasted the rules as a textbook unnecessary federal regulation.

While Republicans secured inclusion of a measure blocking funding for enforcement of the standards in a year-end spending bill, energy efficiency groups say the provision will have little practical impact. The Energy Department rules will nonetheless go into effect at the start of 2012.

“The [spending bill] cut funding for enforcement, however the law is still in effect,” said Jack Gillis, spokesman for the Consumer Federation of America. “It is our expectation that companies will still comply with the law.”

At some point I predict the DoE will join forces with the DHS so J-Nap can get Wal-Mart to run “if you see incandescent bulbs, say something” videos at all checkout lanes.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Year in Obama Scandals — and Scandal Deniers
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

With 2011 drawing to a close, it is time to account. As an early-and-often chronicler of Chicago-on-the-Potomac, I am amazed at the stubborn and clingy persistence of President Barack Obama’s snowblowers in the media. See no scandal, hear no scandal, speak no scandal.

Dartmouth College professor Brendan Nyhan asserted in May — while Operation Fast and Furious subpoenas were flying on Capitol Hill — that “one of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals.” Conveniently, he defines scandal as a “widespread elite perception of wrongdoing.”

So as long as left-wing Ivy League scribes refuse to perceive something to be a scandal — never mind the actual suffering endured by the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose death came at the hands of a Mexican cartel thug wielding a Fast and Furious gun walked across the southern border under Attorney General Eric Holder’s watch — there is no scandal!

Self-serving much?

Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum likewise proclaimed: “Obama’s presidency has so far been almost completely free of scandal.”

This after the year kicked off in January with the departure of lying eco-radical czar Carol Browner. In backroom negotiations, she infamously bullied auto execs to “put nothing in writing, ever.” The previous fall, the White House’s own oil spill panel had singled out Browner for misleading the public about the scientific evidence for the administration’s Draconian drilling moratorium and “contributing to the perception that the government’s findings were more exact than they actually were.”

The Interior Department inspector general and federal judges likewise blasted drilling ban book-cooking by Browner and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who falsely rewrote the White House drilling ban report to doctor the Obama-appointed panel’s own overwhelming scientific objections to the job-killing edict.

In February, federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana excoriated the Obama Interior Department for defying his May 2010 order to lift its fraudulent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. He called out the administration’s culture of contempt and “determined disregard” for the law.

This spring saw rising public anger over the preferential Obamacare waiver process (which I first reported on in September 2010). Some 2,000 lucky golden ticket winners were freed from the costly federal mandates — including a handful of fancy restaurants in Aloha Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district, the entire state of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Nevada, and scores of local, state and national Big Labor organizations, from the Service Employees International Union and Teamsters on down. Meanwhile, as The Hill newspaper reported last month, other not-so-lucky Republican-led states seeking waivers, such as Indiana and Louisiana, were rejected.

But it wasn’t just Republicans objecting to the president’s arbitrary Obamacare fiats. In July, congressional Democrats turned on the monstrous federal health bureaucracy known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The constitutionally suspect panel — freed from normal public notice, public comment and public review rules — would have unprecedented authority over health care spending and an expanding jurisdiction of private health care payment rates.

Obama’s health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, faced separate legal questions over her overseer role in a hair-raising document-shredding case when she served as governor of Kansas. In October, a district judge in the Sunflower State suspended court proceedings in a high-profile criminal case against the abortion racketeers of Planned Parenthood. Bombshell court filings showed that Kansas health officials “shredded documents related to felony charges the abortion giant faces” and failed to disclose it for six years.

That same month, Bloomberg News columnist Jonathan Alter gushed: “There is zero evidence … of corruption. Where is it?”

Alter’s declaration of the “Obama Miracle” came just weeks after the politically driven half-billion-dollar Solyndra stimulus “investment” went bankrupt, prompting an FBI raid and ongoing criminal and congressional probes of the solar company funded by top White House bundler and visitor George Kaiser.

As Solyndra and an avalanche of other ongoing green subsidy scams erupted, so did the LightSquared debacle — a federal broadband boondoggle involving billionaire hedge fund managers and Obama donors Philip Falcone and George Soros. In September, two high-ranking witnesses — William Shelton, the four-star general who heads the Air Force Space Command, and National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Director Anthony Russo — exposed how the White House had pressured them to alter their congressional testimony and play down concerns about LightSquared’s interference threat to military communications.

The White House continues to block efforts to gain information about the Federal Communications Commission’s approval of a special waiver for the company, even as new government tests this month showed that the company’s “signals caused harmful interference to the majority of … general purpose GPS receivers.”

The Obama White House closed out the year with Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri demanding a probe of the smelly $443 million no-bid smallpox antiviral pill contract with Siga Technologies — controlled by big lefty donor Ron Perelman. Then there was the small matter of massive voter fraud in Indiana, where a Democratic official resigned amid allegations that “dozens, if not hundreds,” of signatures were faked to get Obama on the state primary ballot in 2008. And while Americans busied themselves with the holidays, White House and Democratic campaign officials were dumping more than $70,000 in contributions from another deep-pocketed contributor — scandal-plagued pal and former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, who oversaw the collapse of MF Global.

All this — and so much more — yet erstwhile “conservative” journalist Andrew Sullivan of Newsweek/The Daily Beast scoffed, “Where are all the scandals promised by Michelle Malkin?”

There’s none so blind as those who will not see.

Early next week should be interesting. This morning the Senate passed a payroll tax cut and unemployment extension. The legislation also contains the job creator that dare not speak its name:

Senators racing for the exits after a year of bitter battles passed legislation Saturday that would extend a Social Security payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for just two months, setting the stage for the next fight until February.

While a partial victory for President Barack Obama’s year-end jobs agenda, the measure awaiting House approval next week contains a provision demanded by Republicans to pressure the White House into approving construction of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that promises thousands of jobs.

Democratic and GOP leaders option for the short-term extension after failing to agree on big enough spending cuts to pay for a full-year renewal of the payroll tax cut. The 2 percentage point tax cut affects 160 million taxpayers. The weekly jobless payments average about $300 for millions of people who have been out of work for six months or more.

The measure was approved by an 89-10 vote during a Saturday session.

The bill gives Obama 60 days to decide about the Keystone pipeline — which is not-so-coincidentally the same amount of time before Congress will have to extend the temporary bill again.

So, how badly does President Obama want to get out of town and join his family in Hawaii? At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Jay Carney seemed to be backing off any veto threat for a bill containing the Keystone provision:

Q: It sounds like you’re saying that you would not rule out the President signing a bill for an extension of the payroll tax break that would include language related to the Keystone project? Is that correct? You’re not ruling that out?

MR. CARNEY: I’m not here to go beyond anything we’ve said with regard to this matter already, which is the President’s statement, the assessment by the State Department of the specific language in the House Republican bill, and I think the point I made yesterday or the day before about the company that’s requesting the permit, noting that they haven’t even identified an alternate route yet so the whole 60-day thing is pretty specious.

Having said that, there is a process at work — I’m not going to analyze what language would be acceptable and what wouldn’t. I will let the process run its course.

Meanwhile, “greens” are so upset that the White House is even entertaining discussion about the pipeline that they might not support Obama’s re-election, a threat that will be in effect right up to the point where they vote for Obama again next year anyway:

For greens, the fact that the Keystone pipeline was back on the table five weeks after Obama had seemingly punted it until 2013 is causing considerable heartburn with an administration that hasn’t been as green as they once wished.

Their initial win looked even better because it came just days after thousands circled the White House at a weekend protest that drew celebrity faces like actor Mark Ruffalo. But now Obama’s environmental allies again face the question of whether to withhold support for his reelection campaign.

Personally I think this is just a cheap attempt by the White House to get another chance to meet Julia Louis Dreyfus.

More than likely Obama will kick the can a few weeks down the road by signing the bill, quickly attempting to placate greens by claiming Republicans have added the environment to their list of hostages but pledge to still fight the pipeline, then hop on Air Force One and head for the Islands. That or just leave now and let autopen work its magic.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

My column is a year-end review of Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi’s congressional self-dealing and ethics covers-up. On a related note, here’s an amusing story of blue-on-blue corruption conflict: Calif. Democrat Rep. Laura Richardson (flashback here on her financial scams) attacking Pelosi’s wealth:

The sources disagreed on the exact wording of the unusually direct shot at the party leader, but Richardson’s sentiment was clear: Pelosi, whose net worthis at least $40 million, doesn’t need the money as much as some of her colleagues, and she should have consulted with them before deciding to protect the GOP-written pay freeze.

It was “something like, ‘Well I am sorry, Madam Leader, but some of us are not in the financial situation you are in,’” said one source.

Mic check!

***
Nancy Pelosi, Down and Dirty
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

As a rueful Queen Elizabeth once said of a particularly rough year for the royal family, 2011 is “not a year on which” Queen Nancy Pelosi “shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” The former House Speaker relinquished her crown — er, gavel — in January. It’s been an epic downhill ski crash ever since.

Most recently, Pelosi faced questions from liberal “60 Minutes” and conservative investigative author Peter Schweitzer about a 5,000-share Visa stock purchase she made with her husband as the House was considering credit card regulations. She made a “killing” off the highly sought-after initial public offering. The stock holdings more than doubled in a few weeks; the credit card regulations were put on ice somewhere in the back of Pelosi’s fridge.

While she makes grand gestures toward banning congressional insider trading, San Fran Nan’s financial conflicts of interest are once again on display. This week, Reuters columnist Dan Indiviglio pointed to pending House legislation titled the “New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011,” which is stuffed with natural gas vehicle subsidies: $9 billion worth, to be precise.

These very subsidies are championed by Texas billionaire and failed wind farm evangelist T. Boone Pickens. He just happens to be a major stockholder in the company that would benefit from the bill: Clean Energy Fuels.

