RSN: TransCanada Buys Town's Silence on Tar Sands Pipeline Proposal for $28K, Eighteen Months of Idiots and Deadly Power Working in Tandem

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

---

Charles Pierce | Eighteen Months of Idiots and Deadly Power Working in Tandem

Charles Pierce, Esquire
Excerpt: "Why do some states still allow pistols in bars? Blind people can own guns? Should women be forbidden to wear low-cut blouses to firing ranges? Thanks to Pierce's research, here's an 18-month look back at irresponsible gun lovers."
READ MORE

9 of 10 Online Accounts Intercepted by NSA Are Not Intended Surveillance Target
Ms. Smith, NetworkWorld
Smith writes: "Despite a year of NSA officials claiming that Edward Snowden had access to reports about NSA surveillance, but no access to actual surveillance intercepts, that ends up being lie too."
READ MORE

2014 Could Be the Year We Lose the Internet
Andrew Leonard, Salon
Leonard writes: "Halfway through 2014, and the influence of technology and Silicon Valley on culture, politics and the economy is arguably bigger than ever - and certainly more hotly debated. Here are Salon's choices for the five biggest stories of the year."
READ MORE

Why Hobby Lobby Could Open a Pandora's Box Of Legal Discrimination
Peter Moskowitz, Al Jazeera America
Moskowitz writes: "Some effects of the Supreme Court's decision on Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores will be relatively immediate: Women who work at companies with owners who decide it's against their religious beliefs to provide birth control will lose free or cheap access to contraceptives such as the Plan B pill, IUDs and, potentially, condoms, as well as the most popular pill form of birth control."
READ MORE

Privacy Tools: How to Block Online Tracking
Hanqing Chen, ProPublica
Chen writes: "There are a few ways to combat online tracking - although none can block some of the more sophisticated tracking techniques, such as 'fingerprinting' and 'onboarding.' Here are three tools that block the most common trackers."
READ MORE

Brutal Police Beating of Homeless Women Videotaped in CA
The Daily Caller
Excerpt: "A barefoot woman described as harmless was subdued and pummeled by a California Highway Patrol officer in an incident captured on video."
READ MORE

TransCanada Buys Town's Silence on Tar Sands Pipeline Proposal for $28K
Emily Atkin, ThinkProgress
Atkin writes: "A small town in Ottawa, Canada will be receiving $28,200 from energy company TransCanada Corp. in exchange for not commenting on the company's proposed Energy East tar sands pipeline project, according to an agreement attached to the town council's meeting agenda on June 23."
READ MORE

RSN: Canada's Indigenous: "We Are the Wall" That Pipelines Cannot Pass

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

AT RSN YOUR DONATION “REALLY” DOES MATTER: Most donor-supported organizations say that, “donors like you” make it happen. And to some extent that’s normally true. What they do not say however is that far larger donors play the dominant role in funding the organization. Not at RSN. Here your donations, which average just under thirty dollars are the organization’s mainstay. We do it on volume. The more donors we have the easier the burden on the individual donor. We have - a lot - of people not giving. That’s the bad news. The good news is that when we get them going we’ll have no problem with funding. Help out. It doesn’t hurt, it helps! / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

Okay, I'll make a donation.

---

Andy Borowitz | Pressure on Obama to Quickly Resolve Centuries-Old Sunni-Shiite Conflict

Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: "Congressional leaders left the White House on Wednesday "deeply frustrated" that President Obama had not found a swift resolution to the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites that began in the seventh century A.D."
READ MORE
Wikileaks Cables Confirm New Ukrainian President Has Been Working For US Gov't Since 2006
SCG News
Excerpt: "There's not much point in staging a coup if you don't influence who is placed in power in the aftermath."
READ MORE
Ryan Gallagher | How Secret Partners Expand NSA's Surveillance Dragnet
Ryan Gallagher, The Intercept
Gallagher writes: "Huge volumes of private emails, phone calls, and internet chats are being intercepted by the National Security Agency with the secret cooperation of more foreign governments than previously known, according to newly disclosed documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden."
READ MORE
Petraeus: US Must Not Become Shia Militia's Air Force
Nico Hines, The Daily Beast
Hines reports: "David Petraeus, the former commander of coalition forces in Iraq, has issued a stark warning to those advocating U.S. military intervention against ISIS militias bearing down on Baghdad."
READ MORE
Michael Ratner | Lift Assange Out of Legal Limbo
Michael Ratner, USA Today
Ratner writes: "A whistle-blower living in exile in Russia. A publisher seeking the asylum he has already been granted while his sources are imprisoned. This isn't the cast of a summer blockbuster."
READ MORE
11 Years After Her Death, This 23-Year-Old Peace Activist Keeps Inspiring Us
Kali Swenson, Yes! Magazine
Swenson reports: "Corrie's story, told in her own words, is one of a person with a deep and joyful commitment to social justice who felt compelled to act on her convictions."
READ MORE

