SCARBOROUGH GOT PIPELINE ARGUMENT UPSIDE DOWN

This morning was a classic “twisting of the facts” on +Morning Joe (MSNBC). The twisting was so bad, he sounded like a lawyer. The subject was the recent failure of Congress to pass the bill authorizing the +Keystone Pipeline. The +President got it right; the proposal is to transport dirty oil across the entire United States, refine the oil here, leaving the danger of spills and air pollution here, then ship the product over seas to be burnt and contribute to climate change. Joe and his guests, especially the Canadian Ambassador to the United States turn every fact up side down. They started with the fact that “much” of the tar sands oil was from Montana and North Dakota Balkan oil fields; all of a sudden 15% of the total at best, turned into “much of the oil”.

They repeatedly declared there would be 4,200 jobs created. They failed to mention that in spite of the effort of the Republican controlled House of Representatives to prevent job creation, Obama has added millions of jobs and was able to bring us out of the Bush recession. We do need more jobs, however, the fact is that they are the pipeline would create only 35 permanent jobs in refineries—no mention was made of the air pollution from the refineries. In addition top the job situation; they applied the same logic to the machinery they used with jobs to build the pipeline. They made it sound as if American workers would build many bulldozers and other construction equipment for the pipeline thus stimulating the economy. They made the point that this is only one of 75 pipelines with 74 already built, so what’s the big deal with adding just one more pipeline. Of course, they did not mention the Ogallala aquifer. Consumers of the dirty oil will use it overseas as if that would not add to the decimation of the world climate. On top of their list, they stated it is safer to transport the oil via pipelines verses trains and trucks, which was a tacit acknowledgement that oil spills are damaging to the environment. On and On, they went twisting fact after fact.

Joe was ecstatic pointing out that big money on the left was preventing passage of the “most needed legislation without saying the energy industry money spent huge sums on lobbying; thanks to Citizens United, energy money dwarfs private money in politics. The energy industry spent big money on promoting the pipeline but also on preventing the development of green energy, such as happened in Kansas, Colorado, and some of the other fossil fuel energy rich states, the ones where energy companies are making big bucks. Joe and guests did not mention one word about how the pipeline would retard the future development of green energy.

Because of an extended campaign to promote the pipeline, including all the lies, public opinion shows a slight majority of people who approve the pipeline. Of course, Joe turned this into an, “overwhelming majority”. They did not mention that issue after issue the Republican House would not take up the matters or went counter to 80 to 90% of public opinion; oil company subsides, gun control, tax the rich, support public schools, etc. Of course, Joe stated that he GOT IT “RIGHT” AND had been correct in taking the “right side” of each issue; it was just Joe being Joe.  I hope you didn’t buy it. 

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