Question the timing? Indeed. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney observes: “While Pickens, a longtime oil and gas man, has been lobbying for natural gas subsidies for decades, his cause has become particularly urgent this month. Pickens owns options to buy 15 million shares of Clean Energy Fuels at $10 per share, according to SEC filings. Those options expire Dec. 28. If Congress could pass the NATGAS Act this month, shares of Clean Energy would skyrocket.”

Pelosi just happens to be a stockholder in — you guessed it — Clean Energy Fuels. The then-Speaker bought between $50,000 and $100,000 of stock in Pickens’ CLNE Corp. in May 2007 on the day of the initial public offering. As I reported in a column three years ago, Pelosi’s 2007 financial disclosure form listed “assets and ‘unearned income’ of between $100,001-$250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. — Public Common Stock.” If the natural gas giveaway passes, Pelosi profits.

Of course, an endless parade of dirty Democratic scandals earlier this year had already completely obliterated what was left of Pelosi’s Mop-and-Glo reformer image. She and other liberal feminists rallied around disgraced Twitter freak and former N.Y. Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner even as evidence mounted that he lied to them. And used taxpayer resources and government buildings while sexting. And recklessly neglected to ensure that his Internet paramours were of legal age.

Pelosi and fellow femme-a-gogue Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., led from behind, calling for Weiner’s resignation only after the public tide had shifted.

Photo credit: Willamette Week

Pelosi showed similar reticence in dealing with basket-case Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu — whose sexually aggressive, alcohol-addled erratic outbursts stretched over decades. Despite knowledge of Wu’s staff’s panic about his infamous 2010 Tigger costume photos and despite months-old pleas for help from an underage victim of Wu’s sexual indiscretions, House Democrats sat on their hands. In July, Pelosi finally called for an investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

That’s the same panel that slapped Pelosi pal and New York Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel on the wrist for serial tax-cheating and has yet to move forward with California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters’ ethics trial after charging her last year with three violations related to her crony TARP bailout intervention on behalf of minority-owned OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles.

What a way to close out her annus horribilis. Nancy Pelosi, the proud feminist who boasted she would clean up Washington, is covering up and cashing in. Just like all the other self-dealing good old boys.

I’ve written before about Cozy Nancy Pelosi and her financial stake in the eco-adventures of billionaire T. Boone Pickens.

See August 2008 – Nan and the Big Wind Boone-doggle.

Refresher:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called congressional Republicans who want up-or-down drilling votes “hand maidens of the oil companies.” Let’s call Pelosi what she is: House girl of the Big Wind boondogglers.

And so, potentially, does the Democrat Speaker of the House windily wagging her finger at the financial motivations of others.

Fast forward.

Today, Daniel Indiviglio at Reuters reports that a Pickens-backed bill is quietly making its way through Capitol Hill in the Christmas chaos.

Amid the flurry of legislation Congress is rushing to complete by year’s end is the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011, or NATGAS Act. The proposal would, among other things, provide subsidies for driving vehicles powered by natural gas.

It’s a Pelosi legislative priority, but precious few are raising eyebrows about San Fran Nan’s conflict.

Where are the Big Biz/Big Government watchdogs when we need them?

Bueller? Bueller?

Hey, that was easy. The Republican-controlled House passed a bill that has in it exactly what President Obama asked for. Well, except for one little item:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House has passed legislation sought by President Barack Obama to extend Social Security payroll tax cuts through 2012. But the bill also includes a requirement for construction of an oil pipeline that has drawn a veto threat.

The vote was 234-193.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where top Democrats strongly oppose the pipeline provision.

The legislation would also renew jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. And it would head off a threatened 27 percent cut in fees to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

President Obama has threatened a veto of any bill with the Keystone XL in it so as to not lose the coveted Daryl Hannah endorsement.

The pipeline would create between 6,000 and 20,000 US jobs, depending on whose estimate you use. Obama claimed that the payroll tax break and unemployment extension would create more jobs than the pipeline (pause for laughter).

The bill will have trouble getting through a Dem-controlled Senate that claims to need more time for careful analysis:

Reid and other Democrats argue the pipeline project requires more study and should not be fast-tracked as part of a political calculation by Republicans.

An oil pipeline should be studied meticulously over the course of years before being built, but more trivial bills like ones that take control of the entire country’s health care system qualify for fast-tracking and hasty implementation? That sounds about right.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

The Labor Secretary nods in agreement.

From the Washington Examiner:

President Obama said that he will delay his vacation and keep Congress in session until the passage of his desired payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits extension — two proposals that Obama said would create more jobs than the Keystone XL pipeline that his administration recently delayed.
[...]
As Obama called for passage of those bills, he also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. “However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline,” he said, “they’re going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance.”

Look for the White House to propose a compromise that would be acceptable to both labor unions and environmentalists while creating more jobs than anybody can possibly imagine: The construction of a 1,600 mile pipeline through which would flow economy-boosting unemployment checks.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe