American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by New Era

Just a small reminder here folks, Joe Biden is the American President and his responsibility is to the American people. That is a pretty huge job with the state of the nation. Considering most Americans don't know where Alberta is it is safe to say the condition of Alberta is extremely low on Biden's list of concerns. And truth be told, if you want to know why Alberta is ####ed it is on Alberta and the piss poor leadership that province has had for decades. You would think the NEP would have been a wake up call. You would think all the warnings would have got people thinking about a post-petro economy and diversification. You would think with all the smart people in the province of Alberta someone would have thought about the future and seen where the world was headed. There was a mantra very popular in the 80's; "Please God, let the oil economy come back. We won't piss it away again." Alberta did not learn its lesson from the 80s. Alberta's precarious situation is on Alberta, no one else.

I'm curious. What sort of wake up call should the NEP have been? Why didn't Albertans learn that lesson?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

We'll get a response from the feds when Ontario gets cut off from the US, no sooner. Until they are knee deep in angry voters paying excessively for oil and gas, nothing is going to happen out here. Then maybe, just maybe, some common sense will kick in and we'll start supplying Canadians with Canadian oil. Not holding my breath no that, though.

Kind of weird that the only federal party that was really banging the energy independence drum last go around up here was the NDP. Not that I thought much of their plan, but it boggles my mind that it doesn't even seem to be on the radar for the Liberals and Conservatives.

[rubecube]

This is good news for the pro-labour crowd and makes me a bit more cautiously optimistic that Biden is going to try to appeal more to the traditional Democratic base (blue-collar, union voters) than I was previously.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352072011699335169

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This is good news for the pro-labour crowd and makes me a bit more cautiously optimistic that Biden is going to try to appeal more to the traditional Democratic base (blue-collar, union voters) than I was previously.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352072011699335169

Wasn't fired by Tweet, doesn't count.

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by dobbles

Is the narrative I have been given as just a normal non energy savvy American that far off base? Are all the other pipelines that US has built been just as potentially damaging as Keystone? Was there not another route they could have proposed for the pipeline that would have been less impactful?

You have to understand the timeline to see why the narrative was political.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/timel...line-1.5877117

This timeline will give you an idea, but the opposition has been truly more about 'oil bad' based on public outcry that built up then it is about the environmental impacts for this particular pipeline (which has been stated on 3 different times by the US state department that XL was safe with low environmental impact and safer then rail during Obama's tenure), and has been politicized by the Democrats in recent years as a battle against climate change.



As you will note, the main pipeline already exists and already runs through Nebraska. Canada already exports oil sands products through pipelines in the US. The original pipeline was approved by George W Bush in his final year in 2008 with a presidential permit. At the time, it was not a political issue and the Democrats did not retroactively remove this permit once Obama took office. It was considered a non-issue at the time, this pipeline went through with zero fanfare. You can do a search of Obama and Keystone and not find a single article around his first inauguration. Heck there isn't any news at all on the original pipeline.

https://www.google.com/search?q=keys...3A2009&tbm=nws

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs...mar/102254.htm

Then, as you may well know, the Deep Horizon oil spill occurred in 2010 with severe environmental consequences in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwa...izon_explosion

This is where the tides of politics really shifted. Keystone XL became the symbolic battleground in late 2010 to draw the line in the sand as it was in the process of being approved and was an easy target. This is also around this time that fracking became widespread as a new oil extraction method, and notably the Bakken Formation development boomed in North Dakota. Shale oil is much lighter then oil sands, but refineries need heavier products to run optimally, as such the need for a heavier product like WCS is still there. Around this time, we started seeing devoted campaigns against tar sands. The shift against Canadian based oil was on in full swing (even though Canada has shale oil as well as a large percentage of its oil exports), and we are now where we are today.

There's nothing special or ultimately different about Keystone XL, it's simply a pipeline that became symbolic. It was rejected on purely political grounds after political pressure from the Democrat base.

The main fear seems to be, oil leaking into water supplies, which is obviously a valid concern, but one of which the likelihood is extremely low with minimal impact in the unlikelihood it occurs.

Pipelines are extremely safe, and much safer then rail travel (you don't want to know how common derailments truly are). And Canadians should know full well about the Lac Megantic disaster.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia....-rail-disaster

Oil sands still travels in existing pipelines. Oil sands still travels by rail. You just remove a safe and low emission method of transport. Opposing the pipeline does not prevent oil sands from being extracted. It just makes the transport of oil less safe and more costly.

