October 12, 2017
Oct 12 00:56 Franken fights back Oct 12 05:06 Enbridge fights back on pipeline Oct 12 06:51 Enbridge, the DFL & 2018 Oct 12 08:21 President Trump vs. ISIS Oct 12 13:05 Presidents' monumental manipulations Oct 12 15:24 Nancy Pelosi's ACA spin
Prior Months: Jan Feb ~ May Jun Jul Aug Sep
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Franken fights back
I can't say that I'm surprised to hear that Sen. Franken is upset that Judiciary blue slips are soon disappearing. I said in this post that Sen. Franken had spent lots of political capital fighting against Justice Stras's confirmation to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
After Sen. McConnell announced that blue slips wouldn't be used as a one-man veto, Sen. Franken announced that he hasn't given up the fight .
In a statement, Franken said "'[I]n an attempt to stack the courts with right-wing judges, powerful special interests and conservative groups are pressuring Senate Republicans to kill off the blue slip'. 'In the face of this pressure, I urge Chairman Grassley to demonstrate the same integrity that [past Democratic chairman] Senator [Patrick] Leahy demonstrated and to protect the prerogatives of all senators - Republican and Democratic alike.'"
What a whiner. I didn't hear Franken tell President Obama or Sen. Reid that the judges that they stacked the DC Circuit Court of Appeal with were too progressive. Sen. Franken is the 'senator with a glass jaw.' Further, it's a bit much to hear Sen. Franken say that Justice Stras is too conservative when retired Justice Alan Page said "We write to urge that the Senate Judiciary Committee and the U.S. Senate act expeditiously to confirm the nomination of Minnesota Associate Supreme Court Justice David R. Stras to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Justice Stras has all the attributes and qualifications necessary to make an excellent circuit court judge."
I suspect that Sen. Franken is the extremist, not Justice Stras:
Franken has said he finds Stras too conservative to support. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals already has a number of conservative judges, he argued.
So what? As the last president said in the early days of his administration, "I won." If Sen. Franken doesn't like the judges that President Trump nominated, he should try running for president and winning the election. Apparently, Sen. Franken doesn't like the part about elections having consequences except when Democrats win.
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 12:56 AM
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Enbridge fights back on pipeline
When the Dayton-Rothman Commerce Department testified that there wasn't a need to replace the Line 3 Pipeline, we knew they weren't being totally honest. This week, Enbridge fired back , saying in their official statement "The suggestion that Line 3 can be shut down without any impact on Minnesota is simply not true. Apportionment and property tax reductions would have an immediate effect on Minnesota. Reduced pipeline capacity would increase rail shipments, with as many as 32 additional mile-long trains every day crossing Minnesota. Additional rail facilities would also be required for refineries to utilize rail shipments. The impact on Minnesota's agricultural economy would be costly and disruptive as evidenced by the agricultural commerce curtailed in 2013-2014 due to increased crude by rail movements."
The Dayton-DFL-Rothman Commerce Department insisted that "In light of the serious risks and effects on the natural and socioeconomic environments of the existing Line 3 and the limited benefit that the existing Line 3 provides to Minnesota refineries, it is reasonable to conclude that Minnesota would be better off if Enbridge proposed to cease operations of the existing Line 3, without any new pipeline being built."
Later, in its testimony, Enbridge replied "Contrary to the DOC testimony, the Enbridge system, which includes Line 3, is currently full and in apportionment. This means demand for capacity exceeds what's available, and refineries in Minnesota and the Midwest cannot obtain all the crude supply they request. When refiners can't get the supply they need, they are either forced to produce less or source it through other more costly modes of transportation, like rail, which drives up costs and impacts their competitiveness. Line 3 will ensure an adequate supply for refiners and enable them to continue to provide the energy Minnesotans need."
In other words, Enbridge's statement all but officially accuses the Dayton-Rothman Commerce Department of telling whoppers. This graphic speaks volumes:
"Denial of the Line 3 replacement program does not change the supply of crude oil in Canada or anywhere else : or demand for crude oil in the Minnesota or in the U.S.," said Neil Earnest, president of energy market consultants Muse, Stancil & Co. 'What it does do is shift it off pipelines and onto rail.'" The demand for Canadian crude oil is there, officials reasoned, and supply is only growing.
The indisputable truth is that demand for oil won't decrease anytime soon. Whenever environmental activists predict something, it's best to figure that it's wildly inaccurate. The first time I heard an environmental activist predict something was about the Alaskan Pipeline in the mid-1970s. The president of the Sierra Club argued against its construction, saying that it would disrupt "the migration pattern of the Barrows Caribou. And for what? Maybe 4-5 years worth of oil?" That pipeline opened in the late 1970s. It's still transporting oil 40 years later.
Enbridge is right to fight the Dayton administration's environmental activists because their predictions are frequently wrong.
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 5:07 AM
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Enbridge, the DFL & 2018
One of the things that I can't shake in reading this article is whether the Public Utilities Commission will destroy the DFL for the 2018 election. Bear with me while I make the case for why I think it hurts the DFL.
Right now, the Public Utilities Commission is holding hearings on whether to approve the replacement of Enbridge's Line 3 Pipeline. The reason why this is potentially devastating is because "the state Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether to approve the Line 3 project next spring." The only thing that might derail the building of the replacement pipeline is the Dayton administration. If this pipeline isn't built soon, farmers, construction workers and small towns will be upset with the Dayton administration.
Farmers will be especially upset because rejecting this pipeline project will trigger more oil to be transported via oil trains. That limits rail capacity for getting farmers' crops to market. Whoever the DFL candidate for governor is, they'll be pressed on whether they'll support building the pipeline. Anything except enthusiastically supporting the building of the pipeline will be greeted with anger by rural Minnesota.
That, in turn, will spike turnout in rural Minnesota because they can't afford to have environmental do-gooders destroying farmers' operations. Based on the information on the PUC's commissioners page , it's virtually certain that the PUC will vote against replacing the pipeline. Three of the commissioners are DFL environmental activists. The lone Republican is a former DFL politician who worked as a lobbyist for Conservation Minnesota.
Republican gubernatorial candidates should lay this situation out in rural Minnesota. When they're campaigning, they should ask farmers if they can afford 4 more years of DFL environmental policies. I'm betting the response will be an overwhelming no!
Look at the results from rural Minnesota the last 2 elections. In 2014, Minnesota Republicans rode a wave from rural Minnesota to recapture the Minnesota House. In 2016, Minnesota Republicans rode anti-DFL sentiment in rural Minnesota to flip the Minnesota Senate.
As I wrote at the time, many of those races were blowouts. In northern Minnesota, Paul Utke defeated DFL Sen. Rod Skoe by a 57%-43% margin. Many of the races weren't particularly close, in fact. I'd recommend GOP gubernatorial candidates highlight this graphic when campaigning in rural Minnesota:
That graphic will get everyone's attention because it's a display of how dysfunctional Minnesota's permitting process is under DFL control. That won't get better if Erin Murphy, Tim Walz or Paul Thissen gets elected governor.
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 6:51 AM
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President Trump vs. ISIS
Buck Sexton's op-ed opens with grim news for ISIS. Sexton's opening paragraphs start with "ISIS's reign of terror is rapidly coming to an end. Within a matter of days, the jihadist menace that shocked the world for years with its pathological sadism will lose its final strongholds within the Syrian city of Raqqa. It has taken 5 months of bloody struggle but the de facto capital of the Islamic State will soon be entirely in the hands of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Across the border in Iraq, the process of rebuilding the devastated city of Mosul is underway after its liberation from the so-called caliphate in July. There are still areas of ISIS control in both Iraq and Syria, but the jihadists have lost over 60 percent of the territory they once held. Their sources of funding are drying up, hostile forces surround them, and ISIS can no longer count on tens of thousands of recruits to flood into Syria to replenish their ranks."
ISIS sprang to life during the Obama administration. It's on the verge of elimination in the early days of the Trump administration. That pretty much sums up the difference between the 2 administrations. Strategic patience was replaced by devastating strikes on ISIS strongholds. The key part of Sexton's op-ed is where he said ISIS' " sources of funding are drying up , hostile forces surround them, and ISIS can no longer count on tens of thousands of recruits to flood into Syria to replenish their ranks."
People questioned when President Trump bombed that airfield in Syria shortly after his inauguration. They questioned whether he had a strategy. 6 months later, it's clear that he has a strategy for victory in Iraq and Syria. This paragraph is important:
On the Syrian front, the world was faced with the lose-lose choice of a collapsing Assad regime and an ascendant ISIS. Now, ISIS's leadership is on the run, and its fighters are surrendering by the hundreds . Not every militant wants to be among the last suicide bombers for a crumbling caliphate.
When ISIS was first getting started, they were seen as the strong horse. People were travelling to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS' cause. That definitely isn't happening at the same rate today. The fight isn't won but it's clear who owns the momentum.
The Trump Doctrine is developing a bit at a time. President Trump's acceleration of hostilities against ISIS is hurting the terrorists. President Trump's applying of pressure on China is causing hardship for China and North Korea. President Trump's delegating authority to his in-theater generals is improving the military's morale, too. These things aren't happening accidentally.
It's understatement saying that it's encouraging to see these Syrians taking the fight to ISIS.
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 8:21 AM
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Presidents' monumental manipulations
It's indisputable that past presidents have used the Antiquities Act to create national monuments. The worst presidents in terms of misusing the Antiquities Act were President Obama, President Clinton and President George W. Bush. It's fair to say that each of those presidents misused the Antiquities Act to sidestep the original intent of the law. Rob Bishop's op-ed highlights how past presidents have essentially ignored the law in creating national monuments.
In Bishop's op-ed, he wrote "A few statistics can illustrate the scope of the overreach. Between 1906 and 1943, the law functioned basically as designed. Presidents respected the intent of the act. Most monuments were smaller and had clear boundaries with real antiquities inside them. By contrast, designations under the act last year averaged 739,645 acres, or more than 47 times the size of those created 110 years ago. President Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to use the act. He used it 18 times for a combined total of 1.5 million acres. President Barack Obama used it 37 times to designate 553.6 million acres of land and water ."
Chairman Bishop didn't just complain about the problem. He's proposed a solution:
Last week, I introduced legislation to correct these failures and permanently address my colleagues' concerns. The National Monument Creation and Protection Act would, like the writers of the Antiquities Act intended, allow the president to unilaterally designate land up to 640 acres. Monument designations between 640 and 10,000 acres would be subject to review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Designations between 10,000 and 85,000 acres would be required to obtain the approval of all county commissioners, state legislatures, and governors in the affected area. The bill also standardizes and limits the president's power to reshape monuments.
Chairman Bishop's legislation is well-written and desperately needed. Unfortunately, there's no chance it will pass. That's because it will get stopped by the Democrats' filibuster in the Senate. Their environmental activist friends will insist that the bill be stopped.
That's because these environmental activists want big, unaccountable government. These activists are almost always Democrats, though a handful are Republicans. These activists have proven time and again that they prefer it when government tramples over people in favor of the 'greater good' of saving Mother Earth. These activists don't like the rule of law. Here's proof:
In 1996, prior to the designation of the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Utah, Clinton's then-Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality Katie McGinty stated the following, 'I'm increasingly of the view that we should just drop these utah [sic] ideas. we [sic] do not really know how the enviros will react and I do think there is a danger of 'abuse' of the withdraw/antiquities authorities especially because these lands are not really endangered.'
If McGinty's name sounds familiar, it's possibly because she ran for Senate in 2016 against Republican Pat Toomey. Thankfully, Sen. Toomey defeated her. But I digress.
It's disheartening to see Democrats trample over the law. It's especially disheartening that Democrats do that for a few extra campaign contributions. That's how cold-hearted Democrats are. This is what's most disgusting:
The monument was designated in the waning months of Clinton's re-election campaign. Its total acreage: 1.7 million - three times the size of Rhode Island. No town halls, no public meetings, and no public comment sessions were ever held in Utah. No input was solicited from local stakeholders or land managers in the area. Utah's governor, congressional delegation, public officials, and residents from across the state all expressed outrage at the lack of prior consultation or warning of the designation. In what feels like symbolism, the proclamation wasn't even signed in Utah; it was signed in Arizona.
That's the opposite of transparency. That's proof that Democrats don't like accountable government.
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 1:05 PM
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Nancy Pelosi's ACA spin
When it comes to shooting their mouths off without hearing the details, it's impossible to find anyone more willing to make unsubstantiated accusations based on whatever than Democrats. Let's be blunt in setting this up. President Trump signed an executive order instructing his HHS secretary and other federal departments to look for ways to give the American people the ability to buy health insurance across state lines, thereby increasing competition. He's also instructed his HHS secretary to change the definition of Qualified Health Plans, aka QHPs, so that the people don't have to purchase Cadillac plans.
It's worth noting that the ACA instructs the HHS secretary to fill in tons of blanks on a wide range of provisions. For instance, "there are more than 2,500 references to the secretary of HHS in the health care law (in most cases she's simply mentioned as 'the Secretary'). A further breakdown finds that there are more than 700 instances in which the Secretary is instructed that she 'shall' do something, and more than 200 cases in which she 'may' take some form of regulatory action if she chooses. On 139 occasions, the law mentions decisions that the 'Secretary determines.'"
In other words, this Republican administration is instructing "the Secretary" to do what the ACA requires the Secretary to do. Did Democrats applaud President Trump's decision? Get serious. This Washington Examiner article recorded the Democrats' reaction:
Congressional Democrats said Thursday that President Trump's executive order to relax insurance rules is the latest evidence of Republican "sabotage" against Obamacare.
Nancy Pelosi couldn't wait to weigh in:
"I do know it is a sabotage of the Affordable Care Act and quite frankly a disservice to the American people," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press conference Tuesday.
Remember that Ms. Pelosi didn't have any details about President Trump's EO when she criticized President Trump's EO. Coming from the woman who infamously said that they had to pass the bill to find out what's in it, that's pretty rich.
What's interesting about the Democrats' criticism of President Trump's EO is that it increases competition. President Trump's EO lets the people pick the health insurance plan they want rather than having to buy the plan that the government instructs you to buy.
That isn't sabotaging anything. The people might argue that President Trump's EO enhances their options. It's funny that Democrats instinctively criticize President Trump each time he's modified and/or improved an Obama bill. Why can't the Democrats just once celebrate President Trump's improvements? This is insulting:
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a series of tweets that the order could create more "junk" insurance plans since it could lead to bypassing pre-existing condition protections on the individual market. "It would allow cheap, low-quality plans onto the market that could discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions, seniors, women," he tweeted.
Implicit in Sen. Kaine's tweet is that the American people need the government's help in picking health insurance plans. Why don't Democrats think families, after consulting with their physicians, can make informed decisions?
Posted Thursday, October 12, 2017 3:24 PM
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