Canada's Indigenous: "We Are the Wall" That Pipelines Cannot Pass
Renee Lewis, Al Jazeera America
Lewis reports: "First Nations groups have vowed to fight the Canadian government's approval of a planned pipeline with lawsuits and direct action."
READ MORE

Dirty Tar Sands: No Legal Route!

Bold Nebraska

Bold Nebraska released a memo this week that outlines the ramifications of the Nebraska court ruling that invalidated TransCanada's pipeline route in Nebraska.

TransCanada has no legal route in this state. Period. ‪#‎NoKXL‬

 

TransCanada Has No Legal Route

boldnebraska.org

TransCanada, after suffering a blow from Nebraska landowners and the Domina Law Group, is trying their best to pretend the basic fact of not having a legal route in Nebraska is no big deal. In fact, it's a huge deal. Attorney...

This, that....

Let's support the Heroes in Washington who are standing for Americans, not Dirty Energy!

Bold Nebraska‎Meet Pipeline Fighter and Climate Champion, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse

Wicked Gay Blog's photo.

Vogtle Nuclear Reactors: '....down the radioactive sink hole...'

Great points raised by Harvey Wasserman about the total rip-off of the Vogtle Nuclear Reactors being built in Georgia.....all taxpayer funded!

Nuclear Energy makes absolutely no sense!

Obama Shills for Nuclear Industry and Cost Overruns at Taxpayer Expense

President Barack Obama during his remarks on the George Zimmerman case. (photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Fiscal Sanity

By Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams

20 February 14

o the "all the above" energy strategy now deems we dump another $6.5 billion in bogus loan guarantees down the atomic drain. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has announced finalization of hotly contested taxpayer handouts for the two Vogtle reactors being built in Georgia. Another $1.8 billion waits to be pulled out of your pocket and poured down the radioactive sink hole.

 

A nuke-powered drone strike on fiscal sanity.

 

While Fukushima burns and solar soars, our taxpayer money is being pitched at a failed 20th century technology currently distinguished by its non-stop outflow of lethal radiation into the Pacific Ocean.

 

The money is to pump up a pair of radioactive white elephants that Wall Street won't touch. Georgia state "regulators" are strong-arming ratepayers into the footing the bill before the reactors ever move a single electron—which they likely never will.

 

Sibling reactors being built in Finland and France are already billions over budget and years behind schedule. New ones proposed in Great Britain flirt with price guarantees far above currently available renewables.

 

The Vogtle project makes no fiscal sense … except for the scam artists that will feed off them for years to come.

 

Substandard concrete, unspecified rebar steel, major labor scandals, non-existent quality control … all the stuff that's defined this industry since the Shippingport reactor started construction outside Pittsburgh some six decades ago is with us yet again.

 

It would be nice to say this is merely $6.5 billion wasted. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Long Island's Shoreham and New Hampshire's Seabrook came in at 5-10 times their original cost estimates.

 

Shoreham never made it to commercial operation. Neither did Seabrook Unit Two.

 

Should Vogtle, for which these loans are designated, beat the odds and actually go on line in the years to come, it will multiply its sunk cost by irradiating the countryside and creating radioactive waste nobody can handle.

 

Nor can it get private insurance to shield future victims and the taxpaying public from the inevitable disaster. The next commercial reactor to explode (joining the five that already have) will do damage in the trillions.

 

Its owners will not be liable, and the people making this decision will never go to prison.

 

But many along the way will pocket major fortunes from substandard construction, corner-cutting "safety" scams, black market parts purchasing, mafia-run hiring operations and the usual greasing of radioactive palms that defines all reactor construction projects.

 

Take that $6.5 or $8.3 billion and invest it right now in wind, solar, sustainable bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal, wave energy, LED light bulbs, building insulation and Solartopian south-facing windows.

 

THEN we can dent in our climate crisis.

 

THAT's where the jobs are.

 

THERE would be an all-the-above energy strategy that actually makes sense.

It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News

A NOTE OF CAUTION ON DONATIONS: So far for this fundraiser, despite our best efforts, the financial support has fallen critically short. Simply stated we will not be able to carry on without a successful here and now. At this point that ball is in the readers court. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

Okay, I'll make a donation.

---

Harvey Wasserman | Obama's Nuke-Powered Drone Strike on America's Fiscal Sanity

Harvey Wasserman, Common Dreams
Wasserman writes: "While Fukushima burns and solar soars, our taxpayer money is being pitched at a failed 20th century technology currently distinguished by its non-stop outflow of lethal radiation into the Pacific Ocean."
READ MORE

Charles Pierce | The Voting Wars Go On
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "This is not about laziness or ignorance. This is about institutional barriers placed deliberately in the way of the former group of voters by politicians working on behalf of the latter."
READ MORE

Rand Paul | The NSA Is Still Violating Our Rights
Rand Paul, Guardian UK
Paul writes: "James Clapper now says the National Security Agency (NSA) should have been more open about the fact that they were spying on all Americans. I'm glad he said this. But there is no excuse for lying in the first place."
READ MORE

PLO Official: US Ideas for Peace Deal Fall Short
Karin Laub, Associated Press
Laub reports: "Ideas floated by Washington so far for an Israeli-Palestinian peace framework don't provide a basis for serious talks, a Palestinian official said Wednesday, signaling continued deadlock as an April deadline approaches."
READ MORE

Where Ohio Got Its Execution Drugs
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Associated Press
Welsh-Huggins reports: "Ohio's most recent batches of lethal injection drugs were produced by a company that wants states to stop using them for capital punishment."
READ MORE

Yet Another Toxic Spill in North Carolina
Lindsay Abrams, Salon
Abrams reports: "Officials announced that the coal ash dump that leaked into North Carolina's Dan River earlier this month, contaminating the water with arsenic and other toxic chemicals, has sprung a new leak that's contaminating the water with arsenic and other toxic chemicals."
READ MORE

Meet the Family the Tar Sands Industry Wants to Keep Quiet
Emily Atkin, ThinkProgress
Atkin reports: "Though Alain once thought having the tanks on his property would be a blessing, he now describes them as a curse."
READ MORE

Dirty Energy! et al

The Dirty Energy Koch Brothers will profit from the Dirty Energy Tar Sands Pipeline.

No reasonable, informed person would support this!

There are HEROES in the Senate and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is one of them!

350.org shared Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's photo.

Yes. Click LIKE if you agree Pres. Obama should be taking Senator Whitehouse's advice.

 

 

Today, the State Department released their Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the Keystone XL pipeline. This report underestimates key factors... about the pipeline’s effect on carbon pollution and climate change. Fortunately, today’s statement isn’t the last word. Please join me in urging Secretary Kerry and President Obama to look beyond State’s flawed report, which is at odds with the President's Climate Action Plan, and deny the Keystone XL pipeline.

 

 

 

Oil Change International's photo.

 

5.7 million new cars is clearly a significant increase in carbon emissions. Your move Mr. President. Read our full response here: http://bit.ly/KXLResponseAnd join a protest vigil on February 3rd: http://bit.ly/NoKXLVigil

 

 

 

The Sierra Club

Australia just approved plans to dumped dredged material from a coal export site into the Great Barrier Reef. The exported coal will be headed to India.

"The government's priority should be to protect a reef which took millions of years to form, not take active steps to damage it." - Greenpeace Australia Pacific

 

 

 

 

American Women United shared RH Reality Check's photo.

 

“So this is the heart of it: The president talked about the future, and they want to take us back,” she continued. “We’re not going there.” http://bit.ly/1fnHj1h

 

Poor public education creates malleable masses that readily believe propaganda!

[Spell check would be helpful!]

 

 

 

Earthjustice

FINALLY! After years of delay, communities struggling with toxic coal ash pollution are celebrating the EPA's historic announcement that it will finalize first-ever coal ash regulations by the end of the year. http://ow.ly/t7xDN

Not one ounce of the millions of tons of toxic ash generated every year by coal burning is currently regulated by the federal government - in fact, our household garbage is more strictly regulated! We hope this will change by the end of the year. For communities struggling with mercury, arsenic, and lead contamination due to coal ash, it couldn't come soon enough.

Click SHARE or LIKE to celebrate this historic achievement on coal ash! Share your thoughts below.

(Photo of massive coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008 courtesy of United Mountain Defense)

 

League of Conservation Voters

Wow. More crude oil was spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous four decades combined! How many disasters like this need to happen before we cut our dependence on this filthy energy source?

Add your name here if you agree that we need to ditch Big Oil and support clean energy: http://wefb.it/T78sPi

 

PROGRESS: Earthjustice attorneys and our allies scored a small, but potentially important victory when the court sided with us and temporarily halted a proposed mountaintop removal mine in Kentucky until a final decision could be reached.

http://ow.ly/t5MN2

Although that represents some good news, we are still pressing the Army Corps of Engineers to consider health impacts before they issue permits for these destructive projects. Coal production, tax revenue, energy security - all of these so-called benefits are counted, but notice anything missing? NO mention of human health impacts. That is a glaring omission.

Click SHARE or LIKE if you think the Army Corps needs to look at the entire picture of mountaintop removal mining! Share your thoughts below.

Stop Telling Lies About Liberals And We'll Stop Telling The Truth About You shared Baby Boomers and Senior Citizens Against Republicans & The Tea Party's photo.

(chs)

Meme courtesy of Anti-Republican Crusaders

This & that.....

League of Conservation Voters

Some Senators will protect big polluters at the expense of everything else, but Senator Sheldon Whitehouse knows we cannot ignore the impacts of climate change.

Check out and share his remarks in this post from Upworthy.

Watch A Clever Senator Smack Down Deniers With His Extraordinary Commentary

upworthy.com

Want to see a senator hit the jobs argument out of the park?

Daily Kos

Ouch! From the The Sierra Club.

EMILY's List's photo.

 

 

 

 

Mike Huckabee is only the latest Republican to demonstrate that his party neither understands nor respects women. Millions of women use birth control and they don’t need Republicans like Mike Huckabee telling them how or when. LIKE and SHARE this graphic if you’re tired of Republicans telling you what you should do with your body!

 

 

 

Occupy Democrats shared a link.

 

Watch: Boehner FINALLY Admits that Republicans are to ‘Blame’ for Gov’t Shutdown

occupydemocrats.com

On this week's episode of The Jay Leno Show, Republican House Speaker John Boehner finally "let the cat out of the bag" and candidly admitted that his Republican Party was to "blame" for this year's government shutdown.

 

 

 

Dirty tar sands fuel is headed for Massachusetts

A new NRDC report finds Massachusetts poised to import dirty tar sands gas

A flood of dirty fuel into the Bay State would undercut its efforts to reduce carbon pollution

Article | Op Ed | January 23, 2014 - 11:45am | By Sue Reid

“This report is an urgent wake-up call, one that we must heed in order avoid wiping out recent gains in reducing transportation sector carbon pollution.” - Sue Reid

Dirty tar sands fuel is headed for Massachusetts

By Sue Reid, Conservation Law Foundation

Massachusetts motorists will soon be filling their tanks with gas increasingly derived from dirty Canadian tar sands oil, says a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

A flood of dirty fuel into Massachusetts would also undercut its efforts to reduce carbon pollution.

The NRDC report found that under current plans, tar sands-derived gasoline supplies in 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states (including Massachusetts) would soar from less than one percent in 2012 to 11.5 percent of the total by 2020, due to increased imports from Canadian refineries, fresh supplies of refined tar sands fuels from Gulf Coast refineries, and quantities from East Coast refineries that would obtain tar sands crude via rail and barge.

An influx of carbon-intensive fuels into Massachusetts and the rest of the region, which in 2012 were virtually tar sands free, will hurt the efforts to combat climate change, which has already caused billions of dollars in damage, according to the report, “What’s in Your Tank? Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States Need to Reject Tar Sands and Support Clean Fuels.”

“This report is an urgent wake-up call, one that Massachusetts must heed in order avoid wiping out recent gains in reducing transportation sector carbon pollution,” noted Sue Reid, Massachusetts Director of the Conservation Law Foundation, which co-sponsored the report. “Tar sands-derived gas poses a direct threat to the Commonwealth’s transportation energy mix and our clean energy future.”
Massachusetts has a state action plan and legal requirements under the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act to cut dangerous carbon pollution, which is the major driver of climate change. By adopting federal “clean cars” standards and investing in public transportation, Massachusetts has begun reducing carbon pollution in the transportation sector. But these important carbon savings would be squandered by using gasoline from tar sands, which emits 17 percent more carbon pollution than conventional gasoline measured on a life-cycle basis.

Dirty gasoline supplies in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are set to rise significantly, unless states take steps to keep out high-carbon fuel,” said Danielle Droitsch, NRDC Canada Project Director. “By

2015 the volume of tar sands-derived fuel in the Northeast could grow sixfold, compared to 2012. This shows how important it is to move as quickly as possible to clean energy of all types.”

The new Gulf Coast Pipeline, which will bring tar sands crude from Cushing, Oklahoma, to refineries on the Gulf Coast, makes it even more urgent for communities and policy-makers to take action to keep tar sands out of the region, she said.

If the controversial Keystone XL pipeline for tar sands oil from Canada to the United States is approved by President Obama, the region’s share of gasoline from tar-sands crude could rise even further, according to the report.

The report said that state leaders, with the support of citizens and local communities, need to take steps to clean up transportation.

"Bay Staters deserve to know what's in their fuel tanks. The first step is to track where the fuel is coming from and how damaging it is to our health and the climate,” said Craig Altemose, Executive Director of Better Future Project. “The second step is to make sure we as a state are discouraging the dirtiest fuels like tar sands from entering our marketplace to begin with."

The extraction and refining of oil from Alberta’s vast tar sands region, an area the size of Florida, is an energy-intensive process that destroys carbon-trapping forest lands and emits 81 percent more carbon pollution than conventional oil extraction and refining. NRDC and others oppose Keystone XL, which would carry Alberta’s tar sands oil through the heartland of America to Gulf Coast refineries, in part because it would enable a vast expansion in tar sands production.

As NRDC has explained, Keystone XL is primarily an oil export pipeline, but some portion of its refined products would flow to the East Coast.

If dirty tar sands gasoline becomes a major share of supplies in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, that would add millions more tons of carbon pollution to the atmosphere each year—just as the region is aiming to cut such pollution under the landmark Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a nine-state pact, including Massachusetts, to combat climate change by reducing carbon pollution from power plants, according to the report.

Hurricanes Sandy and Irene—the type of extreme weather that will become more frequent with climate change—have already wreaked billions of dollars of damage in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

The report also underscores the importance of promoting a wide variety of low-carbon and no-carbon transportation alternatives, from cleaner fuels to buses and rail, bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly planning.
---

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 1.4 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world's natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org, and follow us on Twitter @NRDC.

Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) protects New England’s environment for the benefit of all people. Using the law, science and the market, CLF creates solutions that conserve our natural resources, build healthy communities, and sustain a vibrant economy region-wide. Founded in 1966, CLF is a nonprofit, member-supported organization with offices in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. See a list of all the recent CLF stories here.

Related Content:

Conservation Law Foundation Op Ed is a strong rebuttal to NOAA's new limits

Conservation Law Foundation connects the fossil fuel dots

State approves Cape Wind /NSTAR Power Purchase Agreement

Conservation Law Foundation challenges new Fishing Regulations


http://www.capecodtoday.com/article/2014/01/23/23707-new-nrdc-report-finds-massachusetts-poised-import-dirty-tar-sands-gas

Paint this anyway you want....

ExxonMobil flooded Mayflower, Arkansas with DIRTY TAR SANDS and were unprepared for the cleanup, attempted to clean it up with paper towels.

They want to restart that pipeline.

Wind Energy and Solar Energy don't destroy ecosytems. Let's stop supporting Dirty Energy. Let's stop subsidizing Dirty Energy.

Bold Nebraska

Exxon may restart its faulty Pegasus pipeline this year — the one that spilled tarsands into the yards of residents of Mayflower, Arkansas — and is challenging penalties from federal pipeline regulator PHMSA, as well as at least 17 different lawsuits from Arkansas residents, state and federal regulators.

 

Fate of Exxon's Burst Pegasus Pipeline To Be Decided in 2014

insideclimatenews.org

Industry analysts and others who have wondered whether ExxonMobil will restart the broken Pegasus pipeline that leaked Canadian oil across an Arkansas suburb should get

 

 

Exxon's paper towel cleanup: