Congress is back in Washington and the lame-duck session is in full swing. Served up this week: A Dare and a Dodge.
The Dare: Climate Change (and the Keystone Jobs Myth)
Yesterday, it took the Republican led House one hour to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the same measure on Tuesday.
It's like the GOP is daring the President to veto the bill; and recent comments by President Obama indicate that he will do exactly that if it ever reaches his desk.
"Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their own oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on U.S. gas prices. If my Republican friends really want to focus on what's good for the American people in terms of job creation and lower energy costs, we should be engaging in a conversation about what are we doing to produce even more homegrown energy."
what eye thynk: That is the perfect explanation of the pipeline. American real estate would become Canada's tanker truck. The environmental risk would be completely a U.S. problem; and, considering the record of Canada oil companies and spills, the threat of real environmental disaster is a real possibility.
The GOP is selling this as a great opportunity to create American jobs, but the number of jobs created would actually be only a few thousand and those would be temporary. Once the pipeline is completed, the jobs are gone. The only Americans who will see any long-term gain with the Keystone's completion are the Koch brothers who are major owners in Canada oil.
If Republicans were really interested in putting Americans to work, instead of building Keystone, they would spend that money on rebuilding our infrastructure...you know, jobs that would be long term and actually benefit Americans who aren't the Kochs.
The Dodge: Immigration Reform
Pre-midterm election, House Republicans said they wouldn't pass immigration reform because they didn't trust the President to enforce it. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) refused to allow a vote on the bi-partisan immigration bill passed by the Senate.
This week, Mr. Boehner, introduced his new argument for dodging the immigration issue: We can't because the President says he will. The Speaker is diametrically opposed to executive action on immigration, making it clear that he believes any reform must come from Congress.
"When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself. And he's going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path...I've made clear to the president that if he acts unilaterally on his own, outside of his authority, he will poison the well and there will be no chance for immigration reform moving in this Congress. It's as simple as that."
Mr. Boehner seems unable to explain why it was okay for former presidents (Republicans Reagan and Bush #1 and Democrat Bill Clinton) to take executive action on immigration, but it is not okay for this president. He also seems unable to explain why, if he believes immigration reform must come from Congress, he just doesn't hold a vote on the Senate's bill since it appears to have enough votes to pass.
President Obama, in an appearance on Face the Nation, had this to say about Speaker
Boehner's apoplexy over the thought of his moving forward on his own: "So, they have the ability, the authority, the control to supercede anything I do through my authority by carrying out their functions over there. And if, in fact, it's true that they want to pass a bill, they've got good ideas, nobody's stopping them, and the minute they do it, the minute I sign that bill, what I've done goes away."
what eye thynk: This pretty much sums up the truth about every argument John Boehner and his party have with the President and executive action. If they don't want the President acting alone, then they should do their job in Congress so he wouldn't have to it for them.
As President Obama made clear, "Nobody's stopping them"--not from creating jobs, not from passing immigration reform, not from any number of bills supported by Democrats over the past six years.
The Republican elephant in the room, (pun intended), is one of their own creation. Its name is "Obstructionism," and they seem incapable of turning it out of the stable.
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