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This is good news for the pro-labour crowd and makes me a bit more cautiously optimistic that Biden is going to try to appeal more to the traditional Democratic base (blue-collar, union voters) than I was previously.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352072011699335169

Robb wasn't the only one fired yesterday. I'm sure there will be a few more to follow.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...eter-robb.html

Second, Biden sacked Kathleen Kraninger, who was confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018. Kraninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency’s role as a watchdog for the financial sector. She scrapped a landmark rule that restricted predatory payday lending, pressuring staff to downplay the resulting harm to consumers. And she refused to enforce a federal law that protected military personnel against a broad range of predatory lending.



Her decision yanked federal support from military families who were defrauded by lenders. In the midst of the pandemic, Kraninger also approved a rule that allows debt collectors to harass Americans with limitless texts and emails demanding repayment.

Biden terminated Michael Pack, who was confirmed to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media in June. Pack sought to transform the agency, which oversees the international broadcaster Voice of America, into a propaganda outlet for Trump—despite a statutory mandate that prohibits such political interference. He purged the staff of VOA and its sister networks, replaced them with Trump loyalists, demanded pro-Trump coverage, and unconstitutionally punished remaining journalists who did actual reporting on the administration.



In a perverse move, he refused to renew visas for foreign reporters who covered their home countries, subjecting them to retribution by authoritarian regimes. Pack also illegally fired the board of the Open Technology Fund, which promotes international internet freedom, and replaced them with Republican activists.




Following whistleblower complaints, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found a “substantial likelihood” that Pack had violated federal law and engaged in “gross mismanagement.” He was eight months into his three-year term when Biden demanded his resignation shortly after taking the oath of office.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by direwolf

Robb wasn't the only one fired yesterday. I'm sure there will be a few more to follow.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...eter-robb.html

go team Biden!
love that he's wasting no time in cleaning house.

[rubecube]

Thread from a former MSNBC reporter on Mayo Pete being a shady weasel while he was mayor of South Bend. Just some of the reasons why the black community finds him untrustworthy.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...440216069.html

Pete Buttigieg testifies today on his nomination to run the Dept. of Transportation.

I spent almost a year covering Buttigieg. He refused to speak with me, so I’m going to thread some of the things senators could ask him about today.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

https://www.keystonexl.com/project-u...d-keystone-xl/

I posted this before as I thought perhaps TC awarding $1.6 billion in American contracts would make Biden think twice. It clearly didn't. Anyway, there is a material impact on some Americans. Not many in the grand scheme of things, but some.

As for the rest of your post, tough to argue. We are being road blocked going south, west, and east. That's no one's fault but our own ultimately.
Might as well try going north and take advantage of that northwest passage being open longer and longer each year.

I don't think that argument really works, though. By material impact on Americans, I meant more that it's not like their fighter jets are going to run out fuel halfway to bombing some poor people somewhere. As it stands now, whether Keystone is there or not, American life will go on just the same.

Sure there will be onesie/twosie jobs lost here and there, particularly while it is being built, but those would be offset somewhat by people employed by rail and in other O&G jobs in the States. In the scheme of how big the size of the USA is and the limited number of jobs this would create (particularly when you look at the limited number of long-term permanent positions that would be required to run and maintain the pipe), it really isn't material to the States that this doesn't proceed.

It seems to be a modern Conservative trait to lack the ability to empathize with others. Why is Kenney so shocked at this? Biden has been given a huge mandate by the American people. It would be so dumb for him to burn his limited political capital on paving the way for Albertans to get their oil to market. He needs to be prioritizing preventing a civil war down there, fighting the most insane pandemic anybody alive today has ever seen, and repairing America's reputation around the world. To think it makes sense to burn bridges he'll need to cross on a pipeline for private interests in a foreign country is just so naïve and weird. From Biden's perspective, it would be idiotic to push this, but it's truly idiotic that Kenney can't put himself in Biden's shoes and see that it is the most reasonable move for Biden to make.

All that said, I 100% wish Keystone was happening. My business makes stuff for O&G and pipelines. The slowdown and now this news is a big hit for me, but I'm not so arrogant that I think my position is the only one (unlike Kenney). I can at least accept Biden's decision because I can see that is best for him. I also know this was the inevitable result. I mean, you could even argue Kenney must have known as well because wasn't this what the war room was for - to educate people and fight back on the misinformation and disinformation surrounding Alberta oil? Well, they did a piss poor job on that, but the time to fight this outcome was years ago, not with a pout-fest on live TV the day of.

If we want Alberta oil flowing more freely, we're going to have to be way more tactical in how we get our message out there. Like I'm talking paid protesters at ports where tankers arrive and crap like that. Crying like a baby that you were right all along on TV (even though the results were all wrong) will leave us further in the dust.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by firebug

Biden must not want to miss his chance to meet Manhattanboy when he comes to Alberta like Obama foolishly did.

Haha let me know when he's coming so I can be on a beach.

But it would be interesting to be on the call tomorrow with Biden and Trudeau.

[Nufy]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Haha let me know when he's coming so I can be on a beach.

But it would be interesting to be on the call tomorrow with Biden and Trudeau.

meh...Trudeau will do his best Fluffing job in ages...

[FlamesAddiction]

Pipelines are a better alternative than rail, for sure. Any time you have more moving parts and points of contact, there is an increased risk of spills. There are also many more rail "mishaps" than what are reported.

Having said that, I work in the environmental industry and have worked for both pipeline and rail clients, and neither is what I would call clean. Pipeline leaks and spills happen all the time. Something like 200 barrels a day are lost in due to pipeline leaks. Pipeline leaks are also more difficult to detect, and therefore more difficult to address quickly.

It's actually good for my livelihood as hydrocarbon impacted contaminated site remediation is what I do, but I totally understand why many people don't want an additional pipeline going through their backyard.

Canada would benefit more from it than the U.S., but most of the environmental impact would be in the U.S. If the tables were turned, I don't think I would be that eager to do it. But let's face it, the Americans can bully their way to get anything they want if the tables were turned.

In the end, I think it will go through. The question is, what will they get in return? I am not sure that will be, but I doubt we will like the answer.

Maybe a dumb question, but would it be totally out of the question to increase capacity of the current pipelines instead of building a new one? Those areas are already impacted and it would probably be less political.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Maybe a dumb question, but would it be totally out of the question to increase capacity of the current pipelines instead of building a new one? Those areas are already impacted and it would probably be less political.

Yeah I can't imagine that doing something like that - for example by, oh, I don't know, twinning an existing pipeline - could ever be made into a major political issue.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Izzle

I'm curious. What sort of wake up call should the NEP have been? Why didn't Albertans learn that lesson?

What should have been the lesson? Don't allow your entire economy to become reliant on one thing - oil and gas. Diversify. If you can't diversify, develop new ways your primary product can be used. Use the incredible wealth the province built up and use that to develop other means to support the economy long term. Saudi Arabia is doing this right now. They are looking to the future and see the petro market drying up, so they are investing trillions in making sure they have a future economy when those oil dollars go away. Alberta should have been ahead of this curve since they felt the kick in the nuts from the NEP. They got the oil economy back, but they still pissed the money and opportunity away.

Why didn't they learn this lesson? Because Alberta is a very conservative province and the people love to live in the moment or look back on better times. Alberta has always had a problem with looking forward and see where things were going. Calgary has been better than Edmonton in this regard, but both have been caught navel gazing as the obvious crisis creeped up on them. This is an area where the province needs to get better and quick, because the booming oil economy may never come back again.

[rubecube]

AOC burying Ted Cruz never gets old.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352128118035722240

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by rubecube

AOC burying Ted Cruz never gets old.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352128118035722240

There is a couple of good ones about Honda Accords in Paris as well.

[dobbles]

Thanks for the responses so far! I may take my follow up questions to the oil thread as I don't want to get too bogged down in here.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by rubecube

AOC burying Ted Cruz never gets old.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352128118035722240

Also, as many people pointed out on Twitter, just 2 weeks ago, Cruz was actively trying to get the votes from the citizens of Pittsburgh thrown out because he didn't like how they voted.

[PsYcNeT]

Lmao

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352355625821462529

Wait, she figured it out

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352372078394142726

[Mull]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Lmao

Spoiler!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352355625821462529

Wait, she figured it out

Spoiler!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1352372078394142726

My first reaction is always almost laughter at the dumb congresswomen. Then I realize she will rake in donation after donation from naïve/ignorant people and my heart just sinks.

Congress should have standards of truth. I assume that would infringe of US Free speech but god this type of stuff is a threat to all